Quote of the Day

“But corporate sponsorship cheapens our nation’s treasures.” – Lisa Simpson
“Actually, they’re Omnitouch’s treasure’s now.  We bought em during the last budget crisis.” – Omnitouch Lady

Leonard Nimoy Boldly Goes

“Well, my work is done here.” – Leonard Nimoy
“What do you mean, ‘Your work is done’?  You didn’t do anything.” – Barney
“Didn’t I?” – Leonard Nimoy 

The sad news today is that Leonard Nimoy, repeat Simpsons (and Futurama) guest voice, accomplished photographer, dispenser of vocal wisdom, bard of Bilbo, Shatner-putter-upper-with, and, of course, the one true Spock, died this morning.  He was 83, and you can read his full obituary here.  The best I can say about him is that he did what he told everyone else to do: lived long and prospered.

In other news, there isn’t going to be a Reading Digest this week because winter finally caught up with me and I’ve been too sick to do much beyond move back and forth between bed and couch since Tuesday.  Sorry for the late notice, but I haven’t been able to prop myself in front of a computer for more than about thirty minutes at a stretch all week.

If your weekend is going to involve as much sedentary teevee watching as mine, may I make the following Nimoy-related suggestions:

“Marge vs. the Monorail”
“The Springfield Files”
Futurama – “Space Pilot 3000”
Futurama – “Where No Fan Has Gone Before”
Star Trek – “The Galileo Seven” (<- Nimoy saves everyone)
Star Trek – “Mirror, Mirror” (<- Evil goatee Nimoy)
Star Trek – “Amok Time” (<- This one sucks except for the fight, which that link will take you right to.)
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (<- Spock dies, sniffle)
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (<- Directed by Nimoy, and he gets to play a comic straight man)
Star Trek: The Next Generation – “Unification I & II”

Or you could just play Civ IV.  Feel free to leave any more suggestions in the comments.

[Edited to add: Transformers: The Movie.  How the hell did I forget he voiced Galvatron (the even more evil rebuild of Megatron) in the only Transformers movie that doesn’t suck?]

Quote of the Day

“And with the prime suspect cleared and found completely innocent, we must now ask ourselves: who could possibly be as bloodthirsty as Waylon Smithers?” – Kent Brockman

Happy birthday Bill Oakley!

Quote of the Day

“Uh, I need another extension on my mortgage payments.” – Homer Simpson
“I understand that, Mr. Simpson, but according to our computer, your credit history is not good.  It says here that you’ve been pre-declined for every major credit card.  It also says that you once grabbed a dog by the hind legs and pushed him around like a vacuum cleaner.” – Bank of Springfield Guy
“That was in the third grade!” – Homer Simpson
“Yeah, well, it all goes on your permanent record.” – Bank of Springfield Guy

Quote of the Day

“Smithers, this beer isn’t working.  I don’t feel any younger or funkier.” – C.M. Burns
“I’ll switch to the table spoon, sir.” – Mr. Smithers

Quote of the Day

“Clean.  Clean.  Pistol.  Uzi.  Two kids posing as an adult.  Oh, hey Homer.” – SNPP Guard

Quote of the Day

“Hello, brother, all’s well, I trust?” – Cecil Terwilliger
“It most certainly is not!  The workmen you’ve given me don’t know their asses from the hole in the ground they accidentally blew yesterday.” – Sideshow Bob

Quote of the Day

“Hey.  Hey.  I’m Kent Brockman, the clown, filling in for Krusty the Clown, who didn’t come in today.  He is presumed dead or on vacation.  Today’s top joke, it seems a local moron threw his clock out the window.  We’ll tell you why, right after this.” – Kent Brockman

Quote of the Day

“All born in wedlock?” – Herb Powell
“Yeah, though the boy was a close call.” – Homer Simpson

Reading Digest: Over the Gorge Edition

“I’m the king of the world!  Woo-hoo!  Woo-hoo!” – Homer Simpson

The first and best link we have this week is a fan made poster of Homer’s disastrous attempt to teach Bart a lesson.  I cannot recommend it highly enough.  After that there are a bunch of other links to great fan made stuff, including Legos and crayons.  And after that, we’ve got the play moving to America’s wang, a whole website dedicated to Simpsons tattoos, idiotic donut marketing, and more.

