“What’s the matter boy? Don’t you know me? I’m your buddy! I love you boy.” – Bart Simpson It’s always heartwarming to see a lapdog and its owner reconciled, especially when the rekindled love comes about because they remembered the good times. This week’s IGN review was a fawning love letter, not so much for any of this episode’s original content but just because Zombie Simpsons opened the nostalgia valve all the way. As Dave said in our chat, the Plow King was “fan service” and, lo and behold, the mere appearance of the Plow King, however jokeless it may have been, “brought a smile”. As always, I’ve edited out the synergy. December 14, 2009 – With its focus on Bart’s longing for a little brother, "O Brother, Where Bart Thou?" was a fun forgettable and entertaining formulaic outing for The Simpsons Zombie Simpsons. Packed with guest voices, the episode did well by sticking to floundered with one main story instead of adding an even weaker "B" storyline to fill out the half hour. Though Bart may never get his younger brother, we at least got another low quality episode after a couple less than impressive installments. Things began with Springfield getting hit by a snowstorm, causing the schools to shut down and giving Bart a snow day. Comically With contrived CGI, the weather prevented Bart from ever getting outside, and once stuck in the house, a power outage prevented Bart from enjoying his videogames and DVDs. Bart’s attempt to watch "Itchy and Scratchy" using the electricity he could generate from rubbing a balloon against his hair was a highlight particularly stupid but did take up a lot of his struggle to find something to do. Meanwhile, Lisa and Maggie were playing together and enjoying their sisterly bond. Bart tried to play with his sisters for some reason, but was put off by their dress-up game. Bart tried to cover for having no one to play with by insisting he was "a bad ass loner like Wolverine, who leaves whenever people beg him to stay." That evening, despite claiming no dream pointless, time killing storyFAIL could convince him he needed a little brother, a dream convinced Bart he needed a little brother. The dream wasted a lot of fun time, starting with cameos from the Marx Brothers and the Blues Brothers. We also got a glimpse of Sideshow Bob and his brother Cecil flying kites together. The series, of late, seems to be referencing older episodes more often. [Ed. Note: No shit.] Whether a conscious decision because of the anniversary season, or just a coincidence, it works as a short cut to reminiscent laughs serves to highlight how creatively bankrupt this show has become. This episode also had Barney as The Plow King. No real joke was involved, but it brought a smile to this long-time fan’s face served to reinforce the fact that this show’s only remaining appeal is through nostalgia. Other notables in Bart’s brother dream were the Manning…
Tag: O Brother Where Bart Thou
Crazy noises: O Brother Where Bart Thou?
“If you don’t watch the violence you’ll never get desensitized to it.” – Bart Simpson “Just tell me when the scary part’s over.” – Lisa Simpson “It’s over.” – Bart Simpson “Ahhhhhhhh!” – Lisa Simpson In our continuing mission to bring you only the finest in low class, low brow, and low tech internet Simpsons commentary we’re bringing back our “Crazy Noises” series and applying it to Season 21. 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 “tased”). South Park once did an episode titled “Simpsons Already Did It” where, amongst other things, they made fun of the fact that The Simpsons had been on forever and was now resorting to ideas that were less than clever. That was seven years ago. This week Zombie Simpsons had its own little “South Park” sequence. It didn’t have much to do with anything (why Bart would ever take advice from Ralph is beyond me), but it did serve to highlight just how many jokes, scenes and sequences in this episode were either reminiscent, cribbed, or outright recycled from previous episodes. We discuss a number of those below but we forgot to mention the whole Kama Sutra thing which, like so many others in this episode, took way too long and made no sense. Mad Jon: Anyway. I just watched last night’s episode. Charlie Sweatpants: Ouch, wanna start with that one while the trauma is still fresh? Mad Jon: Works for me. Dave: I re-watched it That’s how much I liked it Mad Jon: Masochist eh? Dave: That’s me! Mad Jon: That’s cool. To each their own. Charlie Sweatpants: Was anything particularly worse on a second viewing? Dave: Nah, nothing jumped out. It was as unremarkable tonight as it was last night. Mad Jon: Unremarkable is pretty on the nose. Dave: The writers seem to be forgetting that the show’s supposed to be funny. Mad Jon: It didn’t make me cringe like the Zombies usually do, but I may just be desensitized. Charlie Sweatpants: Unremarkable is a good way to put it. With the exception of the completely unnecessary and pointless South Park thing I don’t think anyone’s going to remember this one a week from now. Mad Jon: On the other hand, I, per usual didn’t even crack a smile. Dave: I did, admittedly, when Chief Wiggum was tased Mad Jon: I almost did at the weather report, but then they took it too far. Always too far. Charlie Sweatpants: When they do come up with a kinda good idea they seem so surprised that they just feel the need to run it right into the ground. Mad Jon: I think the writers look at jokes the way I looked at chemistry experiments in high school. Charlie Sweatpants: I thought the horse thing at the beginning had some potential, but then it…
Cleveland Show Strikes Back
The numbers are in and last night’s Zombie Simpsons snorefest was watched by a mere 7.11 million people. That’s the second lowest number all year and brings the Season 21 average down to a mere 8.23 million viewers. Adding insult to injury, an all new Cleveland Show came in at 7.68 million, which narrows Zombie Simpsons’ lead in their utterly meaningless contest to 5-3. This was also the last new Zombie Simpsons before the big 20th anniversary show in January, that one will have massive promotional hype, Spurlock’s special, and the release of the Season 20 DVDs to promote it. However, right now Season 21 is more than 400,000 viewers, on average, behind Season 20 through the same time and number of episodes last year. Even a massive number for the anniversary show probably won’t be enough to keep Season 21 from being the lowest rated season ever. Huzzah. Update 15 December: TV by the Numbers had their episode titles mixed up, they originally had a Zombie Simpsons re-run at 8:30 instead of The Cleveland Show. This meant that it looked like The Cleveland Show had garnered the 7.68 in Family Guy‘s spot. So the score is actually 6-2 and I don’t think the second MacFarlane spinoff has much of a chance of closing it. Oh well. Thanks to Simpsons Channel for having more patience in posting than I did.
That’s Okay Lisa, We Can’t Believe This Is Still Happening Either
“Bart has been guilty of the following atrocities: synthesizing a laxative from peas and carrots, replacing my birth control pills with tic tacs.” – Mrs. Krabappel Well, that was unpleasant. A few weeks ago Bart was way out of character worrying about his future. This time he’s way out of character worrying about not having a brother. As per usual the nonsensical storyline wasn’t nearly meaty enough to fill the allotted time so there was plenty of clock killing montages (including a star studded dream sequence that was as humorless as it was unbelievably long). What jokes there were tended to be either ripped off or recycled from earlier episodes. That they were done much poorer than in the original goes almost without saying. The final word here comes from Zombie Simpsons itself. Near the beginning, as Homer was acting even jerkier than usual, an exasperated and disbelieving Lisa simply said, “Really?”. Really.
Sunday Preview: “O Brother, Where Bart Thou?”
For some reason, the Manning brothers are featured in the promo pic for tonight’s episode of Zombie Simpsons, which is awkwardly titled “O Brother, Where Bart Thou?” See, there’s Peyton, Cooper, and Eli. And they’re playing catch. With a football. If you really care, here’s a synopsis… but I think you’ll find Fake Peyton Manning’s posts on the much-loved but abandoned Newsgroper funnier. When Homer denies Bart’s request for a baby brother, Bart makes his way to the Springfield Orphanage to find what he thinks he’s missing. At least this is the last episode of 2009, so that’s something to look forward to.