“It’s a Krusty Kinda Kristmas!, brought to you by ILG, selling your body’s chemicals after you die, and by Li’l Sweetheart cupcakes, a subsidiary of ILG.” – TV Announcer Merry Christmas, everybody!
Tag: Marge Be Not Proud
Quote of the Day
“Hi, I’m Troy McClure. You might remember me from such public service videos as Designated Drivers: The Life Saving Nerds, and Phony Tornado Alarms Reduce Readiness.” – Troy McClure
Quote of the Day
“Mom, this fake snow is making me dizzy.” – Lisa Simpson “We’re almost finished. There’s just a little bit of green left.” – Marge Simpson
Quote of the Day
“This is great! And all I’ve done is enter my name, Thrillhouse!” – Milhouse van Houten Happy 20th Anniversary to “Marge Be Not Proud”! (I guess.) And Happy Simpsons Day!
Reading Digest: Snowmen Edition
“Check it out, boy, it’s like looking into a living snow mirror.” – Homer Simpson Two different people in St. Louis decided to use this winter to make some snow Simpsons. One is just Homer, but the other is the whole family and the couch. It’s great. In other impressive fan feats this week, there’s glow in the dark zombie Simpsons, a zombie Springfield, a grammar rodeo t-shirt, and money. In addition to that we’ve got some excellent usage, lots of Nimoy links, reviews of old episodes and Season 7, and someone who literally agrees with us. Enjoy. Zombie Simpsons MAGGIE by Undead Ed Glows in the D by Undead-Art – A Maggie figurine, zombified. There are lots more, including the rest of the family, Burns, Wiggum and Krusty. Springfield Zombicide Map: (Part One) The Simpson’s House – A fan made look at what Springfield might look like post zombiepocalypse. Nice touch on the plywood saying “P.S. Screw Flanders”. Zombicide in Springfield: Moe’s Tavern – Construction photos of Moe’s. That’s it! Back to Winnipeg! – Excellent fan made National Grammar Rodeo t-shirt. The Simpsons – The Springfield Files (Review) – A very thorough discussion of how The Simpsons and The X-Files complimented each other. Also, heh: o cite a convenient example of The Simpsons‘ anti-authoritarian leanings, The Complete Guide to The Simpsons pointed out that the episode which aired directly before The Springfield Files – the classic El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer – included a “blink and you miss it” gag about government surveillance. In a joke that seems even harsher in 2015, a quick peek through the Simpson family floorboards reveals that the phone is tapped by (handily labeled wires to) the CIA, FBI, ATF, NSA, KGB and MCI. No wonder the Cigarette-Smoking Man got down so quickly. Money Art by Donovan Clark – One dollar bills with various characters on them, including Homer, Otto and Wiggum. In Post-Apocalyptic ‘Mr. Burns,’ ‘The Simpsons’ Are, Literally, Legendary – The San Francisco version has opened to the customary positive reviews. Hipp regulars light up stage in dark comedy ‘Mr. Burns’ – The play has also made it to Florida. Like most things, it probably won’t get out alive. Exploring ‘Trilogy Of Error,’ The Most Ambitious ‘Simpsons’ Episode Ever – I’ve never found it funny, but it is impressive in its way. Jonathan Bradley on Instagram: “Feels like I’m drinking nothing at all… nothing at all… nothing at all…” – Flanders beer: Remembering Leonard Nimoy’s Enduring Pop Culture Reach: Bilbo, The Simpsons and Big Bang – It’s been a week, but who couldn’t use a little more Nimoy appreciation? 10 times Leonard Nimoy proved he was the king of cameos – I didn’t know he was a bad guy on Columbo one time. New trending GIF tagged the simpsons leonard nimoy… – Great .gif of Nimoy beaming out after saving the monorail passengers. RIP: Leonard Nimoy – Our old friend Noah does a send off. Fashion Spotlight: Ridley Buster, As You Wish…, and Donut Portal – Donut Portal is great. HYPE. THE SIMPSONS COLLABORATION – Yet more high fashion…
Quote of the Day
“Buy me Bonestorm or go to Hell!” – Bart Simpson “Bart!” – Marge Simpson “Young man, in this house we use a little word called ‘please’.” – Homer Simpson
Behind Us Forever: I Won’t Be Home For Christmas
