“Is there room at your table for a foolish old man?” – Abe “Grampa” Simpson “Well, sure! We’ll have to move a chair in from the den, but it’s no problem. Bart!” – Homer Simpson Before we finish up with “Politically Inept, With Homer Simpson”, I want to point out one last trick they used to try and make this out-of-date hodgepodge seem snappy and current. Like the faces of the various Republican contenders (and the null signs over the pictures of Cain and Bachmann), this was clearly a late addition used to work around the fact that the production schedule prevents them from ever being with the times. Here is the establishing shot of the Republican meeting where Ted Nugent makes his unexplained appearance: After this, the show cuts to a close up of Burns and Homer discussing Homer’s choice. When Homer balks and asks if they can get Chris Christie, Burns points stage left and we see . . . . . . Chris Christie, as out of place as if he were in a flashback. Partly this is just Zombie Simpsons’ old habit of having characters beam in and out of scenes whenever a line and a half of dialogue calls for it. But in this case it doubles as another incongruous way to make this episode seem the least bit current. Just a few seconds after the above cuts back to Homer, he gets his gravy hat shot off by Ted Nugent, and we see that Christie is once again missing from the table: And we’re back to how we were in the original shot. There’s no Christie, nor is there food all over the place. Most importantly, it’s all characters they could animate into the scene well in advance, so if Christie had actually run they could’ve shown Mitch Daniels sitting in his wife’s handbag or Tim Pawlenty quivering in a pool of his own flop sweat. This is just a minor cheat, but it nicely illustrates what a Frankenstein’s monster Zombie Simpsons really is. It’s made of unrelated pieces (many of them quite old) sewn together and zapped to see if they’ll stand up and walk. And if they have to staple a few scenes on like a bad toupee to make it look kinda normal, then so be it.
Tag: Politically Inept With Homer Simpson
Compare & Contrast: The Republican High Command
“Hail, brothers! Coranon silaria, ozoo mahoke!” – C.M. Burns “Mahoke!” – Republicans There were so many nonsense plot twists in “Politically Inept, With Homer Simpson” that some of the worst ones went by so quickly I almost didn’t notice that they had happened. At one point though, they stopped briefly at the impenetrable fortress that is Republican Party Headquarters. That imposing structure made its first appearance in “Sideshow Bob Roberts”, and while this isn’t the first time they’ve revisited it, this one was notably similar because the fiends and ghouls within its walls were doing the same thing they were doing back in Season 6: selecting a candidate. In each case they weren’t selecting the candidate alone. Both times they were making their choice with the help of a popular talk show host. But that’s about where the similarities end. In “Sideshow Bob Roberts”, those men (and their vampire friend) are exactly the kind of people you’d expect to see plotting strategy in the highest tower of a scary ass castle. They begin their meeting with a ritualized and evil sounding greeting, and they’re there for the explicit purpose of placing one of their unquestioning henchman in the mayor’s office. Even better, they’re so contemptuous of democracy and apathetic toward anything but their own interests that at first they actually think that the water cooler in the hallway is the candidate. These guys are mean and powerful, but also kinda clueless. In other words, they’re Republicans. Note that everyone but Barlow is clapping. Now consider what happens at the exact same meeting, in the exact same place, in “Politically Inept, With Homer Simpson”. It’s even mostly the same cast of characters, but none of them do anything except sit there in the background. Burns is the only one who speaks, and all he does is ask Homer to pick from a set of actual candidates. For starters, the Burns I know would never abdicate a decision to the likes of Homer. More blatantly, these guys have become powerless feebs. They’re supposed to be evil and just short of all powerful, and yet they sit silently while Homer picks their presidential candidate. How the hell did these guys ever earn their way to the top of that castle? Compounding what a bunch of slack jawed wimps they are, Ted Nugent strolls out of the darkness firing his little bow to the surprise of everyone: You’d think a castle like that would have better security. Zombie Simpsons isn’t making any kind of political point here, they aren’t mocking the Republican Party or any part of our goofy, convoluted electoral process. They’re thoughtlessly using the same party headquarters they’ve always used before getting to what they know best: getting everyone else out of the way so that Homer and Ted can act like crazy people. The problem is that this situation isn’t funny and doesn’t work unless those guys at the table are at least a little frightening and/or competent. The castle, the…
Crazy Noises: Politically Inept, With Homer Simpson
