Watching Simpsons

The Simpsons and politics always goes together, partly because politics, as subject matter, is ripe for satire. Whether it’s Tony Blair appearing on the Simpsons, or Kang and Kodos subverting the Clinton/Dole election of 1996, there’s always fun to be had.

Currently, the race for the presidency is about to heat up, as Iowa will kick off the primary voting season. For anybody watching the news, it would be interesting to watch the field narrow a bit. After all, there are many, many democrats and republicans vying for their party’s nomination. So much so, there’s already, for some, a sense of fatigue setting in. It’s going to be interesting, though, to see this reflected on The Simpsons.

There’s an upcoming episode that tackles the subject matter head on. Basically, Springfield will cast their ballots, and the result is bound to be hilarious. Instead of endorsing a candidate – which the show has never done, and will likely never do – The Simpsons will feature the rise of an independent, dark horse candidate. His name is … wait for it … Ralph Wiggum! Via TVsquad.com:

Ralph will announce his candidacy on the January 6th episode of The Simpsons. Actually, he isn’t the one who announces it; rather, the voters of Springfield, who reject all of the other candidates in their first primary, write the young Wiggum in as a candidate. He quickly becomes an independent presidential front-runner that party leaders for both the Republicans and the Democrats want to have in their court.

As usual, The Simpsons will air this Sunday at 8:00 pm. Guest voices include Jon Stewart (hopefully utilized a bit better than pal Stephen Colbert) and Dan Rather, who descend upon Springfield to cover the primary debates.

Wiggum seems like a apt choice, in many respects. In a current culture of 24 hour news cycles, as well as Gotcha! Journalism, it’s easy to mistake a number of candidates as a bunch of inept boobs, sometimes. Ralph just fits that to a tee, and much more. Plus, it should be funny to watch Ralph debate. After all, he’s the type of kid who has given the TV watching public such memorable lines as “My Cat’s mouth smells like cat food!” And, as the above block quote states, it would be nice to see Jon Stewart appear as himself, and not as a “character” – which is what happened to Stephen Colbert.

Ralph’s platform can be seen, once it’s up, here.

The Simpsons, Ralph Wiggum, Politics, Elections

Haven’t updated this blog much, partly because I’ve been away, visiting in-laws for Christmas.

Anyhow….

According to The Hollywood Reporter, via comingsoon.net, The Simpsons movie DVD has been selling very well:

The Simpsons Movie easily topped the national DVD sales chart for the week ending Dec. 23. The movie was followed on the Nielsen VideoScan First Alert sales chart by the previous week’s two big releases, Warners’ Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix at No. 2 and Universal’s The Bourne Ultimatum at No. 3, each down a spot from their debut frame.

Lately, whenever The Simpsons set out to promote something, the sights have been set large. For example, Groening and company got the Springfields of the United States to squabble over the rights to host a “yellow carpet” premiere of the film, as well as the honor of being labeled the “Official” home town for America’s favorite animated dysfunctional family. There was also, reminiscent of Pink Floyd decades ago, a large inflatable Spider Pig floating over London. One of the most interesting, however, is when Kwik-E Mart took over a number of 7-11 stores across the nation.

So, with DVD set for impending release, the stakes are high, again. Of course, this means the promotional gimmicks now have a huge precedent to meet and surpass. That may seem like a tall order, but the Groening and company seem to be up for the challenge. And, as a result, there are a grand number of promo stunts in the offing. According to the Hollywood Reporter, even the Empire State Building may go yellow, as a result of 20th Century Fox’s marketing push:

In one of the biggest DVD promotions this year, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment is kicking off Tuesday’s DVD release of “The Simpsons Movie” with big celebrations in cities around the country.

At the top of the list is New York, where the Empire State Building will turn “Simpsons” yellow for the first time ever in the building’s first promotion for a movie.