“Hey, I thought Krusty was Jewish.” – Lisa Simpson “Christmas is a time when people of all religions come together to worship Jesus Christ.” – Bart Simpson According to IMDb, this is the first whole episode Al Jean’s written in a long time. Sadly, it didn’t seem to matter. Homer goes on one zany little escapade after another, there’s plenty of expository nonsense, several musical montages that seem designed to do nothing more than eat clock (efforts at which fell so short that they added a preview of the next episode to help fill all twenty of their contractually obligated minutes), and the usual Zombie Simpsons problems. – It’s probably longer than it needs to be, but this Christmas themed opening is actually a nice change of pace. There’s even some freeze frame fun (all the Jewish characters are eating at the Chinese restaurant). – The Peanuts reference to open the episode at least didn’t take long. It didn’t have anything to do with anything else, but it was short. – The Comic Book Guy thing with the Star Wars Holiday Special, however, did take too long and didn’t have anything to do with anything else. – Bizarre kookiness starts early here, with Marge telling Bart to hold the ladder she’s using to trim the tree only to look down and see Maggie! She falls, then laments out loud that Homer isn’t there. Why did she think Bart was there? C’mon, that was like four seconds ago, who can possibly remember that far into the past? – Burns shows up for no reason to talk to Homer. Then Smithers appears out of nowhere. – The clip from Miracle on 34th Street is weirdly out of place. – Homer’s at Moe’s because Moe made him crash his car (don’t ask), then is going to leave before Moe begs and screams at him to take pity on him and stay. The obvious repetition is what’s supposed to make this funny, I guess, but that’s all it is: hey, Moe screaming and crying is funny, let’s keep at it! That this is just the usual “Moe the Sad Sack” stuff makes it lamer still. – Now Moe is telling us that he’s wrapped around Homer’s leg, and now he’s up on Homer’s shoulders. Oof, this just keeps going. – Moe was briefly happy, so he stabbed himself in the head with a corkscrew. – Now Marge is telling us what’s happening, “One night, the one night of the year I want Homer home with his family, and he can’t even do that.” – Then Marge tells us what she’s about to say. Did anyone edit this? – Homer’s driving around now, finds Moe’s closed, then goes to the Kwik-E-Mart where he spends the better part of a minute buying lottery tickets. – This is what passes for a setup these days, “Aw, thanks for your honesty, Apu. Is there any other product in the store you’d like to warn me about?”. Such natural dialogue! –…
Sight Gags: Marge Be Not Proud
“It’s a Krusty Kinda Kristmas, brought to you by ILG, selling your body’s chemicals after you die. And by Little Sweetheart Cupcakes, a subsidiary of ILG.” – TV Announcer He is Carvallo: And I’ll bet they don’t even pay overtime: But could you use Hitler’s brain to construct an unbeatable swimmer?: I used to have an old Apple II game that let you play all the winter Olympic sports, even biathlon. It sucked: Could be worse, could be a soap bar stabbing:
Reading Digest: Simpsons Day Celebration Edition
“Stealing! How could you? Haven’t you learned anything from that guy who gives those sermons at church, Captain Whatshisname?” – Homer Simpson The internet’s annual holiday/end of year ennui has set in, so we’ve got a shorter than usual Reading Digest this week. We do have several links marking Simpsons Day (which I will see become a real holiday if it’s the last thing I ever do), including a couple of looks at other events on December 17th plus a history of the show and other cartoons. There’s also a DJ version of the theme song, obscure animation, more about the Tapped Out game, some decent YouTube, and an awesome monorail newspaper comment section. Enjoy. Our first entry doesn’t really have a link, but reader RaikoLives sent in this photograph (he didn’t take it, he just found it) from Australia in response to news about the Sydney monorail: In case you can’t see the image, the introduction reads: The Herald reported yesterday that Hunter tourism and transport representatives said it is worth considering salvaging Sydney’s aging monorail and bringing it to Newcastle. This is what you said . . . The first three replies: What stupid nonsense. There is no way this is even going to be considered. It’s