movies

Simpsons Simpsons Simpsons!

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Like many people, I love the Simpsons. Seriously. I have seasons 2 – 11 on VHS tape because my mother said when I was in 7th grade, “You should tape the episodes if you like the show because its going to be canceled any day now.” That statement was made in the year 1990. In case you don’t have a calendar, 17 years have passed.
Along with Seinfeld, the Simpsons constitute the core of what I believe humor to be and while the show’s quality has dipped in recent years, I still and always will love Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, Maggie, Santa’s Little Helper, Snowball I, Snowball II, the entire Flanders family, Comic Book Guy, Dr. Marvin Monroe, Kent Brockman, Troy McClure, Barney, Moe, Disco Stu, Snake, Professor Frink, Carl, Lenny, Nelson, Mr. Burns, Smithers, Principal Skinner, Super Nintendo Chalmers, Kang, Kodos, etc. I basically can go on forever because all of the characters are important but I’ll just stop there so that this doesn’t become a 10,000 word post.
I have been putting this off for way too long now but as the movie is opening this coming Friday, I am running out of time to collect all things Simpsons into one massive post. If you haven’t noticed the Simpsons paraphernalia in the media lately, you are blind, deaf and dumb because yellow is in and it’s everywhere. Therefore, here is a run-down of all the cool stuff that has been going on for the past month or so:
1) Springfield, VT won a nationwide contest to see which Springfield would debut the movie. It’s video beat out Springfield, Illinois by only 1,000 votes (15k to 14k) but the party which was held last weekend wasn’t even close. For the debut, Page McConnell of Phish was there to play the Simpsons theme song, Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream debuted a special one-time one-day only flavor called Duff & D’oh-Nuts and renamed “Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough” to “Chocolate Chip Cookie D’oh” for the day. Last but certainly not least, Magic Hat Brewery made a special batch of Duff Beer.
2) Certain 7-Elevens nationwide have turned themselves into Kwik-E-Marts. This bit of product placement is way cooler than GM doing all the cars in the Transformers movie. Below is a photo from a Flickr photo set of the Kwik-E-Mart, I mean 7-Eleven, in Times Square.

Kwik_TimesSquare.jpg

3) The Simpsons Movie web site is pretty cool. Not only can you explore all things Springfield but the site allows you to make your own Simpsons avatar who lives there. Mine I named Double Jays and you can see him below along with a screen shot of Double Jays hanging in Moe’s Tavern:

avatar.jpg
doublejays_moes.jpg

4) Burger King has a viral site called Simpsonsize Me where you can upload a photo and see what it looks like when you’ve been Simpsonized. My pic, which looks nothing like me, is posted below:

jeffSimpsonize.jpg

5) ESPN has a great article about the classic “Homer at the Bat” episode. Yes, I can sing all the words of the “Talkin Baseball” parody and yes, I do on occasion shout “Mattingly, shave those sideburns!” during key moments of Yankee games just for shits and giggles. This is one of many episodes I have on tape complete with circa 1990 commercials. Hysterical, always and forever.

I cannot wait for Friday!

tech

Wii Love the Simpsons

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Coming soon to a video console near you: The Simpsons Game! It is being created in partnership with Gracie Films and Twentieth Century Fox and is not based on the upcoming Simpsons movie. Rather, it is an original story from writers who create the TV program and it will feature the entire voice cast from the TV show. Basically, you just need to be prepared to never leave your couch as it seems that its going to be just plain awesome.
Techtree news said:

“Players must use exciting, all new powers to save the world from rising chaos, with Homer, Marge, Bart, Maggie, and Lisa being playable characters. Players will have to make a journey through all of Springfield, battle an array of villains, and fight their way through various parodies of multiple popular video games.”

