“Marge, you’ll never guess what, my whole class is here! They’re going to observe the human peep show that is our lives.” – Homer Simpson
Tag: Secrets of a Successful Marriage
I Am Furious (Yellow) Makes Baby Jesus Cry
Image used under Creative Commons license from Flickr user heath_bar. “How about if we tell you our problems with relationships?” – Principal Skinner “Yeah, yeah, that’ll eat up some time.” – Homer Simpson Stan Lee did a guest voice in this episode and they invited him back for the commentary. If you’ve read any of the previous installments in this series, or listened to any of these commentaries, you can probably guess what happens. This is basically twenty-two minutes of them shooting the shit with Stan Lee. The episode itself is about as lazy and uncreative as they come, though that’s hardly unusual for Zombie Simpsons. In case you’ve forgotten, it involves Homer getting the shit beaten out of him for pretty much the entire episode. But thanks to Lee, they won’t have to talk about it at all. Ten guys on this one, including Groening and Lee. 0:30 – Jean’s praising Lee like he’s introducing him in front of a Ladies Auxiliary or something. 1:05 – Lee’s answering a question about “Fantastic Four”. 1:40 – Selman is recounting the premise of this story by kissing up to Groening and Lee. 2:30 – Much self congratulatory chuckling going on. 3:10 – Jean’s asking Lee generic fanboy questions. It’s actually mildly entertaining, though I get the sense that Lee is giving a speech he’s given at conventions and in interviews several hundred times. 4:15 – Lee’s speech ends, and the questions about comic books continue. 4:45 – Lee’s recounting the story of how Wolverine got created. 5:40 – After some talk about various internet animation projects the writers were involved in, Stan Lee shows up on screen and everyone shuts up. 6:10 – After a long silence, they resume kissing Lee’s ass. 6:50 – This is Chris Farley Show level. Jean literally just reminded Lee of a time he was in one of the comic books as himself and asked him how cool it was. 7:40 – Lee is at least game for having his ass kissed. It’s kind of entertaining, though I continue to get the feeling he can do this in his sleep. 8:40 – See above. On screen Homer just had a couch fall on him. 9:30 – I don’t know Matt Selman, I don’t know what he’s like in real life, and I don’t want to pick on the guy, but he really comes across as a brown nose in these commentaries. He just asked Stan Lee if he would win in a fight against Spike Lee, and laughed heartily at the response when most everyone else remained silent. 10:35 – Mildly interesting animation note here about how they did the computer animations for Bart’s comic. They were going to use Flash, but the Flash department at Film Roman couldn’t do it in time, so it’s faked Flash. 11:40 – Animation interlude over, it’s back to asking Lee questions. 12:20 – Selman asks Lee about which of the recent big comic book movies made changes that annoyed…
Look on My Works, Ye Funny, And Despair!
“It’s those TV networks, Marge, they won’t let me. One quality show after another, each one fresher and more brilliant than the last! If they only stumbled once! Just gave us thirty minutes to ourselves! But they won’t, they won’t let me live!” – Homer Simpson Jeff Wysaski writes a blog called “Pleated-Jeans”. He put up a list of The 10 Best TV Shows Within TV Shows and, quite justly, “Itchy & Scratchy” is number one. There’s plenty of good YouTube at the link, including a ninety second montage of several of Scratchy’s demises. Some of the other examples include “Terrance and Philip” from South Park, “All My Circuits” from Futurama, and “Mock Trial with J. Reinhold” from Arrested Development. He also lists some other fake shows from the same real show, for example: Other honorable mentions from Arrested Development: El Amor Prohibido, Scandalmakers and Wrench (featuring Detective Frank Wrench) And: Other honorable mentions for 30 Rock: Gold Case, MILF Island and Bitch Hunter Here’s the one for The Simpsons: Other honorable mentions for the Simpsons: The Krusty the Klown Show, Eye on Springfield, Knightboat (the Crime-Solving Boat), Radioactive Man and The Happy Little Elves. Naturally, that’s more than any of the other shows listed. And while this list makes no claims to comprehensiveness, is there any doubt that The Simpsons blows everything else away in the category of “shows within shows”? (And I mean The Simpsons, there’s no Zombie Simpsons at the link, and I’m certainly not about to include any.) Even Arrested Development, which is about as good as teevee is capable of getting, isn’t in the same league. Take any three seasons from The Simpsons and I’ll bet you have more. In addition to the ones above, there’s Smartline, Ben (the talk show), McGarnagle, Hunks, America’s Most Armed and Dangerous, that unpredictable Mexican sitcom Bumblebee Man is on, Movie for a Rained-Out Ballgame, Movie for a Dreary Afternoon, Edward the Penitent, Pardon My Zinger, Rock Bottom, Kidz Newz, Ya Hoo!, and that’s just off the top of my head. The complete list is, just like everything else, at SNPP. And, just like everything else about The Simpsons, it’s staggering. There are a lot of very creative shows on the Pleated-Jeans list, but in terms of sheer imagination and diversity of thought, none of them are even close to what The Simpsons was. [Hey, look what I found while looking up the spelling of “McGarnagle”]:
Quote of the Day
“Look everyone, now that I’m a teacher I’ve sewed patches on my elbows.” – Homer Simpson “Homer, that’s supposed to be leather patches on a tweed blazer, not the other way around. You’ve ruined a perfectly good jacket.” – Marge Simpson “Ah, incorrect Marge, two perfectly good jackets.” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
“Marge, look at me! We’ve been separated for a day and I’m as dirty as a Frenchman. In another few hours, I’ll be dead. I can’t afford to lose your trust again!” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
“The eating of an orange is a lot like a good marriage.” – Hans Moleman “Just eat the damn oranges!” – Abe Simpson