Quote of the Day

“But I can’t play quarterback, I don’t even know how!” – Bart Simpson
“Son, you can do anything you want. I have total faith in you.” – Homer Simpson
“Since when?” – Bart Simpson
“Since your mother yelled at me.” – Homer Simpson

Makeup Quote of the Day

“Well, I’m not gonna make the same mistake. From now on, I’m gonna be kinder to my son and meaner to my dad!” – Homer Simpson

Quote of the Day

“Are you wearing my self defense whistle?” – Marge Simpson
“You never use it.” – Homer Simpson

Happy 20th Anniversary to “Bart Star”. Original airdate 9 November 1997.

Quote of the Day

“They’re just words, Neddy. Words can’t hurtcha.” – Ned Flanders

Quote of the Day

“I cannot believe you are here!  Do you think maybe you could give me some pointers?” – Bart Simpson
“Sure.  There’s only one thing you need to know to be a great quarterback.” – Joe Namath
“Joe, honey, I fixed it.  It was just vapor lock.” – Joe’s Lady
“Oops, hey, look, I gotta run.  Remember what I told you.” – Joe Namath

Quote of the Day

“Yeah, well, he’s wearing that hat like an idiot.” – Homer Simpson
“You know, Homer, it’s very easy to criticize.” – Marge Simpson
“Fun too.” – Homer Simpson

Quote of the Day

“Ralph, you’ll be on special teams.” – Ned Flanders
“I’m special.” – Ralph Wiggum

Quote of the Day

“Come on!  You can’t do one sit up?” – Rainier Wolfcastle
“I loved your last McBain movie, Mr. Wolfcastle.” – Uter
“Quit stalling, fatty.” – Rainier Wolfcastle

Quote of the Day

“We drove two-thousand miles for this?” – Hank Hill

Happy birthday Greg Daniels!  

Quote of the Day

“Your cholesterol level is lethally high, but I’m more concerned about your gravy level.” – Dr. Hibbert
“Now, wait a second, you doctors have been telling us to drink eight glasses of gravy a day.” – Homer Simpson
“You’re a little confused.” – Dr. Hibbert
“Oh, confused, would we?” – Homer Simpson

Quote of the Day

“Hey, tubby, want another Pop Tart, tubby?” – Lisa Simpson
“I’m comfortable with who I am.” – Bart Simpson
“You’re a disgrace to this family!” – Homer Simpson

Quote of the Day

“Well, I know you don’t want to disappoint Dad, but how do you feel about lying to him?” – Lisa Simpson
“Good.” – Bart Simpson

Reading Digest: Arcade Game Edition

“I’ve got lots of quarters.” – Homer Simpson
“This thing only takes dollars.” – Bart Simpson

From multiple sources this week comes the news that the venerable Simpsons Arcade Game is being developed for a re-release on Xbox Live.  I don’t think there’s much to say about the game.  It was kinda fun, but if it hadn’t been a “Simpsons” game I don’t think people would care much.  The irony is that it actually wasn’t a Simpsons game, at least not exclusively.  Jake dropped this helpful nugget in a comment thread a while back:

Jake

12 January 2011 at 5:50 pm

Little known fact…the Simpsons Arcade Game and TMNT IV: Turtles in time were the both Konami games and they were (programming wise) the same game, but one had Simpsons Graphics and the other TMNT graphics.

Ha!  Wikipedia on the plot of Turtles IV:

The introductory cut scene of the game details the game’s plot. It begins with the Turtles watching a TV newscast on a Sunday evening, with April O’Neil reporting from Liberty Island. Suddenly, Krang flies in using a giant exosuit (seen occasionally in the animated series^[8][9][10]) and steals the Statue of Liberty, moments before Shredder hijacks the airwaves to laugh at the Turtles.

Which certainly mirrors the opening of the Simpsons game wherein Burns and Smithers make off with Maggie after she somehow gets hold of a diamond they were stealing.

Anyway, this news has prompted quite a few links about the game, and there are a couple below.  There’s also a Marge costume, a very old Bart doll, a very cloudy cloud computing article, an Argentine band named after Bart’s well dwelling alter-ego, and a bunch of people who agree with us, including a spot on rendition of many of the things we talk about here.

