Former Simpsons writer/producer/showrunner/developer/character designer Sam Simon, who still rakes in more than $10 million from the show every year, secretly bought a $2 million ship for the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, a superteam of anti-whaling activists who are engaged in a war with Japanese whalers. The SSS Sam Simon, which is the group’s fourth ship, will be used to tie up the Japanese whalers’ ships (somehow?) and prevent them from harpooning any whales for supposed “scientific” reasons. So, basically Charlie’s Angels with Simon as Charlie, I guess?
Simpsons Ordered To Pay For Its Dumb Dexter Parody
Good news, they’re finally fining The Simpsons for making bad episodes! Well, ok, not The Simpsons directly. And it’s for blasphemy, not quality. But we can at least pretend!!!
Last week, Turkey’s Supreme Board of Radio and Television fined the Turkish broacaster CNBC-E (which I assume is not affiliated with the CNBC that employs Joey Ramone’s muse Maria Bartiromo) 52,951 Turkish Liras – or $29,593.15 in actual money – for airing last year’s Simpsons Halloween special, which featured a blasphemous depiction of God in a parody of Dexter. Here is a description of the segment courtesy of Wikisimpsons:
Ned Flanders drives through a seedy district of Springfield and starts doing lots of good chores, until he dumps a severed body into a local lake. Mr. Burns then drives up to dump nuclear waste in the lake and a large booming voice tells Ned to kill him. Ned does so and dumps the body in the lake too. Back at home, Ned gets ready to kill again when asked by who he thinks is God and also kills Sideshow Bob and Patty and Selma. He eventually finds out that Homer has been ordering these deaths, not God, and goes to kill Homer. Homer then burns Ned’s Bible and the real God comes along and strangles Homer to death. When Marge walks in, God blames Ned for the death. Marge asks God to put everything right but he says that the Devil wouldn’t like it, when he suddenly comes along and asks God to make him tea. Then, Maude Flanders comes along and asks the Devil to come back to bed, annoying Ned greatly.
Um, yeah.
This doesn’t bode well for the upcoming Turkish adaptation of God, The Devil, and Bob.
[The Hurriyet via BBC News]
Simpsons Writer Matt Selman is a Gullible Liar
Splitsider did a pretty good interview with current Simpsons writer (and rubbercat.net/simpsons reader) Matt Selman. About half of it is just plugging his latest episode, Homer the Hipster (which he’s already defending), but there’s still some good insights. Selman talks about his thoughts on a final episode, how those lazy layabouts Tom Gammill and Max Pross have finally – after being on the writing staff for over a decade – written an episode, how the staff tries to make sure the show doesn’t feel like a Jay Leno monologue (except, uh, when they actually do Leno monologues), and getting fired from Seinfeld. Then the interviewer gets him to tell the “Mayor of St. Louis” story, which is pretty funny:
It’s starting to get very awkward because he’s sort of addressing his whole speech to me and putting me on the spot and humiliating me and saying, “Who said this about East St. Louis? Have you ever been to East St. Louis?” I’m feeling very uncomfortable and awkward. ‘Oh man, I’m so dead.’ I unfortunately showed my true colors by selling out the others writers by saying that I didn’t write the joke in the show about East St. Louis [and] someone else wrote it [and] we all wrote it together, even though my name was on the script.
There you have it: by his own admission, Matt Selman is a gullible liar, a man who should not be trusted, but is also incredibly trusting. So dark, the duplicity of man.
EXCLUSIVE: Yet Even More Leaked Season 24 Plotlines!!
*spins around in chair to face reader* Oh, hello! I just got off the telegraph with a trusted, completely anonymous tipster, who resides at 271 Orange Grove Ave. in Burbank, CA, who has once again risked life and limb to bring us more EXCLUSIVE Simpsons tidbits that the shiftless layabouts at Entertainment Weekly still haven’t gotten their grubby meathooks on yet. Below, please find enclosed four exclusive, never-before-seen episode synopsi, reprinted in their entirety…
Simpsons Producers Dig Up 20 Year Old Fanfiction, Plan To Air It
What do you do if you’re a long-running show that’s totally out of ideas? Do you scrounge up long-discarded episode ideas from the Trash Co. waste disposal unit and try to pass them off as new? What if you’ve completely exhausted that avenue? What’s your next recourse? Well, if you’re The Simpsons, you do the next best thing – scrounge up long-discarded fanfiction.
A little while ago, comedy movie king Judd Apatow told Slashfilm he wrote a fanscript for The Simpsons way back in 1990 after only five or six episodes had aired, which he described like so:
And what it was about was they went to see a hypnotism show and at the hypnotism show, they made Homer think he was the same age as Bart. And then the hypnotist had a heart attack. So now Homer and Bart became best friends and they spent the rest of the show running away because Homer didn’t want responsibility and didn’t want to be brought back to his real age. So I basically copied that for every movie I’ve made since.
