“I like our chances, son.” – Homer Simpson “Ugh. Your father’s not supposed to help build your racer but you should at least consult him about it.” – Soapbox Derby Racing Official
Tag: Saturdays of Thunder
Quote of the Day
“Bart! . . . You can’t weld with such a little flame. Stupid kid.” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
“Patty, Selma, what a pleasant surprise.” – Homer Simpson “Whaddya know, he’s wearing pants.” – Patty Bouvier “I owe you a lunch.” – Selma Bouvier
Quote of the Day
“Goodbye, son!” – Homer Simpson “Hey, Bart, I think they’re finally hauling your Dad away.” – Milhouse van Houten “Maybe it’s for the best.” – Bart Simpson
Quote of the Day
“A conventional design.” – Martin Prince “Oh, yeah? Are you building a racer, Martin?” – Bart Simpson “In between some other projects. Well, gentlemen, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve booked some time at the wind tunnel.” – Martin Prince
Quote of the Day
“Hey, Homer, I can’t find the safety goggles for the power saw.” – Bart Simpson “If stuff starts flying, just turn your head.” – Homer Simpson “Oh, check.” – Bart Simpson
Quote of the Day
“And now, to present the trophy, three time soap box derby champion, Ronny Beck!” – MC “Congratulations, Bart, seeing you out there brought back a lot of memories.” – Ronnie Beck Happy birthday Russi Taylor!
Quote of the Day
“Ugly . . . ugly . . . butch.” – Patty Bouvier “What’s the matter, can’t you find a hairstyle you like?” – Marge Simpson “Oh, hold the phone, that’s the one for me.” – Patty Bouvier “Ed Asner?” – Marge Simpson “No, next to him: Mary Tyler Moore.” – Patty Bouvier Happy birthday James L. Brooks!
Quote of the Day
“Attention everyone, I say to those who question the value of the space program: behold!” – Martin Prince
Quote of the Day
“Whoa, where’s your helmet, son?” – Soapbox Derby Racing Official “Helmets are for wusses, sir.” – Bart Simpson “No, I don’t think I can let you go without a safety helmet.” – Soapbox Derby Official “This is my son, and if he doesn’t want to wear one, you can’t make him.” – Homer Simpson “Okay, fine, I want to get out of here sometime today.” – Soapbox Derby Official
A Little Unintentional Meta-Blogging Humor for New Year’s Eve
“Good morning, everybody, and welcome to an event that harkens back to the carefree days of the Great Depression: the soap box derby.” – TV Announcer Every once and a while I am moved to briefly praise the people up at WordPress HQ. They do a regularly excellent job of making sure that everything works, the new features that they add tend far more toward “useful” than “bloat”, and their customer support, even for people who aren’t paying jack, is responsive, friendly and informative. Sometimes, though, things go awry. In this case it’s a very harmless awry, and it’s far…
Quote of the Day
“Expiration date? June, Nineteen Eighty Ni-uh, Two Thousand Twelve . . . yeah.” – Homer Simpson “Homer, are you ordering junk of the TV again?” – Marge Simpson “Shh, they’ll hear you!” – Homer Simpson
Bonus Quote of the Day
“I’m actor Troy McClure. You might remember me from such TV series as Buck Henderson: Union Buster, and Troy and Company’s Summertime Smile Factory.” – Troy McClure Phil Hartman would’ve been sixty-four today. Happy birthday.
Quote of the Day
“Unfortunately, a century of neglect has turned this tombstone into a depressing eyesore.” – Dr. Nick Riviera “So, what? I guess we’re gonna have to throw it away.” – Troy McClure “Not so fast, Troy! With one application of Spiffy, you’ll think the body’s still warm.” – Dr. Nick Riviera Happy 20th Anniversary to “Saturdays of Thunder”! Original airdate: 14 November 1991.
“Saturdays of Thunder” Spews Truth
“Dear God, not again!” – Dave from the National Fatherhood Institute Toward the end of this commentary, right after Martin slaps Bart to get him to pay attention, Jean comments on how much violence there is in this one. He laughs as he recalls that it might have been a reaction to how stressed out everyone was while they were doing this. I can’t comment on that, but he’s right that there are a lot of violent images in here (Nelson whipping Bart as they race, Martin crashing and getting set on fire, even the unfortunate shark attack). The difference…
Blockbuster? I Know That Store!
This is a minor point, but it goes to something larger. The above image is from Season 3’s “Saturdays of Thunder”. It’s just a brief establishing shot, but it manages to poke fun at the format wars of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Notably, it needs no dialogue to set it up and it doesn’t take aim at any one institution. It’s a joke at the expense of a general cultural artifact, and that means that all these years later it still works even though the specific conflict it describes is long over. After all, vanquished video formats have…
Reading Digest: Mendoza! Edition
“Mendoza!” – McBain If you’re reading this site, then you have probably already seen the fantastic College Humor mashup of all the McBain clips. I would like to point out two things about it. First, between Tango & Cash, Lethal Weapon 2, and License to Kill, 1989 was the year of the suave, well protected drug lord and the heroes who break the rules to bring them down. Second, none of those clips are from Zombie Simpsons. And don’t give me any of that “Schwarzenegger stopped making movies to be the governor” crap. He didn’t stop making movies until Season…
Compare & Contrast: Mocking 80s Fatherhood
“‘Cosby’s First Law of Intergenerational Perversity: No matter what you tell your child to do, he will always do the opposite.’ Huh?” – Homer Simpson “Don’t you get it, you gotta use reverse psychology.” – Homer’s Brain “That sounds too complicated.” – Homer Simpson “Okay, don’t use reverse psychology.” – Homer’s Brain “Alright, I will!” – Homer Simpson A few months ago, I wrote a post about how you couldn’t really understand where Season 1 was coming from without some grasp of 1980s American television, particularly the enormous number of cookie cutter family sitcoms. The Simpsons, especially in Season 1,…
Idiot to Again Set Bad Example for the Children
“It’s my dad, lying there on the couch, drinking a beer, staring at the TV. I’ve never seen him like that.” – Bart Simpson It turns out I have nothing to do this Saturday other than celebrate Mole Day. It also turns out that it’s been five months since I set aside some time for a serious day of drinking and Simpsons watching. That means I can celebrate Mole Day by conducting one of my favorite bio-chemistry experiments: my liver, brain and blood oxygen levels versus my old friend ethanol in another Simpsons-Beer Marathon. As with the previous two times…
Saturday Morning Cartoons
“Deploy, damn you! Deploy!” – Martin Prince This episode is rock solid genius, and while I could go on and on about almost any scene, I’ll just point out one thing and be done. The image above is of a ten-year-old child on fire, not only is it hilarious, it’s not even the only joke on screen. There is The Simpsons, and there is everything else.