Enjoy.

The Simpsons Arcade Game is Making a Comeback – There’s a picture of the arcade game here.  I’d forgotten that the console only had two buttons.  Oh how many times my friends and I struggled to do that cool looking but quite lame combo attack where one of you sits on the other’s shoulders.

The Simpsons Arcade Game Coming to XBLA – A bit more about the game:

The ports we’ve seen of this style of arcade game have varied in quality, so it’ll be interesting to see how this one stands up.  The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade Game port was as good as everyone remembered but X-Men in particular didn’t age well.  The controls were a little clumsy and there just wasn’t much to the game besides repetitive gameplay.

If they’re doing a straight port I don’t think there’s a way around the repetitive gameplay.  I like that game, but there were only the two buttons, and mashing the attack one was pretty much a constant.

gwendolynfaker – This is the shiver inducing video of Bart and Homer talking about running the show into the ground that made the rounds a little while ago.  It got linked on Reddit earlier this week and has been bouncing around again, I just wanted to agree with this:

I hadn’t watched the Simpsons in about three years, not an episode made past 2003 anyway. I watched on a few days ago… and it was just fucking sad.

Very fucking sad.

The 5 Best ‘Simpsons’ Guest Roles Played by Gay Actors – Our friend Lenny brings us roles played by gay actors, not necessarily gay roles.  John Waters is gay in real life?  Surely not.

Amazon.com: Simpsons Bart Simpson Valentine’s Doll: Toys & Games – A vintage Bart Simpson Valentine’s Day doll.  It can be yours for $25, but I’ll just post the picture:

Is that supposed to be a sweater?  Eww, Granny’s kissing you! 

A word in the Life: Hapax Legomena in Translation – Not only did I learn a new term from this post, but it’s got a great Simpsons story in it as well:

My personal hapax legomenon

Although I would like to think the contrary, I am convinced that it is highly implausible that I will have to translate “Yoink!” again anytime soon.

Being the long time fan of The Simpsons I am –well, I guess that after they replaced the Mexican Spanish dubbers and ran out of ideas a couple of years ago my love for the series has waned considerably– tears were almost running down my face as I typed “¡Matanga!” in the computer and simultaneously told everyone about it.

True story.

Awesome.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Citizen Kane – An appreciation of the movie with a little Family Guy disparagement thrown in:

That said, it’s also a film that you kid yourself you know better than you do. It’s been often parodied to the extent that the shorthand of Kane=Rosebud is known to those who have never seen the film (if Family Guy were less relentlessly shallow and anti-art, it might realise that its maelstrom of reference and inserts is at least in part in debt to Kane. As in all areas, the more recent Fox animation pales in comparison with the original and best’s take on Kane).

Tee hee.

You Will Give 110% – Occupy Softball.  Heh.

Feel like posting my Halloween costume!! I was… – Phenomenal fan made Marge costume.  Here’s a closer picture, where you can see the little Milhouse charm and marvel at a hairdo that is wrapped around a five hour energy bottle.  Bravo.

Larry Doyle | TALKING TO… – An interview with Larry Doyle, who wrote for the show from Seasons 9-11.  He talks quite a bit about being on the show, and while there isn’t anything that’s going to surprise too many people reading this site, it’s always nice to know that Meyer and Swartzwelder really were that good.

The Eight Things the Simpsons Can Teach You About Cloud Computing – @rubbercatsimp nailed this one Twitter:

this is the most tenuously-simpsons-related article I’ve seen in a long time

Click through if you don’t believe me, but my favorite “I guess that makes sense” quote is:

Understand your corporate culture. One of the reasons why the Simpsons works so well is that it makes fun of our culture from many different angles. Keep your own corporate culture in mind when you are putting together your own cloud deployment so you can match your risk levels and understanding of data models with the technology that you are selecting.

Other than being in English, I don’t think those sentences have anything to do with one another.

Daily Photograph – Sky Van With Lisa Simpson On The Side – There are a lot of ladders on that van, also Lisa.

Marge Becomes a Food Blogger on this Sunday’s Simpsons [Yawn] – Food bloggers think Zombie Simpsons is behind the times and lament that “too predictably” they just name check a bunch of super stars.

