Quote of the Day

"Calls?  Oh, calls.  Yes, uh, the Supreme Court called again, they need your help on some freedom thing." – Della

"Tell them to sit tight, I'll get back to them." – Lionel Hutz

Quote of the Day

"Hmm.  You're not as stupid as you look, or sound, or our best testing indicates." – C.M. Burns

Saturday Morning Cartoons

"I'll tell ya the truth, Dad.  I wasn't good at it right away so I quit.  I hope you're not mad." - Bart Simpson

"Son, come here, heh heh heh.  Of course I'm not mad.  If something's hard to do then it's not worth doing.  You just stick that guitar in the closet next to your short wave radio, your karate outfit and your unicycle, and we'll go inside and watch TV." - Homer Simpson

"What's on?" - Bart Simpson

"It doesn't matter." - Homer Simpson

I love the above exchange, it's Homer and Bart at their best.  Homer is a low-give-a-shit father; Bart is a low-give-a-shit son; and together they couldn't care less.  Even better, this moment is played for sweetness, like it's a life affirming moment for Homer to encourage his son to quit music and watch television.  None of this Team Mischief crap.  As a bonus, there are three potential episode plots contained in that one quote.  One of them happened, but the other two are just discarded because, in the before time, in the long long ago, The Simpsons overflowed with ideas.  

Quote of the Day

"You know Lisa, I feel like I have an instant rapport with you." – Grandma Simpson

"Ahh, you didn't dumb it down, you said 'rapport'." – Lisa Simpson

Friday Link Dump - Barney and Ecstasy Edition

"I can see why this is so popular." - Homer Simpson

Meet Zaky, the purple bear with a message of tolerance - Zaky is a Barney clone, only he's a bear instead of a dinosaur and his original target audience was Australian Muslims.  Now he's going global:

Zaky's creator, Sydney film producer Subhi Alshaik, describes the mild-mannered cartoon character as "the opposite of Bart Simpson" who teaches "good, ethical, moral messages".

I would not have guessed that the opposite of Bart Simpson was a purple bear, but what do I know?

Lunch Break: Jon Stewart's 1994 Interview With Conan O'Brien - This is O'Brien, about a year after he left The Simpsons, on Jon Stewart's short lived MTV talk show.  It's mildly amusing.  Oh, and Brother Bently from CollegeOTR, George Bush Sr. was not president in 1994.  Kids these days.

Kids in Texas Are Getting "High" on Bart Simpson & Ninja Turtles - We're back on the Bart Simpson Ecstasy pills.  I know this is from a local television station so if I'm expecting anything above a fourth grade level discussion I'm going to be disappointed, but c'mon.  They've got the word "high" in scare quotes like it's a new fangled drug term to which "squares" are not yet "hip".  

Candy-Shaped Drug Worries Local Cops - In Washington state they aren't even waiting for the pills to arrive before moving straight into the moral panic:

Mansfield says they haven’t yet seen the pills shaped like cartoons

Now this is the perfect story for AM radio.  The station gets a story by doing nothing more than talking to a cop, and the cop gets to be on the radio for doing nothing more than being a cop.  It's a perfect, news free circle jerk.  

Daily Jolt: Baseball Without Borders - Very poor usage, Andrew Johnson of FanHouse, very poor.  "Radical" is not what comes out of Bart Simpson's mouth, it's Milhouse's thing, that's his thing that he says.  

VH1 resuscitates "Behind the Music" - Behind the Music is coming back.  That's how long Zombie Simpsons has been on the air, a show that was enough of a cliche to parody nine years ago has had time to get cancelled and be brought back.  

Homer Simpson goes to Middle East? - Oh yeah, this sounds like a great idea for an episode.  

F1 change won't alter supermodel quotient - F1 cars are getting bubble domes?

Presumably the brains behind the world's top motor sport felt they hadn't already thrown enough curveballs at drivers, who this year will pilot cars so dramatically reshaped from last season that they look more than a little like the one Homer Simpson famously designed for his brother. That car sent Danny DeVito broke; formula one isn't quite there yet but the signs aren't trending in a positive fashion.

Hmmm, probably not.  It would be cool though.  

Plans underway for MacGyver movie - "No Selma, this is lying.  That was a well plotted piece of non-claptrap that never made me want to retch."  Also, MacGyver did a guest voice in 2006?  Whew, dodged a bullet there.

Scratchy has not yet been sighted - Morgan State played in the NCAA tournament last night and they've got a point guard named Itchy.  He got the nickname from his brother . . . who was killed "in an argument" a few years ago.  Jebus, Baltimore is a fucked up place.  Still, awesome name.  

