Gervais Simpsons episode: Discuss whether or not you think he's a cunt, here.

[darkglobe]

Jaws Wired Shut was a magnificent episode IMO. The Popeye pastiche is one of my favourite Simpsons moments ever.

*edit* Also gazzy, I think they have decided to make a good few more series now, sure I heard that recently.

Jaws Wired Shut is indeed a wonderful ep, Homers emotion and they way he bonds with Lisa and Bart and esp Marge is brilliant.

But yes, this Gervais ep, truely awful.  Even worse then the Willie one of this season which i thought was the worst for a long time.
I've enjoyed most of S17 so far,  though i have a feeling the best are being held back until the end of the run, like with S16, the best ones seemed to be towards the end of the run.

I think they got another 2 year extension, which will take them S19.

[Mister Six]

What's this episode called?

[darkglobe]

What's this episode called?

Homer Simpson, This Is Your Wife

From the internet -

"The live action opening sequence will be unveiled to audiences nationwide tonight, as part of the long awaited airing of the Ricky Gervais-written episode Homer Simpson, This Is Your Wife. Homer enters a contest to win a plasma TV but ends up winning a trip to Fox Studios, where he joins a new Fox reality TV series (which is suspiciously like Trading Spouses: Meet Your New Mommy) and ends up trading wives with another man (voiced by Gervais)."
---
"An appearance by Ricky Gervais and the live-action Simpsons opening were enough to boost The Simpsons viewers back up to a respectable 10.14 million viewers on Sunday. At 8pm The Simpsons was equal third, behind 60 Minutes and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, while overall for the night, Fox came in fourth placed. The comedy lineup was enough to boost the network to third amongst the 18-49 demographic. A new episode of Family Guy at 8pm managed 8.15 million."
(all relating to US figures from the weekend)

and a repulsive picture to really make you want to punch either RG or Groening for even allowing him near The Simpsons....

http://www.simpsonschannel.com/screenshots/shot713.gif

[Utter Shit]

Jaws Wired Shut was a magnificent episode IMO. The Popeye pastiche is one of my favourite Simpsons moments ever.

*edit* Also gazzy, I think they have decided to make a good few more series now, sure I heard that recently.

Jaws Wired Shut is indeed a wonderful ep, Homers emotion and they way he bonds with Lisa and Bart and esp Marge is brilliant.

But yes, this Gervais ep, truely awful.  Even worse then the Willie one of this season which i thought was the worst for a long time.
I've enjoyed most of S17 so far,  though i have a feeling the best are being held back until the end of the run, like with S16, the best ones seemed to be towards the end of the run.

I think they got another 2 year extension, which will take them S19.

Yeah it has that emotional side, but there are plenty of good gags too. Every time the donkey is involved I am laughing my balls off.

Oh, and Homer inhaling the steak when he realises he can't eat...fantastic.

[TotalNightmare]

CHORTLE PRESENT

A MARTIN CAX REVIEW

OF

THAT GERVIAS/SIMPSONS THING

Ricky does Springfield

Review: Ricky Gervais on the Simpsons
 
The day after it aired in the US, complete with that brilliant Sky real-life opening scene, a lucky few souls were invited into a Soho screening room to get a dose of The Simpsons, Ricky Gervais-style.

What can I say about it? Well it's good. Very good. Gervais has managed to make The Simpsons that little bit odd, giving it a new lease of life, a new style of humour and – dare I say it? –  a few more belly laughs than a regular episode.

The show is half The Simpsons, half The Office as Ricky voices Charles, an awkward, goateed character whose only difference to David Brent is the name – oh and that he is yellow and animated. Otherwise he has the same terrible sense of humour, looks to camera and cringe-inducing songs. It's odd, to start with, to hear Ricky but see an animation but after a few minutes, you slouch into your chair, forget about it and find yourself laughing your head off.

Gervais loves the show, and in writing this episode, he has ensured the core characters stay the same, although the addition of Charles means some of the others don't get much of a look-in. Bart and Lisa, for example, are underused.

