COMING ATTRACTIONS

As previously guessed, the Simpsons character fated to die in an upcoming Simpsons episode next season is almost certainly Krusty the Clown’s formerly-estranged father, Rabbi Hyman Krustofsky.

A recently-added copyright record for an episode entitled “Clown in the Dumps” simply confirms it:

clown in the dumps

Who’s the only clown we know of in the Simpsons universe? Krusty, of course (Sideshows Mel and Bob are mere assistant clowns, in my estimation). Why would Krusty be in the dumps? Because his father just died, that’s why. The clues are piling up, and they all point to a dead rabbi.

I would bet my remaining bitcoin on it!

[United States Copyright Office via No Homers Club]

ANIMOTION MACHINE

Otaku My Wife... Please!

The Simpsons homage to legendary anime director Hayao Miyazaki that delighted the internet a month or two ago was apparently ten years in the making:

The Simpsons executive producer Al Jean said his team had been trying to work in an homage to Miyazaki on their show for at least a decade, but the eventual episode — in which Comic Book Guy marries a woman from Japan — was well underway before the filmmaker announced his retirement.

In the episode, Homer gets drunk with the Japanese woman’s father for no apparent reason, they have an anime dream because Japan, and the father realizes he should let his daughter be with Comic Book Guy because he sees his face on No-Face from Spirited Away. The whole sequence is rather disjointed from the rest of the episode, and the awkward attempt to justify its inclusion by making it the story’s climax makes for a weird, lazy plot progression (problem → get drunk → problem solved). If the episode was created just so the writers could finally put in a Miyazaki tribute they’d been wanting to put in for over a decade, you’d think they could’ve worked it in better.

Oh, and Miyazaki hasn’t even seen it.

[BuzzFeed]

D'OH REPORT

doh

Whoops!!! It looks like Bart Simpson’s carbon rod accidentally made a repeat appearance for a few frames in last night’s Simpsons episode, “Specs in the City.” An editor on Wikisimpsons took a screencap to preserve this watershed moment in network television history for future generations. Those frames have yet to be censored or removed from the Hulu version of the episode (in the name of journalistic integrity, this reporter had to redeem his hard-earned Bing rewards points to get a Hulu Plus subscription in order to confirm it wasn’t a hoax).

Presumably, this means either Fox’s ban on butts has been lifted, or some rogue animator is getting fired for that blunder.

[Specs and the City via No Homers Club]

UNRELATED SIMPSONS IN THE NEWS

oj

OJ Simpson’s ending soon. According to The National Enquirer, the athlete-turned-murderer says he “feel[s] the end coming” and has requested an early release from prison so he won’t die “like common jailhouse scum.”

This could be Simpson’s final season:

“OJ’s doctors have told him he could be dead in as little as three months because of his out-of-control blood sugar and blood pressure,” said an unnamed source.

Created in 1947 by Eunice and Jimmy Lee Simpson, the long-running former running back was popular for many years, but in recent decades has become largely reviled by all but the most fervent of fans.

[Yahoo! News]

NEWS ROUNDUP

police dogAh, a new year is upon us, giving me a chance to catch up on all the news stories I’ve neglected over the past few weeks before they get too old to post.

  • The administrator of the now-defunct pirate streaming site WatchTheSimpsonsOnline, which was shut down in October, has been ordered to pay $10.5 million in damages. Now that’s a lot of “D’oh”!!!!! [TorrentFreak]
  • Fox is getting back in the theme park game! Twelve years after the miserable failure of their first park, Fox is bringing “Twentieth Century Fox World” to Malaysia, with plans for more. They won’t be allowed to feature any Simpsons attractions since the franchise is licensed to Universal, which is kinda like Comedy Central making a theme park without South Park. But they will have a recreation of the Titanic!!! [Variety]
  • Mrs. Krabappel and the late Simpsons writer Don Payne were depicted as angels for a split-second in a recent Christmas episode. That’s heartwarming and all, but why are there angels at the North Pole? [E! Online]
  • The Simpsons has teamed up with BAPE for a line of streetwear where they all look dead. [BAPE]
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]