Enjoy.

Cool Stuff: Official Mark Englert Simpsons Poster – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week is this high res poster of Homer not making over Springfield Gorge.  Outstanding.

It’s December 1941 in Casablanca. What time is it in Springfield? – As usual, the fading .gifs for the casting images are great, and “Dr. Wolfe as Major Strasser” is an inspired pick.  But I don’t think Wiggum is smart enough to be Captain Renault.  Rex Banner, maybe?

Milhouse – A fan made Lego Milhouse head.  Click this.  It even has his little cowlick.

Crayola Mini-Scultures of Bob’s Burgers, Simpsons, Groot, and More – The family carved into crayons.  Excellent.

Worst. Tattoos. Ever. – There is an Instagram just for Simpsons tattoos.  Neat.

Matt Groening and Lynda Barry: A loving and productive friendship. – Always nice to see them together:

“We disapprove of each other,” Groening said, after he revealed that he’d once asked Barry to marry him. (Her response: “THE HELL!”) She hates his swank Malibu house, and he calls Wisconsin, where she lives, “colder than Scott Walker’s tit.”

Bart Gets Hit By A Car – Season 2 often creeps up on the unsuspecting:

Well, here’s an episode that’s even better than I remembered. It’s sorta like “Simpson & Delilah”; I remembered it being good, but not as good as it actually was.

I barely moved all day the first time I got my hands on the Season 2 DVDs.

Pop culture unplugged: ‘Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play’ opens at The Hipp – The play goes to Florida, where “post-apocalyptic” just means “Wednesday”.

This Website Tells You Which Episode Your Favorite ‘Simpsons’ Quotes Come From – Daily Simpsons alerted me to this on Twitter.  It’s kinda fun.

Every Scene In “22 Short Films About Springfield,” Ranked – Our old friend Johnny Sugar naturally puts Skinner and the Superintendent at #1.  (Good YouTube there.)

[VIDEO] Christopher Lloyd On ‘The Simpsons’ — Plays Taxi’s Jim Ignatowski – Yes, that was Doc Brown last week on Zombie Simpsons.  No, nobody cares.

Homer Simpson Desk – A fan made animation of a desk way more complicated than Homer would ever use, but that is pretty cool nevertheless.

‘The Simpsons’ Fan Theory: Has Homer Been In A Coma For 20 Years? – No.  This has been simple answers to simple questions.

The Simpsons Is Now Streaming At 4:3, Too – Our long national nightmare is over.

Krispy Kreme Accidentally Promotes KKK Wednesdays, You Know, For Kids! – Via pretty much everyone, British outlets of American donut factories are not the best at marketing.

The most romantic moments in Simpsons history: #2! – I might’ve gone with this as #1, but that’s just me.

The most romantic moments in Simpsons history: #1! – But this isn’t a bad choice:

The police spotlight shining through the colander provides a romantic backdrop while they slow dance to a wonderful version of “Embraceable You”…is it any wonder we chose this for #1? The look of bliss on each of their faces says it all.

Plus there’s honorable mentions.

Happy Valentine’s Day! – Great .gif of Ralph’s empty Valentine’s Day box.

Electric Needle Room… – If you’re going to get facial hair burned off, you might as well cite Homer and Bart.

Bored Gaming: Simpsons Tapped Out – That game is evil, I tells ya, eviiiiil.

2015-16: New Competition in Disneyland’s Local Realm – Looks like the California park is getting the same expansion the Florida one got.

NECA To Release Wave 5 Action Figures Featuring Matt Groening, Lenny Kravitz, Adam West, Stan Lee & Tom Petty – Merchandising, merchandising, where the real money from the teevee show is made.

When Fiction Meets Fiction – And speaking of merchandising, Lego put Homer’s head on the Wolverine figure (plus some other combos).  Meh.

