“Come on, Homer, join the party.” – John As part of our tireless efforts to demonstrate the many ways Zombie Simpsons fails to entertain, Season 23 will be subjected to the kind of rigorous examination that can only be produced by people typing short messages at one another. More dedicated or modern individuals might use Twitter for this, but that’s got graphics and short links and little windows that pop up when you put your cursor over things. The only kind of on-line communications we like are the kind that could once be done at 2400 baud. So disable your call waiting, plug in your modem, and join us for another year of Crazy Noises. This text has been edited for clarity and spelling (especially on “sappiness”). We discuss the pathetically lame Marge/Gaga kiss below, and the fact that this isn’t the first time Zombie Simpsons has employed this cheap attention stunt. (And there’s the way it apparently turned Marge on so much that she immediately needed to fuck Homer like they’d never fucked before, which adds to the stupidity and incoherence.) But more generally, it’s further evidence of just how far behind the times Zombie Simpsons has fallen, especially compared to The Simpsons. Gay characters were basically non-existent on television in 1990, and yet The Simpsons hinted that Smithers was gay and had Karl (who self evidently was gay) kiss Homer full on the lips. In 1994, Homer visits a lesbian bar and thinks the only thing wrong is the lack of a fire exit. Three years after that, they did “Homer’s Phobia”, which was broadcast two months before the famous “Ellen comes out” episode. However important or not important those things were or weren’t, there’s no denying that The Simpsons was way ahead of its time in terms of portraying gay characters and stories. Fast forward to today, and Zombie Simpsons is lagging behind on the exact same things. There was Patty’s it’s-not-really-a-woman marriage, Marge kissing Lindsey Naegle (in a Homer fantasy, no less), those pathetic gay bars, and now this hapless stab at relevance. It’s remarkable not only for how culturally tone deaf it is, but for how far they’ve regressed from where they used to be. [Note: Our old friend Zombies Rise from the Sea joined us again this week, and we got into what may be the longest Crazy Noises ever.] Charlie Sweatpants: Okay, we’ve got everybody. Shall we begin? Zombies Rise from the Sea: Let’s do this! Charlie Sweatpants: So, this episode, memorably bad or just regular bad? Zombies Rise from the Sea: Terrible. Charlie Sweatpants: (i.e. is this so bad that it stands out by their standards) Mad Jon: This was so bad it stood out. Dave: It was tremendously obnoxious. End-to-end. Mad Jon: This was mega bad, I was in serious danger of doing some damage to the TV on Sunday night. Zombies Rise from the Sea: Who’s idea was it to put Lady Gaga on the show? Charlie Sweatpants: At this…
Tag: Lisa Goes Gaga
Compare & Contrast: Megastar Guest Voices
“We want Michael! We want Michael! We want Michael!” – Crowd “Here he is, here’s the guy want to see!” – Homer Simpson “He’s three hundred pounds!” – Apu Nahasapeemapetilon “He’s white!” – Woman in Crowd “He’s dressed without flair!” – Moe “Boooo! Boo!” – Crowd It would take an awful lot of words just to catalog, to say nothing of exploring or explaining, the myriad of mistakes that comprise “Lisa Goes Gaga”. The episode had it all: bizarre and comedy free flights of fancy, unvarnished celebrity marketing, excruciatingly bad exposition, magic powers, characters acting bizarrely out of type (Lisa, Skinner, there were a lot), pointless and unrelated scenes, and, to top it all off, the entire thing may or may not have been the dream of some anonymous backup dancer. But all of those problems cascaded from one central failing, the inability of Zombie Simpsons to handle the very famous. Whether or not you are a fan of her songs or of the outsize public persona to which her music is only tangentially connected, Lady Gaga is undeniably one of the most famous and discussed people on planet Earth here in 2012. She’s enormously popular with her fans, of course, but she’s also reached that rare level of fame where literally anything she does is news to the celebrity press, and her statements and actions frequently push beyond the paparazzi ghetto and into regular news. Even a passing familiarity with popular culture requires you to at least know who she is. This is Wikipedia’s list of Season 23’s guest stars: Aron Ralston, Jane Lynch, Mario Batali, Anthony Bourdain, Tim Heidecker, Gordon Ramsay, Eric Wareheim, Neil Gaiman, Andy García, Kevin Michael Richardson, John Slattery, Matthew Weiner, Kevin Dillon, Janeane Garofalo, Jackie Mason, Joan Rivers, Dana Gould, Ted Nugent, Armie Hammer, David Letterman, The Tiger Lillies, Jeremy Irons, Michael Cera, Jamie