Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 28, 2024, 11:10:50 AM

Login with username, password and session length

The Simpsons: A Journey Through Shit

Started by JamesTC, January 08, 2021, 11:12:10 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Mapple MyPad?

Mapple MyPad
2 (7.1%)
Mapple MyPad
0 (0%)
Mapple MyPad
6 (21.4%)
Mapplethorpe
16 (57.1%)
Mapple MyPad
4 (14.3%)

Total Members Voted: 28

Voting closed: December 24, 2021, 08:55:16 AM

sevendaughters

Laughing moderately at using a David Foster Wallace title as an episode title. Definitely the era of Harvard alumni getting on staff and then sneering.

buttgammon


dissolute ocelot

I'm not defending the Lady Gaga one but it's definitely no worse than the surrounding series. It's similar to when they had fake Michelle Obama on to cheer Lisa up, but it's the actual Gaga and it is quite fun how she's presented. From memory a lot of people were upset that the show was being too sycophantic to Lady Gaga, which is the least of its problems. And probably a certain degree of snobbery.

It's a real rat-bag of episodes at the moment. There's scope in Flanders and Krabappel as an unlikely couple (stranger things happen in real life) but the writers probably have never even seen a child, parent, schoolteacher, or Christian, let alone being able to write about them.

g0m

Quote from: JamesTC on July 28, 2021, 09:46:37 PM
Season 23 - Episode 19 - A Totally Fun Thing That Bart Will Never Do Again

honestly, i liked this one a lot. it felt like a real bright spot. especially given the bleakness surrounding it

JamesTC

Quote from: dissolute ocelot on July 29, 2021, 12:09:44 PM
I'm not defending the Lady Gaga one but it's definitely no worse than the surrounding series. It's similar to when they had fake Michelle Obama on to cheer Lisa up, but it's the actual Gaga and it is quite fun how she's presented. From memory a lot of people were upset that the show was being too sycophantic to Lady Gaga, which is the least of its problems. And probably a certain degree of snobbery.

As with the abject Katy Perry segment, I don't put any blame on Lady Gaga. She only has what she has to work with.

The episode was just a cavalcade of awfulness. Lisa is sad because she has no friends for about the 50th time and they somehow manage to completely fuck it all up despite the fact that they have so much experience writing depressed Lisa. The ridiculously long extended sequences, which amount to nothing more than showing us an animated version of something Lady Gaga has worn once. Worst of all, the episode had no jokes of note.

Compare it to Stark Raving Dad and the difference is night and day. I'm not saying that they should have repeated that but they surely could have done something better than what we got which was a pathetic love letter to a pop star for no reason. If I wanted to hear what Lady Gaga fans think well I'd... actually I don't. Michael Jackson's popularity served the story. Lady Gaga's popularity was the story.

JamesTC

Here are ten future Simpsons plots from Season 24 onwards. I have made up two of them:


  • Homer starts a band with Apu.
  • Chief Wiggum gets a jetpack.
  • Duffman retires.
  • The Simpsons go to New York... again.
  • The Simpsons go to New York... again.
  • The Simpsons go to New York... again.
  • Hans Moleman gets a job at the Nuclear Plant.
  • Episode entirely from the perspective of Snowball II.
  • Homer becomes a comedian.
  • Lisa and Marge go to Mars.

retsuza

I'm guessing all three New York episodes are real

I'm begging for the Lisa and Marge go to Mars thing to not be real. Other guess is Moleman in the power plant, mainly because I think that could actually be interesting. But if Groening was still hand-on involved in the production at the time I think he would fight against a moleman centric episode.

JamesTC

Quote from: retsuza on July 29, 2021, 03:16:31 PM
I'm guessing all three New York episodes are real

I'm begging for the Lisa and Marge go to Mars thing to not be real. Other guess is Moleman in the power plant, mainly because I think that could actually be interesting. But if Groening was still hand-on involved in the production at the time I think he would fight against a moleman centric episode.

Spoiler alert
1/2
[close]

Catalogue Trousers

I'm guessing that Wiggum's jet-pack is the other ringer. The Snowball-vision episode sounds like it could be fun, and I'm pretty much certain that one must be real.

Spoiler alert
Dear Gawd, I've just Googled and it's fecking real. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it has nothing to do with the main plot of the episode.
[close]

JamesTC

Quote from: Catalogue Trousers on July 29, 2021, 09:55:27 PM
I'm guessing that Wiggum's jet-pack is the other ringer. The Snowball-vision episode sounds like it could be fun, and I'm pretty much certain that one must be real.

