RIP

Jan Hooks, Saturday Night Live alumna and voice of Apu’s wife Manjula on The Simpsons, died Thursday at the age of 57. According to news reports, she had been suffering from an unspecified illness.

At HitFix, TV reviewer Alan Sepinwall praises her tenure at Saturday Night Live, characterizing her as a “glue guy” who never got her due:

On a show that so often prizes big performances, preferably in characters that can be repeated over and over and over (like [Rob] Schneider’s copy machine guy), the quiet consistency of a Hooks didn’t stand out as much… [b]ut like [Phil] Hartman, she gave it her all in every sketch, whether as the straight woman or the comic centerpiece.

For just six episodes of The Simpsons, Hooks played Manjula Nahasapeemapetilon, betrothed wife of Apu and mother of their eight children (Anoop, Gheet, Nabendu, Poonam, Pria, Sandeep, Sashi, and Uma), beginning with 1997’s “The Two Mrs. Nahasapeemapetilons” and ending with 2002’s “Large Marge.” The role was taken over by regular cast member Tress MacNeille, who had originally voiced a younger Manjula in 1996’s “Much Apu About Nothing” and filled in whenever Hooks was unavailable. Manjula was not exactly a breakout character, but Hooks imbued in her a sense of quiet dignity that, like her performances on Saturday Night Live, went largely unnoticed.

WHAA...?!

Lunchlady Doris

After Simpsons voice actress Doris Grau passed away in 1995, her character Lunchlady Doris remained in the show. Or so we thought! It turns out that at some point in the series Doris was silently replaced with a pod person named “Lunchlady Dora,” who just happens to look and sound exactly like her.

Out of respect for the late Phil Hartman, his characters Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure were completely retired from the show (well, eventually… they still made occasional background appearances until 2003). This wasn’t the case for Lunchlady Doris, who lurked silently in the background for years.

Her silence was broken in a 2009 episode, when Tress MacNeille took over the role with a pretty dead-on impression. Some viewers felt recasting the character was disrespectful to Grau. However, it turns out it was actually a “new” character, “Lunchlady Dora,” a loophole that made the move perfectly ethical. Although MacNeille was credited as Lunchlady Dora in that episode’s press release, this little change was not mentioned in the actual show until 2013, when Groundskeeper Willie casually mentioned making sweet love to Lunchlady Dora (my fanfic came true!), and a second time in last night’s episode, where Dora is mentioned in the school newspaper. AV Club writer Sean O’Neal tweeted about it, assuming it was a typo, which lead Michael Price to set the record straight and confirm it’s a “different” character:

Well, now that there’s precedent for döppelganger replacement, we can all look forward to the never-ending adventures of Mr. Kurns, Jed Flanders and Principal Skynnyr once Harry Shearer decides to quit.

[Twitter via No Homers Club]

NOISELAND ARCADE

street viewNo, of course not, but watching this video from GameSpot (specifically, from 3:43 onward) sorta reminded me of it. Lately, I’ve been nostalgic for Virtual Springfield, which I used to “play” in middle school. If you’re unfamiliar with this classic 1997 Simpsons CD-ROM time-waster, you should totally read this article Bob “bobservo” Mackey wrote about it.

I appreciate how the game makers managed to place pretty much every location that had appeared in the series to that point into a geographical layout that actually made sense, instead of randomly chucking districts together in the face of all logic. If Fox Interactive got their shit together, they could re-use this stuff, add new places from the subsequent 30 seasons of the show, and throw it up on the web with a Google Maps-like interface as a neat web-bonus thing. It would totally blow this fan-made map of Springfield out of the water in terms of sheer coolness.

Also, I’m pretty pleased that the aforementioned video contains a a mostly uninterrupted version of Troy McClure’s welcoming introduction (skip to 1:04), Phil Hartman’s only appearance in a Simpsons video game, because people on YouTube skip over all the dialogue parts for some inexplicable reason. It’s a good Simpsons quote, despite being written by some intern for a point-and-click CD-ROM non-game:

Welcome to Springfield! I’m Troy McClure. You may remember me as town spokesman from such computer travel guides as {Smother Me In Shreveport} and {Living, Loving and Lubbock}. Of course, we all know Springfield for its award-winning dandelions and as birthplace of the glove compartment. But that’s merely scratching the surface of a place the great Calvin Coolidge once labelled, “a pea-sized town with lima bean-sized dreams.” So, warm up your clicking finger and let’s explore a land the poets call Springfield, USA!

The titles of the two other travel guides would vary each time. Here’s a complete (?) list of the other titles, which are curiously omitted from The Simpsons Archive (yet they include stuff from a screensaver???):

  • Eeney-Meeney-Miney Murphreesborough
  • Yuma: It’s Seniorific
  • Smother Me In Shreveport
  • Living, Loving and Lubbock
  • Duluth, It’ll Grow On You
  • Suddenly Tulsa
  • Freedonia: Gateway to Wichita
  • Fairbanks Needs Women
  • I Left My Soul In Sacramento
  • Tender Lovin’ Newark
  • Hats Off To Fargo
  • Pinch Me, I’m In Boise

I think I speak for everyone when I say it’s time we stop fetishizing 8-bit Nintendo games and start a virtual storybook revival.

NOISELAND ARCADE

Could the late, great Phil Hartman be revived to reprise his characters in an upcoming Simpsons video game? It’s possible, say the intrepid reporters over at Joystiq.com:

EA even said that it could go back to old shows to pull dialogue; while the company didn’t confirm any specific plans to do so, this method could bring Phil Hartman’s old stable of characters into the game.

On a related note, Hartman’s introductory dialogue in Virtual Springfield is some of my favorite Troy McClure material: “Welcome to Springfield, I’m Troy McClure. You might remember me from such computer travel guides as [randomized joke] and [randomized joke]. You know, the great Calvin Coolidge once called this town ‘a pea-size town with lima bean size dreams.’ So warm up your clicking fingers, and let’s explore a town the poets call Springfield, U.S.A.! *coughs, then walks offscreen*” (Paraphrased from memory. Thanks for nothing, internet). [Joystiq]