The game has over 15 levels and each will take the form of an episode of the series, with a unique title animation, setting, and story. Within each episode, players will take control of two family members, or play one of them with a friend in a split-screen two-player mode.
It is scheduled for release at the end of this year for basically everything: PS3, PS2, PSP, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, and Nintendo DS.
After the jump, read the preview from Yahoo! News. I have just one thing to say: Aye Carumba!
Via Phyl
The Simpsons Game Preview: May 10, 2007 from Yahoo! News
Like Bart and Milhouse plotting in the Simpsons family tree house, EA was cooking up a little something-something on May 7, 2007. Outside, hundreds were celebrating a milestone 400th episode of The Simpsons. But inside the Fox Studios cafeteria, guarded by famed bartender Moe Szyslak, The Simpsons Game was being unveiled to a select group of press representatives.
Executive Producer Scot Amos set the scene: “We wanted to stay true to the fans, first and foremost. We wanted to make the ultimate video game for the Simpsons characters.” The first step was crafting a script worthy of the license. To do that, EA enlisted a trio of the show’s writers and producers, Matt Selman, Tim Long, and Matt Warburton.
The three spoke to us about the game’s focus, and earned massive gamer cred. “EA has been great to us,” said Selman. “They’re much better than the other monolithic video game companies.” The plot promises a plethora of surprises, poking fun at not only standard pop-culture, but also game-centric segments and parodies to appease even the most hardcore gamers. Unfortunately, the camp was keeping all of these secrets, well, top-secret.
They would tell us the game featured over an hour of new, TV-worthy material in cutscene form. All the actors reprise their roles for voiceovers, so it will be as authentic as possible. Tim Long quipped, “We’re not going for a hard ESRB rating here, but I will tell you some of the lines are so dirty, they made the cast cry.” Also, very early in the game, the Simpsons figure out that they’re actually inside a video game, which means all Springfield breaks loose.
Amos and Creative Director Jonathan Knight took us through one chunk of the game, however. It was an eating contest at the Duff Brewery, and the player controlled Homer. The perspective was free-roaming 3D, as Homer battled Barney, Krusty and other familiar characters to reach food. Surprisingly, after ingesting enough grub, Homer could turn into Homerball — ransacking the place as a gigantic sphere.
Being in a video game (and being aware of it), the family Simpson is not tied to the limitations of the show as much. Each one has a superpower to exploit: Homer has his ball form; Bart turns into Bartman; Marge can command hordes of characters; and Lisa can change the environment. Each of these has their own advantages, and the level design allows you to use them both to complete prime objectives and do a little exploring to find secrets and gather pick-ups.
Back to the eating contest: The stage is almost like Epcot Center, with various geographical locations. Homer trashes Germany, Mexico, and others — partially with the help of a spicy pepper (referencing the chili cook-off episode) to turn into a ball of lava. When it comes time to go through Scotland, Groundskeeper Willie closes the gate.
Now it’s time to switch to Bart, and use Bartman’s glide ability to scale the wall and take out Willie with some well-placed slingshot fire. This is a good time to mention the co-op gameplay. Each stage features two Simpsons family members, and you can switch between them during play. Much like LEGO Star Wars, a second player can jump in at any time. This turns everything split-screen, and the difficulty scales dynamically.
Online play will not be supported, but EA’s reasoning is sound. Knight says, “Our focus has been high-quality couch play. People are going to want to own the game because their friend will come over for a Homerball vs. Homerball match, or to play through the story with them. It’s going to bring the whole family together.” The prospect of multiplayer-centric minigames is definitely exciting.
Being a 3D game about a 2D family brings up some complications. You need to be faithful to the show, but expand the world to be more exciting. You need to have the Simpsons themselves be 3D, but still look hand-drawn. The team worked many months in research and development to solve this. Knight says, “We have a patent pending on this tech to real-time deform the mesh of faces as you move the camera around. It’s important that they stay looking like Bart or Homer from any angle.”
This addresses problems with past 3D Simpsons games, where something just didn’t look right — be it Lisa’s hair or Homer’s marshmallow-man physique. Knight says, “You want Lisa’s hair to look like a flat 2D billboard from any angle. There’s a lot of technology behind it, but it looks effortless in the game. But once you see it, you can never go back to another Simpsons game. It’s the first time we’re capturing the look and feel of the TV show.”
As we got to see the game in action (on Xbox 360), we can attest to the beautiful and faithful art style. It’s like you could pause it at any time, and it looks like an animation cel from the show. The Simpsons has simplistic visuals to be sure, but the game doesn’t skimp on details. Physics react realistically (for a cartoon, of course), and the animation is very solid. Also, things like flesh bunched up on the Homerball are nice — albeit disturbing — touches.
We’ve gotten relatively technical talking about graphics, but Simpsons creator Matt Groening popped in to put things into perspective: “This is the most ambitious Simpsons game ever. It rewards people that love games, while making fun of other games.” This isn’t just a video game starring The Simpsons; this is exactly how The Simpsons themselves would do video games. Due to release in late fall, we still have a long time to wait, but with reruns, the upcoming movie, and no shortage of DVDs, there are plenty of outlets to get your Simpsons fix in the meantime.

ramblings

The Only 2 Special Guest Voices on the Simpsons, Ever.

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I don’t remember how I ended up at the Ancient Mystic Society of No Homers site today and I really don’t care. Of course I loved it and poked around for a while. I even gained some more knowledge about my favorite yellow family that I felt like sharing. In the FAQ section, there is a question “Who are Sam Etic and John Jay Smith, and why were they credited as special guest voices?”

The answer is that “Sam Etic” (a play on ‘semitic’) is really Dustin Hoffman. He played Mr. Bergstrom in Lisa’s Subsitute in season 2. “John Jay Smith” is really Michael Jackson. He did the “Michael Jackson” voice for mental patient Leon Kompowski in Stark Raving Dad in season 3, although his singing was done by session vocalist Kipp Lennon, since Jackson’s record company forbade him from singing himself. Both performers could not use their names because of contractual obligations.

This was pointed out in a meta-reference in the season 4 episode Itchy and Scratchy: The Movie, when Lisa mentions that Hoffman and Jackson had guest roles in the movie: “Of course they didn’t use their real names, but you could tell it was them!”

After Stark Raving Dad, Matt Groening, fearing a trend, would only let guest stars on if they used their real names.

