tegan

What is the Nadir of the Simpsons?

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So it's pretty reasonable to assume who dies in the premiere based on the episode title and this promo art:

 

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I really hope it's just a red herring, because

 

Krusty already got the best sendoff he could ask for way back when he faked his own death in "Bart the Fink".

 

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That will make way for Fox's two exciting new spin-offs: Simpson's in Hell and Simpson's in Heaven. Watch as your America's favorite animated family learns to navigate new communities in their hilariously loveable ways, while seeking to reunite in Purgatory.

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My old prediction used to be that the show wouldn't be cancelled until one of the main six voice actors died, but I'm sure that by now there's a file in some FOX executive's office with the names and contact info for the best possible replacement VAs for every character, or maybe they'll just start pulling from the massive library of voice samples they must have and plug them into a Vocaloid or something. The point is, my new prediction is that the show will, as Troy McClure himself said, "continue until it becomes unprofitable" (but still won't be cancelled until after a significant VA dies).

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Hey guys, remember to tune in tonight for a double dose of hilarity with the season 26 premiere in which someone (probably Krusty) dies and the Family Guy crossover!

 

AREN'T YOU EXCITED?!

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Sounds like we might have just found our answer to the thread's titular question.

 

(at least until next week)

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A THOUSAND times this. Going back and watching those old episodes, some of which I've seen multiple times, there are STILL jokes I don't get. And multi-layered jokes (I got that "Chairman Moe's Magic Wok" was funny because Moe had wanted American cooking, but it took my most recent viewing to realize it's ALSO a riff on Chairman Mao) that are funny when you get them and even FUNNIER when you GET them.

 

My favourite example of Simpson's joke density is from Nightmare on Evergreen Terrace, when Marge is explaining how Willy became a dream-jumping murderer.

 

Marge: It was the 13th hour of the 13th day of the 13th month [joke]. We were at the school to discuss the misprinted calendars [joke]. [Visual joke showing a calendar that says "Smarch"]

Homer: Brrr... lousy Smarch weather [joke]. [Homer walks to the thermostat, sees a sign that says Don't Touch - Willy]. Don't touch Willy, good advice [joke].

 

Then there's the whole sequence of Willy getting burned and trying to save himself, intercut with the PTA meeting explaining how they cut the budget for everything that would have saved him

 

It's like fifteen jokes in one minute. It's nuts.

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Hey guys, remember to tune in tonight for a double dose of hilarity with the season 26 premiere in which someone (probably Krusty) dies and the Family Guy crossover!

 

AREN'T YOU EXCITED?!

 

Tonight's episode apparently has a Don Hertzfeldt couch gag.  He's one of the most entertaining independent animators out there.  His Bill Trilogy is just powerful, captivating work.

 

So tune in for the couch gag, at least!

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My second pick for the most likely character to die turned out to be true:

Krusty's dad, who's only appeared onscreen in eleven episodes, only spoken enough dialogue to be worth bringing back Jackie Mason in three episodes, and hasn't appeared since 2010.

 

It looks like they're kind of backing away from the heavy promotion they did.

 

"It was not designed to be a premiere or a promotable event. I was doing a phone interview and somebody said, 'What's coming up?' and I thought instead of saying it directly, I'll just say the actor (who voices the character) won an Emmy. And the next thing I knew, it was on the front pages in Uruguay and the sensation grew," Jean says. "Well, once that happened, we said, 'OK, let's make a big deal of it.'"

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Tonight's episode apparently has a Don Hertzfeldt couch gag.  He's one of the most entertaining independent animators out there.  His Bill Trilogy is just powerful, captivating work.

 

So tune in for the couch gag, at least!

 

I wondered why I was seeing Don Hertzfeldt cartoon insanity on my television after football.

 

How/why did that pairing happen?

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That's just a thing that happens now. Guillermo Del Toro, Sylvain Chomet, Jon Kricfalusi, and Banksy have all guest directed/animated couch gags in the last few years.

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My second pick for the most likely character to die turned out to be true:

Krusty's dad, who's only appeared onscreen in eleven episodes, only spoken enough dialogue to be worth bringing back Jackie Mason in three episodes, and hasn't appeared since 2010.

 

It looks like they're kind of backing away from the heavy promotion they did.

This reminds me of the 138th episode spectacular when one of the trivia questions was, "Which two popular characters passed away on the Simpsons last season? If you answered Bleeding Gums Murphy and Dr. Marvin Monroe, you're incorrect! They were never popular!"

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The guest couch gags always make me sad, when comparing some of the brilliant animation in these one-offs compared to the mass-produced stiff animation of the proper episodes... :(

 

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That's just a thing that happens now. Guillermo Del Toro, Sylvain Chomet, Jon Kricfalusi, and Banksy have all guest directed/animated couch gags in the last few years.

John K.'s was just dreadful. It made me lose faith in him as an animator since he was on this shtick for a while that he should just keep animating even if he draws something weird and get all nuts with his inbetweens going all over the place. But his new short is a return to form, just wish he could have applied his traditional animating style to the Simpsons since it's sort of a big deal.

 

This reminds me of the 138th episode spectacular when one of the trivia questions was, "Which two popular characters passed away on the Simpsons last season? If you answered Bleeding Gums Murphy and Dr. Marvin Monroe, you're incorrect! They were never popular!"

The fact that Dr. Monroe was never actually shown dying or dead always used to bug me as a kid because I guess I took the trivia more seriously.

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The fact that Dr. Monroe was never actually shown dying or dead always used to bug me as a kid because I guess I took the trivia more seriously.

 

If I remember correctly he didn't even actually die.  I think he reappeared later, having been out of the country the entire time.  Bleeding Gums dying bummed me out though.

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The fact that Dr. Monroe was never actually shown dying or dead always used to bug me as a kid because I guess I took the trivia more seriously.

 

Harry Shearer just found the voice too taxing to keep doing and Matt Groening found it Groening, so they just kind of quietly wrote him out of the show and later named the Dr. Marvin Monroe Memorial Hospital after him as a nod to his death. Like SecretAsianMan mentioned, he appeared again eight seasons later for a cameo at Marge's book signing after she wrote a romance novel. She thought he was dead; he claims to have "just been very sick".

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If I remember correctly he didn't even actually die.  I think he reappeared later, having been out of the country the entire time.  Bleeding Gums dying bummed me out though.

 

Bleeding Gums is probably my favorite of the side characters in the Simpsonverse. 

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Hey I forgot to use the first page of this thread to complain about FXX marathoning all Simpsons episodes cut down from the original 4:3 ratio to fit 16:9 widescreen TVs. That is some fucked up shit.

 

What is wrong with people and correctly using a god damn TV? If it's not people stretching their shit, it's cutting it. Even worse is when something ends up pillar and letterboxed because of either non anamorphic formatting (early DVDs get a pass) or because people don't format their shit right.

 

GOD DAMN IT PEOPLE TVs ARE NOT THAT COMPLICATED! AND NETWORKS NEED TO STOP CATERING TO THE IDIOTS!

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Hey I forgot to use the first page of this thread