“Please, Dad, this argument humiliates us both.” – Lisa Simpson “If I said ‘No’ the first time, what makes you think I’m gonna say ‘Yes’ the second time?” – Homer Simpson “Nothing, but you may say ‘Yes’ the ninety-ninth time.” – Lisa Simpson “Oh? Try me.” – Homer Simpson “Please, Dad.” – Lisa Simpson “No.” – Homer Simpson “Please, Dad.” – Lisa Simpson “No.” – Homer Simpson “Please, Dad.” – Lisa Simpson “No.” – Homer Simpson “Please, Dad.” – Lisa Simpson “No.” – Homer Simpson “Please, Dad.” – Lisa Simpson “No.” – Homer Simpson “Please, Dad.” – Lisa Simpson “Oh, okay, okay.” – Homer Simpson
Tag: One Fish Two Fish Blowfish Blue Fish
Quote of the Day
“Why are we all dressed up?” – Bart Simpson “Because sometimes it’s fun to dress up for dinner.” – Marge Simpson “Why are we using the good china?” – Lisa Simpson “Because sometimes it’s fun to use the good china.” – Marge Simpson “What’s with the candles?” – Bart Simpson “Sometimes it’s fun to use candles.” – Marge Simpson “Why are we waiting for Dad?” – Lisa Simpson “Because we love your father and enjoy his company!” – Marge Simpson “Why are we really waiting for Dad?” – Bart Simpson
Quote of the Day
“Your wife agreed that I should break this to you.” – Dr. Hibbert “No, need, doc. I can read Marge like a book. . . . Ooh, it’s good news! Isn’t it?” – Homer Simpson “No, Mr. Simpson.” – Dr. Hibbert
Quote of the Day
“I want to share something with you: the three little sentences that will get you through life. Number one: ‘Cover for me’. Number two: ‘Oh, good idea, boss!’. Number three: ‘It was like that when I got here’.” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
“You gotta help me, Barney! I’m in jail!” – Homer Simpson “You are? Hey, Homer, go to the window. Hiya, neighbor! I can see you!” – Barney Gumble
Quote of the Day
“Smithers, check out the luscious pair on that redhead. . . . That’s it, baby. Work those ankles.” – C.M. Burns “Ring a ding ding, sir.” – Mr. Smithers
Quote of the Day
“Forty-eight dollars and seventy cents . . . ah, you know we don’t usually take rusty money.” – Chief Wiggum
Behind Us Forever: Teenage Mutant Milk-caused Hurdles
“Now, come on, you’re going to learn how to shave.” – Homer Simpson I completely didn’t realize there was a new episode last week. Ignorance is truly bliss. This week, Homer goes to the store to buy milk, and ends up getting a new kind that pushes both of his kids into early onset puberty, which basically means zits for Lisa and a mustache for Bart. Meanwhile, there’s a new, hot teacher at the school and Bart and Skinner compete with each other for her attention. If it was coherent in the least it’d be weird, instead it’s just the usual Zombie Simpsons mess. – La-Z Rider couch gag was kinda fun, and sucked a minute and a half out of the episode. Good for it. – We open on thirty seconds of chaos in the classroom while Willie reads poetry. For the record, that’s 10% of the show gone and not a single word written by the staff. This might be the best episode of the season. – Nevermind. Willie just pre-explained a vaping joke. – The new teacher is a cool army vet. Bart’s inner monologue is explaining to us how he’s feeling about this. – Homer is driving now and singing that he has a legal BAC. Then he passes Wiggum, who says, “I like it when the drivers sing their blood alcohol level”. It’s not enough for them to (repeatedly) tell us what we’re seeing, now they’re telling us they like doing it. – Case in point: Homer just said, “Woo-hoo, I’m running a basic errand.” – Apu and Homer are discussing fancy milk. Apu then tells us we’re about to watch a video. Guess what happens next? Go on. Guess. – The video took forty seconds. – Homer, Bart and Marge are in the kitchen acting surprised that Bart’s hair is combed. Homer then narrates and explains a sign gag before asking Bart to restate the plot about his cool new teacher. – Still in the kitchen. Still restating the teacher plot. – Bart’s hanging out with the new teacher by telling us about things we didn’t see. Novel. – Montage! – Skinner just appeared out of