“You know, Homer, when I found out about this I went through a wide range of emotions. First I was nervous, then anxious, then wary, then apprehensive, then kind of sleepy, then worried, and then concerned. But now I realize that being a spaceman is something you have to do.” – Marge Simpson “Who’s doing what now?” – Homer Simpson This episode suffered from a severe case of plot whiplash more or less from start to finish. Homer goes through so many different phases here that the episode itself got confused toward the end. After the plane freakout, the YouTube fame, the talk show guest spot, and finally him getting his own Glenn Beck-lite style show, I think they just sort of lost track of what Homer was supposed to be doing and feeling at any given moment. Right after he starts his gravy thing, Lisa gets cold feet (yes, she was on set with him, why do you ask?), to which Homer replies: Don’t worry, sweetie, I think I know how to whip up an audience just short of a frenzy. Once his gravy boat thing takes off, Marge and Lisa complain, to which he replies: I’m an entertainer. And you can’t entertain and inform at the same time. So, wait, what is Homer doing now? Does he think he’s just an entertainer, or does he think he’s seriously advocating things? In the first quote he sounds serious, in the second not so much, and keep in mind that he says the second line on his way to Republican Party headquarters. A bit later, after he finds out that his obviously fake dream was fake, Homer tells Lisa: I’m so mad, not only will I endorse Ted Nugent, I will call for an end to the direct election of Senators! And like that, he’s moved onto another new position: serious but angry. That lasts for all of one minute before he fails to cry and Lisa (again out of nowhere) tells him: Maybe it’s because deep down you don’t believe in what you’re doing. Homer agrees with that and the episode peters out, which only serves to make things even more contradictory and convoluted. Now that he’s serious again he can’t cry because he doesn’t really believe in what he believed two scenes ago, which was when he was serious and able to cry on command. Wait, what? The whole ending is predicated on the idea that Homer can’t cry unless he seriously believes what he’s saying, but he already admitted earlier that he can cry when he’s not serious. Charlie Sweatpants: Shall we get to the odious task at hand? Mad Jon: Please. The sooner we start, the sooner I can die from it. Charlie Sweatpants: That’s a good way to look at it. Though it is taking a more long term approach to this whole thing than they were. Mad Jon: You are probably right. Charlie Sweatpants: This episode is going to age worse than almost…
Somewhere, Birch Barlow Doesn’t Weep
“Bart, I don’t want you to see me cry.” – Milhouse van Houten “Oh come on, I’ve seen you cry a million times. You cry when you scrape your knee, you cry when they’re out of chocolate milk, you cry when you’re doing long division and you have a remainder left over.” – Bart Simpson A few episodes ago, Zombie Simpsons had Krusty point out that because of the lead time of their animation they come off looking like cheap, late-to-the-party hacks when they try to do topical shows. That fundamental problem was all over last night’s year late Glenn Beck-Tea Party episode. The subject matter was stale and the satire was stuff that has been done better elsewhere, but the place you can see it most is in the little tricks they use to make this expired milk seem fresh. They ran current jokes in a news ticker, they had static images of the Republican presidential field on a table, with Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain’s photos crossed out with easy-to-add-late graphics. They know that these episodes don’t work well, but they went ahead and did it anyway because if you can take some potshots at Glenn Beck a year after he was dumped off television and add in some political jokes no one will care about two months from now, then you have to do it. Of course, problems with stale topicality were accompanied by other typical Zombie Simpsons problems. There was a main story that did not manage to make sense for more than two minutes. Characters appeared and disappeared at will, most egregiously when Nugent showed up at the breakfast table immediately after Lisa was talking as though he wasn’t there. And there was plenty of really pointless slapstick, including Homer getting hurt, kids lining up to be randomly fired into an archery target, and Homer dumping paint on his own head. Watching this, I really can’t help but think the staff would rather be writing for Saturday Night Live or The Daily Show. Sketch comedy is clearly what they like doing, politics provides and endless supply of cheap jokes, and things like Homer’s airplane freakout at the beginning are right in that four or five minute sketch show sweet spot. After that one we got Homer on someone else’s talk show, Homer on his own talk show, and Homer thinks he travels to the past, among others. Of course, all that was supposed to be happening against a background story of a national political movement, but they didn’t pay much attention to that so I don’t see why the audience should have to. Anyway, the numbers are in and they are really, truly awful. FOX didn’t have a late football game, but CBS had Pittsburgh-Denver going to overtime at 8:00pm, which meant that a mere 5.11 million people remembered Ted Nugent after the Steelers came back to tie it late. That’s easily the lowest so far this season and is tied with Season 21’s “Million…
Sunday Preview: Politically Inept, With Homer Simpson
It’s a new year, but Zombie Simpsons is up to its same old stale tricks: Homer lands his own political talk show after a video featuring his impassioned rant on poor treatment at the airport goes viral. As his talk show quickly gains popularity nationwide, Homer becomes the spokesperson for the Gravy Movement and the voice of America’s newest political party. But when ill-informed Homer is asked to select the next Republican nominee for President and officially endorses right-wing rock star Ted Nugent (guest voicing as himself), Marge and Lisa worry that Homer’s opinion and influence might be more powerful than he realizes. There’s familiar combination of elements: Homer getting a new job, a celebrity guest voicing as himself, and a story that doesn’t make any sense. At least it sounds like they’re accurately portraying the Nuge’s ideological commitment to getting people to pay attention to him. Welcome to 2012, everyone.