Gawker

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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VOICE BOX

According to a “blind item” over at the reputable-sounding BlindGossip.com, a “bratty actress” on a TV show wanted more money than her fellow cast members, which made TENSIONS SIMMER. Then they REACHED ONE HUNDRED DEGREES CELSIUS when she “used her character to promote an organization with which she is associated.” Now things are all awkward, so she tries to avoid working with her fellow actors whenever she can, and the producers are totally cool with this.

The general consensus in the comments section of both this site and the one over at Gawker (and really, who better to trust than people who post in comment sections on blogs?) is that the actress in question is Nancy Cartwright, voice of TV’s Bart Simpson. You might remember her from such controversies as that time last year when she used Bart’s voice on some robo-calls to promote the Church of Scientology, which would definitely fulfill the “promote an organization” part of the criteria. Other points to consider: the use of the adjective “bratty” (Bart is an anagram for brat, which is one of the fun facts that are obligated to appear in every article about The Simpsons), it’s really easy to avoid fellow cast members if you’re a voice actor (in fact, Maggie Roswell avoids coming into the recording studio altogether by doing all her lines from Colorado), the actors all got a pay raise somewhat recently, and there’s a stupid little doodle of a yellow-skinned lady-pacman. THE PIECES ALL FIT, except for the part where it mentions a “set” which musta been thrown in there to throw us off the scent.

Or it could be Pauley Perrette or something, who knows. [BlindGossip.com]