THE INSIDE SCOOP

A Shinigami stands over Lisa.

The Simpsons has won an Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program, marking the first time the series has received the coveted award under a Democratic president since 2000.

The show had won in 2001, 2003, 2006, 2008, and 2019 during the George W. Bush and Trump administrations, but conspicuously had not won during the entirety of Obama’s eight-year presidency, no doubt the handiwork of the former Commander in Chief himself. After Diamond Joe Biden “won” the “election” in November 2020, IN THE NEWS speculated this Emmy drought could continue during his regime. Well, whatever control Obama held over the entertainment industry is apparently no more, as the show’s latest win has broken his curse forevermore.

The episode that won, “Treehouse of Horror XXXIII,” is the first holiday-themed anthology episode to win. Back in 1996, the producers submitted “Treehouse of Horror VI” under the belief that the CGI-animated “Homer3” segment would give it an edge. This time, their gambit paid off, as an anime-style segment parodying Death Note animated by the South Korean studio DR Movie in a short amount of time was a clear highlight of the episode.

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]

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 →

WEB-WATCH

Wikipedia user “a metal shard” has blown the doors off the biggest plagiarism scandal to rock the animation world since the Lion King/Kimba the White Lion fiasco of 1994:

Neon Genesis: Evangelion—theme?

While viewing the movie, I was reminded several times throughout of the old Anime: 1. The corporation EPA and their helicopters = NGE’s EVA and their large scale assaults + heli’s are almost identical 2. Dome = Angel’s shields (were they called AT Fields?) 3. Homer’s Epiphany = Shinji’s numerous experiences, almost identical, with the clapping hands and such, 3.5 the boob-ladie’s blowing into Homer’s mouth remind me of the NGA’s women cleavage and kissing scene (during Shinji’s dream?). 4. Homer’s pig = Masato’s penguin

A naysayer attempts to shoot down his theories, forcing a metal shard to respond with these sage words of wisdom: “Maybe if you had seen the anime show, watched the movies, played the games, read the manga, or set foot in Japan, you wouldn’t be so quick to claim that I was implying anything…” Don’t let the bastards grind you down, a metal shard! Keep on fighting the good fight! [Wikipedia]

BONGO BEAT

Girl draws an anime version of The Simpsons which gets posted all over the internet, gets a job offer from the comics company that makes Simpsons comics. More people on DeviantArt try anime-izing other Western cartoons in attempt to achieve their own 15 minutes of internet fame. Digg, modest as ever, downplays its role, if any, in parlaying the job offer. [The Star]