Sunday Preview: Orange is the New Yellow

When Marge gets arrested for letting Bart go to the park unsupervised, she serves time only to realize that prison is a welcome break from the demands of her life as a mom and wife. In her absence, Homer struggles to manage all of the parenting responsibilities that Marge usually handles.

This plot certainly sounds very familiar. But who cares if we already did this story, Orange is the New Black is really popular, and considering we’ve got Simpsonized versions of Red and Suzanne in this promo image, I’m sure we’re in for plenty of OITNB references thinly disguised as jokes.

 

Sunday Preview: Simprovised

After butchering a speech in front of all of his friends at work, Homer turns to improv comedy to gain back his confidence in his public speaking skills. Meanwhile, Marge decides to rebuild Bart’s lackluster treehouse, but tensions rise when Bart questions her building skills. Also, in the episode’s last three minutes, Homer appears LIVE for the first time on television (both for East and West Coast broadcasts) to answer fan questions.

I’ll admit, I’m actually extremely curious how the Dan Castellaneta motion capture improv is going to pan out, both technically and content-wise. Al Jean asserts he’d be open to doing more live bits if the reception to this is good, but nothing longer than three minutes, since, as we all know, live animation is a terrible strain on the animators’ wrists.

 

Animation Alley: Treehouse of Horror VI

(this episode directed by Bob Anderson)
Matt Groening has talked about how he feels the less lines needed to convey a character or emotion, the better. This show, and to some extent Futurama, has always hinged on simplistic design, but in an incredibly economical way. A great example is Homer with pantyhose on his head here. Two lines on his forehead to represent the stretching, and his nose being pushed down, and that’s it, you perfectly understand what’s happening. The second frame is unrelated to this topic, I just love Lard Lad’s pose as he comes to life with a Godzilla roar.

I love the framing of this shot, and throughout the episode, of human size vs. Lard Lad size. This donut is literally as big as the Simpson living room, which begs the question of how the hell Homer got it into the house in the first place. No matter though, he can think of no better way to celebrate than stripping down to his skivvies and chugging a beer. He didn’t even take the pantyhose off all the way. The shot of Homer answering the door is fantastic, with Lard Lad’s stern, angry face taking up nearly the entire doorway. How we just hang on the closed door and just hear the sounds of Lad smashing Flanders’ house, realizing Homer lied to him, then storming back is just great. Also, rather than smash the house for lying, he just rings the doorbell again. Homer opens, and it’s the same shot, but with a little Ned running by in the background screaming.

I don’t care what Lou said, this guy is a monster. Look, he’s taller than the buildings! He’s no high schooler, he’s got to be at least twelve feet tall.

The small touches really make this show great. Lisa sees the copyright stamp on Lard Lad’s footprint, and we cut to the ad agency, where we see Lisa’s bike parking outside. You didn’t need to put it there, but that extra detail communicates how she got there, and also emphasizes while she’s clearly smarter than the whole damn town in dealing with this horrible situation, she’s still a child needing to rely on her bike. Also, great posters on the wall: “50 Million Cigarette Smokers Can’t Be Wrong!” and “If You Like Ike, You’ll Love Laramie Septic Tanks!”

This has got to be my favorite Kang and Kodos cameo. It happens so late, so it’s so wonderfully random. I love their shit eating grins as they try to win over the rolling donut, but to no avail (“Oh, shazbot!”)

Our second segment opens seemingly calm and idyllic, but I love how the dream atmosphere is subtly set up with the painterly backgrounds, so you can already tell something is wrong. Then when Santa’s Little Helper gets on his hind legs and starts talking, and Bart does extreme takes like a Tex Avery cartoon, your suspicions are confirmed.

Martin dying is one of the most horrifying things in any Treehouse of Horror. The extreme poses, and Russi Taylor’s absolutely blood curdling scream is absolutely unreal. But, of course, it’s immediately paired with funny as his frightening corpse is revealed to the class, and then subsequently wheeled into the kindergarten. Only The Simpsons could make traumatizing four-year-olds hysterical.

