Quote of the Day

“Attention everyone, this is Principal Skinner. Some student, possibly Bart Simpson, has been circulating candy hearts featuring crude, off color sentiments.” – Principal Skinner

Quote of the Day

“Hey, kids, don’t forget to watch my twenty-ninth anniversary show! Featuring clips like this one of Sideshow Mel whacked out on wowie sauce.” – Krusty the Klown
“Everyone’s always kissing your ass. Well, I’m not afraid to tell you, you’re a [beeeeeeeeeeeeeeep].” – Sideshow Mel

Quote of the Day

“Dad, how do you get a girl to like you?” – Ralph Wiggum
“Son, whether you want to win a girl or crack a nut, the key is persistence. Keep at it, and never lose your cool. . . . Aw, come on you stupid . . . Let that be a lesson to the rest of you! . . . nuts.” – Chief Wiggum

Quote of the Day

“Okay, Dad, I’ll be persistent. Is that how you got Mom?” – Ralph Wiggum
“Well, son, never underestimate the appeal of a man in uniform.” – Chief Wiggum

Quote of the Day

“Miss Hoover, can we exchange our valentines?” – Janey
“Not just yet, Janey. First, we’re going to construct paper mailboxes to store the valentines.” – Miss Hoover
“Isn’t that just pointless busy work?” – Lisa Simpon
“Bullseye. Get cracking.” – Miss Hoover

Quote of the Day

“Now, take out your red crayon.” – Miss Hoover
“Miss Hoover?” – Ralph Wiggum
“Yes, Ralph?” – Miss Hoover
“I don’t have a red crayon.” – Ralph Wiggum
“Why not?” – Miss Hoover
“I ate it.” – Ralph Wiggum

Quote of the Day

“The doctor said I wouldn’t have so many nose bleeds if I kept my finger out of there.” – Ralph Wiggum

Quote of the Day

“We have to go to that show.” – Bart Simpson”
“Forget it!  To get those tickets our parents would have to be part of Springfield’s cultural elite.” – Lisa Simpson
“Can you believe Flanders threw out a perfectly good toothbrush? . . . Eww.” – Homer Simpson

Zombie Simpsons Should Go and Die With a Heated Coathanger In Its Bum

By Connor Dunphy 

Yo, it’s Dead Homer Society. You know how it is, you ain’t here if you don’t. Let’s get straight to it, because I got something to rant about.

Charlie and his accomplices have done a real fine job of utterly deconstructing Zombie Simpsons. And it deserves every single bit of it, because watching it is like seeing your beloved Grandma contract dementia and then proceed to start being really mean and horrible for no reason. Everything they’ve mentioned: the dialogue, the storylines, the characterization, lack thereof of all three, it’s all grade A, 100%, farmer’s dream bullshit. Today, though, I’m here to properly shed some light on something else. I’m gonna scoop some of that bullshit from a corner of the bottom of the barrel which I don’t think has been properly examined: the animation of Zombie Simpsons.

Ever since I started thinking about how this show has declined other than “eh it’s not as good, I guess”, since I read the very first word of this site’s manifesto, what’s pissed me off the most, got me to pause whatever platform I’m watching the show from, made me draw characters on my toilet paper to properly represent where their shenanigans can go, was the way the animation has gone.

Think back to all the classic Simpsons episodes that you know. You got your “You are Lisa Simpson”s, your “Do it for her”s, just all the amazing seasons you see people on Tumblr, Twitter, anything quote. They had amazing animation. Everything felt human. If I could refer to a specific example, it would be the scene where you can pinpoint the exact moment Ralph’s heart breaks in half.

