WHAA...?!

lisa in iceIn a stunning rebuke to global warming, the Dachstein Ice Palace in Austria is set to unveil its new copyright-infringing ice sculpture of TV’s the Simpsons today, or at least that’s all I could extrapolate from this article:

Die Eiskünstler Hans Böhmer (Mitarbeiter der Dachsteingletscher-Bahn), Christian Schmid und Sebastian Zörweg haben in den letzten Wochen mehr als 4 Tonnen Kunsteis und 9 Tonnen Gletschereis verarbeitet, um die Simpsons in Lebensgröße so realistisch wie möglich zu schnitzen. Ab Samstag, den 12. Juni können alle Gäste auf der wohl berühmtesten Couch der Fernsehgeschichte gemeinsam mit der Familie Simpson Platz nehmen. Neu ist auch der Fotopoint im Dachstein Eispalast. Besteigen Sie den Eis- Thron und fühlen Sie sich für ein paar Augenblicke wie ein König in dieser frostig – faszinierenden Eiswelt. Dazu Dachstein-Geschäftsführer Ernst Trummer: “Der Eispalast ist seit dem 1. Tag eine Erfolgsgeschichte. Um weiterhin für unsere vielen Besucher attraktiv zu bleiben, haben wir heuer alle Figuren neugeschnitzt und die Eis-Säle neu gestaltet”.

You should watch the video, particularly the moment at 1:54. [SimpsonsNews.de]

ANIMOTION MACHINE

Of the many little things I detest about the new HD opening sequence – the egregious fanservice, the flow-killing Ralph moment, the inexplicable downgrading of Mr. Burns to “background character seen during whip-pan” – my biggest gripe is with the scene where Maggie is scanned. In the original, Marge becomes extremely concerned when she realizes Maggie is gone, she swivels around with her hair accentuating her movement, then she lets out a big sigh of relief when Maggie pops out of the bag. It’s a nice little moment of character animation, which you can see here in this crude gif I put together (framegrabs shamelessly taken from No Homers Club poster Wooster):

old intro

In the new one, Marge doesn’t really react at all – her head jerks around, her slight frown changes to a slight smile, and then she blinks while Maggie exchanges a shaking of fists with The One-Eyebrowed Baby (ughhh):

new intro

Aye carumba, Marge really did become a robot!

Anyway, the reason I’m posting about this now is because I only recently discovered this rather candid journal entry by Dane Romley, one of the animators who worked on it. Turns out he hates the Marge thing too!

This whole scene was mine. I didn’t like what they did where they cut pieces of body parts and moved them in the computer ie. Maggie’s head etc. It looks like it was done in flash. About the Marge turn, I had originally done a version where she did a nice head turn but, again, they didn’t want it. “Just have a simple head turn because we want the joke to be Maggie and the unibrow baby,” they told me. I didn’t know they were going to stiffen it up that much, I’m just defending myself because that seems to be the first thing people mention is Marge. They kept my Maggie scan and popping out of the bag though and in my defense they added the fist shaking later, I didn’t do those 2 drawing cycle *eck*

At the end, he advises everybody not to blame the arists for the bad animation, they were only following orders, etc. It is a good read, you should read it! [deviantART]

ANIMOTION MACHINE

Here’s an interesting interview with former-ish animator Jay Robinson, about the highs and lows of working in television animation.

THE LOWS

  • There’s no job security; people in TV animation get laid off when their work is done and may or may not get rehired for the next go-around. Robinson says he was laid off 3-4 times. He, along with 39 other people, get laid off for good last November.

THE HIGHS

  • Robinson’s work still hangs in poster form at Von D’s Hollywood shop; Metallica lead singer James Hetfield told him his work inspires the band; and [Bam] Margera sent him a letter, thanking him for the sketch of a nude skateboarding Bart Simpson clad in Margera’s tattoos.

  • “We spent the next two hours drawing characters on bar napkins for drinks. It’s a great girl-gettin’ job.”

[Duluth News Tribune via Sx2]

COMING ATTRACTIONS

zuckerburgHey, you! Do you know who Mark Zuckerburg is? If not, you soon will, because 2010 is the Year of Zuck! He’s the cat who made the popular Friendster clone Facebook, which is currently in “hot water” for selling all of its users’ personal information to the Taliban in exchange for drugs. The outrage is so widespread that it even made the cover of Time Magazine, which is apparently considered a big deal!

As the face of Facebook (I hope you enjoyed this phrase!!! I stayed up all night writing it!!!), you can expect to see the Zuckster’s mug – which by the way used to be in the goddamn logo seriously what kind of weird egomaniac does that – all over the place in news story after news story as this privacy brouhaha continues into the summer. If we’re lucky, we might even see him look remorseful and say he’s really sorry, just like the CEOs of Goldman Sachs, Toyota, and BP!

Then, in the fall, an unflattering movie based on an unflattering book about Zuckerburg, his creepy mentor The Napster Guy, and the creation of Facebook will hit theaters, bringing his extreme jerkiness and unethical behavior to the attention of general audiences. And it’s in 3-D! Even if you don’t plan on seeing it, Hollywood’s relentless marketing juggernaut will ensure you’ll see fake-Zuckerburg’s face everywhere (except maybe on Facebook?).

