“Scary, no? And this guy’s head of the Spaceology Department at the Correspondence College of Tampa!” – Bart Simpson Ladies and gentlemen, hold on to your tinfoil hats, because YouTube user “truthwillfindyoubru” is about to avert a nuclear holocaust this Saturday! I found it on a blog called “2012 THE AWAKENING”, the url of which is “ascendingstarseed”, so you know this is completely legitimate and above board. Feast your Stonecutter-Illuminati-Black Ops-Freemason-Cult of Darius-CIA/MI6/007 eyes on this: Or, you know, don’t. Really. Don’t. But I did, all ten minutes and forty-four idiotic seconds of it. The basic premise here is that the Zombie Simpsons episode “To Surveil With Love”, which I had more or less completely forgotten, foretells a “black flag” nuclear bomb attack scheduled for this Saturday the 6th of November, 2010. The “black flag” part means that this nuclear detonation will be carried out by nefarious forces and blamed on someone else as a way to further the agenda of said nefarious forces. Everybody got all that? Good, let’s get to the tape. The video starts out by rehashing the old conspiracist saw that “City of New York vs. Homer Simpson” predicted the 2001 terrorist attacks crap. If you’re unfamiliar with that bit of brilliant logic, here’s the screen grab that sent thousands of misguided people to their keyboards: Definitive proof that Ian Maxtone-Graham is history’s greatest monster. After that, the video mentions an episode of the X-Files spinoff “The Lone Gunman” where a plane doesn’t hit anything, a made for TV movie from 2005 about a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico, and the bland and forgettable Nicholas Cage move “Knowing”. Why? Well, the first one obviously predicted the attack on the World Trade Center, because prior to that no one had ever thought of using a plane as a weapon. The second one because hurricanes are so very rare in the Gulf of Mexico. And the third one is obvious because that movie mentioned an oil rig fire and no offshore oil rigs have ever caught fire before Deepwater Horizon. Once those not-at-all-insane connections have been made, we get a title card screen, “Now back to the point of this video”. Very well, let us continue. In case you, like me, don’t remember this particular piece of the haphazard scrawl that is Zombie Simpsons, here’s the FOX description: A bomb squad mistakenly blows up Homer’s unattended gym bag, releasing radiation into the city and authorities react by suspending civil liberties. Wiggum and his men install surveillance cameras around Springfield and round up suspected terrorists, including Groundskeeper Willie, but when monitoring the nonstop flow of video imagery proves to be too much, Wiggum enlists concerned citizens to help keep the city safe. Meanwhile, Lisa becomes fed up with being blond, so she dyes her hair a dark color Sadly, this video contains nothing about whether or not the world is ruled by a cabal of natural blondes who dye their hair. Instead, it has things like this: The…
Tag: To Surveil With Love
Crazy Noises: To Surveil With Love
“Funky-See Funky-Do will back to lip-sync another one of their hits right after this.” – “Soul Mass Transit System” Host In our continuing mission to bring you only the finest in low class, low brow, and low tech internet Simpsons commentary we’re bringing back our “Crazy Noises” series and applying it to Season 21. Because doing a podcast smacks of effort we’re still using this “chatroom” thing that all the middle schoolers and undercover cops seem to think is so cool. This text has been edited for clarity and spelling (especially on “Kesha”, from which, as an editorial decision, we’ve decided to leave out the dollar sign). I would like you to imagine two hypothetical people. The first is a critically acclaimed and widely respected comedian who’s been popular for well over a decade. The second is a pop star who has so far put out one hit song. Now, imagine a hypothetical television comedy program. Which of these two people would you expect to get top billing on an episode? If you answered “the comedian”, then you would be hypothetically correct, unfortunately, Zombie Simpsons is only hypothetically comedic. Charlie Sweatpants: Shall we get started? Mad Jon: Sure, I want to tell you guys that after the couch scene I had to stop myself from calling you both to say I’m out. I refrained from any rash decisions, but it was close Dave: I felt the same way. Anyone associated with the making of that clusterfuck should be embarrassed. Charlie Sweatpants: I don’t know, the couch "thing" didn’t bother me that much. This show’s been dead for a long time, dumping perhaps the only remaining connection it had to its former self doesn’t bother me. (Especially since they went to the HD opening last year.) Mad Jon: My god. That really was a commercial. I don’t know what this Kesha chick has on what must be several members of various media outlets, but she doesn’t have good music and she is not attractive. Dave: It was an affront to society, Charlie. Charlie Sweatpants: Zombie Simpsons is an affront to society. Forgettable pop commercial or not. Dave: Giving a animated stage to a trampy nobody sets a bad precedent for Americans. Mad Jon: I am still angry and I watched it almost 3 hours ago. grrr Charlie Sweatpants: Sorry guys, I really can’t summon any anger over this. Yes it’s cheap, crass, and completely against everything "Simpsons", but how is that different from any other episode? Mad Jon: It has offended me so much more than a normal zombie opening, I guess that’s all I was trying to say. It was quite visceral. Dave: This was a concentrated dose of egregiousness, a swift kick to the nuts. Mad Jon: But anyway I guess we can only kick that ugly horse for so long. Just ugly. Dave: Yeah let’s move on. There’s plenty more to bitch about. Charlie Sweatpants: Hang on, isn’t there at least a chance that something this…
