The Simpsons Movie

~ Mike! ~ 55 Comments

(released in US theaters July 27, 2007)
This is it. The Simpsons Movie. Any fan of the show was awaiting this day. As a kid, I remember wondering when it was coming out, and what it would be about. I hoped that my mom would let me go see it, as I knew it would hold a PG-13 rating. But it wouldn’t be until the end of my high school days before it would finally see a release. In the spring of 2006, seemingly legitimate rumors began cropping up of the movie possibly being a reality. One voice actor mentioned he read the script. Another said he had recorded lines for it. Bunk, I said. I’ll believe it when I see it. Then it came: an official release date of July of the following summer. I was absolutely psyched. There were sneak peek clips from that year’s ComicCon. Teasers, posters and trailers started coming out through the year into the next. Regardless of my waning interest in the series at that time, I was fucking excited.

And what perfect timing; I graduated high school in June 2007, and was about to leave New Jersey to attend the University of Florida. The Simpsons had been such a big part of my life up to that point, and one of the last things I did with my friends in Jersey was go see The Simpsons Movie at midnight. It was almost like closing the book on one era of my fandom in a way. It was a packed theater, filled with a lot of people who were clearly super fans of the show like we were. I remember at 11:55 or so, I turned to my best friend and said, “You realize we’re about to see a Simpsons movie, right?” I just got this surreal feeling, this movie, this event I had been waiting years to see, and I was a mere five minutes away from finally experiencing it. And then it happened… The Simpsons Movie. Ninety minutes later, I walked out feeling pretty satisfied. I saw it one more time with a friend who couldn’t make it to the midnight show, and one or two times more on DVD. But I hadn’t seen it in full in at least a good four years.S-1ASo how do I even start this review? I guess by saying that I think that I lean more toward liking the film more than I don’t, and I’ll boil down the specifics as I go. To introduce it in a succinct way, it’s basically a better-than-average extended episode, but since the average episode nowadays is total garbage, that’s not exactly the highest praise. It’s just I remember some critics at the time saying the movie recaptures the magic of the show’s most formative years, and was a return to form to the classic era. So, is this movie on par with seasons 1-8? Fuuuuuck no. Make no mistake, this is a “modern” Simpsons movie, and it has its fair share of problems associated with it because of it. Despite the things I like about it, it’s unavoidably plagued by a humungous “what could have been,” thinking of how amazing a movie would have been if it were made sometime after season 8 or so. And ended the series. What a world it would have been…

Let me get the plot out of the way first, though I’m sure everyone reading must know it. Springfield faces an ecological crisis and the whole town gets together to pitch in and do their part to clean house. But the local lake is so deathly polluted that it doesn’t take much to push it over the top, like Homer dumping an entire silo of pig feces into it, courtesy of his new beloved pet Plopper (or, Spider-Pig). This alerts the attention of the Environment Protection Agency, run by a power-mad Russ Cargill, who convinces President Arnold Schwarzenegger to quarantine the town indefinitely within a giant dome. When Homer is exposed as the responsible party, everyone in town is out for the Simpson family’s blood. They manage to escape, and go forward with Homer’s fail safe plan he formulated just in case he ruined their lives: move to Alaska. Soon after that, they learn the government plans in destroying Springfield, but Homer is adamant about not returning after being run out of town. Marge and the kids leave him behind, and ultimately Homer realizes what he has to do: to redeem himself and win back his family, he must save Springfield. And so he does. Hoorah.S-1AI must express my sympathy to the writers in some regard: the task of writing a Simpsons movie could not have been easy. At this point, every fan has hopes and expectations of nearly every aspect of it, and not everyone can be satisfied. So I feel any premise this movie could have had will be open for scrutiny… but the one they landed on just doesn’t feel right. Springfield vs. the Government, who traps them in a gigantic glass dome, constructed only God-knows-where. The movie follows the Simpsons on the run, and for two-thirds of the running time we barely see any of the rest of the cast. It’s just so weird to me that Springfield played such a large role in the story, yet its inhabitants feel so absent. The Simpsons has become this crazy ensemble show with such a great cast of characters, and all of them go underutilized. Of course, cramming in jokes and lines for characters just so they can be in the movie is no good either, but couldn’t the plot have been more focused on the town? You already have a great villain in Mr. Burns, friends of the Simpson family can help them on their quest…. I found myself missing characters as they would show up on screen for about five seconds before we cut back to the Simpsons again.