The flashback to Dream Willie’s origins is so fantastic, the quick cuts back and forth from his escape attempts to the budget meeting besting him at every turn. Then when he finally bursts into the classroom, he’s forced to sit down, still on fire. I love how lame he looks sitting here, as he proceeds to burn to death while the most inconsequential discussion about the kids’ lunch schedule goes on. Skeleton Willie is incredibly eerie as well, at least until he dissolves into dust. And, being the school groundskeeper, he cleans up after himself with a dustpan.

Oh, and look at this shot of these three fat fathers in the front room, crouched down and scrunched into these children’s seats. Amidst the tense scene, this shot always makes me laugh.

Once Willie hits the “sinky-sank,” he’s seemingly done for, and quickly morphs through his many other forms before turning back to regular Willie and sinking to his demise. We’d never seen him as an elephant, tank or rocket before, but seeing as they’re all dangerous weapons (especially that elephant), I’m guessing they were forms of destruction he never got a chance to torture kids with.

A really quick bit I really love, a cartoon classic where Homer lifts the flat rug, only to find Santa’s Little Helper and Snowball II hiding under there somehow. And how their growling starts and stops when Homer lifts and puts down the rug.

The money shot of the entire segment, where 2D Homer becomes 3D Homer. Again, looks a whole lot better watching it than staring at framegrabs. The 3D sections were done by Pacific Data Images, who would soon after this pair up with DreamWorks and start up DreamWorks Animation. Keep in mind, this episode aired a mere month before Toy Story released in theaters, so at the time, this was definitely pretty eye opening.

The 3D certainly looks dated by the super technologically advanced age we live in today, but I still like the look of it. They went simple by their means, but also the serve the story. The idea is that Homer is trapped in the third dimension, as in literally the concept of 3D. So he’s just on this grid with a bunch of cones, cubes and spheres, like he’s trapped in a primitive Maya scene file. Also floating around the background are a bunch of 3D and mathematical in jokes, most notable being the Utah teapot, the first object to ever be rendered in 3D. All those math equations I’m sure was the work of writer David S. (later X.) Cohen, who would go on to co-create Futurama, a series with a writing staff who all held phDs, and who put them to work.

Back in 2D, this was a wonderfully nice subtle touch of Frink’s hair bouncing up and down as Wiggum fired blindly into the unknown abyss.

I remember Homer breaking apart falling into the black hole always kinda creeped me out as a kid. It also feels a bit similar to him being broken up in a similar way during the epiphany scene during the movie. Surely a coincidence though. I also remember seeing this segment in an IMAX film CyberWorld. It was a 2000 release that I’m sure played in very, very few screens, I saw it in NYC; it was basically an anthology film of different CG animated segments, which included some short films, the dance scene from Antz, and of course, Homer^3. And it was in 3D! And I only saw it because I wanted to see The Simpsons on an IMAX screen. Does anyone else remember this? Anybody?

Animation Alley: Treehouse of Horror V

(this episode was directed by Jim Reardon)
I love the very few times the show utilizes live action, here where Marge discovers tonight’s episode was banned by Congress, and instead the classic film 200 Miles to Oregon. Funny how this movie is fake, while Paint Your Wagon turns out to be real. Anyway, no wraparounds anymore, we go to our title sequence, which has been getting more and more gruesome over time. You don’t see many cartoons where a boy chops the head off his school principal, who authorizes it with a gleeful thumbs up.

The first segment is, of course, a parody of The Shining, and many moments and shots from the film are recreated here, all looking fantastic, be it from the establishing shots of the mansion and hedge maze, the blood escaping the elevator, or the awesome wraparound of the room scrawled with Homer’s maddening message. What makes it all work is the aim of the humor: the joke isn’t that they’re doing The Shining, it’s just the story they’ve decided to tell, and the jokes come from their twisting of the source material, combined with the personality of our characters within it.

If you didn’t already have enough Shining references, here’s yet another, with Maggie spelling ‘Redrum’ with blocks. Not exactly a freeze frame moment since it’s pretty clear in the shot, but still a nice touch.