That really would be a strange sight to behold. After all, the Empire State Building is one of the iconic buildings of New York, one that resonates in American history. It always has been one of the most prominent features on the New York sky line, and, it would make for an interesting thing to see at night, if the yellowness is illuminated. The rest of the promotion, however, will likely be seen as less dramatic. It will be interesting, none the less:

In Los Angeles, holiday elves wearing yellow Santa hats will hand out pink-frosted D’oh!Nut sprinkles, Homer’s favorite treat, to commuters downtown, while in Hollywood a “Simpsons” holiday spectacular is going up at Hollywood & Highland, with inflatable Homer Santas, pink-flocked Christmas trees and donut balloons.

In 20 cities, including Salt Lake City, Honolulu and El Paso, Texas, pink donut mylar balloons will be tied to parking meters at high-traffic shopping areas, signifying free parking.

And in 51 cities — from Mobile, Ala., to Concord, N.H., yellow “Simpsons” Santa hats are being distributed at random locations.

The Simpsons, The Simpsons Movie, The Empire State Building, 20th Century Fox

Not that many heads of state have actively chosen to appear on comedy shows. Sure, there’s President Nixon and “Laugh-In” (A precursor to Saturday Night Live that featured a young Goldie Hawn). King Abdullah of Jordan, who was educated in England, is an ardent Star Trek fan, and he once made a cameo appearance on a Trek show, while visiting America. Then, of course, there’s Tony Blair, who lent his voice to an England themed Simpsons episode. His successor, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, has since refused an invitation to be on The Simpsons.

That’s all well and fine. Still, the catch for any TV show would either be a sitting president or the leading cannidates during an election, like back in 2000, when both Al Gore and George W. Bush did tapings for Saturday Night Live. Since then, Gore did do a Futurama-related clip. Bush, however, hasn’t done much. Perhaps, one thinks, this could be due to his poll numbers being in the garbage – even lower than Richard Nixon’s, at the time he was thrown out of office.

Still, that doesn’t change one thing. Producer James L. Brooks would like to lure George W. Bush to Springfield. His plans for the chief executive would not be fluffy promo bits, either. He thinks the current president would be a source of comedy gold, one that could be paired with just about any character in the Springfield universe – and if that’s the case, one could only dream of the Futurama possibilities. In England, in The Sun newspaper, there’s this:

Barney, Carl and Lenny are slouching over the bar at Moe’s before their drunken unconsciousness is woken by Homer, who strolls in accompanied by new pal, GEORGE W. BUSH, voiced by the man himself.
Unlikely, though, this sketch will ever appear on the Simpsons due a rare case of animosity towards the series by Bush’s mother, Barbara, who once questioned its influence on American society.
But, for writer JAMES L. BROOKS, that will always be his ambition, to lure the President to Springfield.
“A vulnerable moment with George would be great,” he said.
“You cannot go wrong with George. George and Homer, George and Bart, even George and Comic Book Guy.
“We’ve never got a United States president. We will take any United States president willing to pass his or her love of us.”

The rest of the article follows a standard profile/feature format.

The Simpsons, George W. Bush, President Bush, Bush, James L. Brooks, Barbara Bush

There are many reasons why I love the show, “House.” Hugh Laurie plays a cranky doctor exceptionally well, but at this precise moment, I’m reminded of one of my favorite quotes: “Can you rephrase that in the form of a metaphor.” House, and his assistants, always wax metaphorical, partly because they have to. Much of that show deals with technical and baffling medical diagnostics, and if the show were poorly written, it would sound like Star Trek at it’s worst – filled with techno babble. A good comparative metaphor can put the scientific into layman’s terms.

That’s why I find a recent blog post over at Blogging Experiment fascinating. Ben Cook has chosen to talk about the ins and outs of blogging in an interesting way. He’s chosen to use The Simpsons as his metaphors to help make his points. For example, he mentions the fact that Homer has LOTS of hair-brained schemes, most of which fail spectacularly: gaining weight to go on disability, taking Flanders to Los Vegas, starting up a tow truck or snow plow business:

The first lesson of blogging that we get from this hilarious animated family is that not all of your plans are going to work like you expect them to. Hopefully your plans will be more thought out than Homer’s harebrained schemes but no matter how much planning and preparation you put in, things just don’t always work out like we think they should

The post is about blogging for money, or turning one’s blog into a profitable enterprise. Some of the topics covered is branding, involving a community, and paying close attention to detail. Of course, one the golden rules, when it comes to blogging, is this: create interesting content that a potential reader can’t get anywhere else. That certainly seems to be the case with that Simpsons related post. All too often, sites offering how-to advice regarding the internet get swamped with jargon, so it’s refreshing to see something else instead.

