“Beaten by an infant. What could be more humiliating?” – C.M. Burns “What a scoop!” – Paparazzo
Tag: Rosebud
Quote of the Day
“Here are several fine young men who I’m sure are gonna go far. Ladies and gentlemen, the Ramones.” – Mr. Smithers “Ah, these minstrels will soothe my jangled nerves.” – C.M. Burns “I’d just like to say this gig sucks.” – Joey Ramone “Hey, up yours, Springfield.” – Johnny Ramone
Quote of the Day
“Remember, Smithers: in and out in eighteen seconds.” – C.M. Burns
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“I’m sure he’ll over us a fair reward. . . . And then we’ll make him double it!” – Marge Simpson “Huh?” – Homer, Bart, & Lisa Simpson “Well, why can’t I be greedy once in a while?” – Marge Simpson Happy birthday, Julie Kavner!
Why Zombie Simpsons Is Unkillable
“Is it my imagination, or is TV getting worse?” – Lisa Simpson “Enh, it’s about the same.” – Homer Simpson NOTE: I’m in the process of shopping an expanded version of “Zombie Simpsons: How the Best Show Ever Became the Broadcasting Undead” to publishers. I don’t know whether or not it will ever make it to store shelves, but if it does, the following would be one of the new chapters. (If you end up reading it again in a bookstore a year from now, try to look surprised.) I’m publishing it today in light of Alf Clausen’s firing, which caused me to add a new paragraph last night. Feel free to smile and nod and link and share this page [stomps on your foot]. The more traffic and attention it gets, the better chance it has of becoming a real, dead-tree book at some point in the future. Also, on your way out, if you want to post it to /r/TheSimpsons, it would help me a lot. If the show has been so bad for so long, the natural question then becomes: why is it still on the air? The very short answer is that (just) enough people keep watching. The less short answer is that after crashing around the turn of the millennium, Zombie Simpsons has managed to lose viewers at a slightly slower rate than network television itself. Broadcast network viewership has been declining for decades. In the 1990s, cable and satellite finally came into their own and gave people many (many, many) more channels to watch. Then the 2000s saw the internet transform from a geek curiosity into the rapidly mutating attention succubus we know today. Network audiences have been eroding the whole time. In 1983, the final episode of M.A.S.H. was watched by more than half of the total U.S. population. In 1993, the Cheers finale managed a little over a third. In 2004, the last episode of Friends pulled less than a fifth.* *[ http://screenrant.com/highest-rated-series-finales-all-time-tv/ ] Those were extraordinary events, and the night-in-night-out averages dropped right along with them. During the first full season of The Simpsons in 1990-91, a show needed well over 20 million viewers per week to make it into the Top 30 rated programs. By the 2000-01 season, that number had declined to 14 million weekly viewers. By the 2010-11 season, it was hovering around 10 million.* For the 2016-17 season, shows need less than 5 million viewers to crack the Top 30, a 75% decline in twenty-six years. *[Nielsen numbers for 1990 & 2000 taken from Brooks & Marsh, 2010 numbers taken from http://deadline.com/2011/05/full-2010-11-season-series-rankers-135917/ ] The Simpsons spent its 1990s creative peak hovering just above or below the Top 30 line. As the show collapsed in terms of quality, the ratings took a corresponding nosedive, and in the 2000s Zombie Simpsons usually pulled in somewhere between 50th and 60th. But instead of falling all the way off television, the rate of decline stabilized. Since Al Jean took over in…
A Small Example of Typically Astonishing Dialogue from “Rosebud”
“I’m so funny! This is gonna be great!” – Homer Simpson “What are you doing?” – Marge Simpson “I’m writing a delicious send up of Mr. Burns for his birthday party. Is “poo-poo” one word or two?” – Homer Simpson The Simpsons wouldn’t be what it is without the acting, the animation, the music, the sound effects, and everything else, but ultimately it all derives from the writing, and the writing on the show was as finely honed as any artistic masterpiece. Consider this brief stretch of dialog from “Rosebud”: Homer: “Ow. Where did I lose ’em? I’ll never wiggle my bare butt in public again.” Lisa: “I’d like to believe that this time, I really would.” Marge: “Bart, run down to the store and get a big bag of ice for your father.” Bart: “Yes’m. Dad, I know you’re discouraged, but please don’t deny the world your fat can.” Homer: “Don’t worry, boy, she’ll be ready for your Aunt Selma’s birthday.” Lisa: “I knew it.” If this exchange isn’t taught in screenwriting classes, it should be. The jokes start in the first line because Homer didn’t “lose” his audience, he never had them in the first place. (Going on after an announcement about the death of a small puppy, not unlike Lassie, will do that.) From there Homer, profoundly dejected, declares that he’s going to keep his “bare butt” private from now on. Lisa’s response is three punchlines in one: 1) “like to believe”, because she clearly doesn’t, 2) “this time”, which means Homer has promised to stop showing his butt to strangers multiple times before, and 3) “I really would”, the resigned, melancholy sincerity of this means that not only does she not believe him, she’s so numb from being let down in the past that she can’t bring herself to believe her father even a little. Look how sad she is. The next line is Marge advancing the plot (a/k/a exposition) which the show seamlessly blends in with the jokes. It fits snugly both with Marge’s character and the immediate situation. This kind of routine, quick, and sensible story advancement is totally beyond Zombie Simpsons. Bart gives his mother a smarmy “Yessum”, as though he routinely does errands with no objection, and then immediately tries to cheer Homer up by telling him not to be “discouraged” about mooning strangers. Note that he doesn’t say it directly or even crudely, his appeal to Homer is downright noble in its phrasing: to not “deny the world” Homer’s “fat can”. Bart finds Homer’s ass as sincerely hilarious as Lisa finds it mortifying, and the wording perfectly conveys that without so much as a wasted syllable or stray modifier. Look how genuinely supportive Bart is of Homer’s penchant for mooning. It’s endearingly funny. Because of that setup, Homer’s response can work on two levels: first, he instantly cheers up because, like Bart, Homer finds “wiggling his bare butt” in public to be the height of humor. He’s almost gleeful about it.…