David Silverman comes back with a vengeance, outdoing himself from the dogs playing poker bit from last year’s special. Homer going mad here is one of my favorite animation moments in the entire series; between the amazing drawings and Castellaneta’s hilarious performance, it’s a wonderful marvel to behold. If this were attempted by an artist now, it would all be thrown away for being too off-model. This would never make it to air.

I love that for no discernible reason, we have cameos by franchise monsters like Freddy Kreuger, Pinhead and Jason Vorhees as Moe’s fellow ghouls who want to see Homer waste his family. I guess Homer’s sloth-like nature and love for food could only be dissuaded with the help of all the famous movie monsters at once.

I love the look of Willie’s room, this nice calming green after all the shots before it of the gloomy blue mansion. The beguiling Scottish lass with bagpipes above the headboard is a great touch.

I’ve always loved this shot, a low angle up at Homer, looking truly possessed, lumbering through the snow to murder his entire family. The Halloween shows’ greatest triumph is being able to make us feel real tension amidst the stupidest of situations. Mere scenes ago we had Homer optioning to stuff his face rather than follow the orders of the Mummy and Dracula, but now, thanks to the great drawings, music, performances, everything coming together to make us really believe that our favorite dumb lovable oaf is capable of doing something so horrible. Weaving from dumb jokes to believable tension… it ain’t easy, but the show in its heyday did it in spades every year.

The first reality Homer returns to being ruled by Flanders has so many great moments. You have the floor morphing to a monitoring screen, a la Terminator 2, and the hooks forcing all the citizens to smile, such a wonderfully grotesque image. And I’ll mention again, despite the silliness of a Flanders-run universe, the show still makes us feel uncomfortable. The totalitarian nature of this world, as well as the far-gone looks of Marge and the kids post-lobotomy (Kavner’s dead reading of “It’s bliiiiisss” is so disconcerting), you really do feel uneasy.

One of my favorite moments in the whole series (I’m sure I say that a lot… but this time I mean it) is when Homer finally snaps and wreaks as much havoc upon the prehistoric land as he wants. After smashing a few things with his club, he squashes a lizard two times, kicks up some dirt for whatever reason, then flat out cold cocks a giant dragonfly and starts bashing it with his club. There’s just something about this scene… the rhythm of the animation, it all seems to happen so quick, Homer’s squishing foot feeling somewhat delicate for some reason, the follow-through of Homer going from kicking dirt to his left, then turning and just decking that insect to his right, and the loud sound effect accompanying… it’s moments like these where screencaps just do no justice whatsoever.

Great bit of a stircrazy Martin, just violently pulsating in his cramped little cage. You can’t help but feel bad for him.

This may be the creepiest segment to me, for this ending alone, of the faculty just having completely lost it, becoming insatiable cannibals. It starts with Lunchlady Doris, unable to speak a word but letting out a guttural growl, seemingly having gone mad from killing so many children. Skinner is absolutely intimidating in the bit where he considers where he will begin devouring his arch nemesis. Which then leads to…

…the giant blender. I mean, just look at that fucking thing. The vat to the side of it just splattered in blood, the innards of all of their former classmates. You don’t need anything more than that, that image is horrifying enough. Then afterwards, we get Milhouse falling to his death; his terrified expression, and then the brief churning noise after we cut back to Bart and Lisa… so, so upsetting,

And if all that wasn’t traumatizing enough, we have our finale, where the family gets their skin turned inside out in a truly violent fashion. What else is there to do than to end with a big musical number! And just when you let your guard down, we have Santa’s Little Helper gnawing at Bart’s innards and dragging him off screen, leaving a wet pool of blood trailing behind him. Happy Halloween, everybody! Pleasant dreams!

Animation Alley: Treehouse of Horror IV

(this edition directed by David Silverman)
For our wrap-arounds in this edition, Bart steps in for Rod Serling in a Night Gallery parody, walking past a collection of famous paintings, Simpson-ized. It’s a real treat for anyone who’s taken an art history course. My favorite is probably the center, Jacques-Louis David’s “The Death of Marat,” except here, it’s Homer holding a shopping list of Duff, chips and pork. It even has David’s name on it too, and ‘Simpson’ subbing for ‘Marat’ above it.

