“Clear!” – Homer Simpson “Oh, for Pete’s sake.” – Marge Simpson “The pig is in the poke.” – Homer Simpson “You know, I really don’t care for that code name.” – Marge Simpson
Tag: Mayored to the Mob
Quote of the Day
“Ah, au gratin potatoes. That’s a quality side.” – Mayor Quimby
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“Dear Lord, please make tonight’s production better than Othello with Peter Marshall.” – Ned Flanders
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“Run free, little vermin! The city is yours!” – Mayor Quimby
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“We’ll return for the remainder of the conclusion after these messages.” – TV Announcer “Well, I’d rather get a message than see another lousy commercial.” – Homer Simpson
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“And so, as the rat’s milk is returned to the sewers, the circle of life is complete.” – Kent Brockman
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“Plus, tag team robot wrestling! It’s the mighty robots of Battlestar Galactica versus the gay robots of Star Wars.” – TV Announcer
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“We’re screwed! Use your lightsaber!” – Mayor Quimby “What, and break it? You know, George Lucas makes me pay for these!” – Mark Hamill
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“Gadzooks! Where are my bodyguards?” – Mayor Quimby “Is there anything fluffier than a cloud?” – Bodyguard #1 “If there is, I don’t want to know about it.” – Bodyguard #2
Behind Us Forever: Married To The Blob
"Tell me, how do you feel about forty-five year old virgins who still live with their parents?" – Comic Book Guy "Comb the SweetTarts out of your beard and you’re on." – Comic Babe "Don’t try to change me, baby." – Comic Book Guy [Note: Sorry for the extremely late posting on this one. That kind of week. Compare & Contrast should be along tomorrow.] Over the last ten years or so, Hollywood has become extremely adept at giving "geeks" (for lack of a better term) what they want. The most visible expression of this is the way that comic book movies have come to be routine fixtures in each year’s list of box office champions, but down on the small screen things have been going along just as well. Between the Battlestar Galactica remake, yet more comic book properties, the uneven but occasionally glorious return of Futurama, and plenty more, there is stuff beyond Star Trek that your stereotypical fat guy geek can love. Over that same span of time, The Simpsons went from one of the most beloved things on television to the pale imitation of itself that exists today, something so cluelessly mediocre that pretty much nobody outside of the entertainment industry and its various paid shills will say anything good about it in public. "Married to the Blob" is like a tiny microcosm of that, with the once razor sharp satire of Comic Book Guy getting the full Moe treatment of lovesick lonely heart before falling ass backwards into a one-dimensional wish fulfillment girlfriend who is, wait for it, a hot, Asian manga artist. I guess there’s something to be said for the completeness of that collapse into hapless pandering, but it sure doesn’t make for entertaining television. – Once again, the couch gag goes on for a very long time and is possibly the most creative part of the episode. – This Radioactive Man movie/show/comic-imagining/whatever it’s supposed to be would have worked better without each character explaining themselves, sometimes twice. – Lisa just walked in from nowhere to tell us what’s about to happen . . . and now it’s happening. – A pointless, self voiced celebrity. Thanks, Mr. Ellison. No, there won’t be a check in the mail. – So this other comic book guy, whom they had to remind us who he is, just barged in front of Homer in line to exposit and get the plot started and brag about being married. I don’t think it would kill them to have at least one scene make sense, but they seem to think it would. – And now Homer’s impatient at being made to wait. He wasn’t for the minute it took them to have rival comic book guy appear and disappear, but the show conveniently forgot he was there for that stretch of time. Infants have a better sense of object permanence than Zombie Simpsons, and it’s not even close. – Well, give them this, they know their songs suck even if…
Quote of the Day
“People! People! This man has actually been in outer space!” – Agent “Ha! Nobody cares.” – Mrs. Krabappel “This is one small step towards firing your ass!” – Neil Armstrong
Reading Digest: Yup, That Ship Is Still Underwater Edition
“And now, the conclusion of our thousand dollar movie, Roger Corman’s ‘Titanic’.” – TV Announcer “We’re safe now, Clarice. We made it away from that cursed ship.” – B-Movie Guy “Now I can relax and take off this stifling bikini.” – B-Movie Gal Next Sunday is the hundredth anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. Since there’s apparently some money out there that he still doesn’t have, James Cameron will be re-releasing his movie of the same name. This prompted two links, one of which may be the only time in the coming hundred years that I say something nice about E!. In addition to that, we’ve got lots of excellent usage, a list of potential Simpsons spinoffs, several fan made drawings, and a refined epicurean’s guide to beer and donuts. Enjoy. The Audacious Epigone: Ranking The Simpsons seasons – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week is someone who agrees with us, and went through the IMDb ratings to prove it. We’ve done the same, and it’s nice to see confirmation. Best of Geekery: Top 10 Potential Simpsons Spin-Offs – Exactly what it says. I would definitely watch “Future Maggie in High School”. Shakespearean fools: Their modern equivalents – The BBC compares Homer to Dogberry in “Much Ado About Nothing”. (via) Bart’s Complex House of Mirrors – Very cool fan made image of Bart and Homer (who has hair for some reason). All My Simpsons: Lionel Hutz – A slew of great Hutz quotes that is shockingly missing the one about Judge