“Willie hears ya. Willie don’t care.” – Groundskeeper Willie After the Season 22 finale, I wrote a post noting the vast difference between the marketing of the Flanders-Krabappel cliffhanger and the one for “Who Shot Mr. Burns?”. Where once there was a national advertising campaign and genuine fan interest, now there were a couple of lame internet downloads and the sound of crickets. I was curious to see how FOX would handle the inevitable Season 23 promotional stuff, however. In theory, people cared about the fate of “Nedna”. In practice, even the marketing department thought otherwise. I watched a lot…
Tag: The Ned-liest Catch
Compare & Contrast: Cliffhangers & Cultural Relevance
“This past summer, all of America was trying to solve the mystery of who shot Mr. Burns, then they found out it was the baby.” – Troy McClure Twas the summer of 1980, and America was atwitter over a television cliffhanger about who had shot a character named J.R. on a primetime soap opera called Dallas. T-shirts were produced, bets were placed, and, if the Wikipedia article titled simply “Who shot J.R.?” is to be believed, that year’s presidential contest even got into the act with jokes and buttons. When the shooter was revealed that autumn, it became one of…
Crazy Noises: The Ned-Liest Catch
“I’m surprised you don’t remember, son. It was only eight years ago.” – Homer Simpson “Dad, thanks to television I can’t remember what happened eight minutes ago.” – Bart Simpson In our ongoing mission to bring you only the shallowest and laziest analysis of Zombie Simpsons, we’re keeping up our Crazy Noises series for Season 22. Since a podcast is so 2004, and video would require a flag, a fern and some folding chairs from the garage, we’ve elected to use the technology that brought the word “emoticon” to the masses: the chatroom. Star Trek image macros are strictly forbidden,…
If a Show Falls in the Woods and Nobody Watches It, Does It make a Sound?
“That crater is where your lousy cartoon crash landed. It’s ratings poison!” – Krusty the Klown You’ve got to give Zombie Simpsons one thing, when they want to really put on a tour de force of crappiness, they can still do it. They had Bart and Homer acting manic and inserting themselves into other people’s lives just because. They had plenty of pointless filler, including two different scenes with characters clambering over obstacles for no discernable purpose. (And the second one wasn’t even a call back!) They took characters appearing and disappearing from scenes to new heights. And the story…
Sunday Preview: “The Ned-liest Catch”
At long last, we’re two hours away from the end of Season 22 of Zombie Simpsons with a miserably titled finale, “The Ned-liest Catch.” I don’t even know what that means. Is Ned some of crab? Is Ms. Krabappel some sort of captain? Does anyone care? Here’s the description from Simpsons Channel, in case you do: Feeling guilty for getting Mrs. Krabappel suspended after one of his school pranks, Bart helps her escape detention, and Ned Flanders winds up saving her life in the process. When Edna and Ned start dating, he is surprised to learn she’s been with many of…