I love the deranged look of the little demon chef. Also we have Devil Flanders’ chilling alternate form, who just looks fantastic, clearing paying homage to the monstrous Chernabog from the “Night on Bald Mountain” segment of Fantasia. And excellent freeze frame moment where you see Flanders’ face from an instant before he disappears.

The vortex in the kitchen floor is such a great effect. The first shot has almost like a fish eye lens, and the second, I love how Marge’s nightcap is sucked up immediately, causing her hair to sway forth as well, becoming even more elongated.

This short and simple bit in Hell is fantastic. You have this wonderful contraption forcefeeding Homer donuts, and he of course couldn’t be happier. The ironic punishment demon laughs maniacally, thinking he knows the fun won’t last. Dissolve to an engorged Homer still willfully eating, and the demon is no longer so pleased.

As if you needed more reason to doubt the professionalism of Lionel Hutz, he first walks into the scene combing his hair with a fork. With her husband’s soul at stake, Marge sure pulled out the big guns.

I love how displeased Flanders is with the seating arrangements, as Marge pulls every object from the house to accommodate the jury of the damned. Best of all, of course, is Blackbeard stuck with an infant high chair. I love how awkward and uncomfortable he is on it (“This chair be high, says I!”)

Excellent drawing of the tense bit of Homer’s sentencing. It’s just a camera push-in, and the only animation is on the fire of the cage. This is all you need to convey the emotion of the scene.

Another amazing drawing from Homer and Marge’s wedding day. I love how Lovejoy’s there with the Bible open at the foot of the counter, as if he’s still officiating the marriage during Homer’s medically questionable state.

Bart’s nightmare of the school bus having a head-on collision ends with repeated flashes until we’re back in reality in the bedroom, but not until we get a few glimpses of skeleton Bart over here.

I absolutely love the gremlin, from the animation alone you can tell what perverse glee he takes out of wreaking such havoc. I’ve been playing through the Halloween event of the Tapped Out mobile game, and was really pleased that they included the gremlin in it. When you tap to get rid of him, he growls and does the throat cut animation. Fantastic.

Upon finding it, Flanders treats the gremlin with his usual warmness and good nature. Not even a claw to the eyes can deter him. I love how it reverts him to a confused animal state at first. But then, of course, we get our ending, which is one of the more genuinely disturbing moments in any Treehouse of Horror. The spinal column, Flanders’ wall eyed expression and the ghostly tone of his voice… so creepy.

An absolute David Silverman tour-de-force as Homer goes mad from the painting of dogs playing poker. A veritable freeze frame haven.

I love not only how pleased Homer is to submit his dirty rag for his family’s approval, but just how… filthy it is. That’s just from his neck! Imagine the rest of his body… on second thought, don’t imagine…

In one of the segment’s many references to Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula, Burns’ shadow moves on a delay from Burns himself, which is such a subtle touch at first. Then when he turns, we see the shadow throw in a quick game of cat’s cradle and yo-yo before it follows as well.

The scene of vampire Bart and the family finding him out has a lot of excellent extreme poses. I love Homer diving in and squashing back Bart’s nose accusingly.

I laugh every single time during Homer raising his arms up and down in glee (“Super fun happy slide!!”)

All seems lost for Lisa… but the episode’s over, so not only will we completely dissolve the tension, we’ll end on A Charlie Brown Christmas. Why? Why not? One holiday’s just as good as another, right?

Animation Alley: Treehouse of Horror III

(this episode was directed by Carlos Baeza)
After two years of Marge in front of the curtain with her earnest word of warning, here Homer steps in, childishly goading the audience. But first, a wonderful take on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, with Homer subbing for the master of horror, clearly even fatter than the silhouette.