The main thrust of the story centers around, big shock, Homer, and his character turn of not being such a selfish jerk and to actually do good unto others for once. Yep, the star of many seasons, Jerkass Homer is very much present in the movie, but to be fair, he’s dulled down to a less extreme level. But having his son face juvenile court in lieu of him attending a one-hour parenting session after a prank that he instigated, and forcing him to walk around in public without pants on is pretty rough. Later, when it’s announced that Springfield is going to be destroyed, Homer is adamant about not returning to help, even though he’s solely responsible for dooming the town in the first place. At least we see that he suffers consequences for his actions in that this is what causes Marge and the kids to leave him, thus leading to his grand epiphany. But as our lead character, and the one we should root for in the end, it’s still difficult to really side with Homer. He’s still a far way gone from the lovable lug I used to know from the classic years.S-20The other family members have their own little scraps of story. Marge allows herself to once again be bamboozled by Homer’s nonsense, then leaves him for the “last time,” and of course they get back together in the end. Meanwhile, Lisa gets a disposable love interest who we will never see again ever. The biggest, and most peculiar, subplot involves Bart developing a kinship with Flanders. After being betrayed and then ignored by his own father in favor of his new pig, Bart begins to yearn for the type of kindly, non-abusive parenting implemented by his neighbor. I really want to understand where they were going for with this, but it doesn’t work for me at all. It’s like they had to severely neuter Bart to get this to work. Why would he give a shit about having a decent father figure? And he looks in forlornly at Flanders tucking his kids in tightly (“Huh. So that’s what ‘snug’ is.”) Marge mothers him all the time, and moreover, like any ten-year-old boy, he’s annoyed by it. This leads to the very end, when Springfield is minutes from total destruction, he approaches Flanders like a wounded puppy with a small request (“I was just wondering, before I died, I could have a father who cared for me.”) It feels so un-Bart, I just can’t buy into this.

Humor-wise, the movie’s pretty much a mixed bag. There’s quite a few jokes that hit their marks really well, and others that don’t. Used (and over-used) of course is Homer getting injured. Why spend time wracking your brain writing clever material when you can have Homer pierce his eye with a hammer or fall through the roof? Due to being locked inside the dome, the side characters only end up with a few token scenes that aren’t super funny, and end up leaving you wanting to see more of them. That just leaves the antics of the Simpson family, which at times is amusing, but it’s nothing really we haven’t seen a thousand times before, and the stuff with Russ Cargill, who, thanks to a fantastic performance by Albert Brooks, provides some of the best laughs of the movie. But of all the gags in the whole film, I’d say only 20% of them really triggered a genuine laugh out of me, which is a bigger ratio than the episodes now, but pretty damn low considering you’d think they’d have stepped up their game for a feature film.S-16But here’s the most important factor in all of this: there’s this odd feeling I got through almost the entire movie. It had this calculated, airless quality to it, an aura I couldn’t quite figure out. But all was revealed thanks to the film’s DVD commentary. For almost the entire runtime, Al Jean and the gaggle of writers continually discuss jokes and scenes that were cut, re-timed, trimmed down or restaged, all of a result of one thing: test screenings. They talk about how they repeatedly held previews with audiences across the country, and how they seemed transfixed on their reaction to every single frame of the film. Some schlub in Portland didn’t snicker at a line? Change it. One girl had a glazed look over this scene? Cut it out. Through this process, it feels like the movie was hacked to shreds and pieced back together so many times that a lot of stuff ended up getting lost. Like Abe’s prophecy involves “a thousand eyes,” which originally was referring to a group of many mutated woodland critters, but now that it’s just the one squirrel, it doesn’t really make any sense.

