Tag: The Simpsons

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.