Homer Simpson is an ill educated moron. He is a loser of the first caliber and is locked into a perpetual cycle of stupidity and defeat. Then again, all his best lines were written by rich, over-educated nerds, which made the task of putting trenchant insights into his mouth that much more difficult. That’s why this little exchange from “The Spingfield Connection” is so great: “This police radio entertains me with other people’s miseries. We get a free funeral for Marge, God forbid. And I can run backround checks on whomever I want! . . . Mohmar.” – Homer Simspon I’m never one who is 100% sure of his grammar, but it sounds to me like Homer used the according-to-Hoyle version of who/whom there. It’s subtle, it takes less than a second, and it’s never mentioned again.
Tag: Smells Like Otto’s Jacket
Wednesday Evening Cartoons
“Mother Simpson” is an excellent episode for any number of reasons, primarily because it is terribly funny. But considering it in the context of the writhing horror show that is Zombie Simpsons there are two salient points: The first is that it has an ending (pictured above). Despite its many plot twists* there’s a reason Wiggum calls the Simpsons to warn them. It doesn’t just happen apropos of nothing as so many Zombie Simpsons endings do. Second, it doesn’t draw out its suspenseful/emotional moments. When Bart and Lisa figure out that Grandma’s story is fishy there’s no montage of them spying on her in wacky ways. When Homer and his mom share an “Awwww” type moment there’s no extended use of the string music of sadness. When Burns & Co. find out who she is there isn’t a drawn out chase scene. *They still had the good sense to make fun of themselves for all the drama with the Dickens/Melrose Place line.
Sunday Morning Cartoons
“We worked so hard and now it’s all gone. We ended up with nothing because the three of us can’t share.” – Bart Simpson “What’s your point?” – Milhouse van Houten “Nothing, just kinda ticks me off.” – Bart Simpson That is how you end an episode between Bart and Milhouse. Or, if you need them to reconcile, you can have Bart smash open a Magic 8 Ball on Milhouse’s skull, but it’s a sweet moment because he didn’t use the brick, broken bottle or pair of scissors. Flowers and apologies? Fuck off, Zombie Simpsons.
Upon Further Reflection, This Still Sucks
“Noooooooooo!” – Principal Skinner I was expecting Zombie Simpsons to get picked up for another season; epguides.com already has episodes listed for next fall and since each craptacular one supposedly takes a whole year to produce it stood to reason that Season 21 was a forgone conclusion. But the news yesterday that they were being picked up for two more seasons was like a second, unexpected, football in the groin. According to some of those links this will push them to 493 episodes. 493! Of which less than a third are actually up to snuff. Admittedly, I am no expert on the television industry, but the ratings have been historically low for a couple of years now, and the heavily promoted HD episode didn’t do much to change that. Granted, network viewership itself is trending downwards and has been for some time, but in all my years basking in television’s warm glowing warming glow I cannot think of a single other show that managed to linger the way Zombie Simpsons has. Any other show that slumped this badly and this publicly would’ve gotten canned after a year or two. I suppose I could look on it as a testament to the enduring quality of the original seasons, but the comfort went out of that little fib long ago. The senseless renewal is particularly grating coming the same week that Futurama went out on a high note. On Tuesday I was entertaining fantasies that they’d follow the same path. Wrap it up with Season 21 then maybe do another movie or two to finish things. For all its flaws, especially the last forty minutes or so, The Simpsons Movie was better than most of Zombie Simpsons, and a sequel or two would have to be more profitable than another season of five million dollar episodes that only six million people watch. Oh well. Zombie Simpsons has been on for far longer than The Simpsons ever was, what’s another season or two?