Universal Studios Florida Might Add Some Simpsons Restaurants Or Whatever
Well, that guy in Springfield, Oregon may have failed in his attempt to create a “Simpsonsville”, but it looks like Universal Studios Florida (which I think is different from Universal Studios Islands of Adventure but I’m not totally sure) might be getting a Simpsons Land around its Simpsons Ride attraction, if “one ride surrounded by a bunch of price-gouging gift shops and restaurants” even counts as a theme park land these days. Some theme park blog called Screamscape (which I don’t think is even a “blog” since it appears to just be a static web page that gets updated when new rumors come in) has been on the case since September, when they posted this:
According to Screamscape sources, we can expect to see the International Food Festival food court eatery next to The Qwik-E-Mart [sic.] closed in the next few weeks in order to undergo a major transformation to become Simpsons themed. Rumor has it that we will see the addition of a true Krusty Burger and Moe’s Tavern appear here in time for late Spring 2013. I can only assume that we will see Universal take what they learned about adding custom food and beverage items from the Wizarding World [of Harry Potter] and bring some tasty edible Simpsons items to life. Who else is up for a Flaming Moe?
What Do White Supremacists Think Of The Simpsons?
What do white supremacists think about The Simpsons? It’s the question that’s been on everybody’s mind. Well, okay, maybe just one person’s. About four years ago, a former member of the No Homers Club message board decided to “infiltrate” the white supremacist board Stormfront and ask the posters there directly for their take on the long-running show. The resulting thread (click at your own risk) is very informative.
After some initial questioning of whether the yellow-skinned characters are actually white, the conversation gets into full swing. Karl Lueger took a hard stance, calling the show “jewish subversion… simply designed to create self-loathing and hatred for anything White.” Others weren’t so sure. After all, says White Pride Warrior, “[t]hey did an episode once where they made fun of feminist, white male hating, liberal college professors.” Plus, the Jewish characters aren’t shown “in a good light either;” Marge’s prom date Artie Ziff “is shallow, self centered, greedy, and weaker than Lisa.” bill kwacker posted a photo of show creator Matt Groening, mentioning “he looks kind of Jewy.” However, self-proclaimed Nazi punk MisanthroPunk disagreed with that assertion, saying “[Stormfront] members see jews everywhere.” Oh, those guys and their anti-Semitism! WastedPunk laments the show’s decline, calling it “utterly pointless nowadays” while Seasons 3-10 “were golden.” It seems discussing what constitutes The Simpsons‘s “golden era” is a universal constant.
[Stormfront.org via No Homers Club]
“Street Artist” Now Churning Out Simpsons Kitsch
Last season there was a Simpsons episode where Bart becomes a street artist with the help of special guest star Shephard Fairey, because it’s impossible for a Simpson to develop a new skill without meeting the most famous people associated with that skill. Fairey’s perhaps best known nowadays for making that weird Soviet propaganda-ish Barack Obama “Hope” poster in 2008, but back in “the day” his claim to fame was the OBEY Giant campaign where he’d plaster stickers or spraypaint images of deceased wrestler Andre the Giant (later redesigned to avoid copyright infringement) everywhere – without permission! – with the word “OBEY” under it, which may have provided the inspiration for such cultural touchstones as internet memes and Microsoft advertising. For the episode, The Simpsons cleverly “mashed up” Fairey’s two pieces into a “parody” (using the term very lightly) featuring Homer’s face and the word “Dope.”
Anyway, the Associated Press sued him over the “Hope” poster (apparently they own the rights to Obama’s likeness??) and won. Last September a federal court sentenced him to two years’ probation and fined him $25,000. Now where’s an avant-garde street artist supposed to get scratch like that??
David Mirkin Gets Get A Life A New Life On DVD
Legendary Simpsons producer David Mirkin (he’s the guy took over the show in Season 5 and ran it for two of the best years ever) is doing a little interview with the AV Club about his previous show, the cult classic Get A Life starring David Letterman’s former ward Chris Elliott, the complete series of which which is finally on DVD. The first part of the interview is up, and it’s good reading. I learned way more about Mirkin’s past life than from listening to Simpsons commentaries. Like, I didn’t know he’d worked with one of the Monty Python guys, and it’s insane that he’s had full creative control of just about everything he’s ever done. Here’s some choice quotes about his comic sensibilities…
Egg Council Emergency Averted
Two years ago, I enlisted you, the reader, to go forth and locate the egg council commercials that the classic “You’d better run, egg!” scene from “Homer the Great” was referencing. Well, reader James e-mailed me with the news that he located two of them (maybe the only two?) on AdForum.com.
I can’t embed the videos so you’ll have to click the links:
Here’s a minute-long commercial featuring an egg being sent to the electric chair.
And here’s a 30-second one that starts the same way, but features different types of eggs.
A couple observations: the eggs are noticeably shorter than the guards, and they have no legs; they’re not normal-sized people cosplaying as eggs with normal legs like the Egg Council creep. Secondly, the brand is “California Egg Commission,” not the Egg Council, which appears to be made up.
Boy it feels good to finally have closure on this pressing issue. Thank you, James.