The Simpsons, Blogs, Blogging

Interesting. The Simpsons Movie was set for release in the United Kingdom, and as with any product launch, there’s always a push to find some sort of interesting publicity stunt. This time around, somebody thought up this: make an inflatable Spider Pig balloon and float it over London.

The Simpsons, The Simpsons Movie, Spider Pig

By using Google’s “blog search”, I thought it might be interesting to take a random sampling. So, around the Internet, here are some reactions to the brand new DVD:

Over on Show Me SciFi:

Sure sure Futurama is a cartoon..and it’s funny and insolent.

But i just finished watching the new movie - Bender’s Big Score - and guess what? It’s actually really solid plot wise with a really intricate time travel plot thread that really works.

Time and time paradox have always been a part of Futurama but never in such an intricate and well thought out way.

Evan Primakow writes:

What can I say, it was great. Really, it was beyond great. I have no doubts that part of what made it a phenomenal movie was the anticipation, but even having watched it a second time, it’s still incredible. It fits perfectly with previous episodes of Futurama and fulfills any expectations I had of the movie. As with every previous episode the humor ranges from slapstick to extremely intelligent and the entire film is filled with quotable lines which I’m sure will be a part of my regular speech in due time.

Over on Popmatters:

Now, the first one is here and it was well worth the wait. Subtitled Bender’s Big Score, and featuring the return of all the original characters (including some you thought the show was through with), this revamped version of the Futurama premise remains true to its tenets.

While most of the response seems overly positive, Scott Weinberg, over at Cinematical, provides a loving bit of constructive criticism:

Owing to the fact that the movie will one day be broken down into a quartet of semi-stand-alone cable episodes, Bender’s Big Score is a convoluted, over-plotted, and structurally confused little movie. (Let’s just say it’s a lot like Back to the Future 2, only more contorted, if you can believe it.) There, that’s pretty much my only gripe: There’s almost too much going on! But given that Fry, Leela, The Professor, Bender, and (more importantly) their creators are clearly enjoying their first jolt of post-death resurrection, such a complaint can easily be forgiven. (By me, anyway.) What’s important is this: The fans will adore this mega-packed movie, because all the major stuff is there: The smart and the silly, the characters and the craftsmanship, the eye-popping and the rib-tickling. Call me a Futurama mega-nerd if you like, but Bender’s Big Score is simply one of the most WELCOME DVD releases of the year.

That’s all for now.

Futurama, Bender, Bender’s Big Score

Matt Groening originally comes from Oregon. Over on Alterslash, there is this little trivia morsel, as posted by CranburyKing:

Actually Matt Groening is from Portland,OR and many of the Simpsons character are named after streets in Portland.

Well, I checked. If you do a google map search for Portland, and you zoom in a bit to see the street names, you’ll find a few. Within two minutes of scrolling around the map, I found “Quimby,” “Flanders,” and “Lovejoy.” There might be a few others, but I was pressed for time and stopped looking.

The Simpsons, Mat Groening, Portland, Oregon

The problem with celebrity gossip is that usually the whole story is never trully printed. It seems this it the case with Page 6 out of the New York Times, which cited Hank Azaria saying George Takei came off like a creep. In my post about that, I sort of textually scratched my head, and then cut and pasted a block quote from the post. Well, I have to say thanks, again, to Ricardo Aleman, who left a comment pointing me to LateNet with Ray Ellin, where Azaria’s comments originated. The show, by the way, looks good, and I’ll definately look into more their episodes. Still, for what it’s worth, here’s the clip in question pulled off of YouTube. (The above link, however, will take you to a page that has three other clips as well).