 

You can sense, just from how this specific frame is drawn, what the characters are feeling. Lisa feels regret, sorrow, sadness of some kind, and Bart, in his amused indifference, is rubbing it in. You don’t need to watch the entire episode to sense that. You don’t need overwhelming [SOMBER TRUMPET NOISES] to know that they’re feeling that, because you know who the characters are, what their personalities are. If someone came up to me and said “hey dude, I never seen the Simpsons can you show me a quick sum up of the characters”, then I’d take pity on them for being denied a right as entitled to him/her as freedom of speech, and show them this picture. Everyone knows the barest thing about the Simpsons. Hell, I used to listen to this square-ass radio station where middle-aged people would get asked “who is the mischievous person in the Simpsons” and they’d just instantly say Bart.

You look at this picture, and you have the 0.003333333% of Simpsons knowledge that everyone who’s never watched it does, you know what’s going on. This is the beauty of old Simpsons animation, it fit the characters and the storyline. A truly great producer has their music fit the vocalist, whether it’s a rapper or a folk singer, they use the right sounds, samples and all of that to make sure that it all comes together. They may have created them, but the people behind the Simpsons managed to perfectly encapsulate the essence of the characters in every frame.

Sadly, this is the end of the good. The good that makes the bad just a little bit badder. Now we move onto my grievances. The Simpsons died in an unspecified date between 1997 – 1998, and it happened too slowly for us to properly evacuate the premises before being revealed to it’s rotting form, so we could only stiffen our bodies in shock as it began spewing acidic vomit piles such as “Saddlesore Galctica”, “The Principal and the Pauper”, and “Lisa the Skeptic”, just awful episode after awful episode as we stood in front of this now monstrous, decaying creature, our forearms eroding off of our bodies from the acid, nervously thinking “It’s only a little burn, it’s still good! It’s still good!”. Speaking of “Saddlesore Galactica”, I might as well use it as Exhibit A.

Does anyone care how this is drawn?
Zombie Simpsons animators: No!

I want you to look real closely at the above picture. If possible, line it up with the previous picture that I so affectionately praised. Remember the whole thing about being able to see what the characters are feeling, having some rudimentary look into their motivations? If you can honestly look at that picture, especially in comparison to the previous one, and see that, then I will personally come over to your house and let you make me watch Season 21, Clockwork Orange style.

Anyways, my point is that you can’t. You can’t see what the characters are feeling, you can’t have an idea of what the story is. Probably the only thing that I can say about this type of animation is that it’s consistent with everything else in the episode.

Just glance at everyone in the picture. Homer has the only actual expression, and even without context it’s a disgustingly-OOC face that spits on the personality built up for him in the past 7 seasons. Everyone else, from the formerly three dimensional main characters, to the background characters, all have blank looks like they just got lobotomized. Chief Wiggum is redundantly inserted into the scene, sans purpose. The three people beside him look like that puppet Krusty brought in to compete with Gabbo (you know, the one whose mouth fell off and terrified all in attendance). The three people in the foreground have no eyes. [Ed note: Eww.]  All of them look like they’re in stasis, waiting to be used, to be actually in some semblance of a sensical story. They aren’t, of course, because this episode prioritizes edgy horses and here today, gone tomorrow jokes about Bill Clinton, but I digress.

It really baffles me how the animators, the writers, the network, could look at frames like this, where basically the minimum amount of effort has been put in, and think “Yes, this is as good as the previous episodes, let’s release it.”. What used to be relatable human beings became a bunch of zombies with thumbs stuck up their collective ass, existing only to provide the most masturbatory and dismissive of jokes.

Now, it’s all well and good to curbstomp “Saddlesore Galactica”, and I’d like to do it a bit more (maybe later, if you’re up for it), but that is not the extent of my problems with this style. Let’s take it 10 years forward. Zombie Simpsons has now achieved Lisa Trevor status, and is shuffling around the Earth, surviving all attacks against it whilst desperately calling out for a remnant of it’s past. Homer’s a high-pitched noise machine now used in Guantanamo Bay interrogation sessions, everybody says how they feel a lot, Bob’s your uncle.

By this time, the Simpsons had converted to HD animation. I wanna precede the following fancy version of saying “Fuck this show” by noting that the problem does not lie with the use of HD. Basically everything other than Zombie Simpsons has shown us that HD can be used to create beautiful works of art. It lies with the fact that the format was not only misused, but also had a hand in revealing just how homogenized the show had and has became.

