WEB-WATCH

comic book guyIf you’ve been using the internet for the past five years, mayhaps you’ve noticed a growing trend of episode-by-episode recaps and reviews of television shows. Virtually every major blog does a recap of Mad Men, Girls is considered “fantastically popular” to those within that New York media bubble, and even The Gray Lady has gotten in on the action. The epicenter for the TV recap industry is of course The A.V. Club, which greatly expanded its television section in an insane quest to review every episode of every TV show, with a (self-admitted) tendency to lapse into “pretentious twaddle” in the course of explaining what episode 702 of The Big Bang Theory says about the human condition.

Who’s responsible for all this? Slate places the blame squarely on alt.tv.simpsons, the infamous nerdy Simpsons newsgroup personified by the Comic Book Guy:

Long before the rise of TV recap culture, its best and worst elements commingled in the alt.tv.simpsons laboratory. The content ranged from meticulous (a list of the show’s blackboard and couch gags) to smart (a later-proven theory that Maggie shot Mr. Burns) to overcritical (in the middle the unimpeachably great Season 4, somebody started the thread “Simpsons in decline?” in which one poster claimed that “Marge vs. the Monorail,” a classic episode, “had 0 good quotes”) to offensive (e.g., “Lisa has a proto-dyke Marxist Jew agenda”).

Yep, sounds the internet all right. I’m sure whatever the big Star Trek newsgroup was at the time also played a big role – Trekkies are responsible for slash fiction and fandoms, mind you – but here it merits only a throwaway reference.

The rest of the article talks about the Simpsons producers’ relationship to the alt.tv.simpsons, which is mildly interesting. It doesn’t mention this, but there’s a Life in Hell strip I’d very much like to see that pretty much just quotes a scathing review of the Republican-bashing episode “Sideshow Bob Roberts” verbatim (there’s a transcript in this episode capsule; Control+F “Galvanek”), including this choice quote:

I would get such a kick right about now in seeing Groening writhing in pain as he dangled by a section of his intestine from a tree. At the very least I’m hoping for a sloooooow painful death via some horrible illness of his nervous system, on that allows him to remain fully aware until his very last breath.

Hmm, kinda makes you wonder why Matt Groening isn’t on Twitter.

Also, not that it was ever in any doubt, but Slate links to irrefutable proof that Alan Sepinwall, king of the TV recap industry, is a wiener: a post on alt.tv.simpsons where he complains about a continuity error. Haw, haw! nelson

[Slate]

COMING ATTRACTIONS

simpsons legoland2014 is shaping up to be a banner year for The Simpsons, with not one but two crossovers, and now a spin-off!

*whatever the digitial media equivalent of a record scratch sounds like*

Well, sorta. Last month, it was announced LEGO was coming out with a line of Simpsons-themed LEGO Group Companies brand colored toy brick plaything objects†. Now, more details are coming out, and according to Nerdly, there will be a TV special:

On top of that, this new LEGO range will also be supported by a special Simpsons LEGO TV episode (much like the LEGO Star Wars specials) in May 2014!

So, a TV special, and that’s all we know so far. Maybe a series of specials if it’s successful…? This seems like a different animal from previous Simpsons specials like the Springfield’s Most Wanted thing (which was just a tie-in to “Who Shot Mr. Burns?”) and The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special – In 3-D! On Ice! in that it will presumably have an actual story. Since we don’t know if The Simpsons has been renewed yet (we should find out by November), this would be a weird, unexpected way to keep the franchise alive post-cancellation.

Also, no word yet on which Simpsons voice actors have agreed to do this (I’ll bet a zillion bitcoins Harry Shearer won’t participate). It seems a given that current Simpsons writer Michael Price, who’s written the Star Wars LEGO specials and tweets about them a lot, will participate.

There’s also no word what channel it will be on. I’m pretty sure Cartoon Network has aired all the Star Wars things, and its corporate sibling Warner Bros. is coming out with a (The) LEGO movie earlier that year, so that seems like a safe bet. Maybe FOX, since it’s their franchise, but would they really air a commercial for a children’s toy masquerading as a TV show during their Crude & Rude Toons With ‘Tude programming block?

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UNRELATED SIMPSONS IN THE NEWS

Alan K. SimpsonYes, you heard right. After years of anticipation and speculation, 81-year old former senator Alan K. Simpson and his youthful ward Erskine Bowles have finally announced and released a long-awaited followup to their 2010 megahit, The Simpson-Bowles Plan.

