awards

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.

NEWS ROUNDUP

An image of Mario reporting the news.

Yee-haw, I’ve rounded up another batch of minor Simpsons news and other small findings from across the web.

  • Harry Shearer: not a fan of the Super Mario Bros. movie, apparently. [Twitter]
  • Speaking of Mario, here’s a 1991 ad where he previews Bart vs. the Space Mutants.
  • Showrunner Al Jean recently noted that the cigarette machine is now gone from Moe’s Tavern. In 2022, cigarettes were removed from a Krusty action figure prior to production. Coincidence…? smiley face in a tinfoil hat
  • Listen, if Avatar gets to be in Disney’s big celebratory anniversary commercial, then The Simpsons should get to be in the Disney racing game. [RacingGames]
  • Some Fortnite players were asked in a survey if they’ve heard about Bart Simpson and Peter Griffin, potentially leading to their inclusion in the game. Peter has been rumored for years, but I think Bart is unlikely mainly because he doesn’t fit the height requirement, unless they give him some sort of mecha suit like Morty. Homer on the other hand… [@SentinelCentral via GoNintendo]
  • Critic: The Disney+ Simpsons shorts are just commercials
    Defender: No they’re not, you’re just a hater!
    Al Jean: Hey, I just won another Clio, the advertising industry’s most coveted award! [Twitter]
MY TWO CENTS

An image of a Simpsons NFT next to Bill Cipher and Lisa planting a tree.

In honor of Disney+ Day on November 12, the NFT collectible platform VeVe has announced an NFT collection featuring golden digital statues “inspired by” Disney properties. The first two, featuring Homer and Bart choking each other and Bart’s skateboard, will drop tomorrow.

My limited understanding is that NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are digital artworks that people spend lots of cryptocurrency (pretend computer money) on just so it says on a website somewhere that they are the “owner” of said artwork. Of course, since they’re digital artwork, anyone can just right click and save them, which to a normal person would make “ownership” seem pointless and the whole enterprise seem scammy. They also have the added bonus of being incredibly harmful to the environment. “Hey, don’t have a cow, man, these ones are actually carbon neutral!,” you might say. First, that’s greenwashing. Second, most NFTs look like absolute shit. A massive corporation like Disney getting involved with their giant portfolio of iconic characters helps legitimize the entire cryptoart marketplace.

Are these NFT statues the most immoral pieces of Simpsons merchandise to exist? Probably not. Nevertheless, The Simpsons has been awarded 9 Environmental Media Awards over the years. They should return them if they’re going to choke the planet with this garbage.

D'OH REPORT

Mr. Snrub

For the first time in nearly 20 years, The Simpsons wasn’t nominated for an Emmy in the Outstanding Animated Program category.

Since the show began, it had been nominated in that category every year except 1993 and 1994, when they tried to compete against the big boys in the Outstanding Comedy Series category. After failing to even get nominated both years, thanks to the Emmy’s well-known 3DPD bias, they returned to the Animated Program category in 1995, where they were typically seen as the cartoon to beat. “It is a light thrill to beat Garfield every year, but it’s getting a little old,” quipped Matt Groening in 1992.

Showrunner Al Jean claims they were snubbed:

Re-recording mixers Mark Linden and Tara A. Paul were nominated for Outstanding Sound Mixing For A Comedy or Drama Series (Half-Hour) and Animation, and Harry Shearer – the only main cast member to never win an Emmy for his performance – was nominated for Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance.

While the show itself regularly made fun of award shows, the producers don’t hesitate to mention their massive trophy case whenever its quality is called into question. During a nasty spat with Shearer in 2004, Jean rattled off a list of their recent awards:

I am responding to recent comments by Harry Shearer regarding the current quality of the Simpsons. In the past year and a half, our show has won every award it could possibly have won, including emmys for best animated program and voice-over actor (Hank Azaria), four Annie awards (show, writing, directing and song–a feat the Simpsons had never accomplished in the previous 13 seasons) and a writers guild award, which the show had also won never won before. Yesterday I was informed that Dan Castelleneta had won an emmy for his work in the episode “Today I Am A Clown” and we are nominated for three additional emmys (including best animated program) again this year.

Luckily, this obnoxious argument will have to be retired if they can’t even get nominated.

How did this happen? Having learned nothing from the time they submitted “Treehouse of Horror VI” under the belief Emmy voters would be blown away by seeing Homer in 3D, the show submitted their overhyped LEGO commercial. Jean jokingly (?) points the blame squarely at The LEGO Group:

Well, they can always make their own Emmy out of LEGO bricks.

Of course, there may be another reason for the show’s recent Emmy drought. Their last win in the Animated Program category was for “Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind” in 2008, the last year of the Bush Administration. Could President Obama be behind this…?