nowhere, and we got everything explained out loud again by Skinner’s brain, Bart’s brain, and then the new teacher’s brain. – Lisa and Bart are both starting puberty apparently, so their natural, child like reaction is to run into their parents room and exposit about it. – Marge says, “I just read about it in Thing magazine.” Then she holds up the magazine. – Homer is teaching Bart to shave. Huh. Never seen that before. – It’s apparently recess, and Skinner is expositing as a way of hitting on the new teacher. – Lisa is wearing makeup now to cover up her new acne. This leads to more inner monologue exposition, which is apparently this week’s theme: “Oh, my God. I’m popular. Hope this doesn’t go to my head. It went right to my head!” – Bart’s getting tutored…
Quote of the Day
“Sushi? Hey, maybe this is just one of those things you hear on the playground, but isn’t that raw fish?” – Bart Simpson “As usual, the playground has the facts right but missed the point entirely.” – Lisa Simpson
Sam Simon Roundup
Did you know he drew this? I didn’t know that. “You looked so peaceful lying there.” – Marge Simpson “There’ll be plenty of time for that! I got tons of important stuff to do!” – Homer Simpson This post was originally going to go up Tuesday, then Wednesday, then yesterday, but I kept finding more great Simon articles to add. Regular Reading Digest will be back next week, including all the non-Simon stuff I missed from this week. Several of these are from @DailySimpsons and @rubbrcatsimp, both of which are great follows if you want news and quotes from the show. By Ken Levine: My thoughts on Sam Simon – I will leave you with two brief excerpts from Ken Levine’s goodbye note, but it’s worth clicking on in full right now: In 1985 David Isaacs and I created a series for Mary Tyler Moore. For reasons I won’t go into here, it was a nightmare. We knew Sam Simon from our time on CHEERS. He graciously agreed to join the staff and help on this Mary project. As things went from bad to worse to the brink of thermonuclear war, Sam stood by us. Most of the other writers bolted. Not Sam. He steadfastly hung in there with us. Honestly, we could not have done it without Sam. For that and that alone I have always loved Sam Simon. He could do no wrong in my book. And: I worked with Sam on seven series and pilots. He attended family seders, special occasions, and he spoke at my SITCOM ROOM seminar (telling students that sitcoms were dead – thanks for that). He had a wicked sense of humor, even during his recent suffering. A few months ago, when PBS aired the Roger Ebert documentary he was tweeting “get to the cancer already.” Ha. ‘Simpsons’ producer Al Jean remembers Sam Simon – It always has been one of my favorite lines: “Here’s a joke that he put in in a show that was written with him and Matt [Groening, the show’s creator] and Mike and me. Bart is doing something to be popular and Homer goes, ‘Son, being popular is the most important thing in the world.’ And that kind of summed up The Simpsons, where it’s this dad giving what seems to be TV Dad advice, but it’s the worst advice in the world. It’s what no TV Dad should ever say. There were very few jokes that encapsulated The Simpsons as perfectly as that one. Sam Simon (1955 – 2015) – Our old friend over at rubbercat.net/simpsons wrote the best and most complete obituary I saw, and it’s got a ton of great links. RIP, Sam Simon: How a lone fear led to creating a key character on ‘The Simpsons’ – Great story: “He was a hard guy. He was a really tough guy,” Silverman tells Comic Riffs. “He gave me a dismissive hand at first.” One of the show’s first-season episodes, though, proved a turning point. Silverman — who had also…
Quote of the Day
“That’s sorta nice. What are you in for?” – Homer Simpson “Atmosphere.” – Harmonica Prisoner
Quote of the Day
“Akira, my good man, I’d like two sharks, an octopus, and an eel.” – Bart Simpson “Very good.” – Akira “Do you have any giant squid? The kind that drags men to their deaths?” – Bart Simpson “Not today.” – Akira Happy birthday George Takei!