In the end, I felt kind of sad listening to them talk about this. In its beginnings, The Simpsons was a show commandeered by snarky young comedy writers who were confident in their abilities to discern what was funny amongst themselves, threw out network notes and wanted to make something daring and subversive. This environment, I believe, is what made the show so great. They knew they could make an entertaining, funny, heartwarming show. The difference here couldn’t be more stark. Multiple times, they talk about jokes and scenes that they all loved, but removed immediately once one or two test audiences didn’t respond as well as they liked. Most filmmakers abhor focus groups, as they have their own creative vision and want to see it through. Meanwhile, these guys not only love them, but it became their crux. Another thing that burns me up is the limitless potential of this project. Eighteen years of brand recognition means that the writers could have done anything with this movie. It would have had a $70 million opening regardless what it was about because it was The Simpsons Movie. Rather than use that opportunity to do something a bit risky or out-of-the-norm, they went the safest route possible instead. But look! Marge said “goddamn” and Otto’s using a bong! Damn, we’re irreverent. The MPAA told us so.S-18Most of this review has basically been me tearing this movie a new asshole… so why would I say I ultimately like it more than I don’t? Well, as shoddy as the story and the script are, everything else shines the whole way through. Director David Silverman and his team of artists and animators give their A-game on the film, delivering one gorgeous looking movie. The purposely crude style of the show looks great in HD, mostly due to the time and care that went into the animation, the backgrounds, the effects, everything (when the series went to HD on a TV budget… that’s a story for later). Silverman steps up from TV to film in his direction, giving us a number of interesting, dynamic shots. The voice actors give it their all, and composer Hans Zimmer supplies an amazing, heartfelt score, and all of this together manages to elevate and push further some of the more important scenes that would have just laid there dead with just the script alone.

Part of this whole blog’s purpose was to rip off the nostalgia goggles and take a look at the series from my current-day point-of-view. As I’ve seen, it’s astonishing how absolutely dreadful the show has been for the last ten years, and the movie definitely reflects that to a degree. It makes so little an impact, and the commentary definitely has reasons that point to why… but I just can’t hate it like I do the rest of the series. It’s largely disappointing, but I can’t tear part of myself away from the fact that I finally, after so many years of waiting, got to see a Simpsons movie. It looked great, it sounded great… the script was clunky and all over the place… but at least it finally happened. I guess you can consider this the most apathetic recommendation ever. And I’d barely even call it a recommendation.