MY TWO CENTS, TOON BEAT

Well, the Maggie Simpson short lost in its bid for an Academy Award, and the world was robbed of the opportunity to see director David Silverman’s majestic beard. Here’s a photopic of Silverman, Matt Groening, and writer Michael Price looking dapper on the red carpet (apparently Silverman and Groening didn’t get the memo to wear this Maggie button):


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NEWS ROUNDUP

police dog

  • The Simpsons lost every Annie Award it was nominated for (including one for the infamous rag episode), but Simpsons alumni Rich Moore won Best Director and his film Wreck-It Ralph won Best Feature, so good for him!
  • My Google Alert for “Yeardley Smith sex tape” has finally beared fruit! Here is a photo of Lisa Simpson’s voice actress cavorting with a naked man in broad daylight.
  • Simpsons producer James L. Brooks is literally on the National Rifle Association’s enemies list. No word on Matt “NRA4EVER” Groening, though.
  • Speaking of Brooks, looks like he got his Twitter hacked, with little success at stopping it. He appears to be waging a hilarious battle with the Twitter-jacker over which one is the real one. Just goes to show you, even if you’re a big-time Hollywood mega-producer, you can still get your stuff hacked. Stay protected, yo. [via @vmcampos]
  • Former showrunner Bill Oakley posted the pre-distortion audio file of Ned Flanders from Homer’s chili-induced hallucination. Much respect for Harry Shearer.
  • UNRELATED SIMPSONS IN THE NEWS: 81-year old ex-senator Alan Simpson, namesake of the Simpson-Bowles commission, attempted to perform the Gangnam Style dance in a bid to turn young people into granny-starving deficit hawks. [via kushibo]
ANIMOTION MACHINE

Longest Daycare The Simpsons theatrical short shoved in front of Ice Age 4 last summer, Maggie Simpson in: “The Longest Daycare” (yes, that’s the full title), has been nominated for what’s known in the streets as an “Oscar” award.

Good for them, I suppose. It was definitely one of the better outputs emanating from the Simpsons Franchise Factory this decade. The fact no one had to recite terrible Modern Simpsons dialogue certainly helped. Even those haters at Dead Homers Society enjoyed it. And it was nice to see director and longtime Simpsons drawer-person David Silverman gobsmacked and thanking everybody on Twitter this morning (hey idiot, save the thanks for your acceptance speech!).

It’s the first Oscar nomination for The Simpsons. When The Simpsons Movie was announced, creator Matt Groening quipped “Come next Oscars, we think it’s going to be Milhouse’s night.” Now, I don’t know if they were intentionally gunning for an Oscar then; James L. Brooks just wanted a hit to rebound from Spanglish, and as far as I can tell they never put out one of those “For Your Consideration” advertisements in trade magazines (though voice actor Harry Shearer’s role in For Your Consideration really messes up the search results). But falling short of garnering a nomination in the Best Animated Feature category – deemed not good enough to compete with a movie about a surfing penguin – certainly had to sting. So perhaps this nomination provides some validation for bruised egos, and maybe a win could convince the producers to finally end the show since there’d be no more mountains for the franchise to climb (hahaha, just kidding, this show will go on forever). Win or lose, I’m betting there’ll be more of these shorts, which won’t have to rely on those pesky voice actors and their dumb mortality.

Other notable nominations this year include Wreck-It Ralph, directed by Simpsons alum Rich Moore and written by Simpsons alum Jim Reardon, for Best Animated Feature, and Simpsons arch enemy Seth MacFarlane for a song he wrote for Ted (he’s also hosting the ceremony, if you hadn’t heard). Yes, both The Simpsons and the Family Guy guy are nominated for Oscars this year. Will these Cartoon Wars never cease???

[The Oscars (part of the Go Network)]

TOON BEAT, WRITER WATCH

hawkthorne Can critically-‘cclaimed cult college comedy caper Community compete in cartoon and comedy categories? No, according to a bunch of incensed cartoon writers – including all 537 Simpsons writers as well as the Family Guy manatees – who wrote a strongly-worded letter to the esteemed representatives of television to protest Community stepping on their turf (their turf being the Emmy categories Best Animated Program and Short-Form Animated Program). See, once again Community is eligible for an Emmy or two in animated categories thanks to a special animated episode – last year it was the stop-motion “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas” (which won Individual Achievement in Animation, the show’s only Emmy so far), this year it’s “Digital Estate Planning,” an excellent video game-based episode. But since Community is normally a live-action show, it’s also eligible for the usual live-action categories that animated shows are apparently ineligible for, including Outstanding Writing in a Comedy.

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VOICE BOX

for your considerationHuffington Post blogger Harry Shearer was once again hosed by the TV gods, who failed to nominate him for a prestigious “Emmy” orange blimp award in the category of “Best Voice-Talkin’ Guy.” Shearer, voice of Mr. Burns, Smithers, Lenny, and Principal Skinner, among others, has only been nominated in that category once (in 2009) and is the only regular Simpsons cast member to have not won it (the others somehow all won in 1992, WTF?). Dan Castalleneta (Homer), Hank Azaria (Moe), and Anne Hathaway (the princess in that godawful 20th anniversary episode) are nominated this year along with Seth Green, Dave Foley, and Coach McGuirk. [Los Angeles Times]