I laugh out loud every damn time during this shot of Marge chastising Homer, with no movement but Homer’s chewing lips. That completely blank expression serving to pay off the simple gag involving Homer the food monster. Also, not animation related, but I do like Marge setting up this traditional, but still slightly macabre party game, it’s such a true mom thing of her to do. Nowadays, extreme wet blanket one-dimensional Marge certainly wouldn’t be up for something like this.

Always fun to go frame-by-frame on animation smears like this. The limited amount of frames, and the wonderful coconut sound effect of Milhouse’s head hitting the wall, makes this a brilliant small moment of funny.

What a hilarious shot. The framing of it, the repairman’s shocked expression against Marge’s unaffected one, presumably having been dealing with this for a few hours, and the Krusty doll hoisted upon Homer’s lips painfully yanking at his elongated tongue. Just amazing.

“King Homer” pays tribute to the very original King Kong, of course, aping (heh heh) many of the shots from that film. My favorite is this, recreating the kinda goofy looking insert shot of the beast as the reaction to a live actor screaming in terror. Also great is later when he pulls Marge through the window, it’s just like the original, with Fay Wray flailing within a giant fake monkey fist.

My favorite moment in the entire show may be Shirley Temple’s little shoes falling off when she’s being picked up by Homer. But that doesn’t really come across in a framegrab, so here’s a shot of him eating the famous child actress.

Another great drawing. As if a gargantuan ape wouldn’t look awkward enough inside a church, they pose him in such a way he seems not only awkward, but self-conscious. Look at him looking up at his little hat! It’s almost adorable.

A perfect example of the show piling jokes on top of jokes on top of jokes. So Bart’s reading “Find Waldo Yet Again,” already a double joke, in the title referring to the dizzying amount of Waldo books, and the fact that since Bart figured that he struck out with “Baby’s First Pop-Up Book,” maybe this mature tome would appease Krabappel. So we see Waldo’s right there in the open, and if it weren’t easy enough, there’s a kid right there on the beach pointing at him. Brilliant.

Astounding reference to three network animated shows that emerged soon after The Simpsons to attempt to reach a similar audience… and were all swiftly cancelled. Lucky that they all involved animals so this joke works perfectly. Of the three, I’ve only seen Fish Police, and boy oh boy…

Another great “Technical Difficulties” card, as usual. The only show to rival this incredibly specific type of humor is The Critic (“Wheel Be Right Back!”)

I love how even in the middle of a joke involving how brainless he is, Homer is still able to realize he’s been insulted when the zombies look elsewhere for brains.

Great drawings of zombie Jimbo, Dolph and Kearney kicking about Skinner’s head. I love how while a yellow complexion seems perfectly normal, altering them to green and purple truly makes them look sickly and undead.

Not animation related, but I wanted to end with my favorite line from the show.
“Excuse me, I’m John Smith.”
“John Smith, 1882?”
“My mistake!”

Animation Alley: Treehouse of Horror II

I kind of miss the wrap-arounds, mainly because as a “consequence” of these yearly specials, we never really get to see the Simpsons celebrating Halloween in-universe. But for a few years, we got a brief glimmer of it, as wonderfully shown here. The kids’ costumes are perfect: Marge slapped a scary witch mask on Maggie, Bart the hooded executioner, and Lisa honors Native American heritage with her totem pole. We see them enter the room at their level, and when Lisa comes through and gets stuck, we zoom out to show her costume unable to clear the doorway. Excellent framing. Also, look at that pile of wonderful treats. And what the holy hell is Homer shoving into his mouth? Looks like a mashed up mound of pumpkin goop.

All three segments are directed by Jim Reardon. As a whole, this show isn’t quite as atmospherically spooky as the last one, but that has a lot to do with the stories being told. Last time we have overtly creepy locales like a haunted house and a flying saucer, here the stories are a bit more grounded. The Monkey’s Paw segment is more a creepy cautionary tale about tampering with life’s natural order. And about the power of a board with a nail in it. Anyway, I love the Midnight Express bit as the Simpsons attempt to leave Morocco. What a great shot, with a wonderfully dumbstruck drawing of Homer.

