“I might remind you both I did design that racer. The driver is essentially ballast.” – Martin Prince
Tag: Saturdays of Thunder
Jumping Sharks and Riding Whales
“Now, Henry Winkler, there’s a father. Listen to what he told a close friend, ‘I don’t always keep my cool like the Fonz, but my love for my kids has given me plenty of happy days’.” – Selma Bouvier While Homer was being menaced by sharks this week, I couldn’t help but think of that most damning of cultural epitaphs: jumped the shark. Isn’t falling into the ocean from a magically conjured motorboat, getting hit in the head by a bucket (why a bucket?), and then being saved from sharks by riding a whale at least as bankrupt an idea as having a leather jacketed stunt double on water skies jump over a pen that has stock footage of a shark inside of it? At the very least it’s in the same category. Sadly, Happy Days went on for six more seasons after that fateful episode, let’s hope this one doesn’t take as long. Before that unimaginably boring ending, however, the writers had to reach deep into their bag of tricks to fill that ever more onerous 20 minute minimum. There was a long couch gag, a 45-second montage, a completely pointless dream sequence, and an “action” sequence that finds the cartoon trope of circling shark fins new and exciting. And even that wasn’t enough, so they had to kill some more time by having Homer regurgitate ideas that were too stupid to even be animated. Also, it’s generally not a good idea when the actual event you’re basing a scene on is funnier than your cartoon version. I’d also like to commend the writers for dumping their opening plot line in an unusually abrupt manner, even by Zombie Simpsons standards. The opening segment is often totally unrelated to the rest of the episode, but they don’t usually completely abandon a giant plot conflict (the whole electricity thing). I’m not sure what’s keeping them from dropping all pretense and doing those segmented mini-story episodes every week. The numbers are in and they’re almost identical to last week’s: 5.94 million people tuned in an hour early for Family Guy last night. That ties the number for 11th worst all time. Since the 20th anniversary crap wore off, Season 21 has been down an average of half a million viewers from the same period of Season 20. I’m going to keep saying this until someone listens: the show is getting historically low ratings. The 20th anniversary stuff will save Season 21 from being the least watched ever, but more people than ever are simply ignoring this show.
Reading Digest: Fan Made Edition
“But you can use me, I’m good! I built a lot of things around the house, the spice rack . . . the birdfeeder . . . the gymboree . . . what was that? Ah, who cares.” – Homer Simpson We’ve got lots of fan made Simpsons stuff this week, from YouTube videos, to Lego statues, to unsourced artwork. There’s also a political divide I feel no hesitation to take sides on, some excellent Zombie Simpsons hate, Aurora Indianalis, a clever New Zealand marketing ploy, and plenty of usage of all varieties. Enjoy. Whoops! Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay by John Lanchester – This is a book review: Whoops! is funny in a Jeremy Clarkson sort of way. In other words it is larded with leaden similes and blokeish "wit". So, for example, a complex but entirely accurate description of the construction of collateralised debt obligations is interrupted by such observations as "the initial lender was free to quote Bart Simpson: ‘sayonara, sucker’." I don’t know who Jeremy Clarkson is, but to my knowledge Bart has never said “sayonara, sucker”. Bad book author, bad. my woman of the year (and this week’s column) – It’s Marge. (Duh, or it wouldn’t be linked here.) The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien (GUEST REVIEWER ANITA DEELY) – This is a long review of Conan O’Brien’s last show and it ends with some very poor usage: My final words of wisdom from a clown come from Homer Simpson. Hearing these words (or word) was a small awakening for me. Homer is dealing with some crisis or other that I can’t recall right now what. Sometimes, I have a terrible memory for the Simpsons which is good since it allows me to see episodes over and over again and still find them funny. The other day I caught the Monorail episode (by Conan O’Brien, if I’m not mistaken) and I marveled at it. Anyway, Homer is having some big thing happen to him and Lisa says: “You know, Dad, the Chinese have the same word for crisis and opportunity” And Homer says: “Yeah. Crisatunity.” That exchange isn’t from the monorail episode, it’s from Season 6’s “Fear of Flying” and while the gist of it is correct the actual exchange goes like this: Lisa: Look on the bright side, Dad. Did you know that the Chinese use the same word for “crisis” as they do for “opportunity”? Homer: Yes! Crisatunity! It’s an excellent and appropriate sentiment, but a big miss on the execution. Weekly Best Of: The Best Fictional Bands/Songs From TV – The Be Sharps make an appearance. Homer Simpson – Just a bunch of Homer Simpson background images for your computer. D’oh! – There is at least one person who doesn’t know who Bart Simpson is. I Never Ever Saw The Northern Lights. Well, False. – I’m pretty sure if you see an aurora in Indiana it isn’t the “northern” lights, but other than that, yeah. Plus he properly…
Everything I Need to Know I Learned From The Simpsons
I love The New York Times. It’s full of new information and it comes right to your house; you don’t even need to turn your computer on to read it. It’s not all good though. Every Sunday morning it contains an irresistible nugget of shit, the “Ethicist” column. Wealthy, mildly deranged people with slightly guilty consciouses write in to have their sins absolved by The New York Times. They ask piddling, self justifying questions that sometimes end with the one word sentence “Ethical?”. As much as I loathe this part of the paper it’s always one of the first things I read on Sunday mornings. I’m impossibly drawn to it, like sheriff Bullock said about “Family Circus”, it’s just there, “waiting to suck“. I almost never read the answers (why should I give a shit what the NYT guy thinks?), it’s the questions that make it so wretchedly attractive and this morning’s contained a doozy: My husband and I spent substantial time and money to entice bluebirds to our yard. This included a squirrel- and snakeproof bluebird house, special tasty food (which entailed keeping mealworms in my refrigerator), available water and other amenities. Then an interloper nested in our bluebird house and laid five eggs. When is it permissible to destroy a nest of undesirable feathered folk? We want bluebirds, not common yard sparrows. First of all: fuck you, lady. Second:
Quote of the Day
“Dad, you gotta come. I just got your hat out of the fridge.” – Bart Simpson
Quote of the Day
“You know Marge, that Bart of ours is a little miracle. His winning smile, his button nose, his fat little stomach, his face alight with wholesome mischief. He reminds me of me, before the weight of the world crushed my spirit.” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
“Bart, if she breaks up on you steer away from the grandstands or else you might kill hundreds of innocent spectators. . . . Bart, what did I just tell you?” – Martin Prince “Kill spectators.” – Bart Simpson