Quote of the Day

“Holy cow! You just fell on Aerosmith.” – Barney Gumble

Quote of the Day

♬”When the weight of the world has got you down and you want to end your life
Bills to pay, a dead end job, and problems with the wife…
But don’t throw in the towel, cause there’s a place right down the block
Where you can drink your misery away…”♬

Quote of the Day

“How could you do this to me, Moe? This bar was going under and it was the drink I invented that saved it. If there was any justice, my face would be on a bunch of crappy merchandise!” – Homer Simpson

Quote of the Day

“Hi, Moe. Where’s that waitress of yours?” – Homer Simpson
“She left to pursue her movie career. Frankly, I think she was better off here.” – Moe

Quote of the Day

“That’s it, I’m out of here!” – Homer Simpson

Ever have one of those weeks? Sheesh.

Quote of the Day

“We watch Springfield’s oldest man meet Springfield’s fattest man.” – Kent Brockman
“He’s not so fat.” – Homer Simpson

Quote of the Day

“We feel your flaming Moe is perfect for our restaurant chain. We want to buy the recipe.” – Harv Bannister
“No dice. The Flaming Moe is not for sale! Do you know how much of my blood and sweat are in this drink? . . . Uh, figure of speech.” – Moe

Quote of the Day

“So the next time you use a gas chromatograph, remember to thank Mr. AJP Martin.” – Martin Prince
“Brilliant, Martin! Brilliant! Once again you’ve wrecked the grading curve. I pity the poor student who has to follow you. Bart Simpson, you’re next.” – Mrs. Krabappel

Quote of the Day

“Morris, is what this man’s saying true?” – Not Shelley Long
“Well, it’s hard to say.  He may have come up with the recipe, but I came up with the idea of charging $6.95 for it.” – Moe

Quote of the Day

“Hiya, scrumptious, do you want to ignite my drink?” – Mrs. Krabappel
“You’re my kid’s teacher.” – Homer Simpson
“Single parent, are we?” – Mrs. Krabappel
“No!” – Homer Simpson
“Well, let’s pretend you are.” – Mrs. Krabappel

Marcia Wallace would’ve been 73 today. Happy birthday.

Quote of the Day

“One night, Marge’s beastly sisters were showing slides from their latest vacation.” – Homer Simpson
“And this is Patty trying to plug her leg razor into one of those ungodly Czechoslovakian outlets.  As you can see, we never did get the hang of it.” – Selma Bouvier
“Aye carumba!” – Bart Simpson
“As I stared up at that hairy, yellow drumstick, I knew I needed a drink.” – Homer Simpson

Quote of the Day

“What do you offer in the way of salary?” – Not Shelly Long
“Minimum wage and tips.  Of course, there are fringe benefits.” – Moe
“Such as?” – Not Shelly Long
“An unforgettable weekend at Club Moe.” – Moe
“I’d prefer to take my vacations someplace . . . hot.” – Not Shelly Long
“I like your moxie, kid.  You’re hired.” – Moe
“You shan’t regret this.” – Not Shelly Long
“Methinks I shan’t.” – Moe

Happy Birthday Jo Ann Harris!

Quote of the Day

“You’re too late, Homer.  Barney sucked it dry.  Cut his gums up pretty bad.” – Moe

Quote of the Day

“We visit with heavyweight champion Drederick Tatum, who reminisces about growing up in Springfield.” – Kent Brockman
“That town is a dump!  If you ever see me back there you know I really fucked up bad.” – Drederick Tatum

Quote of the Day

“Hey, what’s this?” – Barney Gumble
“A sneeze guard.” – Moe
“Achoo!  Wow, it really works.” – Barney Gumble

Quote of the Day

“Now, remember, Wanda, whatever shape the wax takes, that’s what your husband’s job will be.” – Janie
“It’s a mop, my husband will be a janitor.” – Wanda
“That looks like an Olympic torch to me, your husband could be an Olympic athlete who will go on to have a great acting career!” – Lisa Simpson
“It’s a dustpan.” – Wanda
“The wax never lies.” – Lisa Simpson

Quote of the Day

“What’s the matter, Moe?” – Homer Simpson
“Ah, business is slow.  People today are healthier and drinking less.  You know, if it wasn’t for the junior high school next door, no one would even use the cigarette machine.” – Moe
“Yeah, things are tough all over.” – Homer Simpson
“Increased job satisfaction and family togetherness are poison for a purveyor of mind numbing intoxicants like myself.” – Moe

Quote of the Day

“My name’s Harv Bannister, I work for Tipsy McStagger’s Good Time Drinking and Eating Emporium.” – Harv Bannister
“Oh, yeah?  Hey, what’s Mr. McStagger really like?” – Moe
“Actually there is no Tipsy McStagger, he’s just a composite of other successful logos.” – Harv Bannister
“Well, you tell him from me that he makes one great mozzarella stick.” – Moe
“Yes, fine, I will.” – Harv Bannister

More of a Good Thing

All these years later, people still love watching The Simpsons.  I’m not internet-omniscient or anything, so I don’t actually know if this is more or less prevalent than for any other old television program, but earlier this week I came across another blog dedicated to rewatching the show.  (500) Days of Homer popped up one week ago, and is currently through the first five episodes.  The about page explains:

The idea was born while I was reading countless articles about the huge 500-episode milestone that The Simpsons is hitting. As I read, I realized that I’d only seen maybe a handful of those episodes. Being a person that lives for pop culture, this was a criminal oversight that I needed to fix.

