In an odd coincidence, there are three pieces of excellent usage this week that are just one word away from being dead on. Being my nitpicky self, I’ve added the correct words in, but all three still rate as excellent usage in my book. In addition to that we’ve got lots of fan art, including a bunch of drawings of Homer and Marge as famous fashion people. There’s also a couple of great YouTube videos, some love for Season 3 and 5, an unconvincing defense of Season 9’s most infamous episode, and lots of other stuff. Enjoy. The Many D’ohs of Homer Simpson – This was linked in more places than you can count this week, and with good reason. It’s every annoyed grunt from Seasons 1-20. It is epic: As a bonus, you can watch the show deteriorate before your eyes. There’s a noticeable uptick in the horrendousness of Homer’s injuries and craziness of the situations as you get into the second half of the video. Religious Anti-Ninja Turtle Propaganda from the Ancient World [Video] – One good four and a half minute YouTube deserves another, and this one is a doozy. I’ll let Comics Alliance explain: Canadian men in an early 1990s propaganda film decrying the original TMNT animated series, Vanilla Ice, Bart Simpson and other alleged evils of the ancient world. These guys put the fun in fundamentalist dogma, but in more of a huggable Canadian way than in a fire-and-brimstone Billy Graham way. Observe: Mostly they’re mad at the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and this whole thing screams early 90s, but they do fit in two moments of Simpsons vitriol, both courtesy of a sweater clad guy who looks like Rowsdower’s wussy cousin. At 1:30 he cites Bart’s prayer from “Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish” with disbelief that modern society allows such blasphemy on television. Sadly the video is edited so the context is missing, but the general tone is perfectly funny on its own. You’ve got to watch the video to really get it, but let’s just say that there’s more than hint of “prefers the company of men” to these guys, which makes this at 3:35 doubly hilarious: Another cartoon character in the script that was a homosexual that became Homer’s secretary that was continually trying to seduce him. Karl does a lot of things in that episode, even kiss Homer, but “continually trying to seduce him”? I hope at least one of those guys made it out of the closet. Defending The Simpsons’ "The Principal and the Pauper" – I saw this linked in a few places this week, but having read it I can comfortably stand by what I said last year. That episode has so many plot twists and so much retconning that there just isn’t room for anything else in a mere twenty-two minutes. For further evidence of this, consider that the linked article is a little over a thousand words, a quarter of…
Tag: Lisa’s Wedding
Crazy Noises: Holidays of Future Passed
“Hey, I remember you. Mayor Quimby, right?” – Lisa Simpson “I, uh, er, ah, no. Look at this license: Mohammed Jafar.” – Mohammed Jafar 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 “inconsequential”). There were a lot of pointless scenes in “Holidays of Future Passed” that were nothing more than Zombie Simpsons checking in on various characters to see how they were doing in the future. One in particular, Homer throwing a rock at Burns Manor, stands as a good example of why even the ones that were funny fall flat. First, think about what’s going on. Homer is watching Bart’s kids and decides, apropos of nothing, to take them “downtown”. In this case, “downtown” means the Kwik-E-Mart and walking by Burns Manor. That’s it. The entire trip is the flimsiest possible excuse for the episode to work in Apu, who gets into a giant gunfight, and Burns. What happens when Homer and the boys walk past Burns Manor? Homer chucks a rock through Burns’ window: That’s a hell of a throw. We’re two seconds into this scene and it’s already fallen apart. Remember, the whole premise of Homer in this episode is that he’s sober and responsible now. That’s the reason he’s watching Bart’s kids. So even if we set aside the fact that they just walked out of the Kwik-E-Mart and decided to stroll past the corner of Croesus and Mammon, what possible reason is there for Homer to hurl a rock through Burns’ window? Kicks? Anger? He never says a word, and neither do Bart’s usually stuck up and responsible kids. Right after that, Burns pops up in the broken window and tells someone, it’s not clear who, to release the hounds. That prompts Smithers, who must’ve just been waiting by the gate, to appear stage left: Being eight feet away, he naturally didn’t say anything before Homer threw the rock. Smithers, who hasn’t aged much in thirty years, dumps out a box of bones, Homer imitates the audience and shrugs, and the scene ends. No part of the setup, the action, or the punchline make any sense or fit in with each other. And while I understand that it’s just a cheap throwaway joke (dog bones, ha ha!), the episode is wall to wall with scenes like this one. Flanders appears unprompted at an open window…