You probably saw this in the most recent Compare and Contrast. This is an example of how crap the Simpsons has become. Sterile as the reconditioning dystopia led by Flanders, as awkward-looking as a guy wearing a fedora with a trollface T-shirt, I believe the layman’s term is “awful”.

As you can see from inside the car, the blank expression thing has returned, albeit evolved. Now, the only expressions a character can have when they’re not explicitly the focus of whatever half-baked storyline they’re putting out is either the aforementioned “Stare into the distance blankly, often with mouth slightly agape” or the brand-new “Stare into the distance blankly EXCEPT NOW YOU SMILE WOAAAAH”. Homer looks like he’s in a goddamned Mr. Men book, like he’s about to tell Mr. Greedy that he’s greedy. Because of that, all this is, sans context, is just Homer and some guy driving around with a bunch of weirdly-shaded gunpowder containers. This could be some one-off joke; it could be a pivotal point in the storyline; it could be it’s climax; shit, it could probably pass for those time-consuming couch gags. I wouldn’t put it past them.

Everything is technically sound, but what it misses is the actual substance behind it. A corporate executive who basically is the embodiment of everything Frank Zappa despises can perfectly replicate something, whether it be music, a book, a video game, anything, but it will always lack the appeal that brought it to their attention in the first place. The emotion, the meaning, the life behind it, they will never be able to replicate that. Simpsons gave us emotional, inspiring moments and the criticisms of a system we all hated, Zombie Simpsons gives us coldly-animated, poorly composed frames and a yellow hand holding a can of Axe body spray.

This show was once a living legend. If it had died in 1997, we would be celebrating it like Tupac. Now that it’s still alive, the entirety of it’s viewership is slowly beginning to sour on it like Jay-Z. All of this animation only contributes to the decline in quality of Zombie Simpsons, and it just starts to get sad. I’ve found there are two stages to this life that you, I, Charlie, and others live. First is the catharsis of criticizing this cascade of crud, then comes the disappointment you have in the show, the show you grew up on, the show that taught you about some parts of the world by making you laugh and making you feel. The show that you no longer have. Believe me, man, I wouldn’t be so expansive in my rage if I thought the Simpsons was okay.

That’s about it. I don’t have anything to plug, I’m just a young Scottish boy on the grind. Shoutout to Charlie for giving me the opportunity to write this. One love. [Ed Note: Aww.]

Reading Digest: Happy Bacon Day Edition

“And this is for my huggy bug in honor of this special day.” – Marge Simpson
“Special day?  Oh, what have I forgotten now?  Now, don’t panic.  Is it Bacon Day?  No!  That’s crazy talk.  She’s getting impatient, take a stab at it . . .” – Homer’s Brain
“Happy . . . Valentine’s Day.” – Homer Simpson
“Oh, thank you, dear.” – Marge Simpson
“Woo-hoo!” – Homer Simpson

Today, as we all know (even Reddit), is Bacon Day.  Like most holidays on the American calendar, whatever was once good and fun about Bacon Day was acquired in a hostile takeover by Hallmark and Disney, homogenized, and sold off piece by piece so thoroughly that the backlash against those decades of commoditization now has its own annual meta-backlash.  Personally, I’ve never understood what all the fuss is about.  Some people eat bacon today, some people don’t; and tomorrow begins the year long countdown to the next time people will once again fret and stress over who’s eating bacon, who’s not eating bacon, what their bacon eating (or lack thereof) says about them, and all manner of other non-bacon related subjects.

Naturally, we have some Bacon Day related links this week, so feel free to enjoy them or not as you see fit.  In addition to that, there is yet more new merchandise this week, lots of excellent usage (even on that’s misquoted), an update on fan made cross stitch, a chance to vote on what Simpsons episodes people in the Bay Area will get to watch next month, and a scandalous episode of all caps plagiarism in a barbecue joint that I demand be corrected by next Bacon Day.