So, in a typical over-reaction, I declared that I’d watch the entire series, from the beginning, one episode a day. I’d then write about each episode, every single day, until I was caught up with the show. Conveniently, the quest will take about 500 days, give or take however many new episodes air between now and July 2013. This is by far the stupidest thing I’ve gotten myself into, but I plan on going through with it. I may soon hate myself for giving myself at least 500 writing assignments, but hopefully I’ll truly understand one of the most important pieces of American culture by the end.

I’d strongly recommend tapering off around Season 10 or so, you can skip around from there and not miss much of anything, but this is the internet and everyone gets to do what they want.  So far though, this one is going very well.  From the post on “There’s No Disgrace Like Home”:

Perhaps that’s why, even more than its live-action counterparts, The Simpsons hit a nerve that revealed deep insecurities in the population. Despite the creative team not quite knowing its characters completely (this episode is full of strange character work—Marge being drunk, Mr. Burns welcoming his workers, Homer being embarrassed by everyone else), they put honesty over consistency. Without that prioritization, the show would have never become what we know it as.

It would have just been another cartoon.

Indeed.  The honesty of Season 1 is one of its most durable features.  Good luck, Hunter Phillips, I hope you keep it up.

On another “watch them all” blog, our old friend Mike Amato has gotten to “The Principal and the Pauper”.  I would like to heartily agree with all of this:

I can sort of understand what they’re going for in the third act. We see the real Skinner in action, and he’s just out of touch enough with the rest of the characters that they’d feel uneasy about him and want the old Skinner back. But what did he do so wrong? As a man who was a POW for decades, he took mild offense to Bart’s warped version of the pledge. And he borrows his mother’s car. We gotta get this guy the fuck out of here; I guess that’s the point, that the characters are quick to act to get rid of this mild shake-up in their daily lives. The whole story is just so bloated and large that the final act feels so rushed and rash.

Exactly.  They had to cut so many corners to cram that story in to twenty-two minutes that not only was there hardly any room for humor, there wasn’t even enough time to make it work.  Continuing:

Now I can’t besmirch Keeler; the man’s written some of the best episodes of Futurama, so he’s pretty skilled with a pen. But I will say if the aim here was to make a meta episode, they certainly kept it to themselves. Everything in the episode is handled so seriously, with dramatic music cues and scenes of serious dialogue. There’s no real wink to the audience; call back to “Poochie” where Roy shows up to spice up the show, but there’s nothing like that here.

Again, those are exactly my sentiments.  I can see how that originated as a way to mock the audience for taking a cartoon character too seriously, but they just didn’t have time to get that idea into the episode. 

Read Mike’s whole post, and check out (500) Days of Homer.  While we’re at it, maybe we can even get Drunk Rambles going again.  Mark left off with “Life On the Fast Lane” and hasn’t updated in a while, but he did a great job of illustrating his points with screen grabs, and it’d be cool if he kept going. 

Sensitive Moe Was the Least of Our Problems

“The Flaming Moe dates back to my forefathers who were bartenders to the Tsar.” – Moe  

Whatever else may be said about it, and we’ll likely be saying a lot this week, “Moe Goes from Rags to Riches” is further evidence of why there’s no hope whatsoever for Zombie Simpsons ever getting any better.  It had a Halloween episode level of weirdness, gore, and insane things (Moe is apparently a yeti, for example), but still couldn’t manage to squeeze out anything satirical or intelligent despite not having any rules to play by.  It had a celebrity playing someone other than himself, but didn’t have him do much of anything and didn’t give him any meaningful lines.  It had a B-plot in which Bart and Milhouse could have been just regular kids, but instead had them acting in that same weird, knowing, painfully self aware manner that Lenny and Carl do nowadays.  They gave themselves a completely blank canvas with no restrictions on story, character, believability, setting, or even time, and still fell back on things like Homer’s head being used to break down a stone wall, people beating Burns’ corpse with sticks, and multiple beheadings.  Oh, and there was a talking sponge.  This is the show now.

The magical narration tapestry/rag/respected character actor was theoretically the common element, but it didn’t have anything to do with about half the things that happened.  No explanation was given for how it got from place to place, it was hardly involved in a number of those sketches, and the entire thing with Nelson and his many wives didn’t involve it in any way.  The rag may speak in the dignified tones  of Jeremy’s Iron, but it didn’t have anything to say other than to complain.  The entire “history already written on the tapestry” thing was dropped completely midway through the episode, as was the curse of the sheep or whatever that origin thing was.  Confusingly, some segments had regular Springfield characters (Homer ended up as a peasant, a Viking, and a mountain climber) while others seemed to involve just random dudes. 

Making the entire thing even more bizarre was the way the Bart-Milhouse story apparently happened while the rag was narrating.  It wrapped up at the same time that Moe got the rag back from Marge, which means that Bart freaked out about Milhouse (and had Lisa write him a poem or whatever) all in a single night.  If that’s the case, then why did the two plots have nothing to do with one another?  It’s one thing to abandon Springfield for an episode of historical sketches, but to keep yanking us back there every few minutes for some more creepy passive aggressive conversation between Bart and Milhouse just made it even more sloppy and scatterbrained than it already was. 

Anyway, the numbers are in and they are lower and grimier than the floor at Moe’s.  Last night’s incoherent history essay was yawned through by a mere 5.12 million people.  That’s just a hair above three weeks ago and is good for fourth place on the all time lowest rated list.  Season 23 remains on track to be the least watched ever by a fair margin.