“Another Duff, Homer?” – Moe “Nah, it’s Friday night, Moe. I want to try something special.” – Homer Simpson “Ah, sure, sure, here you go: Düff, from Sweden.” – Moe “Skoal!” – Homer Simpson After the spastic fit of fake brands that was the opening to “The Food Wife”, I and several others pointed out how weak the brand parodies are on Zombie Simpsons. As was brought up in comments, not only were many of them repeats, but they mostly aren’t even creative. Partly this is the same problem that plagues newer Treehouse of Horror episodes: weak source material. The more fundamental reason though is that Zombie Simpsons parodies brands and products, whereas The Simpsons parodied ideas and trends. Take, for example, some of the most famous fake brands on the show: Buzz, Duff and Laramie. None of those are direct parodies of any single brand. Buzz isn’t a joke aimed at Coke or Pepsi or anything else, it’s aimed at all of them in one piercingly descriptive word. The same is true of Duff. Duff isn’t Miller or Coors or Budweiser, it’s every one of them and then some. (Duff is such a strong concept that they were even able to play off it with Fudd and Düff.) Similarly, Laramie tobacco isn’t Philip Morris or any specific cigarette brand, it’s a stand in for all those wretched tobacco companies. The Simpsons certainly did its share of direct parodies. Dr. Hibbert is Bill Cosby, Drederick Tatum is Mike Tyson, Malibu Stacey is Barbie. But even the direct ones went beyond their narrow niches. Consider Rainier Wolfcastle, their stand in for Arnold Schwarzenegger. The McBain movies aren’t simply Schwarzenegger films, they use them to parody everything from Dirty Harry movies to Lethal Weapon movies to James Bond movies. “Mapple” can never be that versatile. Hell, it’s just Apple with an M stapled to the front. You can’t use it to mock anything except Apple. And it’s not like Apple is such a distinct company that it has to be treated uniquely. If they had come up with a genuinely broad parody of Apple they could’ve used it on any trendy tech firm, from Google to Amazon to Facebook. (Of course, that would require them to actually want to make fun of Facebook instead of having the founder on for his two minutes of yellow fellatio.) Things like “Grand Theft Scratchy” and “Funtendo” aren’t just lazy parodies, they’re also self limiting.
Tag: The Food Wife
Crazy Noises: The Food Wife
“And you’ve never found anything?” – Bart Simpson “Once, but by the time I got to a phone my discovery had already been reported by Principal Kohoutek. I got back at him, though, him and that little boy of his . . . anyway, that’s why I always keep a cellular phone next to me.” – Principal Skinner As part of our tireless efforts to demonstrate the many ways Zombie Simpsons fails to entertain, Season 23 will be subjected to the kind of rigorous examination that can only be produced by people typing short messages at one another. More dedicated or modern individuals might use Twitter for this, but that’s got graphics and short links and little windows that pop up when you put your cursor over things. The only kind of on-line communications we like are the kind that could once be done at 2400 baud. So disable your call waiting, plug in your modem, and join us for another year of Crazy Noises. This text has been edited for clarity and spelling (especially on “bicuspid”). I mention this briefly below, and I’ve brought it up a couple of times before, but another one of those recurring annoyances about Zombie Simpsons is the way they deal with modern technology. Like it or not, it’s a lot easier to communicate from just about any location than it used to be. This poses a lot of problems for screenwriters for the simple reason that it’s harder to have characters be either isolated or misinformed. (If Romeo and Juliet had been able to text they’d have been fine.) Zombie Simpsons, in its infinite apathy for things making sense even for just a few seconds, takes this to new lows by having the characters alternately be perfectly informed, and then suddenly forget that they’re carrying a cell phone. This happens in a particularly galling way at the end of “The Food Wife” when Marge sends Homer to the wrong side of town. That Homer wouldn’t think to check the address doesn’t bother me. What bothers me is that Marge gives him the wrong directions and then neither of them has a cell phone right up until the plot needs them to have a cell phone, at which point she gets a panicked message and knows to go teleporting herself to the meth lab. Either they’ve got cell phones and there was never a chance her plan was going to work (because he’d be able to reach her once he knew he wasn’t at the restaurant), or they don’t have cell phones and her plan to ditch him might work (because he won’t be able to reach her). Only on Zombie Simpsons can it be both. Charlie Sweatpants: Ready to get started? Dave: Yep. I want that 21 minutes of my life back. I freely admit that "foodies" are ripe for parody Charlie Sweatpants: But this wasn’t really it, was it? Dave: Exactly. In the clumsy hands of the animators and writers they just…
Compare & Contrast: Conventioneering