Kid Media Monitor: A look at the latest ‘Treehouse of Horror’ – I finally found something I like about “Treehouse of Horror XXII”, it aggravates a guy who freelances for ClearPlay.  Since he’s got his head far enough up his ass to want to watch movies that automatically skip the good parts, he’s also well behind the times on Zombie Simpsons:

Fans of the show likely found this an excellent addition to the series, keeping pace with the intelligent comedy and political satire viewers have grown to love.

No, we didn’t.

Andy Rooney’s Death…In 10 Words – Andy Rooney once beat Thomas Edison in a footrace for the right to ask Alice Paul to the Pumpkin Harvest Dance.  She turned him down. 

Animator’s work draws top award and highest praise – Groening gave a guy in his 50s retraining to be an animator an award and some words of encouragement.

Meet Argentine Power Trio Timmy O’Tool, Named After a Simpsons Episode – That’s fantastic.  And they’ve been together since 1997!  (via @Simpsonology)

Pop spoofs no longer the main draw – Someone at the Sydney Morning Herald agrees with us:

IT CAME as something of a mixed blessing when the recent dispute between the actors and producers of The Simpsons was finally resolved. The upside was that the show would continue for at least two more years instead of being cancelled. The downside was that the show would continue for at least two more years instead of being cancelled.

Very mixed.

TV.com Commenter Shout-Outs: Your Recent Thoughts on The Simpsons, Grimm, and Revenge – TV.com commenters agree with us:

jaynashvil is almost ready to give up:

I’m one of those die-hard Simpsons fans who refuses to give up hope, despite the show’s best efforts to run me off. Having said that, this year’s "Treehouse" was a snore from start to finish. I’m not sure there was a single joke, much less an actual laugh, in the whole episode. It’s as if they hired a staff of drama writers to crank out this year’s script—now THAT would be funny.

AamesDaniels made a great point about the show’s Dexter “parody”:

I found the parody of the Dexter opening amusing and frustrating. I loved seeing the show given a nod, but just when it looked like Ned was doing something terrifying it was revealed he was just going about a daily routine. That’s not parody, that’s basically what the opening to Dexter is. Parody would be for it to look like he was doing something normal but turn out to be gruesome. Oh well, maybe nitpicky, but to me it was sloppy.

It’s not nitpicky.  It’s just Zombie Simpsons.

A Problem Embiggened: The Simpsons Quandary – And finally, I’m going to take the unusual step of putting Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week down here at the bottom, because this guy pretty much nails it.  He’s glad that the show was as good as it was.  Heartbroken over wanting to quit on it.  Saddened that there are a lot of people too young to know what it was.  Afraid that its continuation is hurting its legacy.  He hits everything we hit here.

Quote of the Day

“Well, that’s the end of the girls’ floor exercise.  Now, let’s bring on the men!” – Waylon Smithers

Crazy Noises: Bart Star

“Team sports’ll keep you away from temptations like rock music and girls.” – Ned Flanders
“Yay!” – Rod & Todd Flanders

There’s no new Zombie Simpsons until September at the earliest (October? fingers crossed!), so we’re going to spend the summer overthinking Season 9.  Why Season 9?  Because we did Season 8 last summer, and Season 9 was when the show started becoming more Zombie than Simpsons.  Since we’re too lazy to do audio and too ugly to do video, we’ve booked a “chatroom” (ours is right between the one with the sexy seventh graders and the one with the bored federal agents pretending to be sexy seventh graders).  So log on to your dial-up AOL and join us.  This text has been edited for clarity and spelling (especially on “primus inter pares”).

Mad Jon: I am not such a fan of this episode.

Dave: I’m going to guess that’s true for all of us.

Charlie Sweatpants: Ah ha: (slight) disagree!

Dave: I’m shocked, shocked I am.

Charlie Sweatpants: This episode strikes me as a marginally weaker version of the one we were just talking about.

Mad Jon: I think this one has a few more fundamental flaws.

Charlie Sweatpants: Most of the bad stuff is Jerkass Homer related, there’s just a little bit more in this episode than there is in "Cartridge Family".

Damn, we agreed.

Dave: Who is this generous Charlie and what has he done with the vitriolic, evil Charlie?

Mad Jon: Did you drink two nights of rum rations today Pants?