Snyder. Frampton, Omaha fans love your way – Here’s why you have to be creative with celebrity guests: A lot of laughs came in the middle of "Do You Feel Like We Do." After dozens of photos moved across a video screen behind Frampton, a clip played from the "Homerpalooza" episode of "The Simpsons" that features him. The bit involves him trying to launch an inflatable pig into the crowd by stomping on a pedal labeled "PIG." A member of Frampton’s crew placed a "PIG" pedal onstage and he held it up and said "Where’s my pig?" while the video played. Frampton only has a few lines in that episode, but he still gets to do and say things that are memorable and funny. Most guests these days just show up and say their names. Frampton has something that people still recognize a decade and a half later. Marge Simpson teasing mr. Burns by ~kuroishin on deviantART – Great fan art that almost looks like a discarded idea from “Marge Gets a Job”. Feminist Reading of “The Simpsons” – Collegiate essay that sadly cites two Zombie Simpsons episodes instead of far more interesting offerings like “Marge on the Lam”, “Principal Charming”, “Lisa the Beauty Queen” and, of course, “Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy”. You Are What You Wear – Science sez: the clothes you wear have a psychological effect on you. However obvious that may seem, there is this: The concept for the research stemmed from an episode of …
Harry Shearer Was (Vocally) in Star Wars
“Hey, thanks everybody. You know, I’m here today as Luke Skywalker, but I’m also here to talk about Sprint. As you can see, you stand to save up to seventeen cents a month over the more dependable providers.” – Mark Hamill “Ahh, talk about Star Wars!” – Data Here’s your fun trivia fact of the day: Harry Shearer did voice work for the original Star Wars movie! He’s not sure who he was, but he did come in and record a few lines for them. I had never heard this before, and it’s not on his IMDb page, but confirmation comes from the man himself: Image shamelessly yoinked from the link above. In case you can’t get the image, blogger Drew Stewart asks Shearer: I just heard a rumor that you dubbed 1 of the Imperial Officers in the original Star Wars. True? Shearer says “Yes.”; Stewart then asks: Did you also voice some Rebels? How did you get involved? To which Shearer replied: Not clear on what-all I did. Just some words on paper. They called me in, I did it, I left. This all got started when Stewart saw a forum post on a Star Wars site and decided to run it down via Twitter. Well done. There’s some speculation at the link about which lines may have been his. None of their suggestions seem implausible, but I don’t think they’re exactly conclusive either (via). [Programming Note: There’s no new Zombie Simpsons for two more weeks, and while I can usually fill in the gap well enough, things are likely to be sparse around here for at least this week. Hopefully I’ll come across more easy stuff like this. Maybe Dan Castellaneta was a background Klingon in Star Trek III or something.]
Crazy Noises: Mayored to the Mob
“Thank you, Fat Tony. However, in the future, I would prefer a nondescript briefcase to the sack with a dollar sign on it.” – Mayor Quimby For the third summer in a row, we at the Dead Homer Society are looking to satisfy your off-season longing for substandard commentary on substandard Simpsons. This summer we’ll be looking at Season 10. Why Season 10? Because we’ve already done Seasons 8 and 9 and we can’t put it off any longer. Prior to Season 10, we watched as the show started falling over, this is when it fell over. And while the dust wouldn’t settle completely for another season or so, there is no bigger gap in quality than the one between Season 9 and Season 10. Since we prefer things to remain just as they were in 1995, we’re sticking with this chatroom thing instead of some newer means of communication that we all know just isn’t as good. This text has been edited for clarity and spelling (especially on “harassing”). Today’s episode is 1009, “Mayored to the Mob”. Tomorrow will be 1010, “Viva Ned Flanders”. Charlie Sweatpants: Ready to get going? Dave: Let’s. Mad Jon: Let’s do it So, starting with "Mayored to the Mob"? Charlie Sweatpants: Yes. And the start of the one we’re starting with is easily the best part of either of these two. Dave: Easily. Mad Jon: I agree. There were some Zombie issues, but it was definitely the most watchable part of either episode. Dave: I suppose it’s up for debate where it starts to fall apart. Mad Jon: The thing that bothered me was the way they end up at the Bi-Mon-Sci-Fi-Con Charlie Sweatpants: How so, Jon? Granted, making fun of sci-fi geeks isn’t the world’s most terribly inventive thing, but they didn’t screw it up. Mad Jon: The "Beats work" "Beats school" kind of rings out to me as the first ‘we need a reason to be at this thing, and not at school and work.’ They didn’t do that for the candy trade show in "Homer Badman". Charlie Sweatpants: Yeah, that didn’t quite sit well, but at least it was brief. Mad Jon: Brief it was. Charlie Sweatpants: But compared to the shit that doesn’t make sense later, it was small potatoes. Mad Jon: Yes, agreed. Still, like we all agreed to start, it wasn’t bad, I just noticed that, among a few other things, that can be described as trending as far as I am concerned. Charlie Sweatpants: Oh there were several things here that have gotten much worse over time, like why are Willie, Lenny and Carl all there? Mad Jon: None of which are dressed up, neither is Frink. Charlie Sweatpants: Frink and Skinner I get, and I can see Krabappel going (though a joke about how she got dragged there by her boyfriend wouldn’t have hurt). Mad Jon: I always enjoy the CBG/CBG exchange. Dave: Yeah, Lenny and Carl’s exchange is cringe inducing. Charlie Sweatpants: But for…
Quote of the Day
“Just remember, you represent the office of the mayor. So always comport yourself in a manner befitting- quick, honk at that broad! [Wolf whistle] Good work Simpson, I couldn’t be happier with the way that went.” – Mayor Quimby