Still, the bits about the origins of Comic Book Guy’s voice is more interesting, I’d say.

The Simpsons, Hank Azaria, George Takei, LateNet, Ray Ellin, LateNet with Ray Ellin

Voice acting is a unique talent, and being able to juggle more than one voice at the same time is actually hard work. Yet, the masters of it, like Phil Hendrie, make it both look and sound so effortless. Hendrie, for those who may not know, once hosted a radio show where we played the role of host and his guest. A large chunk of the listening audience was hip to it, but Hendrie was so good at this, he quite often fooled a number of people, who bought it hook, line, and sinker. Then, they would call into the show, enraged about something stupid and controversial that Hendrie’s “guest” had said. Hilarity ensued. And, one might be able to think of The Phil Hendrie Show as a reverse prank call. Well, it’s been a few years since Phil Hendrie officially retired, although his website has remained active with mp3 updates and independent podcasts. On occasion, Hendrie has lent his talent to Matt Groening, as he’s appeared on Futurama a few times. Still, his really is rare talent, and podcasting, like radio, requires a level of craft.

Recently, this has become evident with Vox Talk, a podcast targeting voice actors. Over the summer, they hosted a Simpsons related imitation competition, and the special podcast, with the resulting winners, is now available. A lot of the imitations are close, but definitely not spot on. Still, a lot of the voices featured jump in and out of character, and that definitely is the interesting thing here. It may sound a little schizophrenic, but try it sometimes. It’s a far from easy feat.

This is eight years old, but chalk this up to the wonder that somethings stay on the internet without getting deleted. Mother Jones, a progressive minded political magazine, did an in depth interview with Matt Groening in 1999. It’s not a silly Hank-Azaria-bites-deer interview either, but one where he spells out his ideas and feelings about The Simpsons and Futurama. At the time, Futurama was about to debut on Fox, so much of the interview revolves around that. It’s also of interest that, in this interview, he does confirm having a knowledge of the old science fiction pulps — which fits, since he’s of the age where kids reading a vast amount of cheaply produces fiction digests was as common as some kids reading comic books, or in this day and age, playing console video games.

I’ve loved science fiction ever since I was a little kid, mainly from looking at the covers of science-fiction magazines and books, and I’ve read quite extensively as an adult. About three or four years ago, I decided to reacquaint myself with literary science-fiction and I went back and read everything from H.G. Wells to the new guys, Neil Stephenson and Rudy Rucker and those guys, and what I was surprised to find was that I’d read so much of it. I’d be reading a novel and think, “Wait a minute, I read this in fourth grade,” but I didn’t remember cause I’d plowed through so much. But a lot of my old favorites I thought really held up, I liked [Robert] Heinlein and [Philip K.] Dick and Cordwainer Smith and Theodore Sturgeon and Robert Sheckley — the funny guys, the guys who have a sense of humor.

Basically, Futurama and the concept behind it was a labor of love. That’s a good thing. After all, after the pioneering success, it would have been very easy, and very cheap, in my view, to spin off characters into a new shows. The Moe Show … The Principal Skinner Show … The Comic Book Guy Show … all of them would be bad, bad, terribly bad ideas. Even more, a standard practice in the entertainment industry is to do variations on a successful concept — that’s why The Family Guy and King of the Hill will always owe a debt to The Simpsons, just as The Simpsons owes a debt to The Flinstones and The Jetsons.

So, it’s good that Groening decided to persue something completely independent of The Simpson. Plus, it’s a good thing that he decided to persue something he’s had an interest in. According to the interview, producer David X. Cohen shared the science fiction love. Even more, the idea of Futurama gave Groening an excuse to conduct “research” into the genre. Cohen and Groening’s enthusiasm helped sell the show nearly immediately:

I spent way too much time — a few years — researching science fiction and making long lists of things I wanted to do and characters and ideas that I wanted to explore. After I assembled a few hundred pages of ideas, I got together with David Cohen, one of the writers and executive producers on “The Simpsons,” who is also a lover of science fiction and has a great knowledge of science and mathematics. He was excited and he had a lot to do with the thrust of the show and the direction, so he and I developed this thing together, and took it to Fox. They’d been begging me for years for another show, and in the meeting — which lasted about three hours because we had so much to talk about, we just knew the show inside and out — they jumped up and down and ordered 13 episodes on the spot. And then, that’s when the honeymoon was over, after that. The second they ordered it, they completely freaked out and were afraid the show was too dark and mean-spirited, and thought they had made a huge mistake and that the only way they could address their anxieties was to try to make me as crazy as possible with their frustrations.