The Simpsons on Twitter: “RT to congratulate Moe on his new position as supervisor! – Twitter interns are the lowest level of the Hollywood totem pole, and pathetic crap like this is why.

The Simpsons has been on for a long time… – Some well deserved love for “Lisa’s Wedding”.

Know-This-Geek of the Week- The Tale of Two Apples….er…One Apple and One Apple… – Some well deserved love for Rich Appel.

New trending GIF tagged the simpsons the simpsons… – Homer’s thought process.

Quote of the Day

“Take a knee, boys.  Tomorrow is the biggest day of your lives: the Shelbyville game.  So lights out at 7:30, and abstain from coffee, tea, and cola drinks.  Make no mistake, they pack a wallop.” – C.M. Burns
“Sure do, skip!” – Darryl Strawberry

Compare & Contrast: Surprise Nuclear Inspections

“The watchdog of public safety, is there any lower form of life?” – C.M. Burns

It would be one thing if Zombie Simpsons merely repeated ideas and stories that had been done on The Simpsons.  Given the enormous catalog of episodes, it’s certainly understandable that scenes and concepts would need to get recycled from time to time.  Hell, that was understandable way back in the heyday of the show.

For example, Season 2’s “Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish” has a great nuclear plant inspection, where we see gum used to seal a crack in the cooling towers, a plutonium paper weight, and ankle deep toxic waste.  But all that doesn’t detract in the least from the inspection in Season 5’s “Homer Goes to College”, because instead of showing us the same things again, it gives us a completely different set of horrifying looks into Springfield Nuclear Power Plant.

Looks comfy.

For starters, the inspectors show up during nap time, where meltdowns are averted by sleepy hound dogs and Smithers is curled up at Burns’ feet.  When the surprise inspection team rings the bell, Burns denies them entry and tells a pathetic lie about old fashioned cookies before the inspectors start hacking at the door with an ax.  The inspection hasn’t even started yet and already The Simpsons is at full speed, tossing off jokes and ludicrous ideas as fast as possible.

Compare that to the – ahem – “inspection” in “My Fare Lady”.  Instead of nap time and Homer falling asleep on the “Plant Destruct” button (“Please Do Not Push”), Burns just happens upon Moe, who has been hired as a janitor, mopping the floor.  (This whole thing is so inconsequential that we don’t even get an establishing shot and a crow screech.)  That immediately leads to a standard Zombie Simpsons joke, wherein the punchline takes forever to arrive, and is patiently explained to the audience:

Burns: Hey, swabbie, you missed spots there . . . another one there . . . and there!  Every other spot is begrimed!
Moe: It’s called a checkerboard floor, you unwrapped mummy.

At that, the camera helpfully pulls back to show us the aforementioned checkerboard floor.  Hi-larity.

No sooner has that happened then Smithers walks up with a bunch of inspectors in tow, “Sir, the NRC is here for a surprise inspection”.  Huh?  Even by the standards of incompetent Zombie Simpsons Burns, this is head spinning.  These guys just waltzed into the plant without Burns (or Smithers, apparently) even knowing they were there?  Somewhere, Season 5 Burns is scoffing at his successor’s haplessness.  One second they’re not there, the next they are; there’s no lie about cookies, no ax, no nothing.

In Season 5, once the inspectors do get in, we see them testing the plant employees while Burns and Smithers gaze down from above.  Except, of course, for the three workers who’ve been strategically diverted down to the basement with the important job of keeping a bee in a jar.

I always wondered what these guys did at the plant.  Accountants?

Down in the basement we see a glowing rat, dripping ooze, and several spilled barrels of toxic waste.  No other mention of them is made because it doesn’t need to be.  Moreover, the inspectors have no idea these three geniuses (and the improperly stored nuclear waste) are here.  They’re in the parking lot testing the employees.  Here’s the Zombie Simpsons version of the same thing:

See the glove?  The inspectors didn’t.

