AZTEC THEATRE

AZTEC THEATRE

First, some background: in fall 1990, Fox moved The Simpsons to Thursday nights in a heavily publicized move to compete head-on with The Cosby Show, which was then the reigning television champion. Eventually, The Simpsons managed to overtake Cosby in the ratings, and in June 1991, Bill Cosby announced the following season would be the show’s last. The final episode of The Cosby Show aired on April 30th, 1992. The Simpsons paid its respects with a hastily-assembled homage added to that night’s episode, a rerun of “Three Men and a Comic Book,” with Bart issuing an awfully prescient warning for viewers. It only aired that one time and was thought by many to be lost to the sands of time. Luckily, anything that has ever aired on television in the past fifty years will eventually resurface on YouTube:

Yes, Golden Age Simpsons managed to burn the current incarnation of the show from years in the past. The ownage levels are off the charts. [YouTube via No Homers Club]

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Earlier this year, some radio show noticed that singer-songwriter Usher’s chart-topping hit song “OMG” sounds remarkably like a song Homer Simpson tried to compose in the particularly awful 2003 episode “Dude, Where’s My Ranch?” Judge for yourself:

I don’t believe Mr. Usher intentionally committed songtheft. Like most of us who watched that episode, he must have tried to block it from his mind, but no matter how hard we try to repress our memories of Current Simpsons, bits and pieces still manage to escape. Try as I might, I can’t forget about Sideshow Bob Jr., or that Snowball II is actually Snowball V now, or the time Homer was Kurt Cobain for some reason. In Usher’s case, that little ditty somehow seeped through his mental blockade, years later and drained of its context, and because of cryptomnesia, he thought he’d come up with the tune himself and then proceeded to turn it into a hit single.

Unfortunately for him, this is not the first time he has been accused of plagiarizing a non-human. Last year, a devastating expose revealed he had stolen the opening of “Papers” from a goat. [YouTube via @ShawnElliot]

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p>Everybody’s favorite Taiwanese animation studio, Next Media Animation, has made another one of their trademark CGI news reports about the Simpsons/Fox News pseudo-rivalry, exposing the Simpsons writers’ secret creative process and Rupert Murdoch’s shark fetish:

The Simpsons now joins Jersey Shore and Conan in an exclusive club of TV shows that have been NMAted, which is a verb I just made up and will be charging royalties for. [Next Media Animation via Cartoon Brew]

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egg council creepHere’s a classic scene from “Homer the Great,” where Homer attempts to save Lenny’s life by stomping on an egg sandwich, in order to get into the Stonecutters:

Homer: I saved your life! That egg sandwich could have killed you by cholesterol.

Lenny: Pfft, forget it, Homer. While it has been established that eggs contain cholesterol, it has not yet been proven conclusively that they actually raise the level of serum cholesterol in the human blood stream.

Homer: So one of those Egg Council creeps got to you too, huh?

Lenny: Aw, you’ve got it all wrong, Homer. It’s not like that.

A man in an egg costume creeps, then runs, away.

Homer: You’d better run, egg!

The Simpsons Archive explains the reference:

+ California Egg Council commercial {ert}
– some humorous TV ads put out by the Council depict eggs in prison running off with glee when they’re set free

I have a very, very vague memory of a commercial with people in egg costumes, so I searched for it on YouTube, home of a million old commercials for those of us whose memories have been hijacked by Madison Avenue madmen. Thus far I have been unsuccessful in locating it. But I refuse to admit defeat.

That’s why I’m enlisting you, hypothetical reader, to go forth and find these commercials, so that the world will know that the Egg Council is a real threat. Here’s what I’ve managed to learn from five minutes of AltaVista-searching:

  • I have no idea if these commercials aired nationally or just in California. Did you non-Californians get those stupid “California: It’s The Cheese” commercials?
  • The Egg Council is still around, apparently, and still making commercials.
  • There is also a California Egg Commission. How deep does the rabbit hole go?
  • In “Burns’ Heir,” Mr. Burns calls it the Egg Advisory Council. Same thing, right? How many Egg Councils can there be?
  • Here is some helpful information on egg

Let me know if you find anything via Twitter or e-mail.

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For years, The Simpsons Archive has had a page documenting a long-lost Simpsons short called “Nazis on Tap” involving Hitler, Stalin, and talking dogs. It was supposed to air in Season 2, but was never animated and apparently forgotten about. I always assumed it was a joke, but apparently it’s very real — Simpsons Archive webmaster Jouni Paakkinen recently discovered the long-lost audio track on YouTube, probably uploaded by some disgruntled show staffer who’s about to get 20 years of jailtime.

“Aye carumba, the Fuhrer!” [YouTube via Simpsons-L]

AZTEC THEATRE

WHEREVER YOU GO IN THE WORLD THERE IS ONE FAMILY THAT EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT

NOW THE SIMPSONS ARE TAKING ADVENTURE FURTHER THAN EVER BEFORE

THEY’RE A FAMILY THAT LOVES EACH OTHER… THEY JUST HAVE A “FUNNY” WAY OF SHOWING IT

*”What I Like About You” plays in background*

[Simpsons Channel]