Susy Schultz - New WTF column is about helping you - In this lady's alternate reality, WTF stands for "What's the Fix?".  The callous stupidity on display here is pretty astonishing:

A few people -- and when I say a few, I mean only two -- called or wrote to tell me that there is another meaning to the first three letters of the name of our new column, WTF: What's the Fix?

My sons might answer that by quoting Homer Simpson, "Du-oh."

I simply would say, "Yes, I know."

But we want nothing to do with THAT word. We are very clear that we mean, What's the Fix?

We are taking back those three simple letters. And we are reinventing them into a column that will help readers. I don't think that those initials are that far gone yet.

Where to begin?  Well, first of all, yes those three letters are gone and no you can't change their meaning even, as she writes at the very end, "in The Daily Journal's readership area."  (That appears to be just south of Chicago.)  "What the fuck" is a useful, multi-purpose phrase that works just fine; you cannot "fix" what is not currently "fucked".  And, "Du-oh"?  Does this woman have some kind of neurological impairment, like Rain Man or Awakenings?  I mean, what the hell is she doing here?  

Quote of the Day

"Tis a fine barn, but sure tis no pool, English." – Amish Guy

"D'oheth!" – Homer Simpson

Sunday Preview: "In the Name of the Grandfather"

"I will not celebrate meaningless milestones." - Chalkboard gag

American viewers are in for a real treat this Sunday night. As my colleague Mad Jon noted, "In the Name of the Grandfather" has already aired for our friends overseas, so we get to look forward to sloppy-Zombie Simpsons seconds for the first time ever. If you feel dirty, you should.

Thanks to the magic of the Internet though, some of us more resourceful types have already watched it. I won't spoil the finer surprises and disappointments, but needless to say, Mr. Potato Head has a speaking role as a judge. I kid you not. If you can't wait to revel in this cringe-inducing, Irish stereotype-laden pastiche of a shitshow, satisfaction is only a Google search and a download away. Not that we here at the Dead Homer Society support nor condone such reprehensible and appalling behavior.

Quote of the Day

"I'm Kent Brockman, on the 11 o'clock news tonight, a certain kind of soft drink has been found to be lethal.  We won't tell you which one until after sports and the weather with Funny Sonny Storm." – Kent Brockman

Wednesday Evening Cartoons

"I'm alive!  I'm alive and I couldn't be happier!  From this day forward, I vow to live life to its fullest!" - Homer Simpson

The Simpsons often liked to mess around with their end credits, either playing a different song or having some remaining dialogue continue while they roll.  One of the most underrated examples of this is the end of "One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish" (Season 2, Disc 2).  After shouting the above, the credits roll while Homer sits on the couch, eating pork rinds (light!) and watching professional bowling.  It's great all by itself, but the bowling announcers in the background make a good thing even better.  Their subdued and petty arguments are dead on perfect for ABC's Wild World of Sports or 3:00am on Friday night ESPN in the early 90s.  Cracks me up every time.

Quote of the Day

"Now, you've got little hands; can you reach under that mower and pull out that skate? . . . Pfft, nevermind." – Homer Simpson

Finally, A New Idea

""What - are - you - looking at?" - The innocent words of a drunken child. Well, I'll tell you what we're looking at young man, a town gone mad. A town whose very conscious was washed away in a tide of beer and green vomit." - Kent Brockman

So today is St Patrick's Day. Whoopee!!! If you are anything like me you are finishing up your Irish seven course and wondering about the special St. Patrick's Day Zombie Simpsons episode that aired tonight on the other side of the pond, and will air in the States on Sunday. This isn't the first St Pat's episode of the Simpsons, or even the second one for that matter, but I am pretty sure it is only the third time they've done it. And it's definitely the first time it's been broadcast overseas first. So there. Anyway, it's pretty meaningless to me as a shitty cartoon is a shitty cartoon in any timezone.

What does surprise me, however, is that Homer will apparently drink Guinness. In all fairness, I haven't seen the episode yet, so I garnered this info from a website called 4rfv.co.uk. I couldn't tell you whether or not this is a reliable news source, I also couldn't care less. If it is true, it means that a cartoon is pitching an actual beer brand in prime time. And while I am 100% behind both cartoons and beer, I can't, in good conscience, support the advertisement (we pronounce it ad-ver-TISE-ment over here you mick/limey fucks) of a purchasable brand of beer in a TV show that, over the last ten years, has shown an intelligence level only suitable for the entertainment of pre-teens and retards.

So, assuming my source is right, shame on you FOX. You shouldn't help beer companies sell their dangerously delicious product to the underage and handicapped. And shame on you Guinness. How dare you link your wonderful beer with such a terrible television show. You might as well have done this with "Desperate Housewives" or "Survivor" because at least then someone who can buy your product would be watching. Not me though, I hate those fucking shows.