Enjoy.

–

Before we get to this week’s links, here’s Sam Simon’s speech from that award the Writer’s Guild gave him a couple of weeks ago (via):

As I’ve said before, it’s hard to imagine someone dealing with that kind of news better than he is.  I mean, how often do people with nasty cancer crack jokes at the expense of the Make A Wish Foundation?

–

PLAGIARISM! – Some BBQ joint attributed “You don’t win friends with salad” to some anonymous scoundrel named “Shane”.  Our author got “full on, fan-girl annoyed”, and deservedly so!

20th Century Fox details toy partners for The Simpsons’ 25th anniversary | Latest news from the licensing industry – There’s gonna be Hot Wheels, there’s gonna be six feet tall inflatable Homers, there’s gonna be more figurines.  They are going all out because there can never be enough merchandise.  Never!  (For pics of some of it, see here.)

Mmm… Unexplained Bacon – If you make your own bacon, then every day can be Bacon Day!

Thank You One Tree Hill, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The Simpsons, and Harry Potter – A big old wet kiss to some popular media, including the show and including a ton of great YouTube.

Pick-a-Side – >>>>> Classic Simpsons Marathon! <<<<< Pick The Top ‘Simpsons’ Episodes! – That San Francisco tv station that separates Simpsons reruns from Zombie Simpsons reruns is having a viewer contest to pick which episodes they’ll show during a marathon on March 15th.  It’s a good list and you can vote.

The Other Shoe has Dropped – I’ve lost track of all the Converse Simpsons shoes, but here are some of them.

Heres a red ball….. – This is . . . this is brilliant:

I don’t know about you, but I think I its a great idea to carry a red ball in ones pocket for every time some asshole says something completely stupid.  Just for the sole purpose of asking them if they’d like to bounce it.  Anyone know where one could buy these wholesale? Just asking for a friend….

A quick Amazon search did not reveal any bulk purchase options.

From the same site as the above, it’s Simpsons screen caps of the day: Ratboy, Bogeymen, no good Lisa running wild, and horrible aftermath of the Lizard Queen.  Bravo.

CAN I BORROW A FEELING? – As usual with Valentine’s Day, 95%+ of what seems to be on the internet shits on the holiday, and when people do it with Simpsons it’s usually Choo-Choo-Choose related.  Kudos for going with Kirk’s abortive singing career.

Simpsons – I choo choo choose you (gif) – Of course, you can’t go wrong with animated .gifs of the classic.

The faces behind “The Simpsons” – A nice little collage of the six main voices with their various characters.

want: lego simpsons house…that opens. – This is from a blog awesomely titled “Lenny Loves Carl”:

Anyway, if I do obtain this masterpiece of the Lego Gods, I’ll probably keep it in the box until my brother is in town and can put it together for me.  Then I’ll proudly display it in my house and not let friends’ kids play with it when they come over because they’ll do terrible things like put the Jazz Fest poster on Bart’s bedroom wall and make Lisa eat hot dogs when we all know she only wants to eat gazpacho!

Thomas A. Edison’s doodle – A drawing of Homer dressed as Edison, if he ate hoagies and drank Duff.

The Simpsons’ Parody of Famous Photos (12 photos) – Exactly what it says.

Mike Lynch Cartoons: THE SIMPSONS “Please Stand By” Interstitials – Also exactly what it says.

Barbie’s SI Cover Steps Up the Sexualized Children’s Toy Game – Good comparison:

Billed under an “Unapologetic” tagline, Barbie will get a four pages of swimsuit-wearing photos — all taken by longtime SI photographer Walter Iooss Jr. — as well as a limited-edition Sports Illustrated Barbie (only at Target!). And most importantly, 1,000 issues with Barbie in a swimsuit on the cover.
While perhaps the most brazen example yet of sexualizing the children’s toy, the concept isn’t exactly novel. Look at how Marge Simpson’s image has been tarted up over the years. “Springfield’s sexiest MILF,” Maxim called her in 2004 when she appeared on the cover of the magazine. Marge also posed on a bunny chair in Playboy in 2009 as a tag to “The Devil in Marge Simpson.” Weird.

