“You know, Moe, my mom once said something that really stuck with me. She said, ‘Homer, you’re a big disappointment’. And, God bless her soul, she was really onto something.” – Homer Simpson Happy 30th Anniversary to “There’s No Disgrace Like Home”!
Tag: There’s No Disgrace Like Home
Quote of the Day
“I’m sorry, Marge, but sometimes I think we’re the worst family in town.” – Homer Simpson “Maybe we should move to a larger community.” – Marge Simpson
Quote of the Day
“Look at that, kids. No fighting. No yelling.” – Homer Simpson “No belching.” – Bart Simpson “The dad has a shirt on.” – Lisa Simpson “Look! Napkins!” – Marge Simpson “These people are obviously freaks.” – Bart Simpson
Quote of the Day
“I don’t know who to love more, my son Joshua who’s captain of the football team, or my daughter Amber who got the lead in the school play. Usually I use their grades as a tie breaker. But they both got straight ‘A’s this term, so, what’s a mother to do?” – Humble Brag Mom “Well, I sense greatness in my family.” – Marge Simpson “Your family?” – Skeptical Mom “Well, it’s a greatness that others can’t see. But it’s there. And if it’s not true greatness we have, we’re at least average. . . . I don’t want to alarm anyone, but I think there’s a little al-key-hol in this punch.” – Marge Simpson
Quote of the Day
“Alright, time for a family meeting.” – Homer Simpson “Why can’t we have a meeting when you’re watching TV?” – Lisa Simpson
Quote of the Day
“Evening, Moe.” – Eddie “Want some pretzels?” – Moe “No, thanks, we’re on duty. Couple beers’d be nice, though.” – Eddie “That’ll be two bucks, boys. . . . Just kidding.” – Moe
Quote of the Day
“Boy, someone’s really gobbling up the juice, sir.” – Mr. Smithers “Excellent, excellent. Perhaps this energy conservation fad is as dead as the dodo.” – C.M. Burns Happy Birthday Al Jean!
Permanent Record: Burns Manor
“There it is, kids, stately Burns Manor, heaven on earth.” – Homer Simpson Watching Season 1 episodes with the knowledge of what the show was going to become can often blur out just how well formed many of the show’s ideas were, even before the voices and the animation had developed. Burns, and the palatial estate on which he lives, illustrate that well. “There’s No Disgrace Like Home” is the first time we get to see Burns Manor, and while it would be revised and updated in Season 2 and later, the fundamental ideas of it are all right here. The image at the top of this post is the establishing shot, and right away we know that a) it’s luxurious to the point of absurdity (note the string music in the background when the family walks in), and b) the Simpsons (and by extension, you) are not the least bit welcome. On only one day per year does Burns allow regular people into his perfect world (the warning sign doesn’t say that “Trespassers” will be shot, it says “Poachers”), and even then it’s only so his employees can bow and scrape before him. The sack race is mandatory (and Burns must be allowed to win), the father whose kid didn’t want to be there is not only getting promptly ejected from the party, he’s being fired permanently. But the mansion itself is just as important, particularly vis-a-vis the rest of Springfield. Besides the Simpson home, there are only three other real settings in this episode. There’s Moe’s, a dingy bar that doesn’t even have a color television, the pawn shop, and Dr. Monroe’s clinic, which is hardly a top notch medical facility since, as Lisa points out, he advertises it during boxing: The bar is dirty and dingy, the pawnshop is a pawnshop (and has cracks in its walls and ceiling), and the rather grandly named “Family Therapy Center” is just some rented office with a dumpster right where you can see it on your way in. Burns Manor, on the other hand, is the only really nice place in the entire town: It’s got a foyer worthy of Versailles, classical architecture, and enormous grounds decorated with fountains and gazebos. Unlike Springfield, which is kind of a mess, Burns Manor is polished and perfect. We’re still years away from Bart having the train that disappears for hours and one time came back with snow on it, or the band shell where a captive Tom Jones performs for Marge and Homer, or the guards who sing that all they own they owe, but Burns Manor is already recognizable as a place that is both very rich and very cruel. Moreover, it’s already a place that highlights all the things the Simpsons don’t have, and really can never have. Homer’s place is at Moe’s with the passed out drunk on the bar; Marge has the house that Bart describes as a “dump” when he thinks its someone else’s. Even the perfect…
Quote of the Day
“But now it’s time to say good bye. Please get off my property until next year. I suggest you don’t dawdle! The hounds will be released in ten minutes.” – C.M. Burns
Compare & Contrast: Family Therapy and Meta Commentary
“Wait a minute, these mallet things are padded with foam rubber. What’s the point?” – Homer Simpson “They’d work much better without the padding, Doc.” – Bart Simpson “No, no, that’s not true.” – Dr. Marvin Monroe Shortly after Frink fell out of the sky and “How I Wet Your Mother” took its disastrous Inception turn halfway through, one of the scenes the family quantum slept into was a callback to an old Tracey Ullman short called “Family Therapy”. (The original is about the family going to a therapist whom they torment until he throws them out of his office.) But it’s also reminiscent of the ending of Season 1’s “There’s No Disgrace Like Home”. As usual when Zombie Simpsons recalls something The Simpsons already did, even a quick glance at the two scenes shows the yawning difference in humor and craftsmanship between the two shows. On The Simpsons, the therapy office is the culmination of the entire story about Homer wanting his family to be postcard perfect despite the fact that he’s the biggest (but by no means only) reason they aren’t and never will be. There are jokes about family life, bargain basement therapy, pawn shops, poverty, energy conservation, and television itself mixed in with physical gags and genuine feelings. On Zombie Simpsons, the therapy office is little more than a random sketch among many, each of which features five empty and emotionless comedy troupers