Synergy: May I Get Out from Under Your Desk Now?

"A solar eclipse, the cosmic ballet goes on." - Leonard Nimoy

Editing this review so that it no longer reeks of Fox Executive ball sweat and dick smell was far more fun than the episode itself.  I even remembered things I'd blocked out, like the solar powered train that stopped in an eclipse.  Where the hell have I seen that before?  Ah well, I'm sure it'll come to me.  Enjoy:

March 16, 2009 - The story can often make all the difference in an episode of The Simpsons. Watching Principal Skinner lead the riffraff students out of the inner city two episodes ago was fun and funny to watch painfully stupid partly because the story made no damn sense. Having Ned buy the Simpson home to become their landlord was a bit less inspired last week equally retarded, and I enjoyed that episode less hope I forget both of them soon. So it's no surprise that I thoroughly enjoyed despised "Gone, Maggie, Gone," with its bent dimwitted take on a Da Vinci Code-like mystery. It was funny boring, clever simple minded and a downright enjoyable soul crushing viewing experience.

The solar eclipse that began the episode may at first have seemed like the often unrelated opening bit that would move us onto the actual story, but here it played a major role there was no actual story. It was the key event that would set off a hunt for the Gem of St. Theresa series of random sight gags. But first, there was some fun to be had screen time to kill. One of the most least entertaining parts of this episode for me was seeing Ed Begley driving his solar powered car, which lost power on the train tracks. And then the bit really paid off kept going longer than it should with the train also losing power because it was an "Ed Begley Solar Powered Train." If that wasn't funny hackneyed enough, I laughed out loud shrugged with indifference when I saw Ed Begley was a guest voice in this episode without saying a word. He simply gasped and sighed in his short but and ineffective sequence. (Editor's Note: Begley is a third rate celebrity at best, it isn't like doing a miniscule guest voice on a show as mediocre as Zombie Simpsons is some big step down the fame ladder for him.)

Marge's blindness from looking at the eclipse set up a few great bits made no sense and wasn't funny but was played for dumb laughs anyway, including Dr. Hibbert showing the clip explaining Tex Avery Syndrome. There were also the numerous and unnecessary attempts to trick Marge into thinking Maggie and Lisa were still around. Homer's Maggie hand puppet was great awful even by the standards of Zombie Simpsons. Of course, losing Maggie was the contrived reason for all of this, and this happened during Homer's hilarious send-up time killing duplication of the classic fox/duck/corn across a river riddle. Better yet Eating even more time was the puzzle puzzling itself out with Cletus and a very full fox. When Homer left Maggie at a convent's steps, the really shitty parts puzzle of the episode began.

Lisa infiltrated the nuns to try and get Maggie back, but uncovered a far greater mystery way to fill the contractually obligated amount of air time. I really enjoy cannot fucking stand the adventure thinly thought through stories likes this that The Zombie Simpsons have given us in the past. My favorite One of the worst is "Raging Abe Simpson and His Grumbling Grandson in 'The Curse of the Flying Hellfish' Simpson Safari" but "Gone, Maggie, Gone" has shot up the list. The riddles plot contrivances were fun awful and the story was entertaining and funny equally terrible. The never-ending Rube Goldberg contraption opening up a secret panel in the church was a great lazy start. It was also a smart necessary choice to get more of the townsfolk involved in the mystery rather than simply following Lisa from clue to clue, because that will only take up so much time. Principal Skinner and Comic Book Guy were an unlikely pair there, and that added to the comedy. It was also perfect weak story telling to have Mr. Burns show up as a third faction searching for the gem to help move along the un-resolvable mess the writers got themselves into. The ending was sweet batshit fucking crazy, with Maggie removing Marge's bandages, and I even enjoyed the hellish results of Bart taking Maggie's place on the throne made even less sense.

As entertaining horrifyingly brain melting as the "story" was, it would not have made a difference if it weren't just as equally horrifyingly unfunny. Marge had a great line after her family kept her blind period fully stress-free: "Everyday Every day has been like the first ten minutes of Mother's Day." I laughed scratched my head and looked at the clock throughout the retelling of the legend of St. Theresa, which included pirate nuns and a fake war for independence. Mr. Burns referring to Smithers as his albino was another hilarious bit rote plot point plugged in from The Da Vinci Code. ("I'm not an albino. I just use a lot of sun block." "Then why do I give all the albino holidays off, hmm?") Overall, it was the combination of a fully engaging idiotic story and great a complete lack of laughs that made "Gone, Maggie, Gone" another winner disaster for The Zombie Simpsons in their post-hi-def series run.