It was.  Really weird.

Sirs, madams, our airs and graces are on the wane – Excellent usage:

Homer Simpson only ever got called “sir” when it was followed by “you’re making a scene”. Unless you’re a teacher or a drill sergeant, you’re likely to be in the same boat.

Berlinale 2014: Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy? Review – Excellent reference:

It’s easy to greet the prospect of Michel Gondy making a doodle movie about the ideas of Noam Chomsky like that aggrieved nerd on The Simpsons: “Ugh, why does it have be zany?”

Kraft Singles Get Very Slightly Less Horrid – Another excellent reference:

The enduring image of Kraft Singles in my mind comes from the Simpsons episode where Homer inadvertently thwarts Mr. Burns and Smithers from burglarizing his home by sleepwalking into the kitchen for “Mmmmm…64 slices of American cheese.” It takes him all night to unwrap and eat them individually, by which time the burglars’ suction pads lose their grip and they nonchalantly drop off the ceiling to bid him a good day.

Get to know Midwest brewers in Locally Brewed by Anna Blessing – Intentional misquotes still count as excellent usage:

To misquote Homer Simpson, “Craft beer. Is there anything it can’t do?” Of course Homer, the great devotee of Duff, probably wouldn’t know what to make of an IPA.

The Simpsons Duff Beer-Themed Energy Drink – Now you can buy it outside the theme park.  Still looks gross.

You’ll Feel Inspired to Play Your NES After Seeing this Nostalgic 8-bit Art (10 Images) – These are great, not only the Simpsons one, but also Bob Ross, Monopoly, and the bunch from Star Wars. (via Content for Nerds)

Shirley Temple Offered Guest Role On ‘The Simpsons’ But Said F*ck Off – They wanted her to play Little Vicki.

Bart’s Dog Gets An F – Episode #029 – Lots of people think only mules can pull carts.  Impatient people think that, but patient people know better.

12 Things The Simpsons Can Teach You About Family, Hard Work, And Happiness – This is to promote that same new ebook I linked last week.  I’ll have a review of it next week, but for now I’ll just recommend against a purchase.

Word Mystery: butterfly / mariposa / papillon / farfalla – The show gives us all kinds of options for daily usage:

My BFF and I decided a million years ago that “butterfly” would be our code word for “help” in any situation. If one of us couldn’t remember another person’s name while talking to them, we’d mention how odd it was that we’d seen a butterfly earlier that day and the other would come to the rescue.

[…]

It’s the perfect word for all kinds of situations since it’s innocuous, not commonly said, and, as Bart Simpson learned years after I had, “Nobody ever suspects the butterfly.“

Harry Potter and the Happy Squirrel: Hermione, as Page of Coins, considers Ron and Harry – I did not know this:

“The Happy Squirrel has become a bit of an in-joke in the tarot community since  it first appeared in the Simpsons episode Lisa’s Wedding in the mid 1990′s.” —   A review of the Touchstone Tarot

But is it bad?

EYE CANDY: Bartmania Nostalgia in Time for Black History Month – Pretty much what it says, some old stuff and some new stuff being used to promote an album.  Cool.

Progress on Lisa – That cross stitch I linked a couple of weeks ago is definitely Lisa and not Maggie, and looks to be coming along nicely.

The Perfect Compliment – Star Wars Valentine for the win.

My Thoughts: The Simpsons – Good move:

the show has stopped being funny. It’s not even interesting to entertaining anymore. I took it off my Hulu watch list back in 2012 because for the last few seasons before then, I’d watch each episode and think, “Let’s get this over with” before clicking it. I think out of two seasons prior to 2012 I laughed maybe three times total.

It’s time to love up all on Thursday. – And finally, I get to end with someone who agrees with us:

I love the Simpsons – up to a point. The older stuff is so genius. I will still pepper conversations with random quotes to this day, I can sing along with all the musical numbers. It’s become one with my brain.