Compare & Contrast: Maggie’s Silence
“Will that girl ever shut up?” – Homer Simpson The more I think about it, the more “Holidays of Future Passed” feels like a flashy, stripped down remake of a classic movie. The effects are splashier, the budget higher, and the cast larger, but despite the occasionally entertaining scene or idea, the whole thing is a jumble. Too often you’re just marking time until the next segment begins, hoping it’s better than what you’re currently seeing. To illustrate that, I’d like to take a look at a running joke “Holidays of Future Passed” slavishly copied from “Lisa’s Wedding”: Maggie’s silence as an adult. Like the enduring mysteries of which state contains Springfield and why Mr. Burns can never remember Homer, Maggie’s silence is one of the show’s longstanding quirks. They did an entire episode around the idea with “Lisa’s First Word”. They also liked to occasionally drop it in as a little gag, like when Bart faked her voice in “Radio Bart” or Maggie babbled like Flanders in “Home Sweet Homediddly-Dum-Doodily”. But even in “Lisa’s First Word” it was never a big joke. Instead it cropped up from time to time in quick and unobtrusive ways, a playful wink from the show to the audience. It was fleeting and flirtatious, and that very scarcity was its charm. “Lisa’s Wedding” demonstrates an inherent understanding of the that fragility. They knew “Maggie talks” wasn’t important or deep enough to support whole chunks of the episode, so they slipped it into parts of the story where it could work without wilting under the spotlight. There are just three times Maggie almost talks in “Lisa’s Wedding”: 1) When Homer goes to use the phone, she’s already on the line, talking in her room. 2) At the dinner table, Lisa asks if she wants to go dress shopping but Marge yells at her to not talk with her mouth full. 3) As the ceremony is about to start, she’s interrupted just before singing “Amazing Grace” by Hugh announcing that the wedding is off. Compare that to a whopping eight in “Holidays of Future Passed”: 1) When getting an ultrasound (with her band just hanging out for no reason), the robot tells her that she can’t talk because baby. 2) As she goes to board the teleporter, she’s silently directed to the airplane instead. 3) Inside airplane, she sits impatiently. 4) Going into labor in a taxi cab, she doesn’t say a word. 5) In the hospital entrance, Kearney the cabbie somehow gets her checked in while she doesn’t do anything. 6) In the hospital delivery room, they actually give her a pacifier (see below). 7) Still in the delivery room, Marge walks in to her daughter about to give birth, no words are exchanged between the two of them. 8) Finally, back at home, Maggie presents the baby to her family but still doesn’t say a word. Marge declares it a girl and, since this is Zombie Simpsons, no one even asks what her name…
Quote of the Day
“Are you okay?” – Lisa Simpson “I’m fine, Lisa. Fortunately, the compost heap broke my fall. Be a dear, run a bath.” – Hugh Parkfield
Reading Digest: Lisa’s Wedding Edition
“We’ve been invited to the wedding of our only graduate to read at an adult level.” – Principal Skinner “It must be Lisa Simpson, because of course, Martin Prince perished in that science fair explosion.” – Miss Hoover “Not quite perished, my lady love. Although some days I wish I had.” – Martin Prince Lots and lots of people made note of the fact that last Sunday was Lisa’s wedding date. Most of the blog posts and articles I came across were little more than a screen grab of the invitation and a few words about the passage of time. I only linked two, one that put some thought into imagining what the show would be like if they’d let them age, and an hilarious FAIL congratulations to Lisa and Hugh. There’s also links to two posts with eleven things the show did and didn’t get right about 2010. (As an aside, it actually helps the episode age well that many of the things in it are still fantastical, otherwise it wouldn’t feel like the future.) Also, we’ve got a couple of right wing essays, two fan takes on The Simpsons Movie, the dramatic conclusion of that top 50 teevee characters list from last week, some usage, and Harry Shearer just being his awesome self. Enjoy. The Lifespan of Every TV Show Ever [COMIC] – Commenter DJYellow sent this in, and it’s pretty much dead on, though the strength of the Simpsons let it stay great for several seasons more than most shows. Homer and the suburbs – This is moderate usage: However, as I read, I worried that Kotkin wasn’t concerned enough. I was reminded of what Homer Simpson said about USA Today: "It’s the only paper with the guts to tell it like it is — everything is just fine." It’s apt, and the end is on, but the actual quote is “Hey, this is the only paper in America that’s not afraid to tell the truth, that everything is just fine.” GRAPHICS: Average Daily Food Intake of Homer Simpson, Seinfeld Cast & Garfield – The people at Pleated-Jeans have made up some neat graphics, including Homer with what looks to be an average day’s consumption. 