Finally, if that wasn’t enough, Zuckerburg will guest star as himself (!) on The Simpsons (possibly to soften his image after public perception of him takes a beating?). This is surprisingly timely for a show that took seven years to do an episode about 9/11! For once, The Simpsons is actually jumping on a trend while it’s still sort of hot; it’s pretty amazing they didn’t go with Tom from MySpace. Could The Simpsons become culturally relevant again…? (Haha, no. They just did an episode about the Patriot Act, so I suspect it’s only a matter of time before Bart joins a flash mob.)

Anyway, shortly thereafter The Year of Zuck will conclude with Zuckerburg being thrown into a volcano after America grows sick of him, the end.

BONGO BEAT

JASON HONOTE: This manga review is courtesy of our news partner, AnimeJihad.

バートシンプソンシリーズはMatsumoto Groeningにボンゴコミックスから発行され、通常のシンプソンズのコミックスよりも見た目若い読者のために意図。それはやや時代遅れのリトルルルのような過去の無害な少年漫画です。私は間違いなく、カバー、特に影響を見ることができます。この問題は、漫画の他の領域、それぞれ特定の描画スタイルシンプソンズの世界に適応し、それを様々な多くのことから多くのアーティストが含まれます。

SERGIO ARAGONES最初の話は、”サウンドとフラリー、”Carol Layに待ち伏せるサロンの漫画を行うために使用さによって行われた。その中で、バートはコミック擬音語のすべての種類 – ドンマーティン敬意を表し、おそらく書き留めばなりませんか？物語は継続ボンゴコミックス商標です私の趣味のための少し余りにメタ漫画でした。

GILBERT HERNANDEZ2番目の物語は、”マギーのベビーベッドは、”Sergio Aragonesのバートは、ステートフェアで楽しむことができるので、マギーは彼女のおむつをうんちが含まれます。それが面白い漫画だったし、マギーはショーがあるのを忘れ、実際の赤ん坊のように扱わ見ていいですね。

“ホーマーシンプソンは：チックマグネット”Gilbert Hernandezはラブ＆ロケッツによるホーマーは雛をたくさん集めについて奇妙な話でした。私はGilbert適応をoverbites彼のおなじみのスタイルを楽しんだ。プロットは少し（奇妙な関係漫画はまだありません再び）ですが、Gilbert’sにの対話タスクに上昇、私は特にビキニの女性とのシーンが好きです。

“おびえたTentlessは”かなり忘れChris YamberにとMike Kazalehのバックアップの話です。私はKazalehのインクのスキルが好きです。

[MONTHLY MANGA REVIEW: BART SIMPSON #52]

TOON BEAT

napoleon dynamite

An animated television series based on the 2004 film Napoleon Dynamite is currently in development at Fox, a network spokesperson has confirmed to FishbowlLA.

Since Fox only does cartoons on Sundays, and there’s a limited number of timeslots, could this cartoon replace The Simpsons after it’s cancelled next year?? And what of Bob’s Burgers??? Developing… [FishbowlLA]

ANNOYED GRUNTS

tik tokI have no energy to comment on The Simpsons‘s Poochiesque stab at relevancy, so here’s a roundup of what the rest of the Internet had to say about it:

Warming Glow pronounced The Simpsons dead:

Add me to the long list of hacks who have declared the Simpsons “dead.” We have declared it dead upwards of a dozen times since the September 28, 1997 Seymour Skinner episode, but until the show finally dies, this descriptor has not and will not be any more appropriate than it is in the wake of last night’s opening credits.

PopCrunch enjoyed it:

Even if you hate Tik Tok, you’ve got to admit The Simpsons intro is pretty clever.

Twitter user stevend, not so much:

wow that was the most disgraceful couch gag ever on the simpsons. seeing springfield sing a ke$ha song has got me to reconsider suicide.

Gawker said, “What the more recent seasons of The Simpsons have lacked in terms of comedic creativity, they’ve made up for with wacky intros.” What???

New York was delighted but perplexed:

Despite the music, it’s pretty delightful. As far as we can tell, though, this is the first time Danny Elfman’s theme has been replaced with a contemporary pop song, so it’s slightly baffling that would have chosen this one to make history with.

TwentyFourBit declared it an epic winz0r FTW:

The Simpsons brought the lulz tonight with a lip dub of Ke$ha’s “Tik Tok” as their intro theme song, and though I’ll admit to not LOLing IRL until Nelson Muntz belts out the ridiculous chorus, this is the one time you won’t regret revisiting a song from the reigning poet laureate (sarcasm!) of pop.

Videogum officially declared itself done with The Simpsons:

I’m pretty sure this means we are done with The Simpsons. Bye, The Simpsons! I will continue to not have watched you in years!

The creator of iCarly loved it!!!

Twitter user ACHkris laid down an ultimatum:

Dear simpsons- NEVER USE A KESHA SONG IN PLACE OF THE INTRO EVER AGAIN OR WE ARE THROUGH.

Finally, andPOP won Headline of the Year with Tik Tok: The countdown Until ‘The Simpsons’ are Cancelled:

Either Matt Groening has finally run out of ideas for America’s longest running show or Ke$ha broke into his house and offered to blow him. Either way, the choice to use ‘Tik Tok’ as a substitute for the Simpsons theme song was a scary indication that no one is safe. Even an American institution, with over two decades of immense popularity, is vulnerable to Ke$ha’s infectious auto-tuned pop hooks.