Hyneman, Adam Savage, Julian Assange, Kelsey Grammer, Alison Krauss and Union Station, Jackie Mason, Robbie Conal, Ron English, Shepard Fairey, Nicholas McKaig, Kenny Scharf, David Byrne, Glenn Close, Brent Spiner, Kevin Michael Richardson, Steve Coogan, Treat Williams, Bryan Cranston, Eric Idle There are a lot of recognizable names on that list, but in terms of raw fame, none of them are even in the same league with the one time Stefani Germanotta. Parts assigned to a bunch of television chefs, or a talk show host, or even some well known movie star are basically interchangeable. There are, after all, quite a few television chefs, and if Jeremy Irons doesn’t want to be the talking bar rag, there are plenty of other respectable British actors with great voices out there. There is only one Lady Gaga. That yawning fame gap means that you have to do something special for her. Just having her show up as somebody’s girlfriend or rival won’t fly. Even more importantly, it’s a fantastic opportunity. Someone who draws that much attention from that many places opens up a nearly unlimited array of potential subjects and stories. Zombie…
A Spectacular and Unwatched Catastrophe
“What the hell was that?” – Krusty the Klown Give Zombie Simpsons credit, when they embarrass themselves for a pop star, they really embarrass themselves for a pop star. From start to finish, “Lisa Goes Gaga” relentlessly displayed the pitiful imagination and mediocre craftsmanship behind Zombie Simpsons. In an episode where they outright tell the audience, right up front in an opening narration, that they’re discarding the usual rules and that weird and strange things are going to happen, just about the only weird and strange things that they managed to conjure were a lot of Lady Gaga outfits. Unfortunately for them, dresses made of birds and fire spitting bras will not fill an entire twenty minutes of screen time. They had to fill in the moments when they weren’t expecting us to laugh because Lady Gaga did something weird with empty and pointless scenes like the school awards, Flanders showing up to converse with Gaga and then disappearing, Marge’s weird behavior at the kitchen table (where she apparently lost the ability to let someone touch her and then quickly regained it), the flash mob, and Homer tossing Lisa around like an hourglass for no reason other than it took up a lot of time. On top of all that, what little plot and story that did manage to exist between the Gaga fluffing and the filler didn’t make any sense and crashed into itself several times. Take, for example, the reaction of the townspeople to Gaga. When she arrives, they’re head over heels in love with her. Then, for no reason we see, they cheer that she’s sad as she’s leaving. Oh, and there were songs, but the less said about those the better. Somewhere in all that mess, Lisa moped around for a while before she felt better, but we didn’t really know why she felt better until she explicitly exposited it – twice. The first one: Lisa: Dad, thank you. Like always, the fact that I could tune you out without fearing that I’d miss out on something gave me the time to take stock and realize how ungrateful I have been. Which means, I’ve got a train to catch. Sure enough, Lisa then catches a train, at which point we get explicit exposition #2: Lisa: Gaga! Gaga: Lisa? Why are you here? Lisa: To thank you. Gaga: For what? Lisa: Look at me! You did help me, by allowing me to inappropriately focus eight years of rage and rejection on you. It was like a great sneeze. And now I can say what’s good about me. That is appallingly bad writing. It basically boils down to this: Gaga: Why are you here. Lisa: Let me tell you. Gaga: Okay, I’ll ask again. Lisa: Now I’ll tell you. Fortunately for Lady Gaga, Zombie Simpsons isn’t relevant enough to damage her pop culture standing, but that was weird, dumb, unfunny, and boring, even by their standards. Anyway, the numbers are in, and Gaga did them no good. Just…
Sunday Preview: Lisa Goes Gaga
Image bloodied by Dave. The picture above is the preview image of a YouTube video they put out to promote this week’s episode. Even if it weren’t bloody, I think flying, headless, boob-cannons nicely sums up what we’re dealing with: Lisa tries to reverse her status as one of the least popular girls in school by ghostwriting positive things about herself on the school blog. When her plan backfires, her social ranking plummets to a new low – until a psychic force tells Lady Gaga (guest-starring as herself) that Lisa needs her help. With Gaga’s assistance, Lisa and the entire town of Springfield realize that being yourself is better than being like anyone else. I’m curious to see how much Gaga is actually in the episode. She could be in just one scene or in half the episode. You never can tell with Zombie Simpsons.