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):
On the red carpet with @tubatron and some guy. twitter.com/mikepriceinla/…
— Michael Price (@mikepriceinla) February 24, 2013
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???
I am real excited about Wreck-It Ralph, an upcoming Disney movie about video game characters, or as I like to think of it, Tron With Jokes. It’s written by former Simpsons director Jim Reardon (he appears in The Simpsons nearly every time there’s a scene at a train station) and directed by former Simpsons director Rich Moore (he’s the first guy on The Escalator to Nowhere). It’s good to see Simpsons alums doing well!
TAG Blog says the animators working on Ralph are “psyched” about it, because as one guy points out, “[t]he company lawyers could have just had us do parodies of other characters, but they went and got the rights to use actual personalities from other video games.” Bowser! Robotnik! All the Street Fighter guys! Clyde the ghost from Pac-Man! Q*bert! Some other guys I don’t recognize! You can see ’em in this trailer Disney released today…
It appears Fox has scrapped the traditional 2-D look of the show in favor of slicker 3-D CGI. Now, many misguided Simpsons purists will surely decry the change in dimensions, but keep in mind that The Simpsons Ride was CGI and many Simpsons directors (David Silverman, Brad Bird, Jim Reardon) have plenty of Pixar experience, so this was inevitable. Developing…
After finding out former Simpsons writer David M. Stern (Bart Gets an F, Kamp Krusty) developed Ugly Americans (watch it!! it’s cool), I got curious and decided to find out what some other ex-Simpsons people are up to. DISCLAIMERS/CAVEATS: 1. I basically only looked at wikipedia and imdb, so this could be rife with inaccuracies, etc. 2. With some exceptions, I don’t care about anyone who joined the show after it got bad or only wrote like one episode 3. This is essentially limited to movies/tv, since the internet assumes people fell off the face of the earth if they’re not doing something for mass audiences
Richard Appel (writer): Showrunner for The Cleveland Show
Wes Archer (director): Was working on The Goode Family until it got cancelled; unclear what he’s currently doing
Brad Bird (director): Doing a live-action movie for Pixar (zuh????)
Daniel Chun (writer): Now writing for The Office
David S/X. Cohen (writer): His beloved baby Futurama returns in June on Comedy Central
Jonathan Collier (writer): MIA
Jennifer Crittenden (writer): Producing mysterious project called What’s Your Number?
Greg Daniels (writer): Co-creations The Office and Parks and Recreation still going strong
Brent Forrester (writer): Writer for The Office
Ken Keeler (writer): Nerding it up at Futurama
Jay Kogan (writer): Executive producer for some supernatural live-action Nickelodeon show called The Troop; writing an adaptation of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Lauren MacMullan (director): MIA
Jeff Martin (writer/clown): MIA
George Meyer (writer): Occasionally contributes to The New Yorker
Bill Oakley (showrunner, seasons 7 – 8): Writing stuff from Portland
Conan O’Brien (writer): Legally prohibited from being funny on television
Jim Reardon (director): Presumably still Pixarin’ it up
Mike Reiss (showrunner, seasons 3-4): While technically still a producer for The Simpsons (I think??), he’s been doing a bunch of other projects like writing children’s books, computer-animated movies, and the critically-unacclaimed My Life in Ruins
David M. Stern (writer): Developed Ugly Americans, which recently debuted on Comedy Central
Mike Scully (showrunner, seasons 9-12): Writer on Parks & Recreation
John Swartzwelder (writer): Still cranking out funny books from his secret underground lair
Sam Simon (executive producer/showrunner, seasons 1-2): Doing some poker thing
Jon Vitti (writer): Co-wrote an upcoming movie starring Steve Carell; currently working on something called “Boo U.”
Josh Weinstein (showrunner, seasons 7-8): MIA??? Wikipedia says he’s a producer on Futurama (again), but I’m not sure if I believe that
Frank Welker (voice actor, Santa’s Little Helper): Most recent voice credit is “Additional Nuts Voice”
Lona Williams (beauty pageant winner/writing assistant): MIA
Wallace Wolodarsky (writer): Voiced an opossum in Fantastic Mr. Fox; adapting a Philip K. Dick story into a Disney cartoon