Spoiler alert
Dear Gawd, I've just Googled and it's fecking real. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it has nothing to do with the main plot of the episode.
[close]

Spoiler alert
1/2
[close]

Spoiler alert
I'm quite happy that my two fake ideas are highlighted as the interesting ones from the list.
[close]

A tip-off is that Snowball II barely exists on the show anymore.

Mobbd

This clip is a decade older than the zombie Simpsons currently being discussed so it's probably comedy gold by comparison. But can anyone explain to me how it's supposed to be funny?

"He can't be the Hulk, I'm the Hulk!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCW-hLnR-ns

It's not that I just don't find it funny. It's that I don't even understand the intention behind it. What's the joke?

I know that Stan Lee created the Hulk. But why does he think he's the Hulk here and why is that presented as a joke? I'm not being facetious. I genuinely have no idea. Is he mental in real life or something? Seriously, clue me in.

Pink Gregory

To be fair, Stan Lee exhibits increasingly weird behaviour in the episode up until that point. 

Blumf



Just a general build up of Stan Lee being increasingly delusional.

Possible also a jab at Lee taking too much credit for stuff he only had a partial role in creating.

JamesTC

I wonder how much this episode and Mallrats had in creating the modern image of Stan Lee that made him so popular in the cameos.

Mobbd

Thanks folks. I guess I should have watched the whole episode. (A friend mentioned that one part to me and I checked it out on YouTube).

And ooh! It was written by Swartzwelder. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Furious_(Yellow)

As you were everyone. Back to the journey through shit.

JamesTC

That is probably one of the post season 12 highlights. That isn't saying much but it is an episode I have some fondness for.

St_Eddie

Quote from: Mobbd on July 30, 2021, 02:53:05 PM
This clip is a decade older than the zombie Simpsons currently being discussed so it's probably comedy gold by comparison. But can anyone explain to me how it's supposed to be funny?

"He can't be the Hulk, I'm the Hulk!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCW-hLnR-ns

It's not that I just don't find it funny. It's that I don't even understand the intention behind it. What's the joke?

I know that Stan Lee created the Hulk. But why does he think he's the Hulk here and why is that presented as a joke? I'm not being facetious. I genuinely have no idea. Is he mental in real life or something? Seriously, clue me in.

My biggest issue with that scene is that Comic Book Guy says "I just wish you had the power to leave my store"... literally after Stan Lee had just left his store and as Comic Book Guy voluntarily leads Stan Lee back into his store.

Quote from: JamesTC on July 30, 2021, 03:17:14 PM
I wonder how much this episode and Mallrats had in creating the modern image of Stan Lee that made him so popular in the cameos.

Well, the Mallrats cameo certainly had a direct influence on at least one of his Marvel cameos.

JamesTC

Quote from: St_Eddie on July 30, 2021, 05:54:24 PM
My biggest issue with that scene is that Comic Book Guy says "I just wish you had the power to leave my store"... literally after Stan Lee had just left his store and as Comic Book Guy voluntarily leads Stan Lee back into his store.

I think that is being a bit harsh on the line. Stan Lee has been hanging around the store for a while so presumably when he says "leave my store" he means to stop hanging around it all day. The fact that he had left the premises in that individual moment was incidental, as he would still return to harass the customers. He leads him back in to take care of him because he is clearly unwell. I think it all works, myself.

Quote from: St_Eddie on July 30, 2021, 05:54:24 PMWell, the Mallrats cameo certainly had a direct influence on at least one of his Marvel cameos.

I'm not particularly fanboyish about the cameos but that one I really enjoyed.

wrec


Oh, Nobody

Jetpack Wiggum is apparently a George Meyer pitch from the nineties, although I suspect it was literally just a post-it with 'Wiggum gets a jetpack' on it.

St_Eddie

Quote from: Oh, Nobody on August 02, 2021, 12:04:42 AM
Jetpack Wiggum is apparently a George Meyer pitch from the nineties, although I suspect it was literally just a post-it with 'Wiggum gets a jetpack' on it.


dissolute ocelot

Quote from: wrec on July 30, 2021, 06:43:32 PM
Turns out that's a whole thing:
https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/Snowball_V
Quotein real life many cats look identical
Racist! That is very thorough.
Quotein most cases, stock cat sound effects would be used for Snowball II's meows and yowls (often from Hollywood Edge's "Premiere Edition" sound library)
Another scandal.