Reading Digest: Sam Simon Rocks His Cancer Edition
“Now, a little death anxiety is normal. You can expect to go through five stages. The first is denial.” – Dr. Hibbert “No way, because I’m not dying!” – Homer Simpson “Second is anger.” – Dr. Hibbert “Why you little!” – Homer Simpson “After that comes fear.” – Dr. Hibbert “What’s after fear? What’s after fear?” – Homer Simpson “Bargaining.” – Dr. Hibbert “Doc, you gotta get me out of this. I’ll make it worth your while.” – Homer Simpson “Finally, acceptance.” – Dr. Hibbert “Well, we all gotta go some time.” – Homer Simpson “Mr. Simpson, your progress astounds me.” – Dr. Hibbert The big, endlessly repeated Simpsons story this week was a piece of non-news: that there still isn’t a movie sequel in the works. Groening and Silverman made an appearance and basically said that there are no plans right now for a second movie. Since the pop-culture internet is often an inch deep/mile wide kind of affair, that became countless misleading headlines like this “The Simpsons Movie ‘ Sequel Should Be Here In ’10, 15 Years’”. That’s not what they said at all, but run through copy & paste long enough, that’s what it becomes. They said they weren’t working on a new one, which is unchanged from last year, and the year before that. Carry on. There was another piece of Simpsons news this week, though it didn’t get picked up in near as many places: Sam Simon has cancer, the really bad kind. He announced it publicly on a radio show hosted by one of Howard Stern’s acolytes, and . . . well, you can listen for yourself. Suffice to say, if cancer is what ends up getting me, I hope I handle it half as well as he is. All the best to him. On more usual topics, we’ve got a beer review, the intentionally broken downside of “freemium” games, a great Homer cosplay, a Simpsons joke I’d never caught before, some Simpsons related roommate love, and a kid who wants to try out The Simpsons and needs some advice. Enjoy. (Oh, and today is Issue #2 of the Ann Arbor Review of Books. Get ’em while the pixels are still wet.) Sam Simon announces he has colon-cancer on HOWARD 101 – The cancer part starts at the 6:30 mark: I started to transcribe some of what he said, but it really doesn’t come across in print. The radio guy is kinda flustered and screws up a few times, but Simon is laughing, bullshitting, and as at ease as it is possible for someone in his situation. Sam Simon fucking owns. Matt Groening: ‘Simpsons’ Movie Follow-Up is Far, Far Away – No new movie is in the works. We can all breathe easy, but if they wanted to make some more theatrical shorts, I’d be okay with that. Top 10 Simpsons Episodes – A great opening to a great list: My forehead is creased beyond measure. Sweat pours of out my…uhh, pores. I grunt…
Saturday Afternoon Cartoons
“Goodbye, Maggie, stay as sweet as you are . . . Goodbye, Lisa, I know you’ll make me proud . . . Goodbye, Bart . . . I like your sheets.” – Homer Simpson I know all these episodes so well that I often forget just how gobsmackingly amazing they are. The entire premise of “One Fish Two Fish Blowfish Blue Fish” is that Homer is going to die. The episode is mostly heartfelt moments and sadness, and yet it is laugh out loud funny and beautifully drawn. Even compressed and scaled down, you can see the bittersweet emotion on Homer’s face as he bids a silent farewell to his daughters, as well as the more neutral expression when he says goodbye to Bart. This is a legitimately tearjerk moment, and yet it is also funny. Twenty years on, this show blows me away.
Quote of the Day
“Is it done yet? Is it done yet?” – Homer Simpson “Your meatloaf will be ready in eight seconds, Homer.” – Marge Simpson “D’oh! Isn’t there anything faster than a microwave?” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
“Poison? Oh, what should I do? What should I do? Tell me quick!” – Homer Simpson “No need to panic. There’s a map to the hospital on the back of the menu.” – Sushi Chef
Quote of the Day
Image used under Creative Commons license from Flickr user oliptang. “If in fact you’ve consumed the venom of the blowfish, and from what the chef has told me it’s quite probable, you have twenty-four hours to live.” – Dr. Hibbert “Twenty-four hours?” – Homer Simpson “Well, twenty-two, I’m sorry I kept you waiting so long.” – Dr. Hibbert
Quote of the Day
“This is our karaoke bar. Now it is empty, but soon it will be hopping with drunken, Japanese businessmen.” – Happy Sumo Hostess Happy 20th anniversary to “One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish”! Original airdate 24 January 1991.
Quote of the Day
“Dad, we’ve never been too close, have we?” – Homer Simpson “Not to my knowledge.” – Abe “Grampa” Simpson
Quote of the Day
“What would you recommend for a family that’s not sure they should be here?” – Marge Simpson “The ‘Sushi Surprise’, a little bit of everything. It is very non-threatening.” – Akira Happy Birthday George Takei! [Edited because I forgot the word “not” the first time.]