doing whatever zany things come to mind. The only thing in it that had anything to do with the rest of the episode was a coffin that was filled with fish, so even if this scene absolutely, positively had to be a based on a Tracey Ullman short, they could’ve dropped that particular prop into any one they liked. The contradictory and skeletal framework Zombie Simpsons passes off as a plot didn’t require them to be there or add anything to the scene. It’s not the real Simpsons, but an incredible simulation! Of course, it wouldn’t have mattered if Zombie Simpsons had bothered to tie the therapy office to the rest of the episode, because the underlying story was the kind of meandering nonsense you might hear from a five-year-old: See, Homer wets his bed [giggles], and then he’s got skis and there’s a coffin [sips from juice box], but then he falls off a cliff, but then they find the coffin in this room [wipes nose on sleeve], and then the coffin, um, the coffin is full of fish [gets distracted when sibling runs by]. You don’t mind this kind of stuff from the five-year-old because, hey, five-year-old. Zombie Simpsons doesn’t have that excuse (and stopped being cute a long time ago). Beyond their places in each episode, though, both scenes also offer an informative meta-statement about the nature of their respective series, not only their specific places on television, but also in popular culture more generally. The overarching theme of “There’s No Disgrace Like Home” is about the Simpsons being a…
Quote of the Day
“I’ve never seen such an obvious attempt to curry my favor.” – C.M. Burns “Fabulous observation, sir. Just fabulous.” – Mr. Smithers Happy birthday Harry Shearer!
Quote of the Day
“I’m sorry, Marge, but sometimes I think we’re the worst family in town.” – Homer Simpson “Maybe we should move to a larger community.” – Marge Simpson
Quote of the Day
“Make yourselves at home.” – C.M. Burns “Hear that, Dad? You can lie around in your underwear and scratch yourself.” – Bart Simpson
Reading Digest: Sketches, Drawings and Art Edition
“Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.” – Homer Simpson As the title indicates, there are quite a few different fan made pieces this week, ranging from quick and dirty to very elaborate. We’ve also got some excellent and poor usage, a bizarre video game/music website, a sweet hockey mask, and video of adorable children not paying attention to Zombie Simpsons. Enjoy. Old process, new representation – Smooth Charlie’s click of the week is four awesome pieces of Simpsons art in a gallery in South Korea. The Lisa one is especially fantastic. Sitar Hero – Ten million internet points to whoever came up with this. “Pour Some Curry On Me”, ha. Webwatch: Welcome to the internet, my friend! – A short write up of our old friends over at Eye on Springfield (via @dailysimpsons). WEBSITE OF THE DAY – Isle of Tune – The background: There are, without a doubt, quite a few things I lie awake at night wondering about. Some of them are quite mundane. Some of them are just a bit weird. A couple would probably make a psychiatrist start taking notes, but not one of them has ever been: "I wonder what the theme from The Simpsons looks like as a road layout" Yes, that’s right, there is now a website that can finally answer the all-important question, that nobody in the history of human existence has ever, ever, wondered about. And that’s why we love the Internet, isn’t it? Yes, yes it is. The website, and the top rated version of the Simpsons theme. My Simpsons Collection – Though I am generally opposed to Simpsons merchandise, that framed puzzle of Homer at the grill is really cool. ‘The Simpsons’: Nancy Cartwright looks back at 22 seasons of Bart – Exactly what it says (via @SimpsonsArchive). Simpsons S1E1 – This is a picture of a handwritten review/synopsis of “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire”. Makes for oddly fascinating reading. Bart Simpson Coin Purse by gozer on Etsy – That’s right, a purse. Video: Man Beats Bus on Big Wheel – Double fail here: Homer Simpson once said “Public transportation is for suckers,” and after watching this video of a New Yorker beating a bus in a one-mile race from 10th avenue to Madison avenue by two minutes. First of all, no he didn’t say that. Marge once recounted that Homer thinks “public transportation is for losers”, but that’s it. Second, that’s not a sentence. Poor usage. Nothing related to the Simpsons; and The Fiver’s Little Helper – This is a very Simpsons-Zen approach to confusing topics: Whenever the Fiver is ordered to conjure "funny" out of incredibly dull stories about takeovers, shares, leveraged buyouts and other unspeakably tedious fiscal matters, our thoughts invariably turn to Santa’s Little Helper, family dog of The Simpsons. Whenever somebody is giving out to him for some misdemeanour, we are invariably shown the putdown from the confused pooch’s point of view: everything is in black and white, an angry human is gesticulating furiously…
Thursday Evening Cartoons
“When will I learn? The answer to life’s problems aren’t at the bottom of a bottle. They’re on teevee!” – Homer Simpson In “There’s No Disgrace Like Home”, Homer attempts to prove to his family that they are, in fact, terrible. In the process, they peep in on some other households to see whether or not everyone lives in the same misery they do. After he fails, Homer wallows in the sorry state of the family he heads. Being Homer, he does so with a beer at Moe’s. Eddie and Lou walk in with a police German Shepherd. After drinking on the job, they say to Moe that they’re looking for a family of peeping toms. Homer immediately realizes it’s him. The dog begins growling, but the clueless Springfield PD ignores it and believes Homer’s lame excuse that he has hot dogs in his pants. There’s no attempt to mine such absurdity for tension, there’s no string music of suspense; the whole thing is played completely for laughs. No matter how outlandish, Zombie Simpsons would never let Homer find himself under police suspicion without milking a minute or two of fake drama. For them it’s too good a concept to waste on a few seconds of screen time; for The Simpsons it was a throwaway scene that reinforced the rest of the episode.