AZTEC THEATRE

marge dress

Former Playboy model Marge Simpson was on the fashion reality game show Project Runway: All Stars a few days ago in another dumb stunt that’s embarrassing for both shows. Contestants had to design a fancy dress for Marge to wear on a dinner date with Homer, because that’s definitely in character for her and something that would happen in The Simpsons. Apparently the guidelines were 1. it has to go well with mutant yellow skin, and 2. it can’t be green. Also, something about her ass?
Continue Reading →

ROCK BOTTOM

!!!!!Holy Freaking Cow… bombshell tonight ladies & gentlemen. Bleeding Cool just uncovered evidence that “The Simpsons” is being renamed after 25 long seasons on the broadcast airwaves. The new name… “Bart & Co.” As Maggie would say: “What the deuce???”

“It was time for change,” said a guy I made up just now. “There was a feeling that the ‘The Simpsons’ name was no longer relevant to today’s tweens so the big boys on the top floor demanded a name change to spice things up.”

Will renaming the quarter-century show prove to be a major misstep for Fox and the franchise, or will it be the opposite of that. Those are the questions we’re asking.

No word yet on when the namechange will be made official.

Developing…

FOX NEWS

simpsons rich

Scrappy cable underdog FXX landed a major deal with its fellow 21st Century Fox subsidiaries 20th Century Fox Television and Twentieth Television (which are different companies, somehow…?) for the exclusive cable and streaming rights to The Simpsons for ten years, and now a bunch of rich people are going to get richer, hooray! The deal is valued at $750 million, making it the largest off-network sale ever.

FXX is a terribly-named spinoff of FX that launched two months ago. It airs comedy shows like It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, reruns of Parks & Recreation, and who knows what else. Next August, they’ll have every episode of The Simpsons. So many, they don’t quite know what to do with them:

FXX is expected to stack six to eight episodes on one or two nights, probably in thematic packages, rather than air them across the week as in traditional syndication.

Hey, I already made things easy for them! Imagine a whole night of those dumb trilogy episodes where historical/fictional figures are replaced with Simpsons characters.

Additionally, every episode will be available streaming on demand:

Deal also calls for the vast archive of “Simpsons” segs to be available on VOD via the soon-to-launch authenticated FXNow mobile viewing app — which is sure to be a draw for the service as “Simpsons” segs have never been widely distributed online and have never been on any SVOD platform.

Well, not legally – in a weird coincidence, the internet’s most popular Simpsons streaming site shut down just a few weeks ago. Naturally, to use FXNow you’ll have to prove you’re a cable subscriber and not one of those freeloading hippie cord-cutter types. Meanwhile, local stations have run out of good seasons to air:

Most local stations have used up all of their allotted runs of older seasons of the show, even as they get access to the most recent episodes after the conclusion of each season on the Fox network.

Haw haw, nobody wants the newer episodes.

Harry Shearer is bitter because the official press release about the deal names eleven executives – John Landgraf, Chuck Saftler, Gary Newman, Dana Walden, Greg Meidel, Steve MacDonald, James L. Brooks, Matt Groening, Al Jean, Chris Antola, and Lori Bernstein – and zero cast members. Shearer and the rest of the cast won’t get to share in the profits, and neither will the animators, who continue to deal with pay reductions, shortened production schedules, and longer layoffs.

[Variety]

TOON BEAT

Bordertown

With The Cleveland Show cancelled and American Dad heading for TBS, it was looking like Fox might be down to just three Seth MacFarlane-produced shows on their schedule: Family Guy, Dads, and the upcoming Cosmos reboot. Luckily, Fox immediately sprang into action and greenlit his latest cartoon (his fourth for the network), thus maintaining their quota:

Fox has given a 13-episode order to Bordertown, from MacFarlane and Family Guy‘s Mark Hentemann. Set in a fictitious desert town near the U.S.-Mexico border, Bordertown centers on the intertwining daily lives of neighbors Bud Buckwald and Ernesto Gonzales. Bud, a married father of three, is a Border Patrol agent who feels threatened by the cultural changes that have transformed his neighborhood. Living next door is Ernesto, an industrious Mexican immigrant and father of four, who is proud to be making it in America. As Bud and Ernesto’s paths begin to cross, their families become bound by friendship, romance and conflict.

Continue Reading →