Tidbits and Quotes
– I like the Itchy & Scratchy cartoon at the beginning, with its use of more extreme poses and the JFK references. The commentary illustrates a bizarre mentality from Al Jean right away: he recollects that they expected humungous applause from the audience when Scratchy turns around to reveal himself as the first on-screen character of the movie. He was stunned to find in the first test screening, “you could literally hear the crickets.” This explains a lot about not just the movie, but also the series: apparently they think people just want to see their favorite characters. It doesn’t matter if it makes sense for them to be there, or if they have anything funny to do, just throw them up on screen and those morons will lap it up.
– I did like that no less than five minutes into the film, we’ve killed off Green Day and are holding a funeral for them, and Lovejoy mourns the passing of yet another rock band in their town. It’s a rare moment of teeth for a show that nowadays has celebrities on just to kiss their already lipstick-smeared asses.
– I’ve recently mentioned the poor 2D-3D integration on the show as of late. There’s plenty of CG-assisted shots here, but largely they all work quite well. There’s a few that don’t, most of which unfortunately are toward the beginning, like the family getting out of the car and Homer and Bart on the roof, but most of the time it feels seamless and blends in well enough.
– Within the thousand iterations of this script, at one point Lisa’s romance was going to be with Milhouse, until they found test audiences were not that familiar with the relationship between the two. I just can’t see that working at all. Lisa falling for Milhouse? Get out of here.
– The long set-up and payoff to showing Bart’s dick is actually really funny, as is him smacking into the glass in front of the Flanders family, and Lou having to remove him with a squeegee (“Listen, kid, nobody likes wearing clothes in public, but, you know, it’s the law.”) The movie is actually pretty good until that pesky plot kicks in.
– I like how giddy Homer is about Plopper, and in turn, how completely blank-eyed and clueless the pig looks at all times. He invests so much love into that animal, yet in the end, he ends up nudging the plank over when the family tries to escape from the mob. And then we never see it again.
– In the commentary, they keep talking about how almost every scene and joke was put in “fairly late” or “at the last minute,” but the bit with Homer electrocuting the fish, and then himself? That was there almost since day one. Why tamper with comedic gold like that?
– Oh, the legacy of Spider-Pig. It became the anthem of this movie. I’m still really fond of the eerie choir version played over the epiphany scene.
– Moe’s “This is why we should hate kids!” at the town hall meeting really made me laugh.
– The Fat Tony appearance, Cletus unable to pollute the lake, Homer heimliching the cell phone out of Plopper’s gullet, Homer driving through a divider, then smashing through another one when he flees the lake… a lot of these jokes really do work at the beginning.
– I’m fine with Rainier Wolfcastle essentially subbing in as President Schwarzenegger. He gets in a fair share of good lines (“I was elected to lead, not to read!”)
– I try not to be a stickler with continuity, but the writers talk about how much care they put into the movie, coming up with floor plans and mapping out the town, yet they miss (or more likely, didn’t care about) some big stuff. Right when the dome is put over the town, we see that the Simpson house is right up against the edge of it. That makes Evergreen Terrace not even a cul-de-sac, the road just ends to the right of the house. So, what, they live on the very edge of town? In every other episode, and even later in this movie, we see that that’s not true. Then of course is the church right next to Moe’s joke, which I don’t mind (except that they made it “Moe’s Bar” so no dummies in the audience would miss out), but then later in the movie, we see the church is right up against the dome too with Moe’s nowhere in sight. Like, whatever. Who gives a shit?
– I kind of like how they destroyed the Simpson house. Not that it matters, considering it’s going to be rebuilt just as it was next season, but it’s so iconic of the series it was weirdly affecting seeing it completely decimated.
– In the commentary, the writers are insistent that Homer isn’t a jerk because he has a idiotic “back-up plan” of going to Alaska. I guess that makes up for everything else in the movie, and the entire series, then, huh? Homer is so reckless and careless, that he expects he’ll do something that will ruin his family’s life, so he has this fallback?
– The gas station gag with Bart defacing the wanted poster and the bizarro Simpson family appearing is pretty well executed.
– There’s a few time cuts that don’t make much sense in the movie: the Alaska scene where it appears to be daytime as Homer is avalanched into the house, then immediately into the sex scene we see that it’s sundown.
– Nice appearance by the gay steel mill workers amongst those trying to bust out of the dome.
– There’s a lot of great Cargill lines, but this may be my favorite (“Knowing things is overrated. Anyone can pick something when they know what it is. It takes real leadership to pick something you’re clueless about.”)
– I like the Tom Hanks cameo (“The U.S. government has lost its credibility so it’s borrowing some of mine.”)
– The Marge video tape is extremely painful to watch, given her breakup with Homer is explained with very valid reasons (“Lately. what’s keeping us together is my ability to overlook everything you do. And l overlook these things because… well, that’s the thing. I just don’t know how to finish that sentence anymore.”) Neither do I. Which is what makes her inevitable return to this dumb oaf all the worse. But you know, that ending with the swell of music and gorgeous animation of the two of them kissing on the motorcycle… I bought it. Goddamn, I bought it.
– The National Security Agency bit is a little too on-the-nose (“Hey, everybody, I found one! The government actually found someone we’re looking for!”)
– The epiphany sequence is really well directed, it looks really neat. And seeing Homer get ripped to pieces is karmically satisfying in a weird way.
– Homer and the wrecking ball is very gratuitous. But I love the crummy road signs (“Look, we can’t keep stopping at every ‘Sop,’ ‘Yeld,’ or ‘One Vay’ sign.”)
– More from the commentary: test audiences found both the epiphany scene and Marge and the kids returning to the decimated town to be “too scary.” What? They toned down the backgrounds for the latter, which is really bizarre to me. The point is that Springfield is a ravaged town, you’re supposed to feel somewhat uneasy as the Simpsons are. But heaven forbid this movie should elicit an emotional reaction, so they held back.
– I really don’t like Marge’s “goddamn bomb” line. Not for the language, but I felt that she shouldn’t have been seen until after Homer accomplished his goal and won her back. He sees her from afar, but is only reunited after he earns it. Instead, Marge just comes out of nowhere and swears, and it’s funny because she normally doesn’t. And of course, Otto smoking a bong. Funny!
– I like the callback to “Bart the Daredevil” where Homer and Bart finally make it over the gorge, just barely. They also threw in the crashed ambulance against the tree that Homer was initially driven out on.
– I’m sure there’s more I can discuss, but this post is already so frigging long. Unusually most of these tidbits have been pretty positive about things that worked and lines that were funny. That’s what’s so weird about this movie: individual scenes and jokes are amusing to think back on, but put all together, the whole largely doesn’t work. Eh. Whatever. Only two more seasons to go with this crap.

