Watching Simpsons

Lifeisajoke.com has a good list of Homer quotes.

# “I’m going to the backseat of my car with the woman I love, and I won’t be back for TEN MINUTES.”
# “Bart, with $10,000, we’d be millionaires! We could buy all kinds of useful things like…love!”
# “Unfortunately, son, we Simpsons sometimes have to bend the rules a little in order to hold our own.”
# “Dear Lord: The gods have been good to me. For the first time in my life, everything is absolutely perfect just the way it is. So here’s the deal:

# You freeze everything the way it is, and I won’t ask for anything more. If that is OK, please give me absolutely no sign. OK, deal. In gratitude, I present you this offering of cookies and milk. If you want me to eat them for you, give me no sign. Thy will be done.” “The strong must protect the sweet”
# “Ah, sweet pity. Where would my love life have been without it?”
# “Son, a woman is like a beer. They smell good, they look good, you’d step over your own mother just to get one! But you can’t stop at one. You wanna drink another woman!”

While many people love Homer, he can still cause a few rankles. That seems, however, to be the minority view, because Springfield, as well as the Simpsons clan, are proven brands. Whether they’re hawking cheeseburgers or driving around in French cars, Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie have been known to be well sought after. The thinking, it seems, is that any show that’s lasted as long as The Simpsons must be loved by a sizable chunk of the population. And, in many respects, the denizens of Springfield have become easy metaphors, partly because for many, those characters are now embedded in the public’s imagination.

Still, some question the use of Homer, like the Jackson Citizen Patriot:

How’s this for a sales pitch? Compare the car you’re selling to an overweight, balding buffoon of a cartoon character.
In a word: D’oh!

Ford Motor Co. officials left heads shaking recently when comparing their Taurus to, of all people, the animated Homer Simpson. These weren’t some assistant vice presidents, either, but some of the top brass.

Their point was to hype the redesigned Taurus sedan that’s in the works. But their praise sounded like it could have come from a Henny Youngman (”Take my wife — please!”) routine.

“The new Taurus that you’re going to see in the next year or so is the one we should have made originally,” CEO Alan Mulally told industry officials, according to the Associated Press.

Ford’s head of global product development, meanwhile, reportedly showed slides of Homer next to the current Taurus. He also offered images of Superman and Mr. Incredible next to drawings of the redesigned car.

Of course, using Homer is not entirely new in the auto industry. The French company Renault and their new Kangoo model have planned to feature the Family driving around Europe. Whether those ads work or not remains to be seen. Still, it’s interesting that Renault is using the family as a way to put their product in a positive light. On the other hand, Ford is trying to do the opposite. Pairing a Ford with Homer is meant as a self deprecating bit of criticism, and, in reality it’s not an ad campaign either. So, in a sense, the creator, Matt Groening, was likely not consulted.

This may or may not pique the interest of Simpsons fans. After all, if the proposed use is funny, nobody will care. It all depends, really, on how the character is used

Taurus, Kangoo, Renault, Homer, Simpsons, Homer Simpons, Ford

According to Reuters, Hank Azaria has been busy outside of The Simpsons:

Hank Azaria will play an Eqyptian pharaoh in Ben Stiller’s “Night at the Museum” sequel.

“Night at the Museum 2: Escape from the Smithsonian,” also stars Amy Adams. Shawn Levy will direct the Fox project.

Azaria has also joined the cast of Harold Ramis’ biblical comedy “Year One,” playing Abraham. The Columbia Pictures film stars Jack Black and Michael Cera.

Azaria will conclude his Broadway run in “The Farnsworth Invention” on March 2. He also appeared on Broadway in “Monty Python’s Spamalot,” for which he was nominated in 2005 for a Tony Award for best leading role in a musical.

I think this is pretty darn hilarious. Over on webware.com, there’s an interactive map of Springfield that shows the locations of everything, from Snake’s Hideout, “Hickton,” to Burn’s mansion, the Quimby compound. Josh Lowensohn writes:

The map was started in 2001 by Jerry Lema and Terry Hogan. The current version is about four years old (so there are no marks from the dome featured in the recent film). In addition to a quadrant view, designer Adrian Noterdaem has put together a slick Flash-based version that lets you zoom in and out. There’s also a PDF and printed version of the map residing in Harvard’s map collection.