more of a Shelbyville idea. – Icanmakeupstoriestoo Sorry Marge, the mob have spoken. Monorail, monorail, monorail. – Terry Arki Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook all have one, and by gum it put them on the map – jmo Bravo, readers of the Newcastle Herald. Bravo. the simpsons – All the way from India, we have some sweet, self applied Simpsons nail designs to celebrate Simpsons Day. The Simpsons Tapped Out: Christmas Update – Everything you wanted to know about the latest update to the Tapped Out game. This Was Television On December 17 – Want to see a list of people who share a birthday with the show? Sure you do. On this Date in History.. – How about some famous and not so famous events that happened on Simpsons Day? They have both good ones: 1821 – Kentucky abolishes all debtors prisons And bad ones: 1895 – Anti-Saloon League of America is formed in Washington, DC Boo! 10 Origins of Popular Cartoon Characters – The Simpson family is #1 on here, and I learned more about Scooby-Doo than I ever knew before. 101 GREATEST SIMPSONS QUOTES – There’s bit more Zombie Simpsons on here than there should be, but it’s pretty good nevertheless. Krusty the Clown on Faith – Castellaneta’s delivery on this one is fantastic from start to finish. TV Thursday #8: BBQ pit – BBQ pit YouTube? BBQ pit YouTube. mechanical realities and manufactured pleasures – I’ve never heard of this before, but now I’m intrigued: I’m watching Phantom Museums by the Brothers Quay, whose work I’ve never watched before. This will probably be an ongoing topic, because there are thirteen short films and although each is no longer than twenty minutes, this stuff is dense. I don’t…
Compare & Contrast: Bart’s Remorse
“Oh, yikes, what is that?” – Bart Simpson “It’s the centerpiece, Bart.” – Lisa Simpson “Well, it’s taking up valuable real estate.” – Bart Simpson As our friend Mike Amato has been plowing through all the old episodes, I’ve been wondering what he was going to say about “Marge Be Not Proud”. This week, I got to find out. He’s a lot more upbeat about the episode than I am, but what surprised me in reading his take was how little we actually disagreed. There really are a lot of good and excellent parts in this episode, and his long list of tidbits and quotes is very solid (I’ve always liked “You have entered: power drive”). Where we part seems mostly to be in how much weight we assign to certain problems: If you read this blog then you’re probably familiar with Dead Homers Society, and their attesting that this is the sole blemish on seven flawless classic seasons. I can’t claim some of their gripes aren’t valid; when you boil it down, this is a “very special episode” played fairly straight, with no real twist or subversion. But what keeps it engaging and impacting is its honesty. Certainly some things bother or don’t bother some people more than others. For example, I can’t work up too much excitement over problems with “canon” and inter-episode continuity, but start having characters behave in ways that are anathema to their established personalities and I go ballistic. Mike is willing to overlook the “very special episode” thing, but it really rubs me the wrong way, and it’s the main reason that this is the only episode in Season 7 I almost never watch. “Marge Be Not Proud” was the first time the show really let itself get bogged down with conventional television tropes. They did it in a way that’s subtler than “The Principal and the Pauper”, but both of them are weak stories being propped up by teevee convention (cheap morality for “Marge Be Not Proud” and shocking twists for “The Principal and the Pauper”). Relying directly on old saws like that was something the show had never done before, and it produced episodes that attempt to portray real emotions, but end up undercutting themselves with hoary tricks and tired cliches. That reliance is something Zombie Simpsons would later make almost routine, but in “Marge Be Not Proud” it was novel. They simply didn’t used to do things like that. Consider a similar story of Bart misbehaving and then redeeming himself, “Bart vs. Thanksgiving”. Both episodes are built around holidays, but, more importantly, both episodes involve Bart acting out and Marge dealing with it. When Marge yells at Bart in “Bart vs. Thanksgiving”, all the emotional weight of the episode is condensed into a single devastating line that comes like a kick to the stomach: “I hope you’re happy, Bart, you’ve ruined Thanksgiving!”. That is Marge at a full boil (and a bravura delivery by Kavner), and for Bart it comes completely…