So what happens?  To cut a 22-minute story short, Homer becomes obsessed with high-definition TV and finds out the family can win a set by signing up for a reality wife swap show. So Marge moves in with Charles and Homer has Charles' controlling wife living with him, Charles then falls in love with Marge as she gives him the strength to stand up to his own wife. Much hilarity ensues, the credits role, and the Gracie Films lady says 'shhh'.

The joy of the episode lies in seeing a humour that isn't exploited that much on The Simpsons. Ricky really has put his stamp of social awkwardness on the script, and when mixed with Simpsons' brand of slapstick you get a unique episode that it will surely stand up to repeat viewing – just like The Office.

Ricky had been worried his involvement might damage the how he loves so much, but he has managed to reinvigorate it. There are some noticeable shoe-hornings of American references, but the one thing Ricky has done really well is combine the adult humour of the show with things the huge child fan base will still love.

The best moments are when Gervais writes for Homer, giving him brilliantly stupid lines, and a guest appearance from a cartoon Dan Castellaneta – the man who provides Homer's voice – along with a little nod to Christopher Guest's brilliant movie, Best In Show (and let's not forget Ricky is to appear in Best's next film) keeps the postmodernism alive and well.

The show is likely to be praised massively, because a Brit in Springfield is such a big thing, but it really does deserve that praise. There is talk of him doing more, and I for one can't wait – but this episode was two years in the making so I guess I'll have to.

Homer Simpson: This Is Your Wife airs on Sunday April 23 at 6.30pm on Sky One. Or if you don't have Sky it'll be on terrestrial TV in about 2010. Seriously.

[Al Tha Funkee Homosapien]

Ugh.

[lazyhour]

Wow.

What was the Best In Show 'nod'?

[Artemis]

I'd be interested to know what made Martin Cax 'belly laugh', bless his little soul. I couldn't find one thing. Gervais has given The Simpsons a "new lease of life"? Fucking hell.

[johnfuego]

Just watched it. I am no fan of the Simpsons but this was carcrash stuff.

Gervais was plain shite. He was wooden in his voiceover and the gags were half-arsed.

The bloke that wrote that Chortle review is mad if he can't see how bad it was.

Or trying to kiss up to his comedy hero.

Gervais was rendered impotent without his s*****c-baiting, comedy racism, crap cultural references to Lenny Henry, acting friend Karl and main gimp Steve.

He ought to be embarassed.

[TheWizard]

It's kind of odd as there are essentially four runs of Simpsons. There's the DVD's which are up to 7. Channel 4 who paid all that money for seasons 1, 4, 5, 6, 11, 12, 13 and still haven't shown season 13 which is better than either of those two seasons. Season 14 has some good episodes too as does 15 when it looked like they were starting to turn it around again but the season that's just finished on Sky (16) was weaker again and the episodes i've seen of season 17 have been pretty bad and this Gervais one was one of the best. Mainly before Gervais' character turned up it has to be noted.

Here are some decent post 2000 episodes

Behind the Laughter
The Computer Wore Menace Shoes (if ony for the Prisnor section)
HOMR
Trilogy of Error
A Hunka Hunka Burns in Love
Jaws Wired Shut
Half Decent Proposal
I Am Furious Yellow
Poppa's Got a Brand New Badge (mainly for The Sopranos bit)
Bart vs. Lisa vs. 3rd Grade
I'm Spelling As Fast As I Can
Milhouse Doesn't Live Here Anymore
The Ziff Who Came to Dinner
Catch 'em if You Can (again mainly for the Catch Me If You Can titles spoof)
The Way We Weren't
Fraudcast News
Midnight Rx

That's about it really.

[Catalogue Trousers]

TheWizard wrote:

Catch 'em if You Can (again mainly for the Catch Me If You Can titles spoof)

Really? That bit just had me rolling my eyes in bored irritation. Ah well.

[TheWizard]

It did go on slightly too long but they wouldn't have even attempted it a few years before. They gay Cuban and Grandpa was a bit odd.

[neveragain]

What was the credits-overlap Whose Line Is It Anyway pastiche that someone mentioned? The version I watched cut off just before the credits rolled.