I know the feeling.  (It closes with a .gif of Homer’s brain explaining to him that $20 is better than a peanut.)

Quote of the Day

“Doing the Monster Mash with you on this beautiful Valentine’s Day.” – Marty
“Marty, why did you play that song today?  There must be thousands of love songs.” – Bill
“Well, it’s kind of a love song, all the monsters, enjoying each other’s company, dancing, holding their evil in check.” – Marty
“You played the wrong record, didn’t you?” – Bill
“Why are you doing this to me?” – Marty

Quote of the Day

“Yes, Ralph?” – Miss Hoover
“My parents won’t let me use scissors.” – Ralph Wiggum
“The children are right to laugh at you, Ralph.  These things couldn’t cut butter.” – Miss Hoover

Quote of the Day

“To Moe, from your secret admirer.” – Moe
“Yoo-hoo.” – Barney Gumble
“Oh, God, no.” – Moe

Bonus Quote of the Day

“Ralph thinks I like him, but I only gave him a valentine cause I felt sorry for him.” – Lisa Simpson
“Ah, sweet pity, where would my love life have been without it?” – Homer Simpson

Happy 20th Anniversary to “I Love Lisa”!  Original airdate: 11 February 1993.

Saturday Morning Cartoons

“And is this your girlfriend, Ralph?” – Krusty the Klown
“Yes!  I love Lisa Simpson, and when I grow up I’m going to marry her!” – Ralph Wiggum
“Noooooooo!” – Lisa Simpson

There probably isn’t any hard data to support this point, but based on overwhelming anecdotal evidence one suspects that very few people make it out of their pre-pubescent years without at least one hideously unforgettable romantic failure.  The great thing about The Simpsons was that not only could they portray that kind of universal thing beautifully (cartoon kids are much easier to corral than real child actors), but they could both use it as a central part of a great story and make it funny.  Case in point, “I Love Lisa”:

Lisa’s already getting sick of Ralph, but he’s still thrilled she likes him.  He declares his love . . .

. . . and while she’s only eight, she’s already trapped in the date from Hell, so she snaps . . .

. . . but instead of dragging it out or making it awkward, the show trusts the audience to understand what happened and lets Bart make a callous joke out of Ralph’s intolerable humiliation.  Everybody laughs, the story becomes more relatable as it moves forward, and the whole thing takes all of twenty seconds.  Nothing ever made terrible things funny better than The Simpsons.

Quote of the Day

“Now, why do they call this a urine monkey? . . . Oh, I just found out.” – Krusty the Klown
“That’s funny for so many reasons.” – Bart Simpson

Quote of the Day

“This orange drink is the only way to recoup our terrible losses from Fire Drill Follies.  I just don’t know what went wrong.” – Principal Skinner
“You opened the show with a fire drill and everyone cleared out.” – Groundskeeper Willie
“So mother was right, it was my fault.” – Principal Skinner

Quote of the Day

“I’d do anything for Lisa.” – Ralph Wiggum
“Really?” – Homer Simpson
“Mr. Simpson, the tar fumes are making me dizzy.” – Ralph Wiggum
“Yeah, they’ll do that.” – Homer Simpson

Crazy Noises: The Daughter Also Rises

As part of our tireless efforts to demonstrate the many ways Zombie Simpsons fails to entertain, Season 23 will be subjected to the kind of rigorous examination that can only be produced by people typing short messages at one another.  More dedicated or modern individuals might use Twitter for this, but that’s got graphics and short links and little windows that pop up when you put your cursor over things.  The only kind of on-line communications we like are the kind that could once be done at 2400 baud.  So disable your call waiting, plug in your modem, and join us for another year of Crazy Noises.  This text has been edited for clarity and spelling (especially on “homunculus”).