6 (More) Products That Would Never Sell In The US – Funny product ads found in Buenos Aires. These include a kitchen sponge called “McPussy” and something where Homer appears to have caught Bart masturbating in the bathroom. Is “Playsex” a real magazine in Argentina? Google doesn’t seem to think so, which means this is just something someone made and put up in a window. Awesome. A mysterious language only a select few speak – It’s a whole usage family: But really, if you come into our abode and try to decipher our internal language, you should bone up on two shows, The Simpsons and Young Frankenstein. So many lines from each of those have permeated our family that I sometimes feel sorry for visitors. From The Simpsons: “Pray for Mojo.” “There’s…
Time Flies
Quote of the Day
“Mr. Smithers plus guest. Well, there’s only one person I would want to bring . . . oh Mr. Burns, we’ll thaw you out the second they discover the cure for seventeen stab wounds in the back. How’re we doing boys?” – Mr. Smithers “Well, we’re up to fifteen!” – Professor Frink
Vitruvian Homer
“I’ve eaten eight different meats. I’m a true renaissance man.” – Homer Simpson A bunch of landscape architecture students from Florida International University won a sand castle competition in Miami with Homer laid out in Leonardo da Vinci’s “Vitruvian Man” pose: Image shamelessly stolen from their Photobucket album, which has many more pictures. Congratulations and bravo, that is excellent. If I ever need a landscape architect (note: highly unlikely) I will ask for an FIU alum. My only complaint is that instead of letting his genitals hang out like in Da Vinci’s original, they covered Homer’s shame with a literal fig leaf. If we can’t have sand wang on South Beach, where can we have it?
Quote of the Day
“And I love that painting. Judging by the clothes, I’d say seventeenth century?” – Lisa Simpson “Actually, Lisa, it’s just uncle Eldred.” – Mrs. Parkfield “I get me brain medicines from the National Health.” – Uncle Eldred Let’s hope Uncle Eldred doesn’t forget to vote.
Etsy FT-EPIC-W
“Hugh, there’s something I want you to have. My dad gave me his cufflinks to wear on the day I married Marge, and they brought us good luck. I couldn’t imagine a happier marriage. We don’t have many traditions in our family, but it would mean a lot to me if you kept this one alive.” – Homer Simpson “Well I’d be honored, to . . . wear . . . those . . . things.” – Hugh Parkfield Stop everything you’re doing and look at this: The attention to detail is stunning, from the feet to the cravat to the lipstick on the bride. The groom even has his hands (hooves?) in his pockets. If I owned any shirts that could use cufflinks, I would wear these at all times. They can be yours from Etsy user TheClayCollection for the low price of just $55.00. There are lots of similar items on her profile, from Nintendo themed earrings to Boba Fett cufflinks. Fan-fugu-tastic. (via Lovely Entropy)
As It Was, As It Is
“I see an Eastern university in the year 2010, the world has become a very different place . . .” – Renaissance Faire Fortune Teller Let’s go ahead and get this out of the way first: I love this episode. I’ve seen it more times than I can count and I never fail to laugh my ass off. It was first broadcast in 1995 and it foretold the world in 2010, which is now here. So let’s take a look at how things actually turned out. I don’t think the writers were trying to predict 2010; I just think it’s kinda fun to compare. – Here in the future we still have no holographic trees. – I’m sure there are soy snacks in vending machines (albeit probably not labeled with the words “gag suppressant”) and those machines definitely take cards. – Sadly, we have no robot librarians. – Going down his IMDB page, it would appear that Jim Carrey has only starred in about twenty movies (been in a lot more, but actually starred in only about twenty). Though they only ended up making two Ace Ventura movies, not six. - To my knowledge, no universities have dormitories named after Dr. & Mrs. Dre. – The Rolling Stones may indeed be touring in 2010 but it seems unlikely they’ll title all it the “Steel Wheelchair” tour (though that would be awesome). – Also, on the floor of Lisa’s dorm room is a tablet that looks kinda like a Kindle. – Sadly, planes still do not have lots of wings. – Doubly sad, Big Ben is still analog. – Not a lot of wristwatch type communicators, but lots of devices that do similar things. – In addition to no robot librarians, no robot English country servants. – Picture phones exist, but aren’t