“Oh, dear!” – Marge Simpson “No, Mom, it counts as a hit. Dad just won the game.” – Lisa Simpson “Well, I guess he’ll be happy when he comes to.” – Marge Simpson A few quick breakdowns: I finally watched that “Springfield of Dreams” special that FOX Sports paid Morgan Spurlock to produce to commemorate Homer’s induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame. It’s fine. Not great. Not terrible. Maybe a little too long and uneven, but watchable.Spurlock put his rolodex to work and brought in a crapton of famous people, some of whom work out better than others. Joe…
Tag: Morgan Spurlock
James L. Brooks FTW
“What about me? You didn’t thank me.” – Homer Simpson “You didn’t do anything.” – Bart Simpson “I like being thanked.” – Homer Simpson Sure enough the one thing about Spurlock’s special I didn’t like was the casual defense of the quality of Zombie Simpsons. I suppose it had to be in there, but it was no less galling for being obligatory. However, much like the overwhelming preponderance of clips from the early years I thought the kiss off was a little revealing. It basically consisted of three people, two guys who worked only on Zombie Simpsons and James Brooks. …
Morgan Spurlock Doesn’t Like Zombie Simpsons
“Look Bart, it almost killed me but I handcrafted all seventy-five characters from ‘Oliver Twist’. And now, the coup-de-grace, a bitter snowstorm.” – Lisa Simpson They say it is best to judge a man not by his words but by his actions. By that criteria I would like to thank Morgan Spurlock for publicly disparaging Zombie Simpsons – on FOX itself. To the untrained eye it looked like he was just eating an orange, but to the eye that has brains he was making a guerilla point about Zombie Simpsons. It took a disturbing amount of my (admittedly not very…
Spurlock Update: Moby & Mr. Plow
“Call Mr. Plow, that’s my name. That name again is Mr. Plow.” – Homer Simpson Even though it’s going to involve putting up with a lot of batshit stupid Zombie Simpsons defending I’m still kinda excited for Spurlock’s special. It can’t be all Zombie Simpsons defending and there’s probably a lot of neat stuff in there. Case in point, Moby is keen on Homer’s little ditty above. He has created a whole mess of different versions of the song and they’re all up on the internet now. Behold the most YouTube embeds ever! Mr. Plow Blues: Mr. Plow Bossanova:…
Spurlock Update: Ah, Fuck
From a review of Spurlock’s special: If there’s a weakness in the anniversary show, it’s that Spurlock doesn’t delve too far into the issue of how challenging it is for the series to live up to the impossibly high bar it set for itself in the 1990s. Creator Matt Groening chuckles at one point about how fans are so invested in the show, they have no reservations about being intensely critical right to his face. That sets up a tremendous quote by Simpsons writer Matt Warburton, who says dryly, "I think the Internet message boards used to be a lot…
Spurlock Update: Commence Marketing Barrage
Morgan Spurlock was on a conference call with reporters recently to help promote his special. Wired wrote it up. The list of past guest stars who will be featured in the special now includes John Waters (Homer’s Phobia), Sting (Radio Bart) and Jerry Springer (Treehouse of Horror IX). Other than that there isn’t much new information. On a funnier and considerably more crass note, FOX will be slathering the color yellow over every available surface starting after New Year’s: For the week beginning January 3, graphical elements across Fox properties will turn yellow in honor of Matt Groening’s iconic characters.…
Spurlock & Ortved Updates
For his Simpsons special Morgan Spurlock has been getting various different musical acts to cover the Simpsons theme. Now we can add Andrew WK and People Under the Stairs to that list. Then there’s this radio interview with John Ortved. The whole interview is a little less than twenty minutes, but there are two parts I wanted to highlight. The first is at 10:25 when Ortved discusses how the show actually got on the air. All of this information is in the book, obviously, but it’s much more condensed here and it’ll give you a good idea of just how…
Spurlock Update: The Return of Jackie Mason
Jackie Mason, who voiced Rabbi Hymen Krustofsky, is apparently going to be making an appearance in the Spurlock special. At least, according to In Entertainment: The Simpsons are set to mark their 20th birthday celebration with an hour long special, including the reprise of Krusty the Clown’s rabbi father, played by Jackie Mason. The special, will start off with a documentary entitled “The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special: In 3D on Ice, which will be hosted and presented by Morgan Spurlock, the filmmaker behind ‘Super Size Me’. That also makes it sound like the documentary he’s been all over the place…
Spurlock Update: Schedule Announced
FOX announced their midseason schedule today and the Spurlock special will be airing after a new Zombie Simpsons on Sunday January 10th. (It’s got a whole hour devoted to it from 8:30 to 9:30.) Previously the schedule had been announced (or just assumed) as being January 14th, which is a Thursday. I thought they might be doing a one night only return to Thursday to hit the 20th anniversary on the dot, but I guess not. Incidentally, I’ve never fully understood why, in television circles at least, the premier of “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire” doesn’t seem to count. …
Happy Birthday Morgan Spurlock
It’s Spurlock’s birthday today. Happy birthday, Spurlock, from all of us here at the Dead Homer Society. I was going to Simpsonize him, but the Simpsonize website is down at the moment: I guess he’ll have to make do with a graphic-less birthday wish from us. Oh well. All the best to him and here’s hoping his bearded friend from the Isotopes game makes the final cut.