Pauline Walnuts

Tuned into a series 17 episode. Sideshow Bob is in Italy, and berates a middled aged woman on the correct pronunciation of bonjourno, starting to move her mouth for the correct formation of the second syllable.

She then spits in his face.



*sound of a TV being retuned*

retsuza

Recently found this six hour video ranking every episode of the show

https://youtu.be/nyYexTcyY2A

I've been watching in segments but seeing some of the stuff I thought was a joke was great. Maybe Moe DOES get a cellphone.

wrec

A Sean Penn lookalike had seasons 1-9 as his specialist subject on Mastermind. He got one really obvious one wrong, but there were a couple of tough obscure ones. He bears evidence of possible intimidation though so he may have taken a dive https://youtu.be/pdNX86SwDOM

Old Nehamkin

Quote from: retsuza on September 29, 2021, 09:50:23 PM
Recently found this six hour video ranking every episode of the show

https://youtu.be/nyYexTcyY2A

I've been watching in segments but seeing some of the stuff I thought was a joke was great. Maybe Moe DOES get a cellphone.

Just FYI I don't think that's the link you meant to post!

I looked up the video though and had a skim through the overall ranking at the end. One thing I've always wondered - is the infamous Lisa Goes Gaga episode (ranked 3rd to last in that guy's list) really as monstrously terrible by late-Simpsons standards as the internet makes it out to be? I ask this having not actually seen the episode, but I've always suspected that its lightning-rod quality is largely a product of Lady Gaga's own Bieber-esque status as a sort of consensus punching bag who embodies all of the tackiness, depravity and decline of contemporary pop culture to the kind of people who think in those terms (ie. the kind of misanthropic dullards who always seem to fill up youtube comment sections and the like). 

I mean, I'm sure that the episode itself is very shit, because it's new Simpsons, but if the argument is just that it's uniquely awful because of the shamelessness of building a story around a hagiographic portrayal of a hip celebrity, then, well...they've done that loads of times, haven't they? I mean they did it with fucking Elon Musk a couple of years ago and I absolutely can't believe that that was less creepy and insidious than the Gaga one (again, I have not actually seen any of these episodes).

JamesTC

Lady Gaga does nothing wrong herself. The sycophantic writing with a vacuous story on the backdrop of tedious references to Lady Gaga which no fucker can remember all make it one of the worst episodes ever.

But at least Moe doesn't accidentally kiss Katy Perry's vagina in Maggie's dream in Lisa Goes Gaga.

JamesTC

Season 24 - Episode 1 - Moonshine River

The Springfield Gran Prix is beset with problems such as road workers stopping to watch a documentary on the building of the Empire State building and the Crazy Cat Lady spinning around and hurling cats into the road. Homer and the family are trying to get past the Gran Prix as they need scotch tape but they are then caught between the Gran Prix and the Tour De Springield.

At the afterparty, Lisa is dancing with Milhouse. Bart makes fun of them but Lisa replies that at least she has a date. Bart feels bad. Moe is at the dance with his inflatable doll. Bart is looking at pictures of old girlfriends and decides to visit them all who mostly just physically assault him except for the one who asks for a kiss and then accuses him of being inappropriate.

Bart visits his last girlfriend, Mary Spuckler, but she has ran away from home and gone to New York. Bart decides to go to New York to find her which is the plot of the episode.

Bart: Come on, dad. You love New York, now that your two least favourite buildings have been obliterated; Old Penn Station and Shea Stadium.

Homer misremembers his misadventure in New York as the 1957 film Sweet Smell of Success. In order save money for the trip to New York they swap houses, but Homer reveals that the house they swapped was actually the Flanders home. Some New Yorkers turn up at the Flanders home and tell him they'll be doing it on his bed. The family are now in New York. Khlav Kalash man is there but he now has a big restaurant. Worth remembering that Bart wasn't born when 9/11 happened due to this episode being in 2012 and Bart being 10.

Homer and Bart try to track down Mary but she is not at the address Bart was given. A posh girl turns up but then it is revealed she is Mary. Mary is a writer on SNL. Sideshow Bob tried to kill Bart but gets hit by a train. Mary sings a song for Bart. Mary and Bart are about to kiss but then Cletus arrives and says Mary must return home.