what you’d call common yet for the exact reason that Marge displays. Because really, who wants to be seen? – Still not a lot of robots in nuclear power plants. – Houses in America have indeed gotten much bigger and fancier, and satellite dishes (albeit smaller ones) are common. – Look at this car and tell me it doesn’t look like one of the new model VW Beetles. – The Simpsons still have only one phone line, though if teenaged Maggie wanted to talk with her friends she probably wouldn’t be using the house phone anyway. – It’s also worth pointing out that the date of Lisa’s wedding is August 1st, 2010 which they correctly note is a Sunday. – We still can’t reanimate frozen corpses. – On-line video classrooms are a reality, but mostly not at the elementary school level.…
Pornography Monday
“Mom, I feel kind of funny wearing white, I mean . . . Milhouse.” – Lisa Simpson “Oh, Milhouse doesn’t count.” – Marge Simpson It’s time for another installment of the pornographic search terms the world has used to find our stupid little blog. Many are just the usual requests for intergenerational incest and what have you. I was pretty amused by “extra porn lisa simpsons and milhouse”. What, exactly, makes porn “extra”? sex bart and marge simpsons homer and marge porn bart fucks milhouse free video bart bones marge bartporn (homer and lisa) simpson porn sex marge simpson und homer homer and marge have porn bart fucking marge bart and lisa simpson sex marge and bart doing it lisa simpson naked having sex milhouse lisa et bart porno fucking marge simpson lisa simpson sucking barts dick lisa fuck bart marge simpson nake simpsons porn bart and marge sex marge y bart sex simpsons margie fucking marge simpson porn video extra porn lisa simpsons and milhouse marge simpson gets laid bart, lisa and milhouse porn bart fucking marge simpson the simpson lisa getting fucked marge porn sweatpants sex lisa simpson fuck lisa suck homer marge and homer sex marge homer sex marge simpson fucking bart fucks march marge simpson suking marge simpson fucking “bart simpson porno” lisa simpson fucks bart “sweatpants sex”. Yeah, baby.
Quote of the Day
“Quimby, after this fare get your indicted ass out to the convention center.” – Otto “I cut the ribbon at that convention center.” – Mohammed Jafar
Crappy Merchandise: Cufflinks
Do you often think to yourself, “What I really need is a good pair of humorous cufflinks”? Is there someone you love who may be a great person but whose life is clearly lacking in this critical way? Fear not, for the Cufflinks Depot is here! For just $45 American you can purchase one of these fine novelty items, sure to produce that always entertaining mixture of fake gratitude and suppressed disappointment on the face of the recipient. (And make no mistake, these are gag gift only items, the websites that peddle them all but beg you to use them as gifts.) Then again, six tenths of a second with Google will point you to 1st Choice Cufflinks, where they’ve got even more crappy Simpsons cufflinks and they only want twenty bucks for a pair. The ruthless power of on-line capitalism is such that these items, which no sane person would value at more than about six cents, must compete in a ruthless marketplace where markups of several thousand percent must compete with markups of merely several hundred percent. Hugh Parkfield would never deign to wear any of these.
Zombie Simpsons: Copy & Paste FAIL
What to make of the images below? Were these clever throwbacks designed to be shoutouts to long time fans? Or was it simply a copy and paste job done out of laziness? The rest of the episode, a hodgepodge of chases and exposition, sucked too. Given last week’s dismal viewership I’m going to be hopeful and set the over/under at a flat 6.00 million viewers. C’mon under. Update: TV by the Numbers says, “I just received notice that the Sunday Night fast affiliate ratings that we use for our posts have been delayed due to Nielsen processing issues. No ETA on when they may be available, but I will post as soon as I can. ” There also weren’t any overnight numbers yesterday, so I’m taking the no ETA thing seriously. Still hoping for under six million though. Wednesday Update: The numbers are finally in and the wait wasn’t worth it. The over has it at 6.55 million viewers, oh well. While I’m here, since Monday I’ve figured out something that was bothering me about the above set of images. The older two images are from episodes which are, for lack of a better word, “imaginary”; the one on the left is from a possible future in “Lisa’s Wedding” and the one on the right is from a Treehouse of Horror. Conceptually that makes them a lot different than an ordinary family living in a town called Springfield, which is what The Simpsons used to be about. Zombie Simpsons, on the other hand, operates in a reality where wild craziness is just assumed to be part of the normal world.
