New York Times

OAKLEY CORRAL

A political cartoon of Bill Oakley looking at a calendar and discovering that the year is 1984.

Former Simpsons producer and fast food expert Bill Oakley was unjustly suspended from Twitter Monday, joining the legions of American patriots who have had their free speech curtailed by unaccountable Silicon Valley overlords.

Twitter CEO and Simpsons guest star Elon Musk recently announced that “legacy” blue checkmarks, a symbol that used to signify the authenticity of notable accounts (i.e. celebrities and businesses), would be removed unless they paid for a Twitter Blue subscription. Many, including LeBron James, have declined to pay the fee. Although Twitter later backtracked by exempting the 10,000 most-followed brands, Musk, who uses Prosecute/Fauci pronouns, had the checkmark removed from the New York Times‘s account after Prosecute learned from a meme that the company would not pay Fauci to keep it.

Oakley, who still had a blue check, seized the opportunity and impersonated the newspaper by changing his display name to “The New York Times” and changing his avatar to match theirs. He then posted a series of satirical tweets, including one referencing the famous “Steamed Hams” segment he wrote for a 1996 Simpsons episode:

A screenshot of a tweet by Bill Oakley posing as The New York Times. Text: A six-year Pulitzer Prize-winning NYT investigation has revealed that Seymour Skinner was not actually cooking a roast that was ruined but in fact was baking a ham.

Musk had declared “Comedy is now legal on Twitter” last October, but much like Principal Skinner’s claims that aurora borealis had manifested entirely in his kitchen, it was a lie. Musk’s goons moved swiftly to annihilate Oakley’s account, reverting his display name and removing his avatar. Oakley confirmed he had been banned using his assistant’s account. With this move, Oakley joins an ever-growing contingent of free-thinkers, including such luminaries as Rep. Lauren Boebert, Ye, and @catturd2, who have had their God-given right to post suppressed by the Big Tech regime in coordination with The Swamp and the Mainstream Media, an Orwellian hellstew of censorship not seen since the days of Joe McCarthy.

Oakley’s account is still viewable, which makes me assume it’s a temporary suspension and not a permanent ban, although who knows for sure. In the meantime, Oakley’s thoughts can be viewed on Instagram or by signing up for his Steamed Hams Society & Food Discovery Club. For now.

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]

SMARTLINE

New York Times senior art critic Roberta Smith wrote a blog post describing her fascination with the recently released Simpsons postage stamps:

The Simpson palette has always seemed as radical and subversive as the show’s social commentary and close in artifice to that of innovative colorists like Andy Warhol, Bruce Nauman and Matthew Barney. Five amped-up hues suffice: egg-yolk yellow, magenta, Marge-Simpson’s-hair blue, darkened chartreuse and lavender, plus important bits of white (mainly eyes and teeth) and touches of red. Subtle distinctions of tonality are made. Homer’s yellow head is seen against a slightly darker yellow background. Marge’s hair is slightly darker than the blue behind Bart. Red defines only Homer’s tongue, Maggie’s pacifier, Marge’s beads and the smidgeon of Bart’s T-shirt.

Third, less is more. The “Simpsons” gestalt is boiled down to its essence and so is stampness. The images are stripped of detail except for the letters USA and the number 44 (cents, the new first class). No fussy engraved textures, no identifying names. This allows color to take over and the faces to pop out. Like a Richard Serra sculpture, only smaller and a whole lot cheaper, the stamps prove the adage that scale has nothing to do with size. They strike David-like blows against the Goliaths of American visual illiteracy.

Don’t have a Nauman! [Arts Beat]