“Mr. Blackheart?” – Lisa Simpson “Yes, my pretty?” – Mr. Blackheart “Are you an ivory dealer?” – Lisa Simpson “Little girl, I’ve had lots of jobs in my day, whale hunter, seal clubber, president of the FOX Network, and like most people, yeah, I’ve dealt a little ivory.” – Mr. Blackheart A few weeks ago, a reader (thanks Steve!) e-mailed me with a PDF copy of an unpublished book written by a longtime television writer named Andrew Nicholls. Nicholls and Darrell Vickers, his writing partner, have been typing away for television since the 80s, including a number of recognizable titles and the last years of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. (This is their website). Nicholls’ book is titled “Valuable Lessons: How I Made (And Lost) Seven Million Dollars Writing For Over A Hundred Shows You Never Heard Of”. It’s a 280-page insider’s tale of the bureaucratic, greedy, dishonest, and generally fucked systems and people that make almost all teevee suck so very, very hard. There’s a PDF copy available at their website, or you can drop eight bucks and get a nicely formatted Kindle version. Either way it’s an excellent read. In particular, I want to draw your attention to two parts which serve to illustrate the same principle from two different vantages. If Nicholls has an overarching theme, other than “where the hell did my life and money go?”, it’s that teevee is shitty because too many twits are allowed positions of creative power. The first selection is the only section of the book that deals directly with The Simpsons, though Al Jean and Mike Reiss do make an occasional cameo elsewhere. The second is about what happens to an otherwise promising show when the inmates begin running the studio. The Simpsons was famously doused in anti-executive garlic by His Holiness St. Brooks of New Jersey, and “Valuable Lessons” is a reminder of just how lucky we are to have gotten the show the way we did. I’m going to quote this at some length because it gets right to the heart of how utterly backwards and unintentionally cynical the unwritten rules of mass media really are. From a chapter titled “Where Are They?” (p. 44): Those who develop programs for television, who account for all the new shows’ existence at the annual TCA (Television Critics Association) meetings in L.A. or New York, often say they’re open to any new thing they feel the public might be turned on by. Innovation. Stuff we haven’t seen on TV until now. Push that envelope. We’re the network that takes chances. We’re always looking for talent. (No, they’re always looking for latent). We wanted to give it a twist, do it from a new angle. We told everyone this year to think outside the box. Mix things up. Take a few wild swings, see what happens. So where are the high-IQ characters on TV who aren’t also socially inept? Where are the single people with poor or no relationships? Where are…
Tag: Treehouse of Horror III
Paging G.E. Smith (Updated)
“So then his wife comes through the door!” – Homer Simpson “So?” – Bart Simpson “Did I mention she was dead?” – Homer Simpson “No.” – Lisa Simpson “Well, she was. And she hit him in the head with a golf club!” – Homer Simpson “And?” – Bart Simpson “Don’t you remember? He went golfing all the time and it really bugged her.” – Homer Simpson “You said he went bowling!” – Lisa Simpson “D’oh!” – Homer Simpson I’ve often compared Zombie Simpsons to bad sketch comedy, and “How Munched is That Birdie in the Window” is one of the best examples yet inflicted upon the masses. Not only did none of the scenes compliment each other, many of them had literally nothing to do with the rest of the episode. Instead, there were a series of brief scenes that barfed up a few hammy jokes and pratfalls before ending as abruptly as they started. It began with another extremely long couch opening. That was followed by two scenes that were completely unrelated to everything. And I mean “completely”, both the angels bowling and Homer’s Halloween leftover story had nothing to do with the rest of the episode, nor were they setting anything up. I half expected a house band to break in and play a few guitar licks so that the transition from the monologue to the Big Ear Family would be easier on the audience. Then, apropos of nothing, the pigeon showed up. That lead to a pigeon montage, an unrelated Homer scene with a pigeon coop, another unrelated scene with Milhouse, random characters using pigeon messages to set up random scenes and, finally, Moe appearing for no reason whatsoever. Each scene has its own little timid stabs at humor, then ends. You could write a description of each one