Synergy Salivates on Command
Image from Wikimedia Commons. “And now boys and girls, here he is, the boy that says the words you’ve been longing to hear, like the salivating dogs that you are: Bart Simpson!” – Krusty the Klown No two secondary characters are more associated with stereotypical Zombie Simpsons fandom than Ralph Wiggum and Comic Book Guy. They went from uproarious diversions to main attractions, the one part of any episode the writers can be confident will cause well conditioned people to slap their fins together. Synergy, being the corporate-fanboy id of Zombie Simpsons mentality, wallows in them: We also got to see Ralph as a debate podium and listen to Comic Book Guy Maybe I’m reading too much into what’s probably just another clumsy formulation written with one eye on the word count, but the phrasing of that jumped out at me. “We” “got to”, like it’s some kind of treat, a fish you’ve been tossed as a reward for the good behavior of sitting through the rest of this crap: If you don’t turn the teevee off, we’ll make Ralph say something stupid! We’ll have Comic Book Guy mention something geeky! Like a broken down performer too deluded to know that there’s no shame in retirement, the show’s been reduced to promising to do the old tricks if you’ll just give them one more night at the old rate. As always, I’ve edited out the synergy. May 3, 2010 – Sunday night gave us another solidly crappy episode of The Simpsons Zombie Simpsons. This wasn’t an episode as good as last week’s "The Squirt and the Whale," [Ed note: leaving that alone because, really, you’re writing professionally, at least read it over once before hitting “submit”.] but there was still a lot of laughs filler and a fun dull storyline. And the twist ending made so little sense that it fogged the mind and helped elevate the audience forget everything that came before it . The Lisa storyline was a bit of a bore, but even that had a great line or two was stretched horrible to fill time. In "To Surveil With Love," Springfield found themselves the victims of what they believed to be a terrorist attack that was never mentioned for the rest of the episode. That it was actually the result of Burns trying to secretly dispose of plutonium for some reason, and Homer’s love of mac and cheese was quite fitting typically lazy and even a not the least bit funny. The town’s overreaction plot conceit was to bring in a consultant from London who then covered the city with surveillance cameras. Eddie Izzard voiced the consultant page or two of dialog. This was a rather bland role, one that I wasn’t even sure was a guest voice until the closing credits made it clear how much of waste it truly was. It’s too bad that more something couldn’t have been done with the character since it was being voiced with someone with a reputation such as Izzard’s.…
Last Week: Bad Puns, This Week: Bad Blonde Jokes, Next Week: Knock Knock Jokes
“What’s he gonna do next, a flapping dickey?” – Jay Leno It’s generally not a good sign when the cleverest writing of the week is the bubble-gum pop song that the network made you use for an opening. But sometimes even two montages, a stick-figure story that doesn’t go anywhere, and Flanders making “tsk tsk” noises for no reason aren’t enough to fill your timeslot. When that happens, you can always fall back on blonde jokes and meandering exposition. And when I say meandering, I mean meandering, like Wiggum going on about chairs, Flanders explaining what he’s doing, and Lisa coming to terms with something about six times. Of course, there were plenty of small problems to go along with the big ones. There was a criminally underutilized guest voice, a meaningless appearance by Duffman, another teacher we’ve never seen before, and a completely unnecessary desecration of Lunchlady Doris. Oh, and there was that goofy, network mandated, music video opening which, combined with Bart’s non-nude nudity, served as yet another reminder that this show no longer has any creative or editorial independence whatsoever. The numbers are in and they’re up slightly from last week but still rock bottom by historical standards, even compared to the last few lowly rated seasons. 6.06 million viewers lost a little respect for Eddie Izzard last night. That’s the first time since February that they’ve gone over six million, and only by the barest of margins. All negative ratings trends remain in place.
