Category: The Simpsons

447. Pranks and Greens

~ Mike! ~ 11 Comments

pranksandgreensOriginal airdate: November 22, 2009

The premise: Bart is shocked to find out he’s not Springfield Elementary’s greatest prankster, an “honor” held by twenty-something manchild Andy Hamilton (voiced by Jonah Hill). Feeling bad for his poor lot in life, Bart attempts to help Andy get a job. Meanwhile, Marge comes under fire from her fellow Springfield mothers for serving their babies unhealthy snacks, so she resolves to go completely organic.

The reaction: This is another one of those episodes that really illustrates how the writers don’t know how to write for Bart anymore. He feels jealous of this Andy character, then enamored by him, then for some reason he’s goaded by Lisa into thinking he’s a loser and wants to help straighten his life out. Remember the great Bart fantasies showing him as a wandering drifter, betting all his money at a casino and losing, or becoming a literal monster from testing food additives? He’s ten years old, he thinks those are awesome depictions of adulthood. Why the fuck does Bart care about this guy’s life? By the second half, he’s like this stern parent figure to Andy, a role that just doesn’t make sense for Bart at all. And another tension-free ending that they try to play up for drama. You know as soon as you see that worm truck that it’s all part of Krusty’s act, but we’re stuck watching two minutes of them pretending it’s not. As for the B-story, it’s pretty much a collection of the most basic health food jokes (Buying organic is expensive! Carrying a reusable grocery bag is effeminate!)

Three items to note:
– We see right before Andy’s master prank, Skinner was actually a laid back, cool dude? That just doesn’t compute with me. Also, how could he have NOT seen the entire fucking pool was filled with worms as soon as he walked outside?
– Andy waxes on about how back in his day, they couldn’t film their pranks for YouTube. It feels like such an odd line, considering Bart has been ten since 1987. Seeing the Simpsons utilizing new technology has always felt weird to me. It took a while to get used to them just using a computer.
– At Marge’s Mommy meets, we see baby Gerald and his equally unibrowed mother. He’s Maggie’s infant arch-nemesis, but I guess you gotta work with the characters you got. Though there’s one token random mother and child thrown in there to fill out the group. Also ridiculous is you have Selma and Ling, who just wordlessly go along with the crowd in shaming and deserting Marge.

One good line/moment: Looking at old newspaper records on a monitor, Bart commands, “Zoom in and enhance!” Lisa shrugs, and simply pushes Bart’s head closer to the screen.

446. The Devil Wears Nada

~ Mike! ~ 8 Comments

ImageOriginal airdate: November 15, 2009

The premise: Mr. Burns instates Carl as new supervisor of sector 7G, which randomly turns him into a workaholic, which in turn leads to Homer running himself ragged as his assistant. Meanwhile, Marge finds herself feeling extry randy following a sexy photo shoot she did for a charity calendar, but is disappointed to find her husband too exhausted to ravage her. When Homer and Carl leave for a conference in France, Marge finds herself in a tempting situation with the most unlikeliest of men: Ned Flanders.

The reaction: A very perplexing episode. What was with hardass boss Carl? He and Lenny were never really super developed characters, but seeing him switch into overdrive like this was just weird to see. And apparently, as a supervisor of one section of the plant, he’s sent overseas to manage major business deals with multiple other countries. And he leaves Homer in charge of his entire life? Rather than his natural ineptitude being used as comedy, Homer is only shown as exhausted from having to work so hard. Huh? Meanwhile Marge’s embarrassment over the calendar switches to general horniness in one scene, and the other women in her club, and a brief running bit involving the school faculty torturing Bart over the pin-ups, are completely forgotten about for some reason. But most insulting of all is our ending, where we all have to humor the writers and pretend that the scenes with Marge and Flanders have some kind of dramatic tension. Are they going to have sex? Are they? No, of course fucking not. I can’t possibly think of a way that that could have worked.

Three items of note:
– The airdate of this show suspiciously correlates with Marge’s appearance in Playboy. The subject matter, even the chalkboard gag (“I do not have the hots for my mom”) seem to support some kind of cross-promotion. The whole Playboy thing just felt very wrong to me. It just seemed like more of the show trying to grasp at any kind of media attention to still appear relevant, and what better way to do so in this digital age than appearing in a print magazine? Why bother downloading a thousand vaginas instantly on your smart phone when you can walk down to a newsstand and ogle at drawings of a partially clad yellow drawing?
– Nelson and Milhouse leering at Marge’s calendar to taunt Bart in class, while Mrs. Krabappel apparently sits and does nothing, was disturbing enough, but things get ramped up even more as Skinner and Chalmers do the same thing right in front of him. Super, super gross.
– Turns out Carl was flirting, and possibly slept with, the wife of the French President, and Homer wiggles out from under his grasp by calling his bluff about phoning the President and exposing the truth. So, Homer’s just got Nicholas Sarkozy on speed dial? Sure, why not? Apparently clips of the scenes featuring the first family of France went a bit viral overseas, but a spokesman for the Elysee Palace claimed they had no comment regarding the episode. Smart move.

One good line/moment: Two decent sign gags: Shot in the Face Photo Studio, and the giant billboard outside the window at the hotel Homer and Marge go to (Enjoy the Ocean View, Right Behind This Sign.)

