“What are you here for?” – Bleeding Gums Murphy “My brother just had his appendix out.” – Lisa Simpson “Is he gonna be okay?” – Bleeding Gum Murphy “Hello, I’m Dr. Cheeks. I’m doing my rounds and I’m a little behind.” – Bart Simpson “He’ll be fine.” – Lisa Simpson
Tag: ‘Round Springfield
Quote of the Day
“This boy’s appendix is inflamed and about to burst, which will make it easier to find once I get in there.” – Dr. Hibbert
Quote of the Day
“Excuse me, my good man, I have five hundred dollars to blow. What’ve you got?” – Bart Simpson “Behold, the ultimate pog!” – Comic Book Guy
Quote of the Day
“Jazz, pfft! They just make it up as they go along. I can do that. Di-di-di-di-di-di-di, de de de…” – “That’s Mary had a little lamb.” – Marge Simpson “Okay, then this: Do-do-do-do-do-do-do, do do do…” – Homer Simpson “That’s the same thing, you just replaced ‘Di’s with ‘Do’s.” – Marge Simpson “D’oh!” – Homer Simpson Happy birthday Danny Elfman!
Quote of the Day
“Lisa, honey, if you really want to preserve his memory, I recommend getting a tattoo. It preserves the things you love. Starland Vocal Band? They suck!” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
“Oh, this is wonderful! You’re alive!” – Homer Simpson “No thanks to you, Homer!” – Bart Simpson “Why you little…!” – Homer Simpson “Now, Homer, please, the boy’s just had a very serious operation.” – Dr. Hibbert “Oh, right.” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
“Oh, Dad, why did he have to die?” – Lisa Simpson “Well, it’s like the time that your cat Snowball got run over, remember, honey?” – Homer Simpson “Yeah.” – Lisa Simpson “What I’m saying is, all we have to do is go down to the pound and get a new jazzman.” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
“I have learned that most of the orchestra is having their appendixes removed, so, without further adieu, I give you the remnants of the Springfield Elementary School Orchestra. On saxophone, Lisa Simpson. On triangle, Martin Prince. And, with a flute up his nose, Ralph Wiggum.” – Principal Skinner “That’s some nice flutin’, boy.” – Chief Wiggum
Reading Digest: French Middle School Kids Edition
“Bonjour, you cheese eating surrender monkeys.” – Groundskeeper Willie I may still try to get these up on Thursdays, but that didn’t even come close to happening yesterday. On the plus side, we’ve got a ton of crappy (and creepy) old merchandise, a look behind the scenes at Universal Studios, French children, and an erudite if weak sauce look at one of the many reasons Zombie Simpsons sucks. Enjoy. Petition · EA Games: Develop a sequel to “The Simpsons Hit & Run” – Got this in an email from reader Hassaan M., who shares a love of Hit & Run with many of you. I don’t know if EA would ever care, but if you want to sign, click the link. How the Best Rides at Universal Studios Work – I have never been to a Universal Studios, but this is pretty neat. The Simpsons is confronting its biggest stereotypes in its 27th season – This is far too gentle on Zombie Simpsons, but does manage to make the point that the show is hobbled by its age in ways it can never escape. I would also quibble with the whole “of their time” thing, since when the show was good it was way ahead of its time. Now it is hopelessly and permanently behind. Some ‘Simpsons’ Fans Are Petitioning to Make Lisa a Vegan – Meh. Yianni: The Simpsons Taught Me Everything I Know : Reviews 2016 – This is true: It’s the comedy festival equivalent those clickbait posts which promise: ‘The Simpsons predicted the Panama papers,’ when it really means: ‘The Simpsons made a joke about tax havens.’ So you got hoodwinked, but you still got to watch a clip of Bart when you should have been working, so how bad could that be? The Simpsons Pinball Party HUO Machine – For six grand you can buy this Simpsons pinball machine in Phoenix. I’m linking it because there are some great closeup pictures. The Angry Birds Movie trailer reveals more high-flying action – Apparently Vitti wrote the Angry Birds movie. Say your prayers, Simpsons: ‘Mr. Burns’ depicts a blazing future – The play comes to Milwaukee. A journey to an unsettling future in Lyric Stage’s ‘Mr. Burns’ – And Boston. “The Simpsons” Rapping Homer Simpson 2002 moving statue – For some reason, my Simpsons related Google Alerts have started including a lot of Craigslist ads for old merchandise. This one is particularly crappy and I’m sure cost forty bucks when it was new. Rare Homer Simpson electric snowglobe. – See above. Custom Bart Simpson as Marty McFly – A clever repurposing. The giant 80s camcorder is a nice touch. Vintage Bart Simpson Phone – Why did you give it red eyes? WHY? Invoking Homer Simpson to explain Donald Trump – Excellent educational usage to get French middle school students to understand the terminal velocity claptrap that is American politics: Our explanation about American voter anger propelling Trump to the nomination did not fully satisfy our young audience. From their perspective, it made no sense to believe Donald Trump would make America better,…
Quote of the Day
“Look, my stomach really hurts.” – Bart Simpson “All I can give you are these chewable Prozac for kids. Your choice: Manic Depressive Mouse, or the Blue Bird of Unhappiness.” – Lunchlady Doris Happy birthday, Mike Reiss!