But dear God, it was excruciating. One good line in my opinion, Homer saying to Gervais 'You take a very long time to say nothing'. Precisely.

[Marv Orange]

It was the animated gervais singing/appearing behing the credits and running out of song before the credits had finished.

[Munday's Chylde]

Rickys voice sticks out like a sore thumb doesnt it? He's no cartoon character.

I'm interested in the writing of it - the credit was simply "written by ricky gervais" - is that true do you think? It was far from a good episode but it was still the typical gag, gag, gag, gag, gag rate - I'd be surprised if Gervais could do that on his own - it seems more likely he just wrote all the brentisms.

[Al Tha Funkee Homosapien]

[HOMER REACTS]

[TheWizard]

They do say that after all the re-writes it's only the basic storyline and no more than 40% of the orginal material that is left in. Has been the case even since season 3.

[Marv Orange]

Rickys voice sticks out like a sore thumb doesnt it? He's no cartoon character.

I'm interested in the writing of it - the credit was simply "written by ricky gervais" - is that true do you think? It was far from a good episode but it was still the typical gag, gag, gag, gag, gag rate - I'd be surprised if Gervais could do that on his own - it seems more likely he just wrote all the brentisms.

They have lots of staff writers that are never credited, plus there were a couple of very america -centric jokes that I would be surprised if ricky wrote them.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

What we all want to know though is: did Homer REACT?

[Munday's Chylde]

No it was utterly awkward silence free... which is why the sole writing credit didn't ring true for me.

[Marv Orange]

Maybe not from homer but from gervais's character, pauses and even tie adjustments.

[TheWizard]

The Genie joke went on uncomfortably long (It wasn't the half head orange one either)

[lazyhour]

What was the 'nod' to Best In Show?  Anyone notice one?

[Rob_76587]

Awful.  A couple of decent Homer one-liners but that was it.  It'd be interesting to find out how much of the final draft he submitted was re-written by the Simpsons team.

I thought that. It was okay until he turned up .That man is the definition of a one trick pony. Fucking terrible, I couldn't watch it after the 'I'm an Office manager' line.

Sorry for bumping an oldish thread. I couldn't hold it in.

[SaintBernard]

I thought it was pretty much on par with recent Simpsons episodes. I knew it would be bashed though. People's sheer hatred for Ricky Gervais always baffles me, and it seems these people are equally as baffled by people who worship him. Baffling.

[rupert pupkin]

I thought it was pretty much on par with recent Simpsons episodes. I knew it would be bashed though. People's sheer hatred for Ricky Gervais always baffles me, and it seems these people are equally as baffled by people who worship him. Baffling.

And I'm baffled by both sets of people. Gervais on top of his game in The Office is terrific, but everything else he's done is half-baked at best. Even Extras was only funny about 50% of the time, usually when Gervais and Scottish woman weren't speaking.

[Rob_76587]

I thought it was pretty much on par with recent Simpsons episodes. I knew it would be bashed though. People's sheer hatred for Ricky Gervais always baffles me, and it seems these people are equally as baffled by people who worship him. Baffling.

And I'm baffled by both sets of people. Gervais on top of his game in The Office is terrific, but everything else he's done is half-baked at best. Even Extras was only funny about 50% of the time, usually when Gervais and Scottish woman weren't speaking.

He doesn't bother me, I liked the Office, I watched his standups and was relatively amused but it is painful to watch someone embarrass themselves like this (and in Extras) and annoying to see him endlessly lauded while a show like Peep Show goes generally unnoticed.

[Frinky]

I thought it was pretty much on par with recent Simpsons episodes. I knew it would be bashed though.

Your first statement makes your second a logical conclusion rather than a revelation.

[fudgemonkey]

Even worse then the Willie one of this season which i thought was the worst for a long time.

I think the episode was awful but enjoyed the Bombardment bits.

[Duckula]

Surely I can't be the only one who finds it impossible to enjoy any of the new episodes?

The characters feel so stale now it's unreal.