We give Zombie Simpsons a lot of grief for repeating jokes, but “The Daughter Also Rises” contained a impressively craven double dip on that count.  Not only did they rip off one Valentine’s Day episode for another, they repeated an Itchy & Scratchy segment almost shot for shot:

“I Love Lisa” (1993)	“The Daughter Also Rises” (2012)

Zombie Simpsons upped the gore and lost the humor in the process, but other than that they slavishly copied Season 4.  Now, maybe nineteen years is long enough that a segment can bear repeating, but if you’re going to do that, why not just rerun the old ones on Sundays at 8? 

Charlie Sweatpants: Ready to get started?

Mad Jon: Yes

Charlie Sweatpants: Where shall we begin?

Mad Jon: The top is as ‘good’ a place as any.

Charlie Sweatpants: Well, the couch gag certainly took a long time.

Mad Jon: Indeed. But what a way to celebrate 499 episodes.

By pointing out that next week is the 500th. 500 is a large number, especially for a show that died 15 years ago.

Charlie Sweatpants: The emphasis on milestones like that is just another indication of how the show now exists for the sake of existing. Like Fry, existing is basically all it does. When they were still putting out good episodes they blew through 100 with just that chalkboard gag about NOT celebrating meaningless milestones.

Mad Jon: Yeah well, it was pretty much par for couch gags in the last few years.

Charlie Sweatpants: Oh certainly.

Mad Jon: Anyway, brushing past the 56" HDTV in the living room, it was nice of Kirk Van Houten to show up for a few minutes, I haven’t seen him since the last time he and Luanne got back together/got divorced.

Charlie Sweatpants: That was pretty bizarre. Though why Bart and Milhouse would be opening valentines together is also beyond me.

Mad Jon: And why Bart would have so many. But whatever. Don’t you usually open those in class on Valentines Day? Are we that old that things have changed so much?!?

The important thing is that the lopsided valentines haul led to them having a Myth Busters thing to work with or something.

Every time they went to do something, I could hear Moses from the Super Friends South Park narrating the scene in my head.

  Um, then they, uh get candy cigarettes from the vending machine…

  Can you hear it now?

Charlie Sweatpants: That’s a good comparison. The randomness was in full swing, what was with Homer and Bart having fun together?

Mad Jon: I don’t know.

  That’s a question.

Charlie Sweatpants: The Myth Busters thing kinda pissed me off, because that’s a show they could’ve actually made fun of. The insane stuff they do, the "myths" that nobody’s ever heard of and even fewer actually believe. There’s a lot to work with there, but instead they had Bart and Milhouse become junior detectives, or something. I wasn’t really clear on it, and I don’t think they were either.

And what was with that Nick kid? Was he a kid? Because he sure didn’t act like one. For a while I thought he might be a hallucination, especially after that cafe scene and playing the song from Inception.

Mad Jon: I think he was the Irish boyfriend from the movie, and his card just came back up, so they gave him a different voice and called it a day.

Except this guy went from nondescript to apparently troubled 8 year old writer.

  I didn’t understand that until it was spelled out for me in the end.

And I didn’t think they could come up with a new way to kill as much time as they did with the peripheral vision montage, but man, they found a way!

Charlie Sweatpants: That was a little head spinning. When he started falling apart I thought they were maybe going for a "Lard of the Dance" type thing, with a kid who acts more grown up than he really is. But that was too much to expect. Instead they just let everything peter out.

Mad Jon: It was like every teenage relationship a real girl would have rolled up into ~6 minutes of dialog.

Charlie Sweatpants: Yeah, it’s always weird to see the kids having these adult relationships.

Mad Jon: And I also suppose that I was supposed to think that Marge and Lisa were growing apart, but again, I didn’t really get it until Marge actually voiced that.

Charlie Sweatpants: And while I don’t much care about inter-episode continuity, Lisa was acting like this was her first romance (or something, it was pretty vague), like kissing this weirdly under-grown kid was the biggest event in her life. That’s both very unlike her, and something we’ve seen her do like three times already.

Mad Jon: Yep. I was actually surprised that Nelson wasn’t involved out of jealousy.