Quote of the Day
“Look, if you ignore me and I die, you’ll get in a lot of trouble.” – Bart Simpson “Read page six of the school charter.” – Mrs. Krabappel “No teacher shall be held accountable if Bart Simpson dies.” – Bart Simpson “We’re also absolved if Milhouse gets eaten by the school snake.” – Mrs. Krabappel “Hey, cool, there’s a rabbit in here!” – Milhouse van Houten Happy 20th Anniversary to “‘Round Springfield”! Original airdate 30 April 1995.
Quote of the Day
“Lisa, when you get to be our age, you’ll learn a few things. Like when a sign says, ‘Do Not Feed the Bears’, man, you’d better not feed the bears.” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
“Man, these are primo seats! I could really go for a hot dog.” – Homer Simpson “Homer, this is an operation!” – Marge Simpson “Hot dogs! Get your hot dogs, here!” – Hot Dog Vendor “Woo-hoo!” – Homer Simpson
Reading Digest: Making Death Boring Edition
“Maybe I need to talk to somebody with a little more age and wisdom.” – Lisa Simpson “Death stalks you at every turn!” – Abe “Grampa” Simpson “Grampa!” – Lisa Simpson “Well, it does.” – Abe “Grampa” Simpson With the return of Zombie Simpsons this week, the internet was flooded with blogs, magazines and websites posting sneak peaks at last week’s episode and an overwhelming amount of speculative garbage because Jean promised that they were going to kill off another character sometime in the not too distant future. Since most publications are glad to have any excuse to talk about the show, people are taking him seriously. Yawn. We have one link about the dead character because all of them were pretty much the same and a couple of links about the episode because it was really shitty and lots of people thought so. In addition to that, we’ve got a couple of non-Zombie lists, two old Nintendo games, Guillermo Del Toro, Harry Potter the Simpsons fan, and a fantastically drawn fan made Kang and Kodos. Enjoy; but first, our old friend Robin sent in this outstanding achievement in the field of excellence: A friend of mine had these custom made. Can Lenny have one? The Simpsums – Season 25 Ep. 1 "Homerland" – Reader Thomas sent in this link to a two minute retelling of last week’s episode that is highly bizarre but very accurate and, to my ear at least, quite a bit funnier than the original: Well done. (He’s also go videos for the second half of Season 24.) Krusty Gets Busted – Episode #012 – Ash’s great Simpsons watch continues with this astute observation about the overall philosophy of the show: The police are really, really stupid. How could they miss all these vital clues. Kids are smarter than adults. the itchy and scratchy game-SNES: the best super nintendo Simpsons game, for what thats worth. – And it turns out, that’s not worth much: Overall this game is intensely mediocre. There is very little here for just about any one. GBA Review: The Simpsons Road Rage – And speaking of old Nintendo systems: There have been several games with the Simpsons label on it, and not many of them have been good. This one is no exception to the rule. […] The characterization is very childish, and the plot sounds like it could easily have been another episode of The Simpsons. It would have been feasible, considering that the writing had become pretty paper-thin by 2003. The Simpsons Tapped Out TopiX – Click through for the Guillermo Del Toro opening for Sunday’s Zombie Simpsons. I’ll freely admit I didn’t catch all the references, but it’s still well done. The rest of the episode is unlikely to be that tightly packed or entertaining. The really good news is that it’s nearly three minutes long, which should eat into the rest of the episode. ‘The Simpsons’: Guillermo del Toro on ‘Treehouse of Horror XXIV’ opening – And here’s…
Quote of the Day
“But then I spent all my money on my fifteen-hundred-dollar a day habit. . . . I’d like another Faberge egg, please.” – Bleed Gums Murphy “Sir, don’t you think you’ve had enough?” – Faberge Salesman “I’ll tell you when I’ve had enough!” – Bleeding Gums Murphy
Quote of the Day
“Our broadcast range is only twenty-three feet, which makes us the most powerful jazz station in the entire US of A.” – KJAZZ Guy
’Round Springfield Spews Truth