Kang and Kodos cement their status as annual regulars in this episode, but what I always remembered is how they look slightly off in this show. Their skin is more an olive green here, and they appear a bit lumpier. Also, love Kang’s bright pink king sash. It matches quite well with their bright pink ship interior.

Moving to the “It’s a Good Life” segment. What an amazing design for the transformed Snowball II. It’s like an exquisite corpse come to life. Also, fantastic animation of it transforming.

Telling three entire stories in a little over twenty minutes ain’t easy. This segment has to establish this entire new universe where everyone cowers in fear of the almighty Bart. We see Bart taking the school bus wheel from Otto, and, of course, driving like a maniac. Cut to this shot as we go into our school section. You don’t need to see the bus crash or any ridiculous sequence like that. This is all you need; you see the fallout of the bus incident as we have our school establishing shot leading to the next scene. How economical.

Absolutely phenomenal posing and animation of sleep-deprived Krusty. I believe Brad Bird did the key drawings on these, he sure did love him some Krusty. To me, this is akin to the amazing heart attack from “Krusty Gets Busted.” You just don’t see this level of freedom in the animation on the show anymore.

Quick bit, I love Homer having to tuck Bart in with his teeth. It’s hilarious and adorable seeing him struggle with the sheets like that.

The final segment is probably the most atmospheric of the three, taking a lot of cues from Frankenstein, with the spookyness of the graveyard and Burns’ lab with all its glowing gizmos and gadgets. It’s also the first Halloween short that genuinely disturbed me. Smithers slicing open Homer’s skull, Burns tugging at his brain until that wince-inducing snap breaks it loose… so unsettling, but still wonderful. Only this show could go from that to Burns putting the brain atop his head with glee and still be funny (“Look at me! I’m Davy Crockett!”)

I wouldn’t go so far to say it’s subtle, but we see the robot design at the beginning and you can tell it very much looks like Homer. What a great design, with the wires on the side of his head like Homer’s hair and the metallic muzzle. It foreshadows that even in a robot body, Homer will still be Homer, gobbling down donuts and sleeping away at work.

Animation Alley: Treehouse of Horror

From the start, the annual Treehouse of Horror specials were incredibly ambitious, this notion of departing from the “normal” world of the show proper into this fantasy realm where aliens, zombies and other ghoulish creatures could roam free, and anything was possible. The doors were open to do anything, and this was reflected not just in the writing, but in the animation as well. Whether it be attempting a more dramatic, suspenseful feel, or emulating the style of a horror movie parody, the Halloween shows were always a joy to look at. So, in the holiday spirit, Animation Alley has been resurrected to examine the classic Treehouse of Horrors. I don’t know how many I’ll get through before October is out, I’m hoping at least up to the first eight or so, but we’ll see.

“Bad Dream House,” directed by Wes Archer, starts out normally enough with the Simpsons moving into their suspiciously cheap house, only to find creepier and creepier things that lie within. Marge is adamant they leave, but Homer, still blindsided by the great deal he got, suggests they sleep on it. Not the best move, as it turns out, where the family is manipulated in the middle of the night to kill each other. We’re led to believe that Marge is also possessed, we see her brandishing a rather large knife. As the other four move in for the kill, we get these quick cuts of them laughing maniacally in a background bathed in blood red, then we see Marge with a stern look as well, lifting her knife… to continue making her sandwich, as the BG fades into a much cooler green. I love these shots of the family too, so insane and creepy. A grown man, two children and a baby attempting to murder each other, I can’t believe they got away with this in 1990.

The Bad Dream House gets some real personality not only in its voice (I love when it gets beleaguered and whiny at the end: “Leave me alone! I don’t have to entertain you!”), but in its fluctuating appearance. The walls “breathe,” the tone of the walls change based on what happens (especially great when the house goes dark for a moment after Marge finishes her explosive tirade). My favorite bit is when Bart’s incessantly asking for the walls to bleed again, and the paneling of the house squashes and stretches, with a wonderful squeaking sound. It looks like for the left that they just overexposed the background layer for that effect, to make the crimson walls on the right all the more rich.

