JEAN MACHINE

JEAN MACHINE

An image of two masked hackers from the Simpsons episode Lisa the Boy Scout.

Simpsons showrunner Al Jean’s Twitter account was hijacked last night by a nefarious cyberscoundrel or perhaps a rogue nation-state. The verified account was edited to impersonate Art Blocks, an NFT art project that has sold millions. Here’s a screenshot of what it looked like earlier, courtesy of comedian Friz Frizzle:

A screenshot of Al Jean's Twitter account impersonating an NFT account.

When contacted outside of Twitter, Jean confirmed the hijacking, saying “I got a text notification and it was gone,” and urged people to update their passwords.

The impostor Al Jean retweeted several artists involved with Art Blocks and the actual Art Blocks Twitter account, before announcing that a collection of digital squiggles by the artist “Snowfro” was now live. Eventually the avatar was removed, the display name was changed back to “Al Jean,” and the account was turned private. The account follows me, so I’m still able to see the impostor’s tweets, which as of this writing have yet to be deleted.

A screenshot of a tweet shilling an NFT collection.

The sudden shift in Jean’s posting style from hyping upcoming episodes to hawking crypto art did not go unnoticed. Former showrunner Bill Oakley quoted a tweet about it and added “what the hell.” “al jean got h4cked by some nft shitheads :/” tweeted Spiker Monster, a fanartist who recently had his designs featured in a couch gag. Others have noted that there doesn’t appear to be an easy way to report a hijacked account to Twitter.

We’ve had some fun with Al Jean’s tweeting in the past, but he’s a nice guy who regularly engages with fans and shares peeks at upcoming Simpsons stuff, so it’s dismaying to see him join the 37% of Americans who have had their social media profiles hacked (at least according to NordVPN).

Unfortunately, this might be the worst possible time to get hacked on Twitter (well, not that there’s a good time, mind you) as things appear to be chaotic at the social media giantess. Newly minted conquistador Elon Musk is said to be firing 50% of the company’s employees very soon, which presumably includes people on the security team. Furthermore, Musk plans to start charging famous people and organizations for the blue checkmark symbol that indicates their accounts have been verified as being the genuine article, which has already led to phishing campaigns. Non-notable people who pony up $8 a month for a Twitter Blue subscription plan will also get the coveted blue checkmark without the hassle of getting their identities authenticated, which defeats the original purpose of the checkmark and will almost certainly sow more confusion and impersonation scams down the line.

Luckily for Jean, Musk guest starred in a Simpsons episode back in 2015, so maybe he can get ahold of him directly.

JEAN MACHINE

al jean

Al Jean, the guy who’s been in charge of The Simpsons for the past thirteen seasons, told a radio interviewer he is looking for someone else to take over his duties:

We actually have been, just preliminarily, trying to think of a way we could get someone else to do it full-time.

Naturally, Jean is referring to The Critic, the short-lived animated series he co-created with Mike Reiss. Supposedly there is buzz it could be revived for a second time because everything else from the ’90s is being revived (I’ve already pre-ordered my tickets to the Sears Air Conditioner Commercial movie). But, since Jean and Reiss have their hands full with The Simpsons and… uh… whatever Reiss does nowadays, they would need a new person to actually run the show and get called gay by Jon Lovitz on a day-to-day basis.

The thing is: would The Critic even work in the 2010s? Instead of film critics on TV we have something called The Tomatometer, and now that Siskel & Ebert have gone to the concession stand in the sky, the most recognizable film critics today are insufferable YouTube personalities ranting about Jar-Jar Binks. I suppose we’ll find out, maybe.

[LIVE 105 via CinemaBlend]

JEAN MACHINE

al jean

Remember the Simpsons/Family Guy crossover? Still happening, and it looks like the Family Guy writers are bringing their A game with more of their atrocious rape jokes. Luckily there’s a man who, positively can do, everything he possibly can to keep rape culture at bay: Simpsons executive producer Al Jean.

Jean asked for some minor tweaks but, other than that, he was fine with what the Family Guy writers came up with.

[…]

“We said, ‘Can you cut just one rape joke?'” Jean recalled, straight-faced. “They said, ‘No,’ and we said, ‘OK.'”

Well, at least he tried.

[The Province]

JEAN MACHINE

al jean

Simpsons showruner Al Jean recently joined the social dating app “Twitter,” and has already committed many a faux pas. It’s always funny to see new users struggle with the learning curve, doubly so if it’s someone semi-famous.

Here’s a DEVASTATING TAKEDOWN of his initial tweets from friend-of-the-site hammster, with links added:

his first tweet he refers to joining twitter as “entering twitter”. entering.
his second tweet tells me to watch a couch gag on youtube without linking to it
his third tweet he misspells excited as “exicted”
the only tweet he has favourited is a manual retweet of a tweet from the official simpsons account RATHER THAN THE ACTUAL TWEET

Continue Reading →

COMING ATTRACTIONS, JEAN MACHINE, MY TWO CENTS

Al JeanSimpsons executive producer Al Jean, who in the past few years has killed off Homer’s mom and the real Fat Tony for no real reason, has vowed to kill again, this time with more hype:

“We’re working on a script where a character will pass away,” he confirmed. “I’ll give a clue: The actor who plays the character won an Emmy for playing that character. I won’t say who it is.”

Will nothing stop this man’s insatiable bloodlust??