“Two hundred and fifty dollars? But I need that album to honor the memory of Bleeding Gums Murphy.” – Lisa Simpson “He’s dead? Well, why didn’t you say so?” – Comic Book Guy It doesn’t come up in individual statements, but when you listen to the commentary for this episode right after you listen to the commentary for “Alone Again Natura-Diddily”, the most striking thing is the absence of feeling the need to explain things. Instead of anyone getting defensive or saying something about, “no really, this was a good idea”, it’s all just trivia about the episode, the occasional short tangent, and backstory on this or that. The Season 11 commentary is just this side of an apology. The Season 6 commentary is a regular DVD commentary track. Five guys on this one: Jean and Reiss, Steven Dean Moore (who directed), and Joshua Sternin and Jeffrey Ventimilia, who wrote the script. 0:20 – Jean starts out by noting that this is the non-“A Star Is Burns” episode that was done with a lot of the staff from The Critic, and they figured that at this point in the show’s run a major character hadn’t been killed, so why not? Importantly, he notes that the episode is actually about “Lisa’s grief”, which is much better than “Flanders’ dating”, but he doesn’t say that last part. 1:00 – Reiss originally wanted to kill Marge’s mother. 1:30 – The first episode Steven Dean Moore worked on was “Moaning Lisa” and this was the first one he directed, so it was a nice bookend for him. 1:50 – Jean notes that Ron Taylor, Steve Allen, Phil Hartman and Doris Grau all did voices on this episode and all of them have since died. That causes Reiss to crack, “It’s a real blood bath, folks, so sit back and enjoy”. 2:25 – Reiss and Jean took credit on the story, but Sternin and Ventimilia got the “teleplay” credit. Reiss notes that show runners don’t usually take story credits like that, but they thought it was going to win a bunch of awards “it’s death and a black guy and jazz” . . . and then it didn’t. But they did get paid. 3:30 – Jean says that they don’t remember for sure who came up with “cheese eating surrender monkeys”, but that it might have been Ken Keeler. Then they joke around about how people took it awfully seriously when it was just a throwaway joke for them. 5:15 – There’s a backlighting effect on the operating table lights to make it look more like old hospital shows. 6:00 – The little glints on the jagged metal-Os are done post production. 6:15 – Reiss’ father is a doctor, and no matter how many times they asked him, he wouldn’t tell them that you could get appendicitis from eating a piece of metal. Jean then jokes that more people saw this than know him, so they won. 6:45 – Writers and directors love flashbacks because…
Compare & Contrast: Deaths
“One more time!” – Lisa Simpson “Oh, come on, Lisa, I got a date with Billie Holiday.” – Bleeding Gums Murphy Cloud There are a lot of head shaking problems with the way the show killed off Maude Flanders. The biggest is probably the fact that it was motivated by outright cheapness on the part of FOX and whoever else signed the checks. Maggie Roswell had been with the show since Season 1, providing not only Maude’s voice, but also the voices for Miss Hoover, Helen Lovejoy, Luann van Houten, and countless one off or minor parts (“No, my son is also named Bort”). She was always credited as a guest, and the money they paid her to show up in ten or so episodes a year wouldn’t have been a rounding error on the show’s annual budget. To fans of the show, refusing to pay her means two things. First, it means the nimrods in charge are fucking with the show, which is always bad. Second, it means that trivial monetary matters have overridden concerns about quality, which is worse. The Simpsons was what it was in no small part because it was protected from the death-by-a-thousand-cuts that wear down so many other programs, and refusing to pony up for something as vital yet inexpensive as the actress who voices half of your minor female characters can only mean that the bean counters have gotten their knives well into the vital organs of the show. They mention several times on DVD commentaries that FOX repeatedly nickel-and-dimed them about giving up the live orchestra for each episode, and that FOX was behind the shortening of the episodes by two minutes as well as the ongoing fiasco that is the four act structure. Screwing Roswell out of a few thousand dollars was