“Sorry kids, but this is the one event I want my darling wife by my side.” – Homer Simpson “Oh, well thank you, Homer. But take one of the kids.” – Marge Simpson “Marge, they can’t carry enough candy! They have puny little muscles, not big ropey ones like you.” – Homer Simpson Like last week, there are quite a few aspects of “The Food Wife” which were done better on actual episodes of The Simpsons. There was the family trying out ethnic food, which made more sense and had more to do with the rest of the episode in “One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish”. There was Homer’s now advanced woodworking skills, which were probably intended as a callback of some kind but which only reminded me how little Zombie Simpsons is like its predecessor. There was especially the way Marge becomes afraid that she’s no fun, which was infinitely funnier and more believable in “Bart’s Inner Child”. For sheer simplicity though, nothing really beats the way “The Food Wife” and “Homer Badman” both open: with the family going to a convention. The differences in the things Zombie Simpsons cares about and the things The Simpsons cared about are massively apparent right in the opening scenes. As “The Food Wife” begins, Lisa and Bart have earned a reward of some kind and are going to get a “Saturday Surprise Dad Day”. As soon as Marge announces that, the kids cheer and Homer lets us know that this is something that happens quite often. In just this one scene we can see how much the family has degenerated into characterless, one dimensional nobodies. Nothing says “The Simpsons” like a prosperous family that loves spending time together! Homer, the man who used to routinely avoid doing anything with his kids, is excited to take them somewhere on his precious Saturday. Bart and Lisa are thrilled at the prospect of some of Homer’s half assed over-parenting (and Bart has somehow been behaving well). And Marge, despite the jealousy that the audience will repeatedly see her go through for the rest of the episode, is just peachy keen on all of this. Not only do none of these things fit with who these people are supposed to be, but since Homer rattles off two things he’s done before it means that it’s been going on like this for a while. This is particularly jarring when it comes to Marge, since “cemetery paintball” and “go karts on real roads” don’t sound like activities she’d want her ten-year-old son or eight-year-old daughter doing. The entire scene is pure Zombie Simpsons, apathetic towards the characters and generally nonsensical (and we haven’t even gotten to the convention yet). Compare that with the opening scene from “Homer Badman”, which also takes place at the kitchen table. This one opens with Bart picking the non-marshmallow pieces out of his cereal, Lisa calling him on it (revealing her own hatred of the non-marshmallow pieces in the process), and then…
Zombie Simpsons Lives In Brentwood, Thinks Everyone Else Does Too
“Look everybody, my purse exploded!” – Marge Simpson “Come on everybody, we’re going to the fanciest restaurant in town!” – Homer Simpson There once was a show called The Simpsons. It was about an upper-lower-middle class family that lived in small town Anywhere, USA. That family wasn’t quite poor, but they could only barely make ends meet. Their city wasn’t a thriving metropolis, it was another beat up burgh whose past was brighter than its future. Part of what made the show so searingly funny was the way it took unpleasant realities like staving off poverty and living in America’s worst city and made them jokes. The bleakness of the Simpsons’ life was an integral part of not just the setting and the stories, but of the show’s entire outlook on life. None of that is true on Zombie Simpsons. There’s a rainbow at the end of everything and the streets are paved with gold. The Simpson family is now so prosperous that they have three laptops, go on expensive outings, and eat at nice restaurants every night of the week. Springfield itself is filled with trendy eateries and the well fed yuppies who love them. The whole thing is all but unrecognizable to anyone who hasn’t spent time in or around the posh sections of Los Angeles. Even the meth labs are nice. That cozy, upper-upper-middle class sensibility is a big reason why Zombie Simpsons is so punchless, even when they set their sights on a fat target like celebrity chefs and food fads. Instead of skewering something, they hold it up for the gentlest of ribbings. Instead of making fun of pompous celebrities, they invite them on the show to be feted in yellow. “The Food Wife” was less a satire of foodie culture than an advertisement for it. Of course the episode was also shot through with the usual list of Zombie Simpsons problems. People acting wildly out of character (when did Bart and Lisa become the same person?), scenes that make no sense (why don’t you strangers join us for dinner?), teleporting characters (wasn’t Wiggum inside before Marge got there?), and a story so thinly conceived that they needed to have Marge exposit how she was feeling no fewer than half a dozen times. As if to underscore how weak Zombie Simpsons has become, the episode’s lone standout was a song written for them by Adult Swim darlings Tim and Eric. And while they had a few video game ideas that rose to the level of cute, most of the episode was a mash note to the perks of living relatively high on the hog. Anyway, the numbers are in and they are rotten and stale. Just 7.53 million viewers wondered why they weren’t watching the Food Channel last night. That’s down about half a million people from last week and keeps Season 23 well on track to be the lowest rated ever. It’s almost like celebrity chefs only appeal to a narrow slice of people. …
Sunday Preview: The Food Wife
As always, credit to Dave for the hemoglobin. For your viewing displeasure this evening, Zombie Simpsons is going to make another blind stab at relevance by having Marge and the kids blog about food. Simpsons Channel didn’t have a preview image, but there was a YouTube video in which Homer gets hurt and has his pants fall down. I laughed at this; not because it’s funny, but because it reminded me of The Critic. When Jay Sherman goes to Los Angeles to become a screen writer, he got hired to write “Ghostchasers 3”. While having a meeting with the studio, this happens: Sherman (very sarcastically): Now, is there anything you feel could be improved from the first two films? Suit #1 (earnestly): Ghostchaser underpants didn’t sell as well in Mexico as we’d hoped. Suit #2 (eagerly): Maybe you could have the black guy’s pants fall down in Tijuana. Sherman (desperately unhappy): I understand. I know Zombie Simpsons is protected from that kind of network horseshit, but it’s amusing to think of someone telling them that Treehouse of Horror isn’t trending on Twitter as well as they’d hoped, and could they please make an episode about the internet and have Homer’s pants fall down?