“Oh, he is a gem! Here, boy, would you like these cookies Martin made for me?” – Mrs. Krabappel “My raisin roundies!” – Martin Prince Marcia Wallace would’ve been 77 today. Happy birthday, Mrs. K.
Tag: Sweet Seymour Skinner’s Baadasssss Song
Quote of the Day
“Ka-boom! That, the sound of the thunderous volcanic explosion which gives birth to the magnificent geode!” – Martin Prince RIP, Russi Taylor. Thanks for all the laughs.
Quote of the Day
“Now, let’s see, Tide . . . Cheer . . . Bold . . . Biz . . . Fab . . . All . . . Gain . . . Wisk. I believe today I will try Bold.” – Seymour Skinner
Quote of the Day
“What’s he doing here?” – Sgt. Seymour Skinner “Well, once he found out we were gonna get Ned Flanders fired, he insisted on helping.” – Bart Simpson “That is true.” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
“Ahem, my geode must be acknowledged.” – Martin Prince
Behind Us Forever: Dogtown
“The dog has had enough excitement.” – Marge Simpson “But Marge, dogs can never have enough excitement!” – Homer Simpson Two years ago, as part of their “use our reputation to farm out work we’d rather not do” policy, Zombie Simpsons let the Rick & Morty people do a couch gag. It was okay, and I’ve long said that the guest couch gags are one of the few parts of the show that’s still kinda creative. Well, this week Zombie Simpsons did an extremely poor take off on the Rick & Morty episode “Lawnmower Dog”. Emphasis on “extremely”. In “Dogtown”, Springfield passes a bunch of dog friendly laws, which for some reason causes all the dogs to go feral and take over the town. When Rick & Morty did this, it was the B-plot of an Inception parody that got very dark and disturbing (as is that show’s wont). When Zombie Simpsons does the same thing, it’s too incoherent to be anything other that vaguely weird. Remember the “Night of the Dolphin” segment from Season 12’s Halloween episode? This was like that, but stretched over the whole episode and plus pages of unnecessary exposition. – They’ve really become fond of adding dialogue to the couch gags the last few years. This one involves them climbing to the top of a mounting, wherein Homer radios for the couch, which is then brought in by a Sherpa. The (unintentionally) funny thing here is that there’s no need for it. Having Homer use the radio pre-explains the joke and spoils it in the process. It would’ve worked fine without. – From there, the opening gets truncated at Homer leaving the plant. He’s then in traffic with GPS yelling at him. This goes on for a bit before Homer finds himself stuck in an alley with the choice to run over Gil or Santa’s Little Helper. Homer runs Gil over and I’m finally convinced that the regular opening isn’t coming back. – And we are quickly into exposition land: Insurance Agent: “Now, I do have to warn you, if Gil sues he’ll end up with everything you’ve got.” Homer: “But that’s everything I’ve got! Okay kids, give me your best worried looks. . . . Ooh, that’s good worry. And Maggie, when we visit Gil, you should think about your Mom and me disappearing forever any time we step behind a wall.” Homer then proceeds to do step behind a wall, all the while narrating what he’s doing. Then he gets lost and screams. This is all dumb and repetitive enough on it’s own, but the really weird part is Marge is sitting right there as Homer’s basically traumatizing the baby. These are the sorts of things real Marge put a quick stop to, but Zombie Marge just sits there and watches with her computer drawn dead eyes. – Later, at the hospital, the family visits Gil, Bart then walks in dressed as a nurse so he and Homer and exposit a plan to put Gil into a coma. From here, Bart stabs Homer in…
Quote of the Day
“I thought I’d be jumping for joy the day Skinner left, but now all I have is this weird, hot feeling in the back of my head.” – Bart Simpson “That’s guilt. You feel guilty because your stunt wound up costing a man his job.” – Lisa Simpson “Yeah, I guess it is guilt.” – Bart Simpson
Quote of the Day
“I’m sorry, did you just call me a liar?” – Principal Skinner “No, I said you were fired.” – Superintendent Chalmers “Oh. That’s much worse.” – Seymour Skinner
Quote of the Day
“This is great! Not only am I not learning, I’m forgetting stuff I used to know!” – Milhouse van Houten Happy birthday Pamela Hayden!