I always thought that it was MJ in that episode but never had 100% confirmation. Now I do. Yay.

ramblings

Best of Blah Blah Blog (week of 8/2)

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For months now, I have been enjoying the smart, esoteric and down right hilarious posts that appear on my co-worker Chris DiClerico’s blog (which oddly enough is located at www.chrisdiclerico.com). Many days Chris will arrive at work and ask me, “Have you seen my blog?” which means one of four different things:

A) He learned something interesting

B) He found something that is pretty cool

C) He saw something that is very funny

D) He did something that is one or probably all of the above and I’m going to laugh my ass off hearing about it

I will then go to his site, read the post and most of the time I’ll then post that info to my own site (giving credit usually to Chris). He has a committed base of authors who regularly post, which is something that I do not have. So, as an homage to his site, and to copy how CNN International airs a Daily Show “Hightlights of the Week” show, I have decided to each week to write a “Best of Blah Blah Blog” post.

Here is the first installment:

>> Create your own South Park character is a fun little app featured on the South Park site.

>> The Simpsons Personality Test is exactly what is says: you answer a number of “strongly agree/agree/disagree/strongly disagree” questions and the site tells you which Simpsons character you most closely resemble.

>> A picture says a thousand words. This animal is real. Sick!

ramblings

Art Imitating Life Imitating Art – or – My New Favorite Baseball Team

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My co-worker Jason will be taking a trip out west in a few weeks. One of the things he likes to do when travelling to different parts of America is to seek out and go to minor league baseball games in those areas. In looking for minor league baseball clubs around Sante Fe, New Mexico, he discovered the greatest baseball club throughout the land: the Albuquerque Isotopes. This club, the Florida Marlin’s AAA club, was named after, yes, you guessed it, the Springfield Isotopes from “The Simpsons.”

This is the second pro-franchise that I know of that has been named after a fictional team. The Anaheim Mighty Ducks were named after the Disney movie of the same name (and not the other way around as some would like to believe) but the ‘Topes are a hell of a lot cooler. I’m hoping that Jason will pick up a tee shirt for me. Ever since learning of this club’s existence, I cannot get the Simpson’s version of “Talking Baseball” out of my head:

We’re talking softball, from Maine to San Diego
Talking softball, Mattingly and Canseco
Ken Griffey’s grotesquely swollen jaw
Steve Sax and his run ins with the law
We’re talking Homer, Ozzie and the Straw….

Even the ‘Topes mascot looks like the mascot from the Simpsons, the one that “Dancing Homer” took over for. I wonder if there are any merchandising tie-ins at the park. I’ll have to wait for Jason to return with his report. I can’t wait…

ramblings

“D’oh! Looks like Dear Abby isn’t a Simpsons fan”

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I grabbed the copy below from an E Online news post:

The nationally syndicated columnist was taken in by a hoax letter that bore a strong resemblance to a day in the life of the dysfunctional cartoon family.

Dear Abby (real name: Jeanne Phillips) penned a reply to a letter purportedly from “Stuck in a Love Triangle,” which described a picture of less-than-domestic bliss.

The column was sent out to papers last week, but was withheld from Monday’s editions after a sharp-eyed editor recognized Simpson similarities. In the column, titled “Wife meets perfect match after husband strikes out,” Stuck complained to Dear Abby that she was a 34-year-old mother of three, married for 10 years to a “greedy, selfish, inconsiderate and rude” partner by the name of Gene.

An unwitting Gene had committed the unforgivable sin of gifting his darling wife with a bowling ball for her birthday–a bowling ball that was sized for his fingers and engraved with his name, no less.
Frustrated, Stuck decided to make the most of the situation and hit the local alley for bowling lessons.

Little did she expect to find love at the lanes, but as it turned out, a dashing suitor by the name of Franco, a “kind, considerate and loving” individual, was waiting in the wings.

Soon thereafter, Stuck fell head over ninepin for Franco, who subsequently proposed.

“I no longer love Gene,” Stuck confessed in her letter. “I want to divorce him and marry Franco. At the same time, I’m worried that Gene won’t be able to move on with his life. I also think our kids would be devastated. What should I do?”

Replying in her usual sanctimonious, pun-laden manner, Dear Abby advised Stuck to discuss her reasons for cheating with Gene.

“To save the marriage,” read the smarmy counsel, “he might be willing to change back to the man who bowled you over in the first place.”

An editor at one of the newspapers that subscribes to the column noticed that the events described sounded awfully similar to an episode of The Simpsons titled “Life on the Fast Lane.”

In the episode, a less-than-suave Homer presents Marge with a birthday bowling ball.

Marge heads off to the lanes to bowl a few rounds, where she meets another man.

In both the letter and the show, each husband grows suspicious of his wife after discovering a bowling glove–a gift from the other man.

Homer reacts by proclaiming his love for Marge, who later meets him at the nuclear power plant where he works.

Before a crowd of cheering coworkers, Homer hefts Marge into his arms and carries her out of the plant–presumably to live happily ever after.

The conclusion to Stuck in a Love Triangle’s star-crossed romance, on the other hand, will forever remain a mystery.

Via E Online