BORT REPORT

BORT REPORT

Beloved Simpsons joke “Bort” was referenced in last night’s episode “Yellow Subterfuge,” as roughly half the jokes in modern day Simpsons are just callbacks to old episodes. Apparently, there’s a kid named Bort Sampson attending Springfield Elementary, according to this list of names Principal Skinner wields:

Will Bort and Bart ever cross paths? Will Lisa’s friend Janey ever get a surname that sticks? Will Skinner ever print out an attendance list that isn’t just a random jumble of kids from multiple grades? Keep watching the skis.

[h/t No Homers Club]

BORT REPORT, WRITER WATCH

bortA couple weeks ago, Ben Joseph, a first-time Simpsons writer, went onto the notorious pony-fetish website reddit and took some questions about his experience hanging out with Bart Simpson. Some of the answers are sorta-kinda interesting – how the writing process works, how much money you get before taxes, what Hank Azaria looks like (“a bronzed Adonis”) – but then he let this little nugget of info slither out:

No restrictions. But, as much as I’d have loved to pitch an all-Bort episode, I also worked hard to pitch something that felt like something they would actually do.

Thanks for dashing our dreams, jerkwad. [reddit]

BORT REPORT, TORTURE LAND

And so it has spent the last year outfitting an underground, nerve center to address that most low-tech of problems, the wait. Located under Cinderella Castle, the new center uses video cameras, computer programs, digital park maps and other whiz-bang tools to spot gridlock before it forms and deploy countermeasures in real time.

In one corner, employees watch flat-screen televisions that depict various attractions in green, yellow and red outlines, with the colors representing wait-time gradations.

If Pirates of the Caribbean, the ride that sends people on a spirited voyage through the Spanish Main, suddenly blinks from green to yellow, the center might respond by alerting managers to launch more boats

bort command center

“We need more Bort license plates in the gift shop. I repeat, we are sold out of Bort license plates.”

[New York Times]

BORT REPORT

bort