a chilling precursor to those other management imposed restrictions. As bad as all that is, however, it occurred outside the control of the writers. Neither Mike Scully nor anyone on staff at the time could’ve kept FOX from treating the Simpsons franchise like a rented mule. Off-voice Maude (a recurring problem in Season 11) and the disappearance of Roswell’s other characters simply isn’t their fault. What is their fault is the unbelievably dumb, callous, and cartoon-y way they handled Maude’s death. Relating an unmitigated tragedy like the sudden death of a woman who was beloved by her community, her husband, and her two small children would be a tricky task even on a show that’s typically calmer than The Simpsons. Doing so in a cartoon where physically impossible things routinely happen (even before the show fell apart) requires walking a very fine line that allows you to express the sadness of it all while still keeping the story moving and the jokes coming. “Alone Again Natura-Diddily” not only fails to walk that line, it swerves back and forth across it like a drunk driver. To take just one example of this, the first non-Lovejoy speaking parts at Maude’s funeral…
Quote of the Day
“Wow, you’ve had some career! Although the moral seems to be that a lifetime of jazz leaves you sad and lonely.” – Lisa Simpson “Well, before you came to visit, I would have agreed with you.” – Bleeding Gums Murphy Happy birthday Yeardley Smith!
Reading Digest: Still Digesting Edition
“Oh look, here comes Lumpy, the school snake!” – Principal Skinner The huge spike in on-line chatter leading up to last week’s forgettably indifferent episode of Zombie Simpsons didn’t subside when the credits rolled, so this week’s Reading Digest is just as gargantuan as last week’s. Once again there was just too damn much going on at once to digest (as it were). Below you’ll find a few more “500 yay!” type articles and, just like last week, they are an implicit statement about just how very little people care about Zombie Simpsons. There’s also lots of stuff about Groening, Hank Azaria’s favorite episode, an awesome Georges Seurat-Simpsons mashup, plenty of excellent usage, a new video game, and a ton of great YouTube. Enjoy. ‘The Simpsons’ Had A Message for Fans Last Night – I put Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week up on Twitter yesterday because even though this video is nearly four years old, I don’t think I’ve ever seen it. And it is eleventeen kinds of awesome: Bravo. ‘The Simpsons’: Q&A with Matt Groening on reaching 500 episodes – Reason number five million to love Matt Groening: On Valentine’s Day you’re getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In my previous life working for the Los Angeles Reader, I used to type up the calendar section, and any time any celebrity would get a star on Hollywood Boulevard I would type up the press release. But as an investigative journalist I would actually drive to the address where the star was going to be, and I would note what store it was in front of and write, say, "Curly Joe DeRita is receiving his star in front of the Pussycat Theater," or whatever it was — Joe’s Bong Shop. And I remember getting calls saying, "Please don’t. Please don’t put what stores are at these addresses." Ha! And, from the same interview, an (apparently un-ironic) discussion of that computer animated Tintin movie: Also, for me, as a viewer, perfection is unengaging. And when you see things that are physically impossible, there’s so much physically impossible imagery that can be thrown at you before you stop caring. Mr. Groening, please call your office. The Sunday Intertitle: Give Chase a Chance – Apparently, when Selma imagines what her kids by Hans Moleman would be like in “Selma’s Choice”, it was based off an old silent movie where a guy imagines what his family would look like if he married a woman with a wooden leg. I did not know that. Cool. Real Geeks Dine At A Periodic Table Table – A guy named Theo Gray has a wooden table of the periodic table: You can catch a glimpse of Homer etched into a silicon disc at the 3:45 mark. It’s in a case with a bunch of other odd samples, which he introduces by saying, “There’s a bunch of stuff in here. It’s not terribly well organized.” I love it when chemistry geeks aren’t “terribly well organized”. …