Quote of the Day
“Naturally I can’t pay you much of a reward because I’m strapped for cash. . . . As you can see, this old place is falling apart.” – C.M. Burns
Compare & Contrast: Burns’s Childhood Trauma
“Wait, you forgot your bear! A symbol of your lost youth and innocence!” – Papa Burns First, a brief update: I have been pedaling around the Midwest for a couple weeks now. After six days on the road, I departed my home state of Michigan on a ferry to Wisconsin, then went south through Chicago, across Indiana, and made it into Ohio last Saturday. For the last few days I’ve been staying with Mad Jon and his wife here in Cleveland. The most obvious mistake I made in planning this trip was to massively over-estimate how much free time I would have. It turns out it’s not just the biking itself that takes a while, it’s also things like making and breaking camp, finding food on the road, and simply figuring out where to go and how to get there. Add in an hour or two per day spent remoting into my useless real job and my fantasy of watching Simpsons episodes in sunlit parks died a harsh death on the road. It didn’t help that the bicycle mode on Google Maps is the best route to your destination . . . not always. Yesterday I did make time to watch the season premier of Zombie Simpsons, “Monty Burns’ Fleeing Circus”. It is every bit as boring and formulaic as we’ve come to expect. There’s lots of pointless exposition, jokes that get explained and pre-explained, characters that act nothing like themselves, and lots of loose plot threads. For those of you with the good sense not to have watched it, a brief synopsis follows. The town is destroyed by a laser like sunbeam that somehow reflects off of a concrete sculpture. The Simpson family then goes to Burns Manor to beg Mr. Burns to rebuild the town. He agrees to rebuild on the condition that he can stage a variety show at Springfield Bowl. (Why he wouldn’t be able to just do this anytime is never explored.) Over the course of about half a dozen flashbacks, we see that Burns himself had performed at the Bowl as a child and been humiliated, and this new show is some kind of redemption, or something. Meanwhile, since no one is in charge at the nuclear plant, the employees throw a days long party and it explodes. There are, naturally, a lot of plots and stories that get swiftly forgotten as soon as they’re off screen. First and foremost is the aforementioned destruction of the town. We see it in rubble, and then never again, though apparently the school and the Simpson home were unaffected since we see them. Further, “wait, what?” type moments include the apparently harmless explosion at the plant, characters like Lenny both being in Burns’s show and partying at the plant, and the complete disappearance of the audience at Burns’s show, which was such a whopper that they actually felt compelled to mention it: Lisa: Wait, where did they go? How did 15,000 people leave so fast? Hey, uh, wanna see…
Quote of the Day
“Every time Mr. Burns has a birthday, all his employees have to help out at the party, and I always get some terrible job.” – Homer Simpson “Where is that dratted pinata?” – C.M. Burns “Ow….Ow….Ow….Missed me!….Ow.” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
“My life can’t get any worse.” – Homer Simpson “Homer Simpson, report for much worse duty.” – Mr. Smithers “D’oh!” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
“The Burns bear, perhaps the most valuable little bear in the world, could be anywhere. It could be in your house. You could be looking at it right now. It could be right in front of your face as I’m saying this, waggling back and forth, perhaps being help up by a loved one.” – Kent Brockman “Maggie, I’m trying to watch TV. Put that moldy old bear down. Moldy! Old! I’m gonna get something to eat!” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
“It’s not funny! . . . And the one in my pants really hurts.” – Homer Simpson
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“Smithers, I’m so happy! Something amazing has happened, I’m actually happy! Take a note: from now on, I’m only going to be good and kind to everyone.” – C.M. Burns “I’m sorry, sir, I don’t have a pencil.” – Mr. Smithers “Don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll remember it.” – C.M. Burns
Quote of the Day
“Simpson, look what you’ve reduced me to.” – C.M. Burns “Please! Please!” – Mr. Smithers
Quote of the Day
“Excuse me, we wanted to see the geek who valued the happiness of his children more than money.” – Nuclear Plant Guy #1 “Right here.” – Homer Simpson “Aww, you said his head was the size of a baseball.” – Nuclear Plant Guy #2
Quote of the Day
“Hey! No one-termers.” – Burns Security Guard “You too, huh? Hey, I know a good yogurt place.” – Jimmy Carter “Get away from me, loser.” – Bush the Elder Happy 20th Anniversary to “Rosebud”! Original airdate 21 October 1993.
Quote of the Day
“Who needs his money? We’re getting by okay.” – Homer Simpson “Son, you gotta help me! I hit three people on the way over here, and I don’t have any insurance! So, how’s by you?” – Abe “Grampa” Simpson
Quote of the Day
“Hey, Apu, this bag of ice has a head in it.” – Bart Simpson “Ooh, a head bag. Those are chock full of heady goodness.” – Apu Nahasapeemapetilon
Quote of the Day
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to humiliate your boss on his birthday.” – Marge Simpson “Actually, Mom, a tweaking of Mr. Burns’ foibles, if done with the greatest of care, could earn Dad a special place in the old man’s heart.” – Lisa Simpson “Well, I also do a delightful impression of him. I paint a frowny face on my butt and pull down my pants!” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
Left image from here, Marilyn Monroe died fifty years ago today. “On another topic, the preparations for your birthday have begun.” – Mr. Smithers “I won’t get what I really want.” – C.M. Burns “No one does.” – Mr. Smithers “Happy birthday, Mr. Smithers.” – Fantasy Burns