“It has the power to grant wishes to its owner.” – Merchant “Oh yeah, how much?” – Homer Simpson “Sir, I must strongly advise you to not purchase this. Behind every wish lurks grave misfortune. I, myself, was once president of Algeria.” – Merchant
Tag: Treehouse of Horror II
Quote of the Day
“This is all the Simpsons’ fault.” – Woman “Before I was just bored with their antics and their merchandise, now I wish they were dead.” – Man
Quote of the Day
“I’ll make a wish that can’t backfire. I wish for a turkey sandwich, on rye bread, with lettuce and mustard and-and I don’t want any zombie turkeys, I don’t want to turn into a turkey myself, and I don’t want any other weird surprises. You got it? . . . Hey! Hmmm, mmm, not bad, nice hot mustard, good bread, the turkey’s a little dry . . . the turkey’s a little dry! Oh foul accursed thing! What demon from the depths of hell created thee?” – Homer Simpson Happy birthday Dan Castellaneta!
Quote of the Day
“Every day, same old cat. I’ll make it more interesting.” – Bart Simpson “Ahhhh!” – Homer Simpson “Ah, there, that’s better.” – Bart Simpson “Much better . . . oh good, the curtains are on fire!” – Marge Simpson
Quote of the Day
“Smithers, hand me that ice cream scoop.” – C.M. Burns “Ice cream scoop?” – Mr. Smithers “Dammit Smithers, this isn’t rocket science, it’s brain surgery!” – C.M. Burns
“The Computer Wore Menace Shoes” Makes Baby Jesus Cry
“And did I mention that the monster is a 10-year old boy? Quite a twist, huh? Bet you didn’t see that one coming.” – Narrator The brain searingly awful third act of this monstrosity is based off of a short lived 1960s British television program called The Prisoner. It’s a sort of lamented cult classic for nerds and geeks of an older vintage than me. Had I, or any of my friends or family, heard of The Prisoner when “The Computer Wore Menace Shoes” was first broadcast we might not have been quite so bewildered by the whole island kidnapping thing. Mind you that wouldn’t have made it funny, but it might have cut down on the out and out confusion. Much of the commentary during the third act of this dismal spectacle focused on how faithful the animation was to the original, how well it replicated the “dreamlike” feeling of the original show. Never having seen The Prisoner I can’t really speak to that, but it reminded me of something I’ve noticed before. Namely, that at some point Zombie Simpsons stopped satirizing well known pop culture scenes and started simply replicating them. The way the commentators were talking made it abundantly clear that duplication, far more than comedy, was on their minds. Nine guys on this one. 2:00: Laughing about the fact that this is the third or fourth time that Homer has bought his first computer. 3:00: “So I tied an onion to my belt”-level pointlessness on a story about the couch gag. 6:01: “We probably should’ve followed up on this Bart plot.” 6:05: That sentence above is followed by one of the longest silences yet. I’ve listened to a lot of these commentaries lately and it really breaks down into about three main categories: 1) long silences where no one thinks to say anything, 2) laughing at mediocrity, and 3) stories that barely relate to the episode and don’t go anywhere. 7:00: Matt Selman plugs his blog at Time.com. 7:30: Tom Gammill plugs his comic strip at Gocomics. 8:15: More with the long silence. 9:15: Still more or less silent from the above, there was a brief interlude to talk about an upcoming joke, but it didn’t last long. 10:30: Someone points out that they have three signs outside the power plant on the establishing shot and not one of them is a joke. Does this count as awareness of how thin Zombie Simpsons is? 11:00: Long silence broken by snickering at the continued existence of terrorists followed by another long silence. They sound almost as bored with this one as I am. 12:00: Comment that breaks the silence: Is that really what the Pulitzer Prize looks like? Yes, and that old guy really is the head of the Qwik-E-Mart. 13:00: Still awfully quiet. 14:06: Regretting the joke about Rod and Todd not getting flu shots. I’m aware of all the damage that anti-vaccine nutjobs have caused, but Flanders is the exact kind of dimwitted, well meaning…
Animating the Fourth Wall
I was poking around for items for tomorrow’s link dump when I came across this from a blog called “Art Brut(e)”: See I was going to be really clever and somehow link “Mom and Pop Art” with “Duck Amuk” to Larry Johnson and it was going to be really clever, but the conceit doesn’t work anymore so– eh, why don’t you pick up an Art Forum or something. “Duck Amuck” is one of the most memorable Merrie Melodies ever and, prior to clicking that link, I hadn’t actually watched the whole thing (~7 min) in years. It’s still very clever and quite funny. I cracked up when Daffy’s parachute was replaced with an anvil (William Faulkner could write an anvil gag that would really make you think). In terms of “Duck Amuck” and The Simpsons the first thing that sprang to mind was Snowball II after Bart makes it more interesting in the second Treehouse of Horror: But then I got to thinking about all the other times the show broke the fourth wall with animation. (Note: this is not meant to be an exhaustive list.) First up is “Brush with Greatness” and it’s never ending MC Escher line for the “H2WHOA!” ride: Next is “The Front” and it’s fantastically crappy reused background of water cooler/nondescript door/cleaning lady: In Boy Scoutz N the Hood we learn that cartoons don’t need to be 100% realistic and, lo and behold, there are two Homers: Finally, there are a lot of couch gags that play around with how the Simpsons are animated, but two in particular seem genuinely “fourth-wall-ish”. The one in “Lisa the Beauty Queen” and “Duffless” has the family running literally out of frame: And then there’s the infinitely receding couch from “Homer Badman” and “Two Dozen and One Greyhounds”: I always thought that one must have been fun to animate, just keep drawing the family smaller and smaller until they’re basically dots.