While Moe asks penetrating questions like, “You’re the head inspector, huh?”, nothing else happens except the unacknowledged gas leak and the slowly inflating glove.  It’s easily the best part of this scene, but it also makes the inspection team even more bland and boring than they already were.  (Thanks for the meandering story about your Queen cover band.)  The scene is Moe telling them they can’t come in after they’ve already come in, followed by them, despite already being inside and being, you know, federal nuclear inspectors, meekly accepting that and shuffling off screen.

This is basic stuff, the audience getting to see characters with personality do things instead of just listen to somebody we don’t know talk about something we don’t care about and can’t see.  To be fair to Zombie Simpsons, the inspection in “Homer Goes to College” is given more screen time, so things like nap time, bee guarding, and Homer causing a meltdown without any nuclear material being in the truck have a chance to breathe.  But it’s not like “My Fare Lady” was crammed with other great bits.  The episode has three different driving montages, one of which goes on for well over a minute.

Not that extra time would’ve helped.  More lines for incompetent Burns, more background jokes explained, and more of the nothingburger inspection team aren’t going to make “My Fare Lady” any better.  When the NRC shows up in Season 5, there’s a big ominous musical cue, and they begin to methodically test employees.  These nondescript cardboard cutouts (only one of them even speaks) get silence and deserve it.

Quote of the Day

“It’s too late to merely pay back the money, but as a sign of good faith to our Australian friends, we’d like to imprison Bart for five years.” – Evan Conover
“That’s tough but fair.  Boy, go with the man.” – Homer Simpson
“No, no, no!” – Marge Simpson

Quote of the Day

“Town Crier, I’d like to ask you a few questions.  One, where’s the fife?  And two, gimme the fife.” – Homer Simpson
“Hey, stop!  I’ve got nothing but respect for the office of Town Crier, but this is well outside your jurisdiction!” – Hollis Hurlbut

Quote of the Day

“It’s awful being a kid, no one listens to you.” – Lisa Simpson
“It’s rotten being old, no one listens to you.” – Abe “Grampa” Simpson
“I’m a white male, age 18-49, everyone listens to me, no matter how dumb my suggestions are.” – Homer Simpson

Behind Us Forever: My Fare Lady

“Chauffeur, seamstress, curator of large mammals?” – Marge Simpson
“Marge, have you seen my lunch box?” – Homer Simpson
“Oh, I see.” – Marge Simpson

In this episode, Moe leaves Homer in charge of the bar.  Meanwhile, Marge gets a job as a Not Lyft driver.  Then Moe, his bar wrecked, gets a job at the nuclear plant.  Then Homer gets a different job at the nuclear plant.  Then it ends.

On the plus side, they used that awesome pixel opening that hit the internet a couple of weeks back.  Pretty much all downhill from there, though.

– Really was nice of them to use that fan made pixel opening, and it ate up nearly two minutes!

– And speaking of openings, there’s a Jetsons one to eat some more clock.

– “Why Humans Failed” was a nice little reveal to end the Jetsons thing.

– We are off to another rousing expository beginning.  Marge explained what all the kids were doing (we saw them in costume, too!), then Homer described what he was feeling, and now Homer’s at Moe’s and Moe is telling us that he’s tying his apron on while he’s, you guessed it, tying his apron on.

– Montage!

– Wow, this is a really long one.  We just crossed the one minute mark on it and it’s still going strong.

– Back to the exposition: Moe told us about Sideshow Mel getting drunk (we didn’t see it) and now he, Lenny and Carl are talking about a ticket to see a Joan Rivers type we haven’t seen yet.

– Homer is going to be running the bar, apparently.

– Also, Moe just explained a couple of sign gags to us.

– Some Uber/Lyft guy just showed up to tell Marge about the plot.  He will vanish and not come back.

– Marge’s license plate is EP7G08, 7G08 is the production number for “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire”.  Huh.

– Lenny, Carl and Homer are going to run a ladies night at Moe’s.  Carl explained what that is, then Lenny thanked him.

– Moe is at the show, and falling in love with the old Hollywood lady.  Meanwhile, Homer and Marge just got new jobs.  They’re using a lot of their tired tropes this week.

– Moe’s is now overrun with women.  Homer and Carl are explaining who they are.  Then there was a brawl.