Charlie Sweatpants: I’m plenty vitriolic, and I’ve got plenty to work with here:

Homer’s pointless call to the talk radio show sucks.

King of the Hill makes a guest appearance for no fucking reason whatsoever.

And the "cut" joke should never have taken more than a single scene.

I have bubonic loathing for all those things.

However, there are a number of jokes I enjoy, primus inter pares, Skittle-brau.

Dave: Ugh, King of the Hill.

Mad Jon: Skittle-brau is funny

Dave: Hell yes.

Mad Jon: More issues: Ned not being Ned, pointless celebrity appearance

Charlie Sweatpants: But there’s more, Marge’s joke about the persistent tick, Bart’s "This thing only takes dollars" about video games, and Bart’s "gotta be a trick, run like the wind" thing about Homer trying to hug him,

All of those are good.

Yeah, the Namath thing was definitely a canary in the coal mind kinda things.

Mad Jon: I did like Homer’s flashback to gymnastics, and Grandpa’s retort to Marge’s question about pride for his son

Charlie Sweatpants: Again, those are good.

Mad Jon: In addition to Homer being a Jerkass, there were several lessons he "learned" in this episode as well.

Charlie Sweatpants:   Oh, the learned lessons suck.

The real problem with this episode is that it’s kind of a "Lisa on Ice" rehash, and they fill in the gaps with Jerkass Homer.

Mad Jon: That’s a good way to put it.

Charlie Sweatpants: That Homer would belittle Ned as the coach is great, that he would do it in front of everyone was not.

When he starts chanting "Flanders", that’s kinda funny, but then he throws a beer can at him, and . . . not so much.

Mad Jon: I’m surprised Marge could even get him to go to the game.

Charlie Sweatpants: Good point.

Dave: So they get close to the line, stare at it, and then cross it.

Charlie Sweatpants: Pretty much, the guys behind "Whacking Day" tossed a whisky bottle over it, but by alluding to it they made it funnier.

Homer hates Ned, sure, but he’s not going to throw a full can at him, much less one filled with beer.

Mad Jon: That’s good drinkin’ beer.

I also really enjoy the Lisa scene where she tries to find a fault with the pee wee football.

Dave: Yep.

Charlie Sweatpants: It’s much like her diagnosis of the Second Amendment.

Mad Jon: Especially the part about the donation to amnesty international, that’s pretty funny.

Charlie Sweatpants: There aren’t a lot of football players on the Simpsons writing staff, but they know that football is too loved to suffer from their complaints.

What, I think, makes this one weaker than "Cartridge Family" is that while Jerkass Homer is the primary problem with both, this one has a tendency to drag it’s jokes out a little more.

From the men’s gymnastics, to the cholesterol level at the beginning, to overly long follow up to Bart’s "run like the wind" there are several good ideas that go on too long.

Mad Jon: They weren’t trying to do much else with this one other than have Homer being a jerk.

There wasn’t enough else going on to support the crap like in Cartridge Family.

But this is a slippery slope upon which we tread.

Charlie Sweatpants: We both know it was downhill from here, but going back to what I said above, I try not to hold the later episodes against these.

This was the era when I tended to like episodes more on a second or third viewing when the shock value of the bad stuff had worn out.

Dave: I’m still not on board with that logic. How can you not hold later episodes against these?

These form the shaky foundation upon which the house of cards was built.

Charlie Sweatpants: Ah, but it also wasn’t their fault.

The credits tell the tale, there are a lot of new names in 9, but there are also a lot of familiar ones.

Mad Jon: I must be missing your point. I hate older episodes much more than these, but I also can’t compare these to earlier season. Also I always look for the missing links, and when I finds em I gets angry.

Charlie Sweatpants: By a season or two from now there are hardly any names in the credits left from the before time, the long long ago.

I guess my point is that I tend to latch on to the good parts, and it’s only once those are all but gone that I really don’t watch them.

Also, "No-Please-Bart-Don’t" is classic Milhouse, and always makes me laugh.

Mad Jon: I don’t have anything else to say about this episode. It was worse than the Cartridge Family, there were a few funny lines, but this one doesn’t ever get into my queue.

Dave: Yep, my sentimonies exactly.