Rumor Control: Harry Shearer (Possibly/Probably) Leaving Zombie Simpsons
“Nobody’s mentioned me, have they?” – Principal Skinner “I thought I heard someone say your name in the cafeteria, but they might have been saying ‘skim milk’.” – Bart Simpson The internet is full of reports that Harry Shearer will not be doing voices for the recently announced two season renewal. This being the internet, the certitude of the headlines ran a bit ahead of the actual information. Here are the facts: 1. Over the last couple of days, TMZ (I know, gross) reported that Shearer was not on board with the most recent renewal. 2. Late last night (though since I think he’s in Britain it might have been morning for him), Shearer tweeted the following: from James L. Brooks’ lawyer: “show will go on, Harry will not be part of it, wish him the best.”. (1/2) This because I wanted what we’ve always had: the freedom to do other work. Of course, I wish him the very best. (2/2) Thanks, Simpsons fans, for your support. Shearer subsequently turned down a couple of media interview requests. 3. That was followed a couple of hours later by Jean tweeting: .@TheSimpsons #everysimpsonsever The show will go on, made by people who love it and see in it the most wonderful vehicle for satire ever. @simpsonswiki @TheSimpsons recast if Harry does not return. No yellow wedding. Jean was very active, replying to people and generally doing his job as the public face of the show. 4. A couple of hours later, James L. Brooks replied (also on Twitter): Hey, we tried. We’re still trying. Harry, no kidding, let’s talk. 5. After speaking with a couple of media outlets, Jean did a quick interview with Entertainment Weekly in which he said that they were still hoping to work things out, but that if Shearer was out the door, they would recast his parts, probably with multiple people. As to the question of why, he gave a round-about answer (bold italics are mine): What is that period of time? Weeks? Well, it’s pretty vague because we have seven holdover [episodes] that Harry did in the fall, so there’s a big period of time. Obviously, we just want to know what he wants. We’ve rededicated ourselves this season to making the show better and not just saying, ‘Okay, we’re just happy for the pickup.’ We really care about it and everybody’s coming to more [table reads] and doing more on the show, so if he’d like to be a part of that, we’d love him. And if not, we’d like to know and then we’ll go another way. Would you describe yourself as hopeful then that this could be resolved? I have no idea. I didn’t know he was going to tweet last night. That was very surprising. And the tweets were confusing because he had an offer. It wasn’t like we didn’t offer him a substantial thing. No. 2, he mentioned that he wanted to do outside projects. Everybody on the show does lots of outside projects.…
Quote of the Day
“The ingredients were, fresh pureed tomatoes, water, salt, and sodium benzoate used to retard spoilage. Once again, if I’m not mistaken, this can contained tomato paste.” – Nelson Muntz “Thank you, Nelson, I look forward to seeing it again next week.” – Mrs. Krabappel
Quote of the Day
“Lunchlady Doris, have you got any grease?” – Groundskeeper Willie “Yes. Yes, we do.” – Lunchlady Doris “Then grease me up, woman!” – Groundskeeper Willie “Okie-dokie.” – Lunchlady Doris Doris Grau would’ve been 90 today. Happy birthday!
Quote of the Day
“They’re going to eat this up at show and tell.” – Bart Simpson “I’m not sure if I’m comfortable with the idea of your classmates laughing at our family’s private moments. How would you like it if twenty years from now people were laughing at things you did?” – Marge Simpson “Not likely.” – Bart Simpson Happy 20th Anniversary to “Sweet Seymour Skinner’s Baadasssss Song”! Original airdate 28 April 1994.
Reading Digest: Blank Potato Merchandising Edition
“Why don’t you bring this potato? It’s pretty big.” – Marge Simpson “Mom, you’re always trying to give me potatoes. What is it with you?” – Bart Simpson “I just think they’re neat.” – Marge Simpson Between the internet echoes of last week’s streaming news and the announcement of a, wait for it, Mr. Potato Head Homer, the signal to noise ratio was pretty bad again this week, so it’s once again a shorter than usual Reading Digest. When they announced last year that they were kicking the merchandising into overdrive, they weren’t kidding, and it seems like hardly a week goes by without a new tie in or marketing campaign. Not only did we get Mr. Homer Head this week, but there was also a contest to draw Simpsons characters in an officially license notebook. Yes, they’re now endorsing blank paper. The good news is that we got some cool fan art, both of the marketing and non-marketing variety, along with quite a bit of excellent usage, some sketches from early in the show, and several people who agree with us, implicitly and explicitly. Enjoy. Early rough sketches and character sheets from David Silverman – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week is this collection of David Silverman sketches compiled by our old friend Sebastian. I put this up on Twitter last weekend, but if you didn’t see it then, click it now. The ones from when Homer bangs on the door in “Bart the Genius” and the Land of Chocolate alone are worth it. 16 Timeless Business Lessons from The Simpsons – These are