400. You Kent Always Say What You Want

~ Mike! ~ 20 Comments

(originally aired May 20, 2007)
It’s so strange that it’s taken to episode 400 to do a story about Kent Brockman. With its enormous collection of colorful characters, the series became hobbled by an over reliance of Homer-gets-a-job and other redundant, over-tread stories involving the Simpson family, that the secondary cast became relegated to their normal, one-off-joke roles. So will this episode cast Kent in a new light, give us some insight into his character and who he is? Well… not really. It’s a huge missed opportunity more than anything. While doing a fluff piece on Smartline, Kent gets hot coffee knocked into his lap and screams an expletive on live TV. When media watchdogs catch wind of it, he is promptly fired, and for some reason, he comes to live with the Simpsons. Free of any network ties, Lisa convinces Kent to broadcast on the Internet, and expose the duplicitous nature of national news. But just as it starts getting popular, Kent is bought out by the Republican Party and the episode is over.

Like many people in Springfield, at one point Kent gave a shit about his job, but eventually became so beaten and bogged down he donned his chuckle head news anchor mask to pimp Channel 6’s programming and bullshit local “news” stories like a dumb guy buying an ice cream cone. That frustration comes through, and his Edward R. Murrow-esque black-and-white venting is interesting to see. The issue, though, is by the time we get to this point, there’s literally two minutes of show left. The story with Kent doesn’t even start until the halfway point. I feel act one should have ended with him getting fired, then they could have built him up more. Instead act two is him getting caught by psycho conservative watchdog Flanders. Also, besides the point of why the fuck Kent is staying at the Simpsons specifically, but isn’t he rich? We’ve seen multiple times that he lives in a mansion from his lotto winnings. The Republicans buy him off at the end, but if he was wealthy, why would that win him over? They could’ve thrown in a line about how he lost his fortune or whatever, but instead, it’s like they don’t give a shit. An episode with great potential, but ultimately just flops about and made no real impact.

Tidbits and Quotes
– It’s a big waste of time from starting the actual story, but there’s a few good bits in the first act. Marge and Maggie kicking ass at Pictionary is a really cute scene, but the montage of her running home Raising Arizona style goes on way too long. It’s over a full minute of just running, but feels so much longer. At the dentist’s office, we get perhaps the best celebrity cameo in years, an absurd dental hygiene video hip to a young audience. Street hoodlums Gingivitis and Gum Disease shoot up teeth inside a mouth until Luda-Crest shows up to throw down. It’s so incredibly bizarre, but I loved it. His appearance as himself in the office demanding they stop showing the video is great too, especially how Bart walks past Ludacris, who is armed with a gun, without even noticing. Then Bart fucks with Skinner who’s under anesthetic by kicking a giant tooth into his mouth, spraying his insides with water, and holding an X-ray to his crotch for an extended period of time. It’s like all the stuff from “Please Homer, Don’t Hammer ‘Em,” this goes beyond the level of normal pranks, and just becomes like torture. Bart wants to humiliate Skinner to others, not harm him.
– I like how after Kent’s faux-pas, no one initially gave a shit since no one watches TV news anymore. At the dinner table, the Simpsons talk about media watchdogs, and Bart asks, “You mean there are losers who spend all day watching TV looking for stuff to complain about? Who’d be lame enough to do that?” Who will sound the alarm? Who the fuck do you think? Cut to Flanders huddled in front of the TV, bathed in its toxic glow, with stacks of offensive tapes all around him, writing down every questionable thing he can find (“Smallville: Superdog licks himself. That definitely goes in the naughty pile.”) He sees the Smartline tape and immediately hits the Internet to complain. His kids ask him what he’s doing, and he says this: “Imploring people I’ve never met to pressure a government with better things to do to punish a man who meant no harm for saying something that nobody even saw, that’s what I’m doing!” These episodes put Flanders in such a negative light, he’s not supposed to be an antagonist subject to ridicule. Even his kids are concerned with him (“Daddy, we think you need a new Mommy.”) And that’s when it hit me: maybe all this psycho religious bullshit is a result of Maude’s death. “Hurricane Neddy” showed how he’s bottled his anger and channeled it into religion. After his wife’s death, he just became even crazier, and that’s why we get conservative militant Flanders. It’s a depressing read, and most definitely not the writers intention, but it’s a bit of a new light I can see this character through. But I still hate it. I hate what they’ve done to Flanders. Hate hate hate.
– I like the bit with Krusty dubbing over the Itchy & Scratchy cartoon, as they couldn’t afford to play the voice actors (a reference to the high salaries of the Simpsons actors?) It’s great how he says the show title, but then can’t remember the character names (“Here comes the mouse, what’s-his-name…”)
– Strange to say, but the FOX bashing seems almost too on-the-nose in this show. This is a consistent theme with all humor on this show: it used to be done subtly and slyly, and now it’s too blatant, hit-you-on-the-head style of comedy. Showing the dichotomy between FOX and FOX News is not shocking, then Kent openly explains the negatives behind it. Then the episode ends with Homer and Lisa discussing a horrible secret about FOX, and being “dubbed” over. When the whole last act of your show is “Fuck FOX,” it doesn’t hold as much power when you’re still being aired on that network and making them millions by airing this episode.

