“Marge, you being a cop makes you the man, which makes me the woman! And I have no interest in that, besides occasionally wearing the underwear, which, as we discussed, is strictly a comfort thing.” – Homer Simpson
Tag: The Springfield Connection
Quote of the Day
Image used under Creative Commons license from Flickr user DRB62. "I’ll have you know the contents of that dumpster are private! You stick your nose in, you’ll be violating attorney dumpster confidentiality!" – Lionel Hutz
Reading Digest: “Season 22? What Season 22?” Edition
“I’ll just be a second, Marge. I’m going to get some beer for those kids over there.” – Homer Simpson “I’m gonna pretend that I didn’t hear that.” – Marge Simpson Lots of good links this week, we’ve got some Simpsons love from both a vegetarian site and a vegan site, scientists with cunning marketing skills, someone who’s never actually watched the show, some excellent usage, and a couple of musical links. Oh, is there some worthless cross-promotional stunt happening on Sunday? I hadn’t noticed. Enjoy. The Simpsons: Saying a lot with a little – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week is this interesting take on the show, especially the opening sequence, from someone who never watched it growing up and is coming to it fresh: And then I met my husband. If I’m a total Star Wars fanatic, he’s a total Simpsons fanatic (and I’ve got a giant X-Wing tattooed on my leg). We’ve made it through two seasons of the show so far, and are working our way through the third. I love it. It’s smart, funny, socially conscious, emotionally touching and self-aware. Of course me liking it makes my husband happy and gives us something to do when we want to relax. And there are like, 37,589,042 million seasons, so we’ll probably never run out of episodes. Unfortunately, you will. All those things (funny, socially conscious, etc.) are going to come crashing down around you. A little further down is one of the many reasons why: The show doesn’t rub anything in the viewer’s face or shout “HEY LOOK AT ME I’M SELF-AWARE!” or judge the viewer for watching TV. It says what it needs to say, and that’s that. “HEY LOOK AT ME I’M SELF-AWARE!” is a great deal of what Zombie Simpsons passes off as humor. The whole thing is worth a read. Powerglove – The Simpsons (Feat Tony Kakko) – Your speed-metalish musical accompaniment for the rest of this week’s Reading Digest (via): Back in the Day, Sept. 19, 2010: ‘Whacking Day’ – This is kind of like “Man Bites Dog”, but more “People Kill Snake” in its particulars. Free Ice Cream Around NYC All Weekend! – I’m not recommending you watch Zombie Simpsons, but free ice cream is free ice cream. Matt Groening, The Simpsons, spoken by the character Homer Simpson – Homer’s preamble to not winning friends with salad perfectly quoted but accompanied by an image from “Lisa the Simpson”. Still, excellent usage. Doh! Scientists uncover Homer Simpson gene – Removing a gene that primarily affects the CA2 region of the hippocampus gave mice a greater ability to recognize objections that had been previously placed in their cages. Okay, Homer’s stupid, but unless removing this gene also increases the mice’s lust for donuts and beer I think we can hold off on officially recognizing the name. Points to the scientists for a clever bit of marketing gimmickry though. ‘The Simpsons’ named top TV brand – Simpsons sells more shit than any other…
Compare & Contrast: Counterfeit Clothing
“Oh no, it’s Gloria Vanderbilt, out for revenge!” – Hired Goon Near the end of “Chief of Hearts”, Fat Tony and the gang are counterfeiting clothing in the woods for some reason. Homer and Wiggum are there for some other reason. Homer and Wiggum then get thrown in the trunk for yet another reason. While in the trunk, they have an earnest and humorless heart-to-heart moment that finally pushes their earnest and humorless plot line towards the finish line. As if to underscore how lazy this entire setup is, just about the only stab at comedy in the entire ending is Wiggum’s joke about the tire iron being what was poking him in the back. Except that Wiggum was facing Homer, not the other way around. That’s not normally the kind of thing I give a shit about, but there’s no reason other than sheer apathy for it to have been that way. They could’ve put Homer behind Wiggum in the trunk, there was nothing stopping them. But they didn’t even consider it. This could not have been more than two script pages from the tire iron “joke”. Compare all this to the ending of “The Springfield Connection”. Here, too, we have a counterfeit clothing scheme to wrap up the plot. The difference (other than that this one was fresh and Zombie Simpsons was recycling an idea) is that both of the elements that bring the story to a conclusion have been previously established. We