Watching It All Again (& A Little Season 1 Context)
“Okay now look, my boss is gonna be at this picnic so I want you to show your father some love and or respect.” – Homer Simpson “Tough choice.” – Lisa Simpson “I’m picking respect.” – Bart Simpson Over at her new blog, commenter Kokairu has gone back to the beginning, all the way. She’s watching everything Simpsons, starting with the shorts and going from there. Part 1 is about the Tracey Ullman shorts; Part 2 deals with the question of which was really the “first” episode. While I’ve never gone back and watched all the shorts, I think this is a fantastic idea. (And, since it’s not trying to be an episode by episode guide, it, unlike the A.V. Club’s version, will finish sometime before the next Ice Age.) The syndication runs are such a jumble that it’s uncommon for someone to watch the show develop, perfect itself, and then fall into utter ruin, in that order. But that’s how it really happened, and that’s also the easiest way to see it happen. In line with that, I’d like to add a little context to the first season of The Simpsons. Season 1 is usually thought of, not entirely incorrectly, as a kind of proto-Simpsons. Usually this means a discussion of how the animation and the voices were not yet fully formed. That’s true as far as it goes, but something else has been lost from Season 1, and that’s the media environment it was mocking and directly challenging. This is especially easy to miss if you weren’t watching American television in the 1980s. In Part 2 of her series, Kokairu (who’s British) inadvertently shows just how much this kind of context has faded. In discussing how “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire” became the first episode, she wrote this: Christmas specials, however, are usually a means to give a warm and festive twist on a familiar TV show (though this would be the case if you count the shorts). That’s true but, on American television at the time, holiday specials were also the only animation that was ever meant for adults as well as children. The Chuck Jones/Boris Karloff version of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” was an annual event. Similarly, every single year CBS would broadcast the holy trinity of Peanuts specials at Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was another yearly deviation from the live-action norm. In 1989 FOX didn’t really know what it had on its hands with this cartoon, and introducing it as a holiday special made a lot of sense in the context of television at the time. (Yes, I know “Some Enchanted Evening” was supposed to be the first episode and had to be redone. The point stands. It was not a coincidence that they started with a holiday special, it was about the only way adults ever watched animation in America.) In Part 3, Kokairu talks about Season 1, and I agree with quite a lot of it, especially this:…
Quote of the Day
“You’re sending us to a doctor who advertises on pro wrestling?” – Lisa Simpson “Boxing, Lisa, boxing, there’s a world of difference.” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
“To save this family we’re going to have the make the supreme sacrifice.” – Homer Simpson “No Dad, please don’t pawn the TV!” – Lisa Simpson “Aw come on Dad, anything but that.” – Bart Simpson “Homer, couldn’t we pawn my engagement ring instead?” – Marge Simpson “Now I appreciate that honey, but, we need $150 dollars here!” – Homer Simpson Happy 20th anniversary to “There’s No Disgrace Like Home”!
Quote of the Day
“Hey, what’s the problem here?” – Homer Simpson “We were fighting over which one of us loves you more.” – Lisa Simpson “You were? . . . Aww, well, go ahead.” – Homer Simpson “You love him more!” – Bart Simpson “No, you do!” – Lisa Simpson “No I don’t!” – Bart Simpson “Yes you do!” – Lisa Simpson “No I don’t!” – Bart Simpson Happy Birthday Al Jean!
Quote of the Day
“Don’t blame yourself Homer, you got dealt a bad hand. You got crummy little kids that nobody can control.” – Barney Gumble “You can’t talk that way about my kids! Or at least two of them.” – Homer Simpson “Why, you got two I haven’t met?” – Barney Gumble