Crazy Noises: Moms I’d Like to Forget
“That must be the happiest kid in the world.” – Bart Simpson 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 “chandelier”). There’s something unbelievably tepid about most Zombie Simpsons episodes, and “Moms I’d Like to Forget” shares that nervous attitude. It just seems more comfortable neutrally reflecting the world with yellow skin and bad overbites instead of actually making fun of something or someone. Consider that nasty, spoiled kid and his checked out mom in “Marge Be Not Proud” (which is not exactly my favorite episode). The kid in the toy store is really an asshole, and his mom not only doesn’t seem to care, but she looks plenty selfish and narcissistic herself, the kind of parent so self involved that she’s basically indifferent to her own kids. It is a brutal caricature and it extends even to the kids’ names, “Gavin” and “Kaitlin” being the kind of trendy monikers (at least, twenty years ago) bestowed by parents who care more about how their kids reflect on them than about the kids themselves. None of that is evident anywhere in the other families in “Moms I’d Like to Forget”. Neither the husbands, the wives or the kids stand out, nor are any of them held up for ridicule. There’s no over competitive fathers who push their kids too hard, there’s no backstabbing mother who destroys her friends with gossip, there’s no rotten kid who takes things too far or deliberately fucks with his parents. Instead they’re just bland background characters, recognizable as modern Americans only cosmetically. There are a lot of stereotypes they could have made fun of here. [Note: Dave couldn’t make it this week. In fact, this whole week has been something of a clusterfuck.] Charlie Sweatpants: Shall we begin? Mad Jon: Sounds good. Charlie Sweatpants: The opening, with Bart having a long dream sequence which was then followed by an action sequence, a little over the top, yes? Mad Jon: Yeah, I thought the dream sequence would end with him getting hit in the head by the dodge ball with which he imagined he would secure victory. Imagine my surprise when the 30 second clip was followed by a 30 second action sequence that didn’t really accomplish anything other than an age war. Charlie Sweatpants: The whole thing was an exercise in time killing. Something that could’ve been done in about thirty seconds was stretched out to a good two minutes. The sports cliche bit at the end of…
One Bad Episode
“Aw, come on Dad. This can be the miracle that saves the Simpsons’ Christmas. If TV has taught me anything it’s that miracles always happen to poor kids at Christmas. It happened to Tiny Tim, it happened to Charlie Brown, it happened to the Smurfs, and it’s gonna happen to us.” – Bart Simpson The Dead Homer Society Manifesto lists Season 7 as having “One Bad Episode”. That episode is “Marge Be Not Proud”. Please understand that we only consider “Marge Be Not Proud” a ‘bad’ episode by the towering standards of early season Simpsons. Compared with the wretched dreck that is Zombie Simpsons it is a model of wit and comic efficiency. But when compared to its contemporaries in Season 7, and its hallowed predecessors in Seasons 1-6, it is noticeably wanting. It is the first Simpsons episode I ever watched when I felt, in the pit of my stomach, the wrenching ball of embarrassment, disappointment, and confusion that I’ve since come to associate with Zombie Simpsons. It was the first episode at which I shook my head at its simplicity, it was the first episode when I felt like I was watching television. For its first six seasons The Simpsons had viciously mocked and relentlessly parodied conventional television. That was one of the things that made it great. It was animated and had no laughtrack, but other than that it had all of the trappings of the standard family comedy: the working father, the precocious children, and the housewife who holds everything together. But