The new plan, Simpson-Bowles 2: Escape from Necron 7, goes even further than the original plan in reducing the nation’s deficit. While the original had a semblance of balance between spending cuts and revenue increases, the new plan is much more heavily tilted towards extreme austerity (which mostly involves cuts from Medicare and Medicaid), thanks in large part to the deficit hawkish Simpson, who once called Social Security “a milk cow with 310 million tits.”

The plan is also supposed to somehow serve as an “outline for a new grand bargain” between Republicans and Democrats, despite the fact even Bowles thinks the idea of a grand bargain is “at best on life support.”

Critics are calling the sequel “lame,” “vague,” “unbalanced,” and “a waste of everyone’s time.”

[Salon]

ANNOYED GRUNTS, MEANINGLESS MILESTONES

Twenty-two years ago today, America got its first taste of The Simpsons stretched out to 22 minutes with the premiere of the show’s Christmas special, “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire.”

I was going to post some reviews from the time, but the only one I could find (that wasn’t behind a paywall) was this one from Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

The Simpsons is supposed to be hip in a post-industrial sort of way. It is not particularly funny, and is likely to appeal most to fans of the 'eat their young' school of contemporary comedy, which believes in nothing that doesn't ooze with sarcasm toward the mainstream. In other words, The Simpsons is not for everyone. It is definitely an acquired taste. I'm just not sure I want to acquire it.

A mighty Simpsons Day to you all.

BART ART, MY TWO CENTS

If you were one of the people watching The Simpsons last night (sucker), you may have noticed something a little different about the opening sequence!

The “couch gag,” if one could call it that, was storyboarded and directed by the pseudonymous Britain street artist known as Banksy, whose distinctive graffiti has shown up across the UK and the US, and whose work has been auctioned off for millions of dollars to limousine liberal luminaries like Brangelina.

Showrunner-for-life Al Jean told the New York Times he seeked out the ostensibly underground (despite having a publicist) “art terrorist” and asked him, via a series of messengers, if he’d do the opening, later receiving the storyboards without ever meeting the mystery man. Although 5% was cut out by request of Fox Broadcast & Standards, Jean insists the final product was as close as possible to Banksy’s original intention.

The response has been enormous – Banksy became a “Trending Topic” on Twitter last night (which is, like, super-important and stuff) and there are currently hundreds of news stories about it – which I’m sure makes up for the 29% decline in ratings from last week. It’s to quantify these things, but I think it’s safe to presume this will get more attention than other recent Simpsons “viral” stunts, from the godawful Ke$ha thing to the Itchy & Scratchy parody of Koyaanisqatsi (in the old days, The Simpsons usually generated buzz with actual episodes instead of context-free YouTube clips, but I guess that’s the way things are now in the New Media Landscape).

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UNRELATED SIMPSONS IN THE NEWS

alan k. smith

Alan K. Simpson, the Republican co-chairman of President Obama’s bipartisan fiscal commission, removed his “size 15 feet” from his mouth to apologize to a critic on Wednesday for a stinging letter in which he compared Social Security to “a milk cow with 310 million tits.”

[New York Times]

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.

WRITER WATCH

Former showrunner and occasional (?) Simpsons writer Mike Reiss wrote a film, My Life in Ruins, which was savaged by critics. Reiss seems most perturbed that nobody got his nerd joke:

Several critics singled me out, calling me “an idiot,” “an imbecile,” and “sub-literate.” Now, I opened the film with an allusion to Voltaire – a sign reads “Pangloss Tours: ‘The Best of All Possible Worlds’.” In Candide, Dr. Pangloss utters these optimistic words before his group sets out on an utterly disastrous journey. Just like the tourists in my film! Get it? The critics didn’t. Not one caught the allusion. Otherwise, they’d have called me a “sub-literate moron who reads Voltaire.”

[Nerd World]

ANNOYED GRUNTS, SPRINGFIELD SHOPPER

TVShowsOnDVD.com wrote a bunch of words about the horrible DVD packaging of the equally horrible season 11. Here’s an excerpt:

How would you get the discs out of such a tight space then? You have to reach in with two fingers and pinch the edge… making it virtually impossible to not smudge your fingerprints on the “don’t touch!” side of the DVD. Also, it’s a cinch that the discs will get scratched up sooner or later, inserting them and removing them this way since 100% of the disc makes contact with the cardboard. It’s a travesty.

[TVShowsOnDVD.com]