on an index card, shuffle them thoroughly, and reorder the entire episode and it would’ve made as much (or more) sense as the real thing. The main conflict, if it can even be called that, was Bart getting upset at his dog, and that wasn’t introduced until halfway through. It too came straight out of the blue, Santa’s Little Helper simply appeared and ate the bird, though the suddenness did not prevent them from milking it for half a minute of screen time. As if to add to the randomness, they had two relatively well known guest stars, one an actual actress, neither of whom was given anything to do but appear and disappear quickly. Oh, and did I mention that it ends with an ostrich fight? It did. And, no, it didn’t have anything to do with the rest of the episode either. The numbers are in and, sadly, they’re up. Happily, they are also not final, as football ran very long on FOX yesterday. The preliminary numbers say that 9.42 million people choked down last night’s Zombie Simpsons, but even with the big lead in from football those numbers are likely to come down. Since that…
Quote of the Day
“Hey, I heard we’re going Ape Island.” – Carl “Yeah, to capture a giant ape. I wish we were going to Candy Apple Island.” – Lenny “Candy Apple Island, what do they got there?” – Charlie “Apes, but there not so big.” – Carl
Quote of the Day
Image used under Creative Commons license from Flickr user skampy. “And in environmental news, scientists have announced that Springfield’s air is now only dangerous to children and the elderly.” – Kent Brockman “Woo-hoo!” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
“From A-apple to Z-zebra, ‘Baby’s First Pop-up Book’ is twenty six pages of alphabetic adventure.” – Bart Simpson “Bart, do you mean to tell me you read a book intended for preschoolers?” – Mrs. Krabappel “Well, most of it.” – Bart Simpson Happy birthday Nancy Cartwright!
Zombie Simpsons Abandons Precedent
“Please Lis, they prefer to be called the ‘living impaired’.” – Bart Simpson Typically there are three segments to a Treehouse of Horror episode. (Discounting the opening with the monsters at the Halloween party, which was pointless filler if ever there was such a thing.) The first segment was basically a chase scene that had no jokes. The second segment was another zombie segment (that also had a chase scene that had no jokes). The third segment was a bizarre musical theater number that had, quite literally, nothing to do with Halloween with the exception of Kang and Kodos being in the audience. They couldn’t even be bothered to produce three Halloween segments. There was one truly scary moment though, Al Jean was credited as Al “20 More Years” Jean. So, even though it was only 2/3 of a Halloween episode (and Zombie Simpsons at that) it was billed as a full one and those tend to do well in the ratings. I’m setting the over/under at 9.5 million viewers and, as always, I’m hoping for the under. Update: The numbers are in and at 8.59 million viewers the under has it handily. This also makes XX the least watched Treehouse of Horror ever, by almost two million viewers.
Quote of the Day
“Hey Simpson! I’m feeling a mite peckish. Mind if I chew your ear?” – Zombie Flanders *gunshot* “Dad, you killed the Zombie Flanders!” – Bart Simpson “He was a zombie?” – Homer Simpson Halloween Zombie Simpsons tonight, brace yourselves and grab your shotguns.
Quote of the Day
“I am Calliope, the muse of heroic poetry!” – Martin Prince “No kidding.” – Nelson Muntz
Quote of the Day
“Well, I need something for my son’s birthday.” – Homer Simpson “Ah, perhaps this will please the gentleman. Take this object, but beware: it carries a terrible curse.” – House of Evil Owner “Ohh, that’s bad.” – Homer Simpson “But it comes with a free frogurt.” – House of Evil Owner “That’s good.” – Homer Simpson “The frogurt is also cursed.” – House of Evil Owner “That’s bad.” – Homer Simpson “But you get your choice of topping.” – House of Evil Owner “That’s good.” – Homer Simpson “The toppings contains potassium benzoate.” – House of Evil Owner “…” – Homer Simpson “That’s bad.” – House of Evil Owner
Quote of the Day
“Good evening. I’ve been asked to tell you that the following show is very scary, with stuff that might give your kids nightmares. You see, there are some crybabies out there, religious types mostly, who might be offended. If you are one of them, I advise you to turn off your set now. C’mon, I dare you.” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
“What do you think, Smithers?” – C.M. Burns “I think women and seamen don’t mix.” – Mr. Smithers “We know what you think.” – C.M. Burns