know that Homer gambles in the house with Herman (and that Herman ducks out for unexplained reasons), and we’ve seen Marge on the firing range doing target practice. Moreover, even during the “suspense” parts, nearly every line or action is a joke of some kind, from Homer telling Marge to “sell the jeans and live like a queen”, to Marge’s exasperation at her back yard turning into a shooting gallery, to Herman’s “foiled by my own shoddy merchandise”. Everything is played for humor and it all moves on quickly. Even Homer’s reconciliation with Marge, telling her that she’s a good cop, is played for a laugh when Homer immediately turns on her when he thinks Herman is getting away. Not only does it take less time than Homer and Wiggum’s multiple makeup sessions in “Chief of Hearts”, but it’s done with comedy – not drama – in mind. To top it all off, when things finally do end, everything returns to normal. Marge quits the police (which she’d already grown disenchanted with) because of all the corruption, and no one had to act out of character to get things back to normal. Wiggum and company remain self interested and dishonest, Marge remains incorruptible and upright. Zombie Simpsons perverts the essence of a long established character, lingers on contrived situations that are played for suspense, and ends with Homer and Wiggum being friends instead of returning things to the way they were. The Simpsons has a long established character explore a new opportunity that fits right…
Quote of the Day
“Foiled by my own shoddy merchandise!” – Herman
Reading Digest: Unauthorized Reproduction Edition
Image used under Creative Commons license from Flickr user bsdfm. “A counterfeit jeans ring operating out of my car hole!” – Homer Simpson There were a lot more boring 20th anniversary links this week. Here is a general paraphrase that sums up what I’m not bothering to link to this week: The Simpsons has been on for 20 years. I feel old. Kids these days. Hope they keep at it. Aren’t all of our lives better without going through more of that? If you want to add a little variety you can sprinkle in the occasional mention of Tracy Ullman and/or a statement about declining quality. Instead of that we get to make fun of Mitch Albom and an astrologer, see another awesome t-shirt design, witness someone else employ the “it’s getting better!” trope, and check in with those great Samsonadzes. Plus there’s counterfeit currency and Homer in an ad for weed. D’oh! I’m on ‘The Simpsons’ – Hey Albom, go fuck yourself. And I’ll happily answer this question for you: The plot was reminiscent of my book "Tuesdays With Morrie," and they even called the episode "Thursdays With Abie," and they wrote me into the show because, I don’t know, maybe they thought they’d get sued, which I wouldn’t have done because, frankly, I don’t know how to sue, and anyhow, why sue "The Simpsons"? I like the Simpsons, the cartoon group, not, you know, O.J.’s version. They got you because they should’ve quit a long time ago, and you should’ve quit a long time ago, and it’s a big scary world out there for people who should’ve quit a long time ago. (And if that first sentence is anything to go by they may have wanted to borrow some of your commas.) Also, an O.J. joke? Take that 1995! Homer Simpson/Moai – This is a sweet threadless design. It is not as cool as the other one, but what is? DVD Review: The Simpsons: The Complete Twentieth Season – There’s nothing you really need to read here. Half of it is just a discourse on the history of the show (and it gets some basic facts wrong). Then there’s this at the end: After a few seasons that just seemed a little tired, the writing on The Simpsons has improved dramatically. Has it now? Weed Mags Sprout Across Los Angeles – Medical marijuana has opened up new opportunities for publishing, albeit in very rough cut form: It’s a young industry, where key players are still emerging, and the rules of engagement are fluid and often don’t meet professional standards. The result is a Wild West moment: Full-page pot ads include copyrighted images of Marilyn Monroe, Homer Simpson and the Incredible Hulk — corporate properties unlikely to be licensed to a corner marijuana shop. “Unlikely to be licensed” is a wonderfully dry understatement. Homer Simpson named ‘honorary Aussie’ – Apparently a magazine called “Ralph” now handles Australia’s naturalization process. Curlers welcome Homer Simpson to the ice - This is…
Quote of the Day
"Forget about the badge, when to we get the freakin’ guns!" – Nameless Police Recruit "Hey, I told you, you don’t get your gun until you tell me your name." – Chief Wiggum "I’ve had it up to here with your ‘rules’!" – Nameless Police Recruit
How to Put Homer Simpson Properly Out of Character
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.