Quote of the Day

"Who chased the Irish out of Springfield village in aught four?  Me, that's who!" – Abe "Grandpa" Simpson

"And a fine job you did, too." – Irish Guy

Angry Yawns

That bizarro thing that was on last night distracted me enough that I forget to make an over/under prediction for this week's ratings.  Oh well, the under would've won because the numbers are in and once again they aren't pretty.  Just like last week, yesterday's Zombie Simpsons failed to make the totally arbitrary six million people number, coming in at 5.97 million people.   

To give you an idea of just how bad things are, through thirteen episodes of Season 19 (the lowest rated season ever), Zombie Simpsons was averaging a little over 9 million viewers.  Through thirteen episodes this year Zombie Simpsons is averaging 7.72 million viewers, a decrease of 15%.  What's more, the ratings tend to be lower in the spring than in the fall so that number is likely to go lower still.  March, April and May of last year dragged the overall average down from 9.07 to just 8.26 million viewers.  

In a related note, Family Guy Afterbirth (aka American Dad) pulled in 5.83 million viewers and actually had a better rating among 18-34 year olds than Zombie Simpsons did.  Sweet.  

Quote of the Day

"I can't believe it, you've actually found a practical use for geometry." – Bart Simpson

Loss for Words

"Oh no!  Aliens, bio duplication, nude conspiracies, oh my god, Lyndon LaRouche was right!" - Homer Simpson

I am at a loss for a way to criticize tonight's Zombie Simpsons.  It was so incoherent, random and boring that the only way to address it on its own level would be for me to drag my knuckles across the keyboard in a random pattern.  So that's exactly what I'm going to do.  

About the rats, the poison, the car crash and the rowboat:

xdsfgbvgnmlkmjiugyfgvtf;l.ku,yjmngtbfdv scwvqc12345dewworeis7kjdy,uxjgcx,.figdkt7ejr4w,7ej,.drsuf6itdr5sltriekejye3hjym7r,dufmcvj cnvbfhtrs6tds6xftc,gkmfdmnyfhf b

Then there was the ancient mystical convent, the time wasting clock scene, Marge spoon feeding Homer's hand, the endless exposition and Bart's saxophone solo:

servgsdgfhkj,klk;jljk.ngcvbx cxvdcfewt4r546u57uityhgbv cxvsgdrt567ui6i8790-090opuioyhgbxcv zcsadwqer34t5y6u7jik89luii8kughgvn xzcdaewsreth6yjt7ku8yli9uiykugmnhf gbdsvewrg5ht6jynrbg df

Finally, we come to the clock tower scene, the giant sign scene, the helicopter ride and the rainbows that shot out of Maggie's head for some reason:

xz csdafgvgrd5tesgsgniaovsl dzxm xdisnf4ujwrmklfdskj;lj;4woprekldfwlrjx ckldmmxcsdkljcx uzdedioxdsaljewfndsmx,m.zcmknlsdfwejiouqq87q38owi9poe;lkdsjfazxmvc zzc,nkdsjfoew94q8ohu3qrihefiovnds kjnh089gvyq3bworeg4h0w90 gnv wgnvnv 75q3 948

Ahhh, that was cathartic.  Could anyone else make anything out of that?  Or have we crossed a line into something so totally disconnected from reality and thought that it's simply beyond our ability to digest?  

Quote of the Day

"Beware the Ides of March." – Lisa Simpson

"No." – Homer Simpson

Saturday Morning Cartoons

"It's good!  It's good!  It's goooood! . . . It's good to see you all in church." - Homer Simpson

Another one of the thousands of reasons that The Simpsons works better than any other show?  Homer, suffering in a church pew like so many Americans, has Lovejoy's sermon sync up with the football announcer.  It's too long ago to be sure, but I think I peed myself - just a little - the first time I ever saw this scene.

Quote of the Day

"So, Mr. Nahasapeemapetilon, if that is your real name, have you ever forgotten anything?" – Lionel Hutz

"No.  In fact, I can recite pi to 40,000 places.  The last digit is 1." – Apu Nahasapeemapetilon

Friday Link Dump - Math and Science Edition

"Lisa, your father needs your help.  Do you know anything about Germany?" - Homer Simpson

"Well, it's a country in Europe." - Lisa Simpson

"Good good, I'm learning." - Homer Simpson

I found two different Periodic Tables on-line this week that use Homer Simpson to represent Element 108, Hassium.  It doesn't exist in nature, has a half life of 0.002 seconds and was discovered/created in 1984 by some Germans.  