Season 18 Final Thoughts
To this season’s credit, we got three episodes that were actually pretty good. Usually my “Best” list contains the one or two shows that weren’t as eye-piercingly bad as the rest, but these three are some of the best episodes I’ve seen in a long, long time. But, unfortunately, the other nineteen are as fucking bad as the show’s ever been. Silver lining, I suppose.

The Best
“Homerazzi,” “Marge Gamer,” “24 Minutes”

The Worst
“Jazzy and the Pussycats,” “G.I. D’oh!,” “Little Big Girl,” “Springfield Up,” “The Boys of Bummer,” “Crook and Ladder”

399. 24 Minutes

~ Mike! ~ 18 Comments

(originally aired May 20, 2007)
I feel almost ill equipped to review this episode, in that I think I’ve only seen a grand total of three minutes of 24. But then again, an effective parody should also cater to those who have never seen the source material, and this show manages to tell its story in an interesting way. Even with no real knowledge of 24, I was able to pick out what I recognized from the series, and also other dramatic thriller cliches I’m sure the show utilizes frequently. We open with Skinner introducing his own CTU, the Counter Truancy Unit, which is an hyper-sophisticated, technologically advanced super lab. Right away, you’re removing yourself from the normal reality of the show since this is so sensationalist, but it’s good that they kick it off right away. It’s like getting a warning right before a clip show. Skinner and Lisa are hot on the trail of the bullies, who are working on a stink bomb to set off at the school bake sale. With all their field agents incapacitated, Skinner must begrudgingly turn to Bart to stop the bullies before they reek havoc (get it? Reek? Heh heh…)

24 was one of those shows that was so big, that even without watching it, I knew elements of it purely through cultural osmosis. The show takes place within an hour, the multiple split screens, Bauer being in communication with the woman in the lab… This episode hits all those beats, and even mocks them, like with certain scenes where the split screens are of shots close together that they overlap. The story is investing enough, with several different premises converging at the end in a satisfying way. We get to see characters like Martin and the bullies used as part of an actual story, instead of being flat one-note props. The only thing this show was lacking for me was jokes. Nothing humor-wise offended me, but a lot of the gags just kind of laid there with me. But in the end, I ended up not minding too much. This was a really neat episode to watch; it’s like taking the universe of the series and placing it in this new mindset and tackling a different kind of show, and even if you don’t know 24 too well, you can still recognize the major beats and parodies anyway.

Tidbits and Quotes
– I liked all the different IDs for all our characters (Homer Simpson: ATM User, Devoted Father of Two; Marge Simpson: Unemployed)
– Bart requests blueprints of Jimbo’s house, but the closest thing on file are some drawings Jimbo made in second grade (Lisa can’t vouch for their accuracy). Bart is flabbergasted when they turn out to be inaccurate (“Where’s the roller coaster room? And the shark tank?”)
– Even with no knowledge of 24, I appreciated the guest spot by Jack Bauer and the other woman. Chloe? Bart busting the balls of a man under fire and laughing about it is pretty entertaining.
– The whole plot is pretty streamlined to me. I like that they include the bit where Marge drops the cake on the way into the bake sale, and it leaves two sizable dents in the hood of the car. It’s a well animated sequence, and also sets up how rock solid the thing is.
– The beatdown that Bart gives Nelson is a bit alarming, and kind of awesome. He throws him against that locker pretty hard.
– Oh no, more questionable CG. It’s a lot better than that corn maze, since here it’s going through the air vents, which are perfectly geometrical, so it doesn’t look too bad. What does look bad is the integrated 2D, where we see Uter in a spider web and Miss Hoover and Santa’s Little Helper passed out drunk. They’re so flat against the CG, but a bigger problem is how small they are. Either these are the largest air vents ever constructed, or Miss Hoover has shrunk to about two feet tall.
– The Martin suicide bit. The mole/big bad’s henchman has an “oh God, what have I done?” moment and decides to dramatically take his own life, except here, the fake-out is perfect, where he hangs himself… from a coat hanger giving himself a wedgie. They made a suicide joke work, because it was about something else, parodying an identifiable moment in thrillers.
– Wiggum tries to free Bart from his watery grave by firing his gun repeatedly at the glass, aiming for his forehead each and every time. Does this guy have it out for Bart at this point?