Simpsons Wedding List
“Mom, I feel kind of funny wearing white. I mean . . . Milhouse.” – Lisa Simpson “Oh, Milhouse doesn’t count.” – Marge Simpson I’m attending a wedding this afternoon. One thing I’ve learned through experience is that a Simpsons equipped laptop is a handy thing to have at such occasions, especially if you’re more or less required to get there several hours in advance. So, without further Apu, I present my Simpsons wedding list which, in various forms, I’ve used several times over the last few years. Simpsons – 220 – The War of the Simpsons Simpsons – 312 – I Married Marge Simpsons – 321 – Black Widower Simpsons – 521 – Lady Bouvier’s Lover Simpsons – 522 – Secrets of a Successful Marriage Simpsons – 610 – Grandpa vs. Sexual Inadequacy Simpsons – 619 – Lisa’s Wedding Simpsons – 806 – A Milhouse Divided This list is, obviously, not exhaustive, but I’ve found that each episode has sufficient wedding/marriage related content so that even wedding attendees who would not ordinarily call themselves Simpsons fans find them appropriate. (You may notice that the Season 6 episode “Another Simpsons Clip Show” is not on the above list. That episode is about love and romance whereas marriage is about property, a wholly separate concept, and, therefore, does not apply.)
No Seriously, Take it!
“Oh come on Edna! We both know these children have no future!!” – Seymour Skinner In the second part of my two part series chronicling my hatred of Zombie Simpsons episodes involving time shifts, I will address the failures of episodes with a flashforward premise. As I warned in the end of part one, there will be some similarities in this post. If you think I am just being lazy (which I do not deny), try this exercise: Make a list of reasons you think the shit your dog took this morning was gross, then make a list of reasons why the shit your dog will take tonight will be gross. You may be pleasantly surprised. Now that you have a better understanding of what I am dealing with, let us get to my complaints with flashforward Zombie Simpsons episodes. One other point of note, there are only a couple of these episodes. This may be a result of the writers realizing how bad the episodes would be, but that would be a bit optimistic on my part. 1. Impossible team ups.In the 11th season episode “Bart To The Future” Bart and Ralph are not only roomates but bandmates as well. This couldn’t happen because I don’t think they let you start bands in prison or the assisted living home. 2. Bart’s efforts to regain his sister’s loveIn both of the episodes I can remember (the other being “Future Drama”) some issue arises between Bart and Lisa with Bart getting some benefit and Lisa being on the short end. In both cases Bart comes through to save the day and regain his sister’s appreciation. While this tactic produced hilarious results in real Simpsons episodes ( like “Stark Raving Dad”) keep in mind that their drama wasn’t the ONLY plot point and future Bart (who like I said would probably be incarcerated) wouldn’t be forced to live with Lisa and probably wouldn’t give two shits about her predicaments. 3. Homer is aliveIf you are trying to portray the future, you are doing so based upon the years of episodes that have forged some sort of pattern or predictability of character actions. With that in mind, Homer (who in most episodes is 38) won’t make it to 40. This wouldn’t bother me so much if Homer and Marge weren’t divorced in “Future Drama” which would never happen if you follow the logic I just mentioned. My suggestion is to never ever make a flashforward episode again and just avoid the issue altogether. While you’re at it, just stop making Zombie Simpsons period. 4. HistoryJust like with the flashback episodes, the flashforward episodes (minus “Lisa’s Wedding”) are completly and undebatably unwatchable. While watching these episodes I actually prayed to God that the commercials would get stuck in an infinite loop. There you have it. If you add up my complaints from both part one and part two of this series, you will come to the same sobering conclusion I already have: This Sunday’s…