– Moe just did a comedy “whaa!”, saw his bar was trashed, then explained things.

– Marge’s ride service is off to a rousing start, first the kids were there with Milhouse and Kirk (who popped up out of nowhere, then vanished), then Marge and Shauna explained things we didn’t see:

Shauna: Thanks for the lift. It’s nice to know I can get a ride without having to put out.
Marge: You’re welcome.  If you really want to get your belly button pierced, go see a professional.
Kearney: [who just walked out of a house with a staple gun] I’m ready for you, babe.
Shauna: I’m gonna have this done properly, at a kiosk in the mall.  I’m Shauna.

That’s the whole scene.  It’s like a rejected SNL sketch idea.

– Moe just got a job at the nuclear plant.  Now he’s telling us how he feels.

– Nelson, Willie and Gil have all been in Marge’s car now.

– And . . . driving montage!

– Burns was just talking to Moe, and now there’s a surprise nuclear inspection.

– Well, that ended as quickly as it began, now the inspectors are gone.

– Moe is now supervising sector 7-G and reassigning Homer.  Wacky hijinks, ahoy.

– Homer just got eaten by a giant Venus fly trap.  Such hijinks, such wackiness.

– Moe just got ditched in the cafeteria.  Though there was a mercifully brief callback to the guy who whips Homer to make the cupcake display turn.

– Back to the exposition, Marge just said, “Homer Simpson, working with those plants is great.  It’s helped you get in touch with your feminine side.” That lead to Homer screaming for no reason and setting plants on fire in the front yard.

– Yet another driving montage.  This makes three.  The only difference is that this one is an expository song.

– But even an expository song won’t stop them from more expository dialogue, Marge just recapped the montage, “Moe, I think we’d both be a lot happier if we quit our new jobs.”

– Now other cabbies, who we saw for one brief scene where they talked about being cabbies, have surrounded Marge.  Then Moe showed up with a shotgun.

– And we end on Moe, alone at his rebuilt bar, getting talked to by the giant Lyft mouth Marge hung on the mirror.  Seems about right.

Anyway, the numbers are in and they are just as atrocious as we’d expect.  Last night just 2.75 million people wondered how many “new job!” plots they could squeeze into one episode.  (The answer, if you count Homer watering plants, is four.)  That replaces last week’s “Walking Big & Tall” as #2 on the least watched list, trailing only last year’s 7:30 broadcast of “Diggs”.  That one came in at 2.65, so we may see it dethroned if the rest of the season goes on like this.

Quote of the Day

“I’m a star again.  I don’t know how to thank you kids.” – Krusty the Klown
“That’s alright, Krusty.” – Bart Simpson
“We’re getting fifty percent of the t-shirt sales.” – Lisa Simpson
“What?  That’s the sweetest plum!” – Krusty the Klown

Happy (one day belated) birthday, Matt Groening!  

Sunday Preview: My Fare Lady

Fed up with the thankless task of chauffeuring her children around, Marge works for a transportation app service. Homer bankrupts Moe, with Moe being forced to work as a janitor at the power plant.

Oh boy. A zombisode on the topical issue of taxi apps. Also I would like to point out that almost nine years ago to the date they already spun a title off of “My Fair Lady” with the 2006 blockbuster “My Fair Laddy” But now I am just complaining for the sake of it.  Also Christopher Lloyd and Rich Sommer are guest stars.  Rich is on Mad Men, but although I like that show I couldn’t have told you that if I hadn’t have looked it up. In fact the character he voices is named “Young Man”. That will look good on his resume next to multiple seasons of Mad Men.

Quote of the Day

“Okay, kids, Otto’s in charge!  Remember, Otto, we’re trusting you with our greatest natural resource, the school bus.” – Principal Skinner

Quote of the Day

“I’m going to cancel.” – Patty Bouvier
“No, you’re not.” – Selma Bouvier
“We already have plans for tomorrow night.” – Patty Bouvier
“Patty, your first date in twenty-five years is a little more important than playing hearts with mother.” – Selma Bouvier