The original can be found here, in much greater detail here. The important thing, however, is what the writers and creators of the this map say:

While the placement of most locations is arbitrary, many are placed according to where they appear in relationship to each other in specific episodes of The Simpsons. In some cases ‘one-time references’ to specific locations have been disregarded in favor of others more often repeated. Due to the many inconsistencies among episodes, the map will never be completely accurate.

In other words, it’s a work of fan fiction. Groening has no relation to this. Still, it’s interesting.

[The Simpsons, Maps, City Maps, Springfield [/tags]

In terms of a linear story, it’s always interesting to see that past episodes had Bart born in the 1980’s, and one of the more recent episode looks at The Simpsons during the 1990’s. Nevermind the complications and contradictions in terms of story. The Simpsons, always, have been about satire first and story continuity second. That in mind, here’s a recent YouTube upload depicting Homer singing grunge, and Marge sporting a Jennifer Aniston hairdo….

The Simpsons, Sadgasm, Grunge, Jennifer Aniston

Ever since the blockbuster success of the Simpsons Movie and the subsequent DVD, speculation has always been out there regarding a possible sequel. After all, anytime a movie strikes it big in the box office, one can never truly rule out a sequel. It’s too lucrative, for producers, to not imagine. Still, Al Jean has, in the past, ruled out a sequel in the present.

Still, there’s another dynamic at play, and that is the ongoing writer’s strike. Typically, the effect has been most seen on television, but there’s a hidden component. The strike is having an effect movie production. In terms of The Simpsons, it also is gumming up any sort of sequel. Part of the strike, of course, is keeping developmental talks on hold until the main strike issues have been resolved.

Larry Carroll, on MTV’s Movie Blog, has tackled the issue a little. He writes:

Talks on the sequel should begin whenever everyone on both sides of the picket line is satisfied, but since it is a cartoon and all the “Simpsons” talents will still be working on that pesky little TV show, we’re talking several years before a green light gives us an actual movie to watch.

So, basically, there will be no sense of instant gratification in this regard. Animation usually is a much slower creative process. Live action movies, for example, tend to be quicker makes, as there’s no animation, voice acting, voice synch, and so on. Then again, it took more than a decade and a half of the Simpsons on Fox before a silver screen version materialized. Plus, there’s always the idea that good things take time, even years to produce, whereas lackluster garbage can be marshaled out in a matter of days, even hours and minutes. Fans, more than anything, want a good, quality, enjoyable product.

The Simpsons, The Simpson Movie, MTV

When you have a television show that’s been around for close to two decades, weird marketing can occur. Strange products get invented and then advertised. There’s been a Homer Simpson donut maker, for example – for all intensive purposes, that contraption was just a yellow waffle iron with Homer’s face slapped on it. Some products make sense, whether it’s a video game sold for consoles or cell phones. And other times, it just leaves one scratching their head.

This time around, The Simpsons have been licensed out to Kangoo. Yes, Homer, Bart, Marge, Maggie, and Lisa are set to shill for a French auto maker, Renault. According to New Car Net in the United Kingdom:

The thinking behind the advertising is fairly self-explanatory: Renault is pushing the Kangoo as the ultimate family mover.

Consequently Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, Maggie and grandfather Abraham Simpson leave Springfield and appear in the “real” world.

They put the new Kangoo through its paces, testing the vehicle’s main qualities to the hilt.

The international Simpsons/Renault Kangoo advertising campaign will be aired in 29 countries, starting in France on February 9th.

One has to wonder what these commercials are going to look like. It’s not very likely that Americans will see them, though. America, typically, isn’t a strong market for French cars. Perhaps they will be seen in England and Ireland, but the better bet is on continental Europe, which is where one normal sees Renaults. So, I guess one can at least expect some of the ads to be in French. As for the other countries, at this writing, who knows?

In a way, it would also be interesting to see what sort of advertising clout The Simpsons would have over there. That is – will the ads be effective. According to jalopnik.com, the ads will be premised on The Simpsons heading out to see the “real world.” That is, the ads will not be fully animated, as they will combine the cartoon characters with live action photography.

The Simpsons, Kangoo, Renault