445. Treehouse of Horror XX

~ Mike! ~ 11 Comments

ImageOriginal airdate: October 18, 2009

The premise: “Dial ‘M’ for Murder, or Press ‘#’ to Return to Main Menu” is a black-and-white Hitchcock-inspired tale where Lisa unintentionally makes a deal with Bart to kill their respective teachers. “Don’t Have a Cow, Mankind” features a 28 Days Later-style zombie infestation following the release of mad cow burgers at Krusty Burgers. “There’s No Business Like Moe Business” is a Sweeney Todd riff wherein Moe attempts to woo Marge with his new and improved ale, sweetened with the blood of a dying Homer, presented as everyone being actors performing the musical on stage.

The reaction: Yet another Treehouse of Horror that’s doesn’t even attempt to be the least bit scary, from the cold open featuring the classic movie monsters getting drunk and hitting on women at a party, to the final segment with the incessant fourth wall leaning. The first story has some atmosphere and good direction, but eventually resorts to just throwing as many Hitchcock references at the screen as possible in the final chase scene. The second story has no time for jokes with so much story and explaining needed to be done in seven minutes, which basically is just a straight retelling of 28 Days Later (if not obvious enough, it opens with the chyron “28 Days Later…”) The third story is just befuddling, this gruesome story told in such a light-hearted, meta way, ended up just leaving me cold. The last Halloween show I truly enjoyed was “Treehouse of Horror X,” which we’re a good decade past here, and it couldn’t show more.

Three items of note:
– Criss cross! Criss cross! Criss cross! Criss cross! Shut up.
– To further push Marge from fond memories of her departed husband, Moe concocts a fake note from Homer, who claims he’s gone gay. This leads to a big musical number from Homer, over how many different men all around the world he wants to fuck (“I want to French kiss a Frenchman, and spoon an English duke, ’cause frankly, dear, to not be queer, just makes me want to puke!”) You could excuse the awfulness of the song, opening with Homer reminiscing “turning gay the other day” by the fact that Moe wrote it, but it’s still pretty atrocious to watch. Also, what the fuck is this doing in the Halloween show?!
– The scariest thing in the whole show? The executive producer credits. Al “20 More Years” Jean. [shudders]

One good line/moment: “Ding-dong-ditch means you kill her, then you throw that ding-dong into a ditch! Jeez, pick up a book!”

…it rebegins…

~ Mike! ~ 3 Comments

Yeah, yeah, I’m gonna do it. Clearly I’m out of my mind, but here we are. The length of reviews and my schedule will be slightly truncated against last time. They’ll have a slightly different format, and posts will be on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, the first one being tomorrow. So, I guess here we go again. I can think of no better way to start than this old Simpsons clip, wherein Bart predicts the show’s future to a T.

 

So…

~ Mike! ~ 25 Comments

Hey, look, it’s this thing. Certainly has been a while, hasn’t it? Oh me, oh my… Here’s the lowdown: after finishing those final extra reviews, I intended on writing up a grand finale, a “What Have We Learned?” if you will, to serve as a final recap of my thoughts about the entire series, or at least the first 444 episodes of it. But, alas, reality intervened. Hours at my new job skyrocketed, to the point that I was working six, seven day weeks up from February to about mid July, with nothing to show for it but crazy overtime pay and IMDB credit on six summer movies. At that point, my heart wasn’t up to completing the recap. Too much time had passed; the blog would just continuing existing as is, a capsule of my crazy viewing experience through my favorite show.

But is enough, really enough?

Morbid curiosity is a cruel, cruel mistress. As Zombie Simpsons continues to barrel forward, I still remain flabbergasted that there remain a whole bunch of episodes of the Simpsons, as hollow of a shell as it is now, that I haven’t seen. And most of them I know nothing about. And beyond a shadow of a doubt, I’m certain that they are all horrible. Absolutely fucking horrible. I remain stunned at how the series continued to get worse and worse each passing season; by the time I got to season 20, there didn’t appear to be anywhere lower to go. But I’d said that in the past, and clearly we were much, much worse. Just as I had done during its first airing, at episode 444, I packed it in. But what future ridiculous adventures would the Simpson family endure? As ghastly as they may be, part of me would still like to know.

If you didn’t pick up on it, basically what I’m saying is I’m thinking of continuing the blog, picking up where I left off at episode 445, and continuing to the present. But is it even worth it? By the last couple seasons, I felt I was spinning my wheels with my reviews, because my complaints were becoming repetitive, since the show kept pulling the same shit over and over, whether it be ineffective joke telling, piss poor characterization, or inept attempts at parody or satire. I’m sure I’d find a lot of the same moving forward, but I still remain curious as to what further shit is down the road. The reviews wouldn’t be daily, and I may make them even shorter to avoid becoming too redundant, but I want to ask you guys what you think of this. That is if anyone is still reading this. My hope is that people are still subscribed to me, and will be surprised to see this pop up on their feed. Do you think it’s worth continuing my journey deeper and deeper into the mud? Is there anything left to comment on? Or should I forge forth just so you can be amused by my unrelenting anger by the absolute garbage I will be witnessing? I’ll let you guys have your say. My life, and my sanity, is in your grubby little hands.