Lisa and Marge go to Shakespeare in the park. Some cuckold joke. The play is cancelled. Lisa decides to do the play herself. They do the play and then the police and firefighters arrive and spray Marge and Lisa with the hose in the fucking face.

Cletus is distracted, so Bart and Mary kiss goodbye and Mary takes another train to get away from her family. Bart and the family return home on the train. There is a review of Lisa's production of Romeo and Juliet in the paper. Credits roll. Cutting into the credits, the family run to the couch like in the opening couch gag and tell the audience to send in their ideas for a couch gag and the best idea will make it into a future episode.

3/10 - A high three. That 9/11 gag was fairly surprising. Aside from the Khlav Kalash gag, it didn't play on the earlier episode too much which was appreciated.

JamesTC

Season 24 - Episode 2 - Treehouse of Horror XXIII

Opening

Homer is a sacrifice to the Mayan Gods. Marge tricks Moe to going in Homer's place. Moe is decapitated and when the townspeople realise they confirm that the world will end in the year 2012 and that it will be Obama's fault. In present day, Mayan Gods kill everybody.

The Greatest Story Ever Holed

A hadron collider is built in Springfield. The colliders created a mini black hole which begins sucking up the world. Ralph gets sucked into the black hole and fucking dies. Lisa leads the black hole to the basement so no other kids get sucked into it. Homer ponders whether it is politically correct to call it a black hole. Homer tries to pat the black hole and his hand stretches. Marge puts a baby gate in front of the black hole.

The family start secretly feeding the black hole against Lisa's warning. Bart hurls Krabappel in. Santa's Little Helper looks guilty when asked if anybody has seen the cat.  Homer starts a business called Magic Craphole Waste Removal and now all the townspeople want to throw stuff in the black hole. Lisa warns that if one more thing is thrown in the black hole, it could hit critical mass. Milhouse hits his first home run and the baseball lands in the black hole which then proceeds to suck up the entire town.

Everybody except for Maggie is sucked in but she is saved by her pacifier blocking the black hole. All of the town and the Simpsons family arrive on a planet with aliens on the other side of the black hole. The aliens believe all of the trash they sent through were actually gifts. 

4/10

Un-normal Activity

A parody of Paranormal Activity. A film I've never seen.

Homer is taking a video of the house because weird stuff is happening. The camera catches a ghost attacking Homer while he sleeps. On Night 6 the cameras pick up Marge being possessed. Chief Wiggum now tells the family that somebody made a pact with the devil and that the creature feeds on fear. On Night 15 the creature who looks like Moe is stealing Maggie when it is revealed that Marge made the pact. Flashback to Patty and Selma as children successfully summoning the demon and then Marge makes the pact that her favourite child will be taken in 30 years. Lisa protests that she thought she was the favourite so the demon takes her instead. Homer comes up with his own pact with the demon.

Homer has a three-way with two demons.
2/10

Bart and Homer's Excellent Adventure

Bart protests to Comic Book Guy that he is selling a comic that has the price 25 cents for 200 dollars. Comic Book Guy says the only way to buy it for 25 cents is to go back to 1974. Bart steals Professor Frink's time machine/car and goes back to 1974. The time vortex is demonstrated by going back through Bond films. Bart buys the comic and thinks it is pretty good and throws it out. In a recreation of an early flashback episode, Bart bumps into Homer at detention and aggravates him to strange him which leads to his first meeting with Marge being a bad one.

Homer and Marge argue but Bart realises his life is much better in the future now as the pictures show he lives in a mansion. Bart tells Marge not to marry Homer. Young Homer sneaks into the time machine's boot and Bart returns to the future. Young Homer loves the future. Bart finds that his father is now Artie Ziff so be is Bartie Ziff. Young Homer meets Future Homer and they decide to team up to make Marge settle for him. Future Homer turns up at the Ziff house with many different Homers from history including Caveman Homer, Robin Hood Homer, Cowboy Homer, French Homer, Pope Homer and Elvis Homer.

Artie Ziff and Bartie Ziff beat them all up. Marge arrives and sees the beaten up Homers and realises she made a mistake and was supposed to be with them the whole time. Time is suddenly fixed and all the Homers are watching TV. Marge is angry that she always has to take the trash out so they make Egyptain Slave Homer take out the trash.

4/10

Homer had a three-way with two demons.