Tiny Spurlock Update: Gettin’ Brazilian
As part of our ongoing efforts to Twitter-stalk Morgan Spurlock, here’s a tweet from the man himself last night: on a plane to rio in the name of Homer – I just heard the temperature is hot, hot, hot with 100 percent chance of passion One assumes that the Brazil trip has something to do with the fact that the Brazilian Tourist Board pitched a small fit back in 2002 over that unwatchably bad Season 13 episode “Blame it on Lisa”. (Tough they were upset more by the childishly stupid portrayal of Rio de Janeiro than by the fact that…
Season 20 Releasing on January 12th
Per TVShowsOnDVD.com Season 20 won’t be here in time for Xmas. Instead, in what is sure to be a promotional shit storm that you won’t be able to escape, they’re releasing it two days before the big 20th anniversary special on January 14th. Which I just noticed is a Thursday, so steel yourselves for that cloyingly enthusiastic FOX announcer to say something like “Get ready for The Simpsons triumphant return to Thursday!” FOX is also putting the squeeze on Zombie Simpson fanboys to buy this things the day it comes out. From the TVShowsOnDVD.com: In the past, season set DVD…
Spurlock Update: Celebrity Checklist
Even by our low standards there isn’t much point in posting things from Spurlock’s Twitter feed, but I’m going to do it anyway: had another Simptastic day – spoke to Mike Reiss, Hank Azaria and Fat Tony himself, Joe Montagnea – tomorrow: Hef at the mansion. Crazy. Other than misspelling Mantegna’s last name there isn’t much of note here. Reiss was there for all the good stuff and has been back lately to no real effect. Azaria is, well, Azaria. Mantegna is fucking awesome and Hefner guest voiced back in the before time, in the long long ago. Will the…
Spurlock Update: Enter Stan And Kyle
Via Spurlock’s Twitter feed we find that yesterday he interviewed Matt Stone and Trey Parker. There’s no specific word on whether or not this is for the Simpsons special, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned following Spurlock these last few months it’s that he’s involved in an enormous number of projects. But it seems unlikely that he’d be interviewing the creators of the most successful non-Simpsons animated show for something other than his upcoming Simpsons thing. So get ready for the obligatory quotes from Stone & Parker about how much The Simpsons meant for them, how it opened doors,…
Spurlock Update: Kids Should Always Do Things They See on TV
Morgan Spurlock is back in Britain, this time so that he can get a twelve year old on film pretending to choke on a ham sandwich: Homer Simpson helped save Wakefield schoolboy Alex Hardy’s life. As Alex choked on a ham sandwich best pal Aiden Bateman strode over with a scene from one of the most popular Simpsons episodes etched in his mind. He performed the Heimlich Manoeuvre after seeing the same lifesaving technique on The Simpson’s third season episode "Homer at the Bat." Now Aiden’s heroics – in the canteen at Crofton Junior School in December 2007 – are…
Spurlock Update: Music & Tired Notions
As part of his Simpsons special our old friend Morgan Spurlock has apparently been contacting different musical groups to perform the theme. From metro.co.uk: Oscar-nominated director Morgan Spurlock has recruited a cult UK jazz act to work on his new film – by recording the theme to The Simpsons. Mercury Prize-nominated group Portico Quartet, currently touring village halls in Somerset, were asked to record the tune for Spurlock’s film, to mark the cartoon’s 20th anniversary. The band, who made a living by busking after leaving college, are among a number of musicians to provide music for the film Apparently we’re…
Spurlock Update: Promotional Bullshit
Morgan Spurlock was at some FOX promo event and was briefly interviewed about the Simpsons special. You can watch all two minutes and fourteen seconds of it here. There’s not much in the way of news, it’s mostly just him being excited. He did say he’s watching all the episodes though, at chunks of 5-6 per day. I’d be fine with that through about Season 9 and then they’d have to put me on suicide watch. Oh, and since it’s hosted by the always lame TV.com you’ll have to turn off any adblocking software you may be using in order…
Spurlock Update: French Pitch
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Morgan Spurlock is presenting the “Simpsons” conference at Mipcom in Cannes, France next month. Groening and Al Jean will also be there for 20th anniversary shenanigans. There’s nothing about him doing any filming for the special, maybe he can find someone who puts anti-freeze in their wine?
Spurlock Update: Goin’ Global
Morgan Spurlock is filming in Scotland for his Simpsons special. We’ve mentioned this briefly in the past, but in Scotland there’s a small dispute over which part of Scotland Groundskeeper Willie calls home. The two main contenders are Aberdeen and Glasgow. Spurlock visited both: When the ginger-haired janitor first appeared on the show, Glaswegians claimed he was from the Dear Green Place. But a counter-claim was then made by Aberdonians who insisted he hailed from the granite city because he was heard to shout: “Go on Aberdeen” in one episode of the cartoon series. In Glasgow Spurlock interviewed people on…
Spurlock Update: Simpson Tattoos
The Buffalo News talked with Al Jean and gave us a little bit more information on Spurlock’s thing: Spurlock interviewed a guy from Seattle who really grew a tomato-tobacco combination inspired by Homer’s creation of the “tomacco.” He also found the person with the most Simpson tattoos. I’ve never understood people’s obsession with “tomacco” as one of the great cultural brain droppings of the show. Then again, I’m not overly fond of that episode and I hate tomatoes. As for the Simpson tattoo person, no word on whether or not it’s this guy: (By the way, College Humor apparently has…