And we end with the house imploding in on itself, wishing to be destroyed rather than deal with the Simpsons. Bummer ending, but the animation is, as Bart succinctly puts it, “Bitchin’!”

“Hungry are the Damned,” by Rich Moore, introduces us to our favorite Rigelians Kang and Kodos, and is essentially one gigantic mislead that it seems like the aliens intend to dine upon our favorite family. The shot of Serak the Preparer gazing hungrily at Marge always cracks me up, and Homer is none the wiser, of course (“Your wife is quite a dish!” “Oh, thanks!”) But through the whole show, if you still hadn’t picked up on the dozens of overt clues, we get the shot on the right, a low shot when the plate covers are removed, we see Homer and Marge’s heads right there on platters.

During Lisa’s discovery of the aliens’ true intentions, we see a lot of the ship bathed in red, then during the suspenseful reveal, our characters awash in a dramatic blue hue. Even better is when the tone keeps switching from this back to normal during Kang and Lisa’s back and forth regarding the book’s actual title: How to Cook Humans, How to Cook For Humans, then finally, How to Cook For Forty Humans.

David Silverman’s “The Raven” is an absolute marvel; with the short on paper simply being the infamous Poe poem, I guess that was fair license to just go nuts with amazing, engaging direction. But before getting to the thick of that, we have this hilarious shot of a terrified Homer clinging to his massive chair. It’s our first look at how while he is subbing for the narrator of this dramatic work, he’s still our Homer.

Going out to check the tapping on his chamber door, we get this great shot up from below as Homer gazes unto… darkness, and nothing more. What a haunting shot of an empty hallway, all in a sickly green to contrast the mostly cool blues of the study. Coming back inside, we continue panning upward on Homer walking forward, still tense, before we get to the reveal of the Bart Raven.

Homer finally snaps at the Raven, and Dan Castellaneta’s rock star performance is supplemented by all these cuts to different angles. It adds to the energy of Homer’s angry read, leading perfectly to his breaking point in trying to wring that bird’s neck.

Finally, our last shot, where we start on the Raven still perched with an ominous glow around it, and pan down to see Homer staring up at him. The swelling music, James Earl Jones’ narration… they all add upon this drawing of Homer, transfixed on this creature representing his inescapable misery, truly defeated and unable to turn away. The Groening art style isn’t exactly the most expressive, but the talented artists who work on it always seem to manage to make them evoke so much more than they should.

That’s it for Treehouse of Horror number one. Next up… number two!

Animation Alley: Homer’s Odyssey

Make no mistake, there’s a lot of really weird and wonky animation in the first season. I used to find it really off-putting, but now I’ve learned to accept it, and it actually makes these shows all the more charming to me. Just as the show was trying to find its footing with the writing, the same could be said about the animation. There’s a lot of weird shit in this show, a few moments in particular I want to highlight.

I love the execution of Nuclear Energy: Our Misunderstood Friend; the designs, the limited, jerky animation, the scratched up film, it’s fantastic. Also it’s the first and only time we’ve seen Smilin’ Joe Fission, though he may have showed up on a logo somewhere, we’ve never seen another filmstrip featuring him. Pity.

Much focus is made on black Smithers, but here’s a pretty glaring animation gaffe. Wes Archer brought this up in the commentary and everyone laughed about it.

Nice quick door slamming montage of Homer’s failed job interviews. I love the shitty drawing of this guy, with dot eyes like Akbar and Jeff in Life in Hell. I also like the implication that Homer went up to the drive-thru window to ask for a job.

Another quality background. There were a lot of washed out gradient walls like this early on, they look pretty terrible. The exclamation point on the sign is great, though. Must Be 21!

I love how when Homer signs Bart’s report card, he’s not even looking at it. Then when the kids walk away, his arms just falls to the ground and the pencil rolls out of it, his expression never changing and his vacant stare never diverting from the ceiling. By moving as little as possible, we see that he’s a truly broken man. Also, more great portraits, this time one for Marge, and another for her hair.

