Simpsons intro question

[Robot DeNiro]

We've all seen the intro to The Simpsons a thousand times, right?

The bit where Bart is on his skatebaord, and he goes past  Mrs Lovejoy, Apu, Moe, Krusty (on TV) Bleeding Gums Murphy, Chief Wiggum...and this guy:



Who the hell is he?  It's driving me mad.  WHO IS HE?

Does anyone know the answer?

If (as I suspect) there is no answer, feel free to use this thread for any interesting (or not so interesting) Simpsons trivia, opinions as to why it's not as good as it used to be etc etc

thanks

[dan dirty ape]

It's Jacques, the French ten pin bowler who Marge nearly but didn't have an affair with in one of the first episodes.

[Darrell]

Bloody hell! You get good question-answering service on here, don't you!

[Rev]

Am I right in thinking that they've only overhauled the title sequence once, or has it been tinkered with since then?  It's kind of strange to have Bleeding Gums standing around on the street when he was killed off years ago.  Y'know, when you think about it and that.

[Robot DeNiro]

Thank you Dan Dirty Ape!  Not only have you got one of the best names around, you have put my mind at rest.  And so quickly too.

I am forever in your debt.

Warning:  Debt will not be repaid with money, goods or services

[hands cold, liver warm]

I might be wrong but wasn't  the french character Jacques voiced by albert brooks?

[weirdbeard]

Am I right in thinking that they've only overhauled the title sequence once, or has it been tinkered with since then?  It's kind of strange to have Bleeding Gums standing around on the street when he was killed off years ago.  Y'know, when you think about it and that.

Yeah, at the start of Season 2.   It used to be Bart going past on his skateboard and taking away the Bus Stop sign, causing the bus to go past it, and the waiting people to chase after it.

[heavyelectricity]

I have only seen the full sequence once and I think it's a shame that they don't play it any more. I remember watching it fully for the first time and it had me laughing more than the actual episode, maybe thats why they stopped it.

I have a question to ask tho... I never had sky and so could only watch it on BBC2 and I thought that I must have missed a hell of a lot of episodes however whenever I catch it on BBC2 now I always manage to catch an episode I have already seen... Has this happened to anyone else? How many series are there? And is it something to do with the BBC that I only see ones I have already seen, I mean did they only buy the first series or something?

[Geej]

How long until King mob answers this?

There are lots of answers to your questions but basically -

Yup BBC got the first few series.  

Then the Simpsons got VERY popular, and eventually bidding for the new series went through the roof.  
Seriously stupid money was being paid (£700,000 per episode?) and Channel 4 got them.  

I think on Terrestrial we have only ever seen Series 1-5 but someone is bound to tell us the truth here.

[mook]

There's fifteen series in total, if you've got broadband and aren't adverse to a bit of torrenting you can get the whole kit and caboodle HERE.

It seems like the beeb only has about three episodes. the one where lisa and homer go to the new age shop and have a bash in the flotation tank, and two halloween ones. I'm sure a whore will pop along in a minute to answer you though.

[TOCMFIC]

It's funny. Over here The Simpsons is on about 7 times a day. Seriously. I can watch at

2pm
3pm
4pm
5pm
6pm
6:30pm
7pm (two different channels)
7:30pm
8pm
10pm
1am

And on weekends, if you wanted too, you could sit down at 1pm through to 7pm and watch nothing but Simpsons.

The funny part is they ALL, despite some being from the US, some airing on Canadian stations, seem to be in sync. If I see one episode that I've not seen in ages, I'll see it several times over the next few weeks, then it will disappear again. For example, three heavily rotated ones right now are the one where Bart and Homer are tethered together, the Homer Simpsons roast episode, and the one with Homer and Ned going to Vegas. ("Can the poems. It's arse whupping time!")

A few months ago, Homer managing Lurlene Lumpkin was on a lot.

The World Trade Center one went into heavy rotation a while back, but has gone again now.

It's all very strange. It does get tiresome seeing the same episodes over and over again, especially at the expense of other, classic episodes. (Mid February, several of the stations got obsessed with showing Christmas episodes?!)

[chand]

It seems like the beeb only has about three episodes. the one where lisa and homer go to the new age shop and have a bash in the flotation tank, and two halloween ones. I'm sure a whore will pop along in a minute to answer you though.

Yeah, the series BBC2 are showing now was on in and around I think November of last year as well, cos I remember seeing the Homer-goes-into-the-grease-business episode at a mate's house back then, and it was on again just the other week.

I dunno what series it is though, but I'm sure someone on here said it was around series 10. It's a shame, because there are loads of episodes I think I haven't seen, or have seen only once. It's been a long time since I saw any of the early episodes on TV, a thought that strikes me when I watched the 3rd season DVD and barely recalled most of the episodes.

[Bilko]

It's Jacques, the French ten pin bowler who Marge nearly but didn't have an affair with in one of the first episodes.

That episode was on Sky One last night.

[weirdbeard]

I think on Terrestrial we have only ever seen Series 1-5 but someone is bound to tell us the truth here.

Up to and including Season 11 actually, which is been shown again on BBC2 starting on Friday.   I think America and Sky are on Season 15 at the moment.  Both companies seem to have a sort of rolling rights agreement at the moment which meants you'll see early episodes on the BBC for a couple of months, then on SKY for another couple of months.  But SKY gets all new episodes first or course.  At the moment, the BBC have been showing seasons 10 and 11 over and over again for ages which is extremely annoying.  I don't know when the Channel 4 thing is set to start, think it was set to be about now, but I haven't heard anything about it for ages now.  Not that I'm too keen on them getting it anyway due to 1) Adverts and 2) Their disgusting treatment of Futurama.