Of course, there are other interesting things Groening talks about in this old interview. There’s his Life in Hell comic strips, the nature of business in Hollywood, the business of satire, and so on. Definitely an interesting read.

The Simpsons, Futurama, Life in Hell, Matt Groening, David X. Cohen, Mother Jones

The writers strike, beyond the talk shows, has yet to be felt among the sitcoms. As has been mentioned everywhere else, shows like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report, and Conan O’Brien have to come up with content more often and more quickly then live action and animated comedies and dramas do. Still, I have often asked myself what I would do when the strike ever touches The Simpsons. New episodes are always welcome, but since the show is so old now, watching it in syndication or even off of DVD most often provides a chance to view missed episodes, or even one that have been forgotten.

Yet, that’s never enough. For some, there will always be a thirst for fresh Simpsons and Futurama content. If that’s the case, there’s always Groening’s considerable publishing empire, and those are always a good tool for scratching the intermittent Simpsons itch, especially the Bongo Comics line and collections available at book and comic stores just about anywhere. In truth, reading a Simpsons or Futurama – or other Bongo titles like Radioactive Man – is a lot like reading story boards for episodes that were never made. The hilarity is still there, and to a degree, the comics are not constrained by time limits or television program formatting. But then again, comics are sequential imagery, and in the end, they do not take the place of the animated shows.

That said, there’s a very useful Simpsons blog out there, when it comes to Bongo Comics and all it’s Simpsons and Futurama related titles. When Bongos Collide provides an exhaustive source of info and links. Plus, The Simpsons Channel, a more generalized Simpsons-centered blog, features a monthly round up which comics has been released, giving every episode a short synopsis.

The Simpsons, Futurama, Bongo Comics, Comic Books

Maybe not the most exciting thing on the net, but Gadling.com has a short but interesting post on dubbing The Simpsons into other languages. The interesting point, however, is to see how far they take the tone and sound of the characters voice, and also how much they remain true to what’s there. The post has a series of YouTube embeds, for comparative purposes. That’s where I found this Japanese dubbing….

Can’t Get Enough of Futurama, which looks to be one a pretty exhaustive, in depth Futurama blog, has an interesting interview with producer David X. Cohen. Here’s Cohen on Bender’s Big Score, as well as the other Futurama movies about to come out:

The goal was to maintain the tone of the show while giving the overall presentation a more cinematic feel. For that reason, we went to widescreen for the first time ever, and mixed the audio in 5.1 surround sound. The writing process was largely the same, however — just supersized. All of the writers on this project were veterans of the series, so I think it will feel pretty consistent… at least, no less consistent than when we were on the air. And the animation is beautiful.

Of course, the movie is a different format then the TV episodes:

Going to feature length was definitely a challenge. But there were benefits, too, since in virtually every one of our original episodes, we had trouble cramming the plot into 22 minutes, because we were almost always going for grand, movie-like stories anyway. So on one hand it was a relief to have more room to maneuver; on the other hand, we were in uncharted territory.

I’d wager the producers of The Simpsons Movie probably faced similar challenges.

After the last post, it seems I’m running into weird stuff on the internet at the moment. The Daily Intelligencer has an interview with Hank Azaria, as part of an ongoing “21 Questions” featurebut it seems that Azaria, just like anybody else who makes a living in comedy, doesn’t take the interview process seriously — at least with this particular interview:

QUESTION: How often do you prepare your own meals?
AZARIA: I just bite into live, struggling deer.

The Simpsons, Hank Azaria