There’s so many insane background characters in this show, especially toward the end at the power plant rally. I love the guy with the red superhero mask, and the really fat guy with the humungous smile. How come those guys never took off?

One strange but lovable piece of animation that sticks with me is during Homer’s internal monologue of whether to take Burns’ deal, as he goes back and forth with being able to support the family and stick to his principles… then notices how big Burns’ desk is and his clean shirt. He’s at the verge of a meltdown when Burns urges him to make a decision, to which Homer calmly responds, “What the hey, I’ll take the job.” Fantastic.

Animation Alley: Bart the Genius

[Note: Mike Amato of Me Blog Write Good is going to be writing about the animation for the Yellow Jubilee.]

If we’re gonna talk about the animation from the first season, then we must start with the first cut of the very first episode, “Some Enchanted Evening” (feel free to mute the video, it’s just the schmucky uploader doing “commentary.”) The brunt of the animation for the show, and a sizable amount of all American animation, is done overseas, and because of how long the animation process is, and with the speed and the technology back then, a whole season could be in production before people State-side get to see any of it. So when everyone sat down to watch the first cut of “Evening,” it was quite a surprise (James L. Brooks’ famous initial statement: “This is shit.”) The thing is, no one was really doing this “realistic” type animation at the time; the creators didn’t want the very bendy, loose, rubber hose style animation that they were seeing. But thankfully, the second show in was in much, much better shape, giving Groening and co. a sigh of relief. So behold, “Bart the Genius,” the episode that saved the series.

Now, if I pointed out every shot or moment I liked in this show, this article would be endless. For these write-ups, I’m gonna try to boil it down to three scenes or specific moments that I feel are particularly strong, or have neat stuff to say about them.

First is the opening to our show, with the family playing a game of Scrabble in the living room. Of course we open up with Maggie, our infant savant, spelling “EMCSQU” with her blocks, then we pan up to see she’s right at the leg of the table where the rest of the family are none the wiser to her sudden stroke of intellectualism.

Here we have our first use of animation smears, which are always fun to freeze frame on. They’re done during quick movements to accentuate the speed, you see them in a lot of Disney and Warner Bros. cartoons. Most of these “cartoonier” techniques were phased out after the first few seasons or so. Also, another first season hallmark: bizarre photos on the wall. Why would they frame and hang a photo of an aghast Homer screaming? Well, why not?

Bart places down his game-winning word: ‘kwijibo.’ He places the letters down off-center so haphazardly, speaking to his messy nature as a little boy, but also because of how desperately he wants to get the hell out of this quality family activity.

Fantastic straight-ahead drawings of Homer, getting very subtly more irate as his thick skull registers that Bart is making fun of him.

My next scene is Bart’s math dream, back when the show used to take great artistic license with dream sequences. Done all in monochrome, we see Bart attempt to solve one of those over-complicated “if two trains left the station” questions imagining himself on one of the said trains. As the sequence goes on, we see numbers appear more and more as parts of the background until Bart encounters the conductor: a manically insane Martin. From that point, it’s a series of quick cuts as Bart panics, about to be in a head-on collision between the two trains, until he falls backwards back to reality and out of his seat in the classroom.

My last moment really isn’t done justice with framegrabs, unfortunately, but if you’re reading this blog, surely you’ve got these DVDs on your shelf somewhere, and if not, then I am filled with shame. Anyway, it’s when Homer and Marge are called to Principal Skinner’s office regarding Bart’s transgressions. In the early days of the show, and particularly in this episode, Bart is our star, so we’re seeing things from a kid-like perspective. He’s in trouble, and then the parents show up, the frame cut so you don’t even see their faces as they enter from camera right. First is Marge, who greets Skinner cordially, walking in quite daintily, her left arm held out fancily, overall a very delicate and docile creature. Then follows Homer, a large presence, stomping in with his fist at the ready to accuse Bart. This one quick moment perfectly communicates Homer and Marge’s characters and their feelings on the situation at hand. The staging, the animation, the acting, all of it comes together in this short four seconds or so to tell so, so much.

As I said, I can go on so much longer, but these are just a few great moments from a great episode.