actual business tips (with words like “liability” and “regulation”) but they come with good YouTube and not a single example cited is from Zombie Simpsons. The Simpsons Embroidery – Two very cool fan made Simpsons embroidery pieces, one of a Duff can, the other of Homer with a donut. Bravo. ACT’s 2014-15 season to include 2 N.Y. hits – The post apocalyptic Mr. Burns play is heading to San Francisco. Emmanuel Mauleon Black Bart Simpson – I’ll just let them explain: It seems like just about everyone has a soft spot for Bart Simpson these days. Photoshopped images of Odd Future dancing with Bart and Lisa flood Tumblr, streetwear blogs seem to worship the Simpson son, and artists like Emmanuel Mauleón have also caught onto this trend as well. Mauleón, a Brooklyn-based artist originally from Puebla, Mexico, created these dope illustrations of Black Bart Simpson as promo pieces for electropop singer Gordon Voidwell’s mixtape Bad Études. Check out the full collection at Tumblr. Round 96: The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace vs. My Mother the Carjacker – Season 10 easily triumphs over this: Not a fan. I’m willing to forgive outlandish plots, and abandoning all logic and character traits, if an episode at least manages to make me laugh, or if it has something to say. This one didn’t, and it hasn’t. Heh. Round 97: A Milhouse Divided vs. King of the Hill – This happens…
Quote of the Day
“Young man, your gargantuan cone is making a mockery of our self serve policy.” – Apu Nahasapeemapetilon
Quote of the Day
“We got Skinner’s underpants!” – Jimbo Jones “And there’s nothing you can do about it, Mr. Ex-Principal.” – Kearney “That’s not true, I can buy a new pair! No, I can’t. I needed those, I really did.” – Seymour Skinner
Quote of the Day
“I need something for show and tell!” – Bart Simpson “Just take one of my geodes. . . . The rocks on my desk. . . . No, that’s a trilobite. That’s petrified wood. Bart, that’s a bran muffin!” – Lisa Simpson
Quote of the Day
“I know Weinstein’s parents were upset, superintendent, but I was sure it was a phony excuse. It sounds so made up, ‘Yom Kip-poor’.” – Principal Skinner
Quote of the Day
“Let’s thank the Lord for another beautiful school day.” – Ned Flanders “‘Thank the Lord’? ‘Thank the Lord’! That sounded like a prayer. A prayer . . . a prayer in a public school! God has no place within these walls, just like facts have no place within organized religion!” – Superintendent Chalmers
When a Movie Template Goes Nowhere
“Now I finally have time to do what I’ve always wanted, write the great American novel. Mine is about a futuristic amusement park where dinosaurs are brought to life through advanced cloning techniques. I call it, ‘Billy and the Cloneasaurus”. – Seymour Skinner “Oh, you have got be kidding, sir. First, you think of an idea that has already been done, and then you give it a title that nobody could possibly like! Didn’t you think this through?” – Apu Nahasapeemapetilon If I wasn’t so inured to the relentless mediocrity of Zombie Simpsons, I might find an episode like “The D’oh-cial Network” disappointing. There are a lot of big ideas at play, everything from distracted driving to potential social isolation resulting from only communicating with other people on-line. Those are things that people debate and have moral panics over, and a show with the resources of Zombie Simpsons could be hilarious and say a lot by making fun of them with wit and intelligence. But I am inured to the relentless mediocrity of Zombie Simpsons. So I’m not the least bit surprised that they want me to fawn over an episode because it’s got the same plot and musical cues as The Social Network, while at the same time expecting me to turn off my brain to the point that I’m supposed to buy Reverend Lovejoy never having encountered the problem of cell phones in church, Lisa never having a computer before this, and no one in Springfield ever having used a social networking site. The nonsense piled up thick and fast, and I’m not sure there was a single scene that didn’t suffer from one or more crippling problems with story, believability, character, or childish levels of social understanding. To take just one example of an irresponsibly blown comedy opportunity, Lisa designs a social network to help her make friends with other kids, and later in the episode is surprised to learn that adults are also using it. Does the episode explore in any way shape or form the problems Facebook has had as the parents and grandparents of its original users began signing up? Not at all. Does the episode make fun of any of the bizarre situations that can arise from knowing someone better on-line than you do in real life? Nah. How about the still unsettled etiquette and rules concerning interactions between teachers and students on social media? Nada. Zombie Simpsons didn’t look at Facebook and social networking generally and think, “here’s a huge change in the way people live their lives we can play around with”. The potential topics and stories there are practically infinite, and Zombie Simpsons ran the other way. They watched a movie and thought, “we can substitute some of our characters for their characters, and if we add in some car crashes we’ll be good to go”. Naturally, they were wrong about that part too, as they had not one, not two, but three blatant filler moments at the end. First,…