398. Stop or My Dog Will Shoot

~ Mike! ~ 6 Comments

(originally aired May 13, 2007)
So, in this episode, some stuff happened. This one certainly wasn’t as aggressively terrible as the last two, but I found it pretty damn boring. We open at a harvest fair set piece where the Simpsons get lost in a corn maze. They manage to get out, except for Homer, who’s a real joy to watch this whole first act. And by that, of course, I mean he’s insufferably loud and obnoxious. Santa’s Little Helper picks up his scent and rescues him, which then springboards into him being trained as a police dog. He gets teamed up with Lou, and it becomes like a buddy cop movie, where he talks to him like he’s a human, like he’s the renegade cop that needs to be talked down and told to take it easy. It sounds dumb, but I didn’t mind, it was actually kind of endearing. Also, Lou and Eddie are basically props at this point in the series, so it was nice to see one of them get some more screen time.

SLH becomes such a hardcore police dog that in a heated moment, he bites Bart’s leg. I guess we’re supposed to feel sad for him and hope they get a reconciliation at the end, but I dunno. These episodes feel so emotionally empty now, the era of “Dog of Death” was a long, looooong time ago. Bart gets a replacement pet, a deadly python, which none of the family objects to for some reason. He takes it to school for show-and-tell, it gets loose, knocks over some chemicals at the school, the building is evacuated, SLH rushes in and saves the day and makes up with Bart. Yawn. There’s a moment where the dog rushes in and nudges open Bart’s locker, and Lou understands that he misses his previous owner that’s pretty sweet. Hell, I’m more invested in their relationship than Bart and SLH, oddly enough. There’s a few token bits here that were kind of nice, but largely it was just a dull twenty minutes.

Tidbits and Quotes
– Homer is intolerable in the first act, with so many bits of him screaming that go on way too long: him trying to find the missing pine cone First Ladys, the endless bit of him thinking Marge wanted them to split up, getting electrocuted by the corn maze fence… Just leave him to die in there, I could care less at this point.
– More crummy cel-shaded 3D with the corn maze, where 2D characters are integrated in the CG rows of corn. It looks like crap. Also, Stephen Hawking is in the maze for some Godforsaken reason, in his third appearance. It’s strangely like Futurama in that he’s done three guest spots on both shows: the first being a larger part, and the latter two basically cameos. Except Futurama utilized him in a funny way all three times, and here, only his first appearance I would consider good.
– I liked Bart’s dream of being rescued by SLH as Robocop, after he’d been cornered by Jason Vorhees, Pinhead and a giant math book that bleeds out equations.
– How big is the Springfield Police Force? For new recruits, they have ten dogs, five horses and a dolphin. Considering the only police officers we see are Wiggum, Lou and Eddie, the force seems to have more animals than humans.
– I remember FOX marketed the episode solely on Bart getting the python, since if the show isn’t focused on either Homer or Bart, they have to run promos featuring them heavily anyway. Also, Homer getting hurt is preferable, so every promo showed him getting strangled by the snake.
– Martin’s rabbit hopping inside the python’s gullet as it slowly gets digested into nothing as Bart stands by with a blank look on his face is a wonderfully grim gag.
– SLH drags Bart out of the building, just so Wiggum can snatch him and hog all the credit (“Hero cop saves boy! Hero cop saves boy!”) Remember two episodes ago when he was urging the kid to commit suicide? I do. When did Wiggum become such a negative character?