Cartoon Character Periodic Table - Cobra Commander as Cobalt is good, but having The Tick as Titanium is better.  Also, Flanders is Neodymium; unlike Homer he's stable and exists outside of a laboratory.  (Via Digg)

Video Game Character Periodic Table - There are some cartoon characters sprinkled around this one on the grounds that Homer and Iron Man have been in video games even if they were originally created elsewhere.  My personal favorite here is John Madden, the father of video game football, as Mendelevium which was named after Dimtri Mendeleev the father of the periodic table.  Little known fact, Mendeleev went to grade school with Brett Favre and loves Turducken.  (Via Kombo)

Sexy maths: A number-munching celebration - Don't forget, tomorrow is Pi Day!  On Pi Day for every circle that has its area calculated an angel gets its wings . . . or was it circumference?  I forget which.  On a related note, I'm glad I've never seen the piece of shit episode that makes this link a Simpsons reference, though this is entertaining:

If we had evolved with a different anatomy, say with eight fingers like Homer Simpson, pi would still be the same expression of the unchanging ratio between the circumference and diameter of a circle but using powers of eight rather than powers of ten as our natural base would mean pi began 3.110375...

I miss my base-6 math textbook.  

Old flag's just fine - It seems that there's a debate in Manitoba about changing the provincial flag.  Our author, the awesomely named Ace Burpee, is against it:  

I read one quote online that supporters of a new flag would "like it to be easier for kids to draw". Then change the Canadian flag as well because every drawing of a maple leaf by a child looks like a hybrid between Lisa Simpson's hair and a marijuana leaf.

Because marijuana leaves are so much easier to draw than maple leaves.  

Teaching humanities in a culture of business - A couple of sisters in Buffalo are taking the 'dolt' out of A-dolt education by teaching Shakespeare and other humanities to people who didn't learn them in school.  One of the sisters, Deepa Govindaraj, endears herself to us by saying, "I think 'The Simpsons' is high culture."  

Italy Upsets Canada at World Baseball Classic - The New York Times laughs at the World Baseball Classic's loose eligibility rules and likens them to Mr. Burns bringing in professional baseballers.

Lions even get dissed in animation - The Detroit Free-Press takes a little umbrage at Zombie Simpsons' portrayal last week of evil Flanders as a Lions fan.  Speaking as a Lions fan I'd agree, but speaking as a Simpsons fan I know it's far too much to ask Zombie Simpsons to put thought into things.  "Detroit Lions GM" would've been funnier and more apt that "Detroit Lions Fan".  

TV star dubs cllr "Homer Simpson of Culture" - I know these words but this story makes no sense. 

TV Recap: 24 - Episode 13 8:00-9:00 PM - Jebus I'm glad I don't watch 24.  If a critic can compare the actions of your fictional president to Herb Powell it might be time to watch a different program.  

Craft Village UK revamps Simpsons gift range - "Sounded large when I ordered it.  Ahh, I can't make hide nor hair of these metric booby traps."

A little housekeeping - Wow, NPR is really vacuous and stupid.  This podcast does reference The Simpsons at about the 11 minute mark, but I wouldn't recommend it.  

Bedford police seize drugs that look like kids' vitamins - This is very simple and I'm only going to say it once, DO NOT PUT ILLEGAL DRUGS UNDER YOUR SEAT.  Put them in the glove box or the trunk and if the officer asks to open it you say "No".  I know this, you know this, Jay-Z knows this.  Also, I find it amusing that while the Bart Simpson and Superman ecstasy pills are right side up, the cops have the Autobot symbol upside down.  

Bart or a Flanders kid -- who would you rather raise? - SF Chronicle baby blog, we've praised you before, but this is dumb even by internet standards.

'Simpsons' in stone Hollywood on hold - So you want to make a statue of the family sitting on the couch?  Fine.  I don't think that makes this true: 

the statue would replicate the five-member family sitting on a couch watching TV, a scene in the 2007 "The Simpsons Movie."

You know, they've been sitting on that couch for a long time; it isn't exactly from the movie. 

Detectives identify injured woman - A missing woman is identified by her Marge Simpson key chain.  

Reagan Library Honored for Exhibit - Nothing is more prestigious than an award from the Themed Entertainment Association.  It's so prestigious that the Simpsons ride and the Beijing Olympics also won something.  Enh, it's still better than a Grammy.  

Celebrity sighting: Cy Young Winner CC Sabathia meets Homer Simpson at Universal Orlando Resort - Morbidly obese, past his prime pitcher, recently signed to a bloated contract that he'll never live up to, meets morbidly obese, past his prime cartoon character, recently signed to a bloated contract that he'll never live up to.