Charlie Sweatpants: He and everyone else was too busy apparently following Bart and Milhouse around. Then they got upset with Bart and Milhouse. And then they weren’t upset with them anymore.

That entire thing with Groundskeeper Willie was just agonizing.

Mad Jon: Even in a zombie episode, I can’t for the life of me believe that someone allowed the writers to have Bart say "I just figured out how to make school cool again!"

  Truly, no one cares anymore.

Charlie Sweatpants: They really don’t. How else can you explain that long ass thing with the salad dressing?

Marge wants to protect the salad dressing, fine. But then we go into twenty seconds of churning and bubbling why? Was the episode that short?

Mad Jon: I was also surprised how short her freakout was during the post-bubbling period.

Charlie Sweatpants: That whole scene didn’t make sense. Just physically, trying to place them was tough. Was Moe supposed to be sitting at the same table as whatshisface? Because they appeared to be in the same crack.

Mad Jon: I guess. That was actually more believable than the Kirk part in the beginning. Who, by the by, was sitting with Luanne at the table on the other side of Lisa and Marge.

  And what was the deal with the three twins? Was that a horror movie take off that I don’t recognize?

Charlie Sweatpants: No idea. It was just bizarre.

Mad Jon: Ok then. I thought I was just more out of the loop than normal.

Charlie Sweatpants: The same thing was true when the kid came over to the Simpsons house. He’s sitting there, and then Marge starts talking to Lisa like he’s not there.

And later, when Lisa meets Marge at the sewing store, huh? How did she get there?

  This was like watching blind monkeys play chess. Shit just kept sliding around.

Mad Jon: Were we supposed to know that they were going to meet there?

Charlie Sweatpants: No idea. But Marge’s little speech about "I don’t want you to spend so much time with this boy, if you do it’ll mean you’re a separate person from me" was particularly aggravating from that perspective. Not only do they spell things out, they don’t even do it well.

Mad Jon: Yeah, it went along real well with the rest of the ‘have the actors say what they feel’ theme that was this episode.

  That makes me feel angry!

Charlie Sweatpants: And don’t forget the little historical flashback. I think that one may have gotten edited in from the rag episode accidentally.

Mad Jon: Was their love really as forbidden as the myth would have me believe? We had barely just been told that Marge was jealous of Nick, and all of the sudden Claire Danes has to kill herself.

Charlie Sweatpants: Exactly. There was nothing standing in their way . . . truly a story for the ages.

Mad Jon: And it ended with Nick channeling his inner Niles Crane.

Charlie Sweatpants: And Marge letting a supposed eight-year-old row a boat back to land by himself.

Mad Jon: And then he disappears from the island and Marge and Lisa share water shoes while Homer SINKS A FAN BOAT.

Charlie Sweatpants: I guess the fan boat was there the whole time, but maybe not.

Mad Jon: Probably maybe not. Who knows.

Well, I don’t really have anything else positive or negative to add. Although I am sure I could come up with something if you want me to suffer further.

Charlie Sweatpants: No. I don’t think there’s much here. It was a confusing mess of an episode from start to finish. The Itchy and Scratchy thing was basically a gorier, less funny and longer remake of the one from "I Love Lisa".

It was kinda about Valentine’s Day, but not really.

Mad Jon: I guess it was, but not. Or what you said.

Charlie Sweatpants: They had about four or five potential themes but each one got dropped in succession.

Mad Jon: I miss Love Day.

Charlie Sweatpants: The guest star was wasted on a weird homunculus of a kid. And their parody of Myth Busters was called Myth Crackers.

Mad Jon: There was a guest star?

  Who the hell was it?

Charlie Sweatpants: That was Michael Cera.

Mad Jon: Well fuck a duck.

Charlie Sweatpants: Yeah, it didn’t really sound like him, or anyone else for that matter.

Quote of the Day

“I’d give anything to go to that show.” – Bart Simpson
“I’d sell my first born son.” – Homer Simpson
“Hey!” – Bart Simpson
“You’ll do as you’re told.” – Homer Simpson