397. Crook and Ladder

~ Mike! ~ 22 Comments

(originally aired May 6, 2007)
It’s almost like I’m being punished. Two surprisingly great episodes in a row are immediately followed by two of the worst episodes of the season, perhaps of the entire series. From beginning to end, this one is just nonsensical garbage. We start with Maggie losing her shit when Marge takes away her pacifier, which ends up getting replaced by a squeaky dog toy. The noises keep Homer up at night and he develops insomnia. Why are none of the other family members affected? No reason given. He turns to medication to get him to sleep, namely a product called Nappein. You know, like Ambien? We’re getting closer and closer to Mapple territory, making a thinly veiled parody specific to one product really limits the range and possibilities of your jokes. The drug turns Homer into a sleepwalking mess, which Bart takes advantage of, and through a series of ridiculous events that hurt my brain to think about, he crashes his car into the fire station and incapacitates the entire crew. The way this happens is so mind-bogglingly cartoony and makes absolutely no sense. But whatever, it’s time for Homer the Firefighter! Another fucking job!

Homer, Apu, Skinner and Moe becomes volunteer fire fighters and grow accustomed to reaping the fringe benefits from the people they save. But eventually Moe figures that they can just steal shit from local residents and businesses under the excuse that the items were fire damaged. And everyone just goes along with this, with Skinner as the lone ethical hold-out. Moe is a lecherous reprobate, so I can see him doing this. Homer at this point is a brainless sociopath, his characterization is out the window, so whatever. But Apu? No way in hell. They just walk out of stores carrying stolen shit in broad daylight, and no one says a thing. Marge witnesses this thievery first hand and forces Homer to go clean. This involves saving Moe and Apu from a burning building, and him being regarded as a hero. Does he ever confess his misdeeds? No. Does he stop being a fire fighter? No, but he sure won’t be one next week. What about all the shit he stole? Instead of return it to the stores, we see he’s given them away to homeless people, evidenced by bums riding on Segways waiting at the soup kitchen. Wonderful. The store knows Segways were lost and are gonna see these guys riding them and think that they stole them, and they’ll be arrested. No lessons were learned, Homer suffers no repercussions for his actions, and nobody seems to care. The writers clearly didn’t. And neither do I. Fuck this episode.

Tidbits and Quotes
– The first few minutes of the episode concern Maggie throwing a fit after Marge tosses her pacifier, and Homer is unable to find her regular brand. When she replaces it with a dog squeak toy, I knew at some point later in the show, we’d see her again with her regular pacifier. And sure enough, we do. It’s not like I give a shit how she got a new one, it just says that what I spent watching in act one was a complete waste of time.
– My God, the mood swings joke. Twenty-two seconds has never felt so long listening to Homer scream, “Mood swings!” over… and over… and over…
– Homer fucks up the exhibits at a wax museum, and then later is personally responsible for smashing his car in the fire house and injuring everyone inside, but of course, he’s never held accountable for any of it. Same with the ending where he never gets brought to task for his many thefts. He’s invincible!
– Okay, so here’s how the firemen get put out of commission. This is incredible. Homer plows his car into the fire station, knocking over a pot of chili boiling on the stove, which is on despite all the firemen sleeping. He also knocks into the fire men’s pole, bending it at ninety degrees. Finally he smashes through the windshield of his car and triggers the fire alarm. The firemen get up, slide down the pole, get thrown down the hall sliding on the chili and slam against the wall. Then hungry Dalmatians maul them because they’re smothered in the chili. But why are the dogs vicious? Wouldn’t they just be fervently licking them instead of mauling them off-screen? It just doesn’t make any sense… but then again, why should it? Do I expect any different at this point?
– It’s stunning how little life our supporting cast has left in them. Skinner barely puts up a protest about the shenanigans in act three, and Apu barely says a goddamn thing as he proceeds to steal up a storm. Again, why the fuck is he doing this?
– Marge and the kids follow the firetrucks to see Homer in action. They’re on the sidewalk right in front of the store next door as Moe, Apu and Homer are all outside as they’re making off with the loot. How the fuck do they not see Marge standing right there?
– I feel like the montage of the kids looking sad trivializes Homer’s dilemma, as it almost seems like it’s a big guilt trip for him to relent and change his ways, instead of him acknowledging that he’s breaking the law and should stop on his own.
– With thirty seconds of show left, we see crowds cheering for Homer, and then a slow push-in on the big oaf’s dumb smiling face. It’s stunning. He’s gotten away with all this shit, and they give him a fucking hero moment at the end? Then we get the actual ending where he instead of giving the stuff back to their rightful owners, he gave them to hobos. Wonderful. What a wonderful fucking scumbag.