“I’ll give you the address of a nice preschool.” – Dr. J. Loren Pryor In our ongoing mission to bring you only the shallowest and laziest analysis of Zombie Simpsons, we’re keeping up our Crazy Noises series for Season 22. Since a podcast is so 2004, and video would require a flag, a fern and some folding chairs from the garage, we’ve elected to use the technology that brought the word “emoticon” to the masses: the chatroom. Star Trek image macros are strictly forbidden, unless you have a really good reason why Captain Picard is better than Captain Kirk. This text has been edited for clarity and spelling (especially on “supposedly”). There are about four different episodes I could’ve done a compare & contrast post when it comes to “Lisa Simpson, This Isn’t Your Life”. For now I’ll content myself by pointing out how much better “Lisa’s Sax” is just in terms of allowing the viewer to follow the action without getting plot whiplash every three minutes. In “Lisa’s Sax”, Bart is having trouble at school; Marge and Homer go to talk to the school counselor about Bart. Toddler Lisa is sitting in her mother’s lap when the counselor notices her intelligence and recommends a good preschool. The family goes to the school where they find that they cannot afford it or get a scholarship. It’s very clean and simple and viewer friendly: A (Bart has trouble in school) -> B (parent/counselor meeting) -> C (counselor sees how smart Lisa is) -> D (counselor recommends preschool) -> E (family checks out good preschool) In “Lisa Simpson, This Isn’t Your Life” it goes like this: A (Lisa disappointed in school) -> L (a bus drives by) -> C (family shows up at a school) -> Y (Homer dives out of a window) It all makes perfect sense if you happen to have suffered cranial trauma recently, otherwise, not so much. Dave was once again unable to join us this week. He did send this in: “I didn’t bother watching this year’s ToH episode, which means it has been a relatively enjoyable few weeks devoid of Zombie Simpsons. ‘Lisa Simpson, This Isn’t Your Life’ irrevocably ruined this peace. It made me contemplate throwing my water bottle at my laptop on multiple occasions. It was remarkably unfunny, trite, and poorly rehashed any number of plot points from episodes past. Not sure why anyone thought it was a good idea to send this piece of shit into production, but they did, and should be stoned as a result of their terrible decision.” He, uh, didn’t like it. Mad Jon: Opening shot? Charlie Sweatpants: The Itchy & Scratchy thing? Mad Jon: Ok. I was ok with it until it kept going. One or two murders will cover it. Charlie Sweatpants: Yeah, it got old pretty fast, plus it was another one that was completely unrelated to the rest of the episode. Mad Jon: Yeah, most of the old ones tied in a bit, e.g. the…
Tag: Lisa Simpson This Isn’t Your Life
Compare & Contrast: Marge & Lisa At Breakfast
“Lisa, there are a lot of people in world who like to tell you what you can’t do. But they don’t always know what they’re talking about.” – Marge Simpson In both “Lisa Simpson, This Isn’t Your Life” and “Separate Vocations”, Lisa becomes afraid that, despite all her ambition, talent and drive, she’s going to end up like her mother. The two setups are as close to identical as can be expected given that they were broadcast nineteen seasons apart. But they take radically different directions once Marge learns of Lisa’s fears. In The Simpsons, Marge reacts like a loving parent, albeit somewhat naive and misguided; in Zombie Simpsons, Marge reacts like a butthurt child herself. The differences are immediately apparent in the scenes where Marge finds out how Lisa feels. In “Separate Vocations”, the family is sitting at the dinner table. Marge gives a defensive but understandable “It’s not that bad” when Lisa expresses her contempt for Marge’s lot in life. It’s one line, and the very next thing out of Marge’s mouth is her desire to help Lisa realize her dream of becoming a jazz musician. Both things, Marge’s (extremely) mild disappointment and her immediate recovery into being a supportive parent work into the larger scene, which sees both Bart and Lisa’s plot lines advanced as well as both Marge and Homer realize that their kids want to be nothing like them. And, it goes almost without saying, the dialogue is rife with jokes, including Homer’s inability to join the army or the police and Lisa’s wonderfully elaborate musician fantasy. In order to reveal the exact same information, that Lisa doesn’t want to become Marge, Zombie Simpsons has a scene with Marge and Homer in which that is the only topic of conversation. Marge immediately reacts like a spoiled kid, and most of the scene is her (very out of character) wallowing in self pity while Homer acts manic to try and distract her. No other plot points are advanced (or even mentioned), and it takes longer too. Following those scenes, Zombie Marge and regular Marge follow radically different paths. But they both end up at the breakfast table with Lisa, and here the massive differences between the two become crystal clear. In “Separate Vocations”, Marge tries to reassure Lisa that homemaking provides plenty of opportunities for creativity. (This is after Marge’s plan to show Lisa that she can be a jazz musician hilariously backfires with the immortal line, “You’ve inherited a finger condition known as ‘Stubbiness’.”) Here’s the dialogue: Marge: This morning, I turned bacon, eggs and toast into a nice smiley face for Bart and Homer. Lisa: What’s the point, they’ll never notice. Marge: Oh, well you’d be surprised. Homer and Bart immediately appear to demolish Marge’s carefully constructed breakfast without so much as a thank you, though Homer does manage a satisfied belch. Just as with the outing to the music store, Marge acts perfectly in character, and the comedy comes from the utter failure…
Marge Acts Like a Child, Until She Doesn’t, Then It Ends
“A homemaker? I might as well be dead.” – Lisa Simpson “Lisa, it’s not that bad.” – Marge Simpson For all those who have ever wondered what would happen if Zombie Simpsons took “Lisa’s Sax”, “Separate Vocations”, and “Lisa’s Pony” and added in a hash of “Bart the General” as a B-plot, wonder no more. It lasts about twenty-two minutes, moving glacially from one overwrought plot point to another, pausing occasionally for a bizarre aside that the writers think is clever. In that last category, we have the interminable gas station scene at the beginning, Willie’s bizarre floor-waxer conniption fit, Bart’s kite-boarding montage, and Homer’s clock eating slow motion dive out of a window. To my surprise, there were a couple of decent ideas here. But, as usual, they shied away from anything that could be called insightful. Case in point, concealing from the consumer which toy they’re actually buying. It’s a good concept, especially because the toy is supposed to be an apology from an oil company. But instead of doing anything clever with it, they use it as an excuse for more of their usual crazy Homer antics, including having him spray himself with gasoline for some reason. The numbers are in, and while they are up from last week, they are also probably going to get revised down on account of football overrun. Right now Zombie Simpsons is rocking a 8.97 million viewers, but that is almost certain to come down significantly once the final numbers are posted. When the revised figure gets to TV By the Numbers, I’ll take another look. Here’s hoping it plummets.
Sunday Preview: “Lisa Simpson, This Isn’t Your Life”
Tonight’s follow up to last week’s underwhelming Treehouse of Horror episode is “Lisa Simpson, This Isn’t Your Life”. We’ve got a dull, lifeless description from Simpsons Channel, which merits a dull, lifeless response: Discovering that Marge was once a stellar A+ student whose grades plummeted after being distracted, Lisa fears that she will end up just like her mom unless she pledges to focus solely on academics in an encore episode. When Marge makes a secret deal allowing Lisa to attend her dream school, Lisa learns a lesson in family and altruism. Meanwhile, Bart puts Nelson in his place and unintentionally claims the title of “School Bully.” Oh goodie. No blood this week, I just don’t have it in me.