instead of following the usual formula it used those cosmetic similarities to mercilessly gut that which came before it. “Marge Be Not Proud” was the first time the show ever sincerely employed the rote, brainless patterns of a normal program. It was, in the parlance of crappy television, a ‘very special episode’. Sitcoms of all stripes occasionally have these ‘very special episodes’ wherein one of the characters comes under threat from a health crisis or makes a decision which runs afoul of American morality. This could be trying drugs, or cheating somehow, or even . . . stealing something. It was that indulgence in the cheap storytelling of regular television (Bart steals game -> Bart gets caught -> Bart feels bad -> Marge finds out -> Marge distrusts Bart -> Bart feels worse -> Bart makes good -> they (literally) hug at the end) that made “Marge Be Not Proud” an indisputable first for The Simpsons. It’s not as though The Simpsons had never explicitly (and seriously) shown emotional family moments before. In the first season Marge rescued Lisa from bad motherly advice (Moaning Lisa), in the second season Marge accused Bart of ruining Thanksgiving (Bart vs. Thanksgiving), in the third season Homer didn’t want to go to Bart’s soapbox derby race (Saturdays of Thunder), in the fourth season Marge felt ignored by Homer during her play (A Streetcar Named Desire), in the fifth season Marge threw Homer out (Secrets of a Successful Marriage),…
Crazy Noises: Marge Be Not Proud
“I don’t think we should hang out together anymore. You’re turning me into a criminal when all I want to be is a petty thug.” – Bart Simpson As part of our efforts to bring you only the finest in low class, low brow, and low tech internet Simpsons commentary we’re applying our “Crazy Noises” series to “Marge Be Not Proud”, the “One Bad Episode” our Manifesto has in Season 7. Because doing a podcast smacks of effort we’re still using this “chatroom” thing that all the middle schoolers and undercover cops seem to think is so cool. This text has been edited for clarity and spelling (especially on on “Lollapalooza”). “Marge Be Not Proud” is the black sheep of Season 7. It’s so utterly out of place, so completely incongruous with those around it that I’ve always kinda wondered how it was even produced. Was a bad batch of donuts delivered to the studio that day? Was half the writers room getting divorced that week? Did someone spike the water supply? We’ll never know. All we can do is watch the rest of Season 7 and avoid this one like the plague. Charlie Sweatpants: It’s time we scale the unscalable cliff and talk about that most depressing of all episodes: Marge Be Not Proud. Mad Jon: If there were patron saints of unholy reasons to start a blog this would be in the running. Charlie Sweatpants: Pretty much. Dave: You mean the episode in which absolutely nothing happens but the strings of sadness tell us we need to feel shit? Charlie Sweatpants: Yeah, except it was the first time ever and this episode felt like getting hit by a train. I remember being embarrassed that it was even happening it was so bad. Mad Jon: I remember being very confused when it happened Dave: My memory is apparently very imprecise. But, I don’t like the episode. At all. Mad Jon: I felt like Millhouse when he saw the Itchy and Scratchy and Poochie show. “When are they gonna get to the Fireworks Factory!!??!” Charlie Sweatpants: There really is surprisingly little redeeming value in it, I mean, it’s Season fucking Seven. It should be good. They cut off the Troy McClure video, there are multiple horribly long “suspense” sequences, the morality play on display would be considered “too much” by the people who used to do those After School Specials. It was just bizarre from start to finish. Far and away the worst part though is when Bart admits to Marge “I did it.” This is a kid who became famous for saying that he didn’t do it. Mad Jon: And seriously, theft? Bart? No. He’s admittedly more of a petty vandal. Charlie Sweatpants: It was played in the most television-y way possible to heighten the drama. Mad Jon: It really was. Especially when they were going to get the picture taken. That was brutal. Charlie Sweatpants: Oh indeed. There’s like half a minute there where literally…