Now the guessing game begins, for this episode that likely won’t air for another year! The Emmy clue doesn’t really narrow things down, because five of the six main voice actors have won Emmys for their performances. That would mean Harry Shearer’s characters are safe, but look at this scene and tell me they’re not already dead.

The smart money is on:

Rabbi Krustofski (Jackie Mason): Krusty’s estranged father, old, rarely appears, voiced by guest star, nowhere else to go with the character.

Jacqueline Bouvier (Julie Kavner): Marge’s mom, old, rarely appears, difficult voice to do, death would keep viewers from noticing how Marge sounds exactly like her these days.

Just Stamp The Ticket Guy (Hank Azaria): Perhaps the most iconic character, death would bring guaranteed ratings.

Here’s some characters that aren’t likely to die but are being mentioned in other articles anyway:

Princess Penelope (Anne Hathaway): Krusty’s wife. You didn’t forget Krusty was married, did you? Or that he’s still a Congressman? She’s not a particularly memorable character, so why bother killing her off?

Sideshow Bob (Kelsey Grammer): I doubt they would kill him off without a guarantee that this is the last season (still waiting on renewal, by the way). He’s a costumed character at Universal Studios Florida and it seems weird to have him alive for The Simpsons Ride while dead in the series.

Mrs. Krabappel (Marcia Wallace): Are they heartless enough to kill off Ned Flanders’s wife a second time? Bart would need a replacement teacher, and the show rarely (if ever) replaces a character… Gil is occasionally a lawyer for the Simpsons, but I wouldn’t say he’s a straight-up replacement for Lionel Hutz.

Fun fact: Comic Book Resources posted about this more than a week ago, but for some reason it’s only just now trending, due to this Sun News article. It seems to use the exact same quotes, so either they sat on the story for a week or Al Jean robotically uses the exact same quotes every time he talks to the press… which is exactly the kind of thing a serial killer would do.

[Comic Book Resources]

GROEN DRAIN, JEAN MACHINE

So, pop superstar Justin Bieber had a small 10-second cameo in last Sunday’s Simpsons episode, which seemed to disappoint everyone. Bieber fans didn’t like it because it was too short, unbeliebers thought it was too long, and Bieber himself initially tried to suppress all evidence of it last year.

Perhaps wary of The Controversy, executive producer Al Jean attempted to deflect blame for it onto his boss, Matt Groening:

According to Jean, Groening requested that Bieber be worked into an episode. “I think he has a family member who was a fan,” Jean says. “I think he’s a fan, too. So he asked us to find a place to use him. I think [Bieber] had also met Matt and wanted to be on the show.”

Matt Groening, a Bieber fan? It’s possible, but Groening – a former music critic – is known for his eclectic music taste. He likes oddball rock & roll, Balinese gamelan music, and Romanian brass bands. He said pop music “usually sounds like the audio equivalent of CGI.” He wrote a biography of The Residents. He’s curated the All Tomorrow’s Parties progressive music festival twice. He guest-edited an anthology of music writing. He’s let indie bands Tender Forever and Electrelane hang out at his house. He’s a big Captain Beefheart fan. He interviewed and was friends with Frank Zappa.

Nice try, Al.

[Rolling Stone]

JEAN MACHINE

al jeanTo the surprise of no one, Simpsons showrunner Al Jean told Entertainment Weekly he’d like to see the show continue past the 25 seasons guaranteed by Friday’s re-negotiation deal:

“I honestly think that 30 is a goal to shoot for. I want to put The Simpsons at 30 seasons before the end of the decade,” he quips, nodding to John F. Kennedy’s moon speech. “Forty sounds insane, but 25 sounded insane 20 years ago. Having seen how far it’s gone, it’s not for me to cap it… And Gunsmoke did 635 episodes [a record for a prime-time series], so that’s something to shoot for, too.”

Even though he’s supposedly quipping, keep in mind he can recite how many episodes Gunsmoke did off-hand. Please, nobody tell him about the animes.

Continue Reading →

JEAN MACHINE

al jeanAfter twenty years on the air, it should be hard to come up with fresh, new ideas for the show, right? Not so, says executive producer Al Jean:

If you look at The Daily Show, which is obviously on daily, I mean, they’re still hilarious after ten years. And we’re only on weekly, so we really have the liberty of picking and choosing the ideas that we turn into episodes. The world is a very interesting place and The Simpsons is a great way to view it.

See, The Daily Show comes on four times a week and it’s hilarious. Well, what if you took only the best parts of those four episodes and crammed them into one episode a week? That would be four times as hilarious, and that’s what The Simpsons is, supposedly. [TV Squad]

COMING ATTRACTIONS, JEAN MACHINE, MY TWO CENTS

In the opening of the upcoming annual “Treehouse of Horror” episode, Homer attempts to vote for Barack Obama, remarking that “it’s time for change,” but his EVIL ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINE marks it as a vote for John McCain. A scuffle ensues, and the machine ends up killing him. (SPOILER ALERT: The previous two sentences may have contained spoilers).

In an eerie parallel, Al Jean has entered his eighth consecutive season of running the show, more than any other showrunner’s “term of office” in the show’s history. If his two years co-running the show with Mike Reiss during seasons 3 and 4 are taken into account, Jean will have been a showrunner for half the show’s run by the end of this season. Is it time for change? Even Homer thinks so. [Wonkette]