Sunday Preview: “To Surveil With Love”
Tonight’s edition of Zombie Simpsons, “To Surveil With Love,” has a silly A-plot involving terrorism, Springfield, and the Queen of England, and an equally ludicrous B-plot wherein Lisa transforms into a brunette. How the two logically fit is beyond me. If it’s anything like last week’s episode, the B-plot will be a flimsy lead-in to the main story, or it could just have nothing to do with anything, for which there’s also plenty of precedent. As ever, thanks to Simpsons Channel for the description. It’s not their fault the episode sounds like it’s going to be complete shit: A bomb squad mistakenly blows up Homer’s unattended gym bag, releasing radiation into the city and authorities react by suspending civil liberties. Wiggum and his men install surveillance cameras around Springfield and round up suspected terrorists, including Groundskeeper Willie, but when monitoring the nonstop flow of video imagery proves to be too much, Wiggum enlists concerned citizens to help keep the city safe. Authorities install an overload of surveillance cameras – which her majesty the queen (Eddie Izzard) enjoys as a reality tv show. Meanwhile, Lisa becomes fed up with being blonde, so she dyes her hair a dark color. Unusually, we also have a preview for the couch gag. It’s unsubtle, cross-promotional, circle-jerking at its finest: For “Fox Rocks,” the Simpsons characters sing along to pop sensation Ke$ha’s smash hit “TiK ToK” during a special musical couch gag. Will there be heavy-handed platitudes about terrorism’s impact on modern life? Will the pop-twat opening bit make us want to rip off our ears? Will Zombie Simpsons continue its one-way descent into obsolescence? We’ll have the answers to all these questions (and more!) in just a few hours.
EXCLUSIVE: Zombie Simpsons Couch Gag Preview! (Updated)
“Marge, I have always carried myself with a certain quiet dignity, tonight you robbed me of it.” – Homer Simpson Only at Dead Homer Society, you can see the exclusive, sneak peak, first look, WORLD PREMIER of the couch gag for the May 2 Zombie Simpsons episode “To Surveil, With Love”: Presumably they will animate it before it airs. I wish I were kidding, but this morning reader Alex wrote in and tipped us off to this latest Zombie Simpsons nadir. Behold, the press release from hell: Don’t miss a note of “FOX Rocks,” a week of music-themed episodes kicking off Thursday, April 29 and airing through Wednesday, May 5. Throughout the rockin’ week, FOX’s primetime series – including BONES, FRINGE, HOUSE, GLEE, THE SIMPSONS, THE CLEVELAND SHOW, FAMILY GUY, THE WANDA SYKES SHOW and AMERICAN IDOL – will feature a variety of musical elements. […] THE SIMPSONS (8:00-8:30 PM ET/PT) – “To Surveil, With Love” During a special musical couch gag, SIMPSONS characters sing along to Ke$ha’s smash hit “TiK ToK.” Zombie Simpsons is farming out the couch gag. Apparently they thought someone else could come up with a humorless, over-animated montage just as good as theirs. Or they breathed a sigh of relief when they realized this would help kill a few more precious seconds of screen time. Either way, less work for them! By the way, as of this writing, “Tik Tok” is #9 on the Billboard pop chart, down from #5 last week. So, once again, Zombie Simpsons has missed its chance to be topical. Taking a step back, what we have here is a couch gag used to promote a hit song that was put out by an artist who (as far as we know) isn’t a guest voice, and all timed to coincide with FOX’s little musical week. Didn’t this show used to pride itself on its lack of network interference? I have imaginary friends who have more integrity than Zombie Simpsons. By the way, I’m setting the over/under on length for this little program-linked-advertisement at 40.5 seconds. Update at 5:07pm EDT: And the hits just keep on coming. Via Alex’s Twitter feed I see that “American Idol” will be gracing Zombie Simpsons on May 23rd for the season finale. I guess that advertisement for “24” they passed off as an episode a few years ago is considered such a classic that they decided to do it again. Though, given the relative ratings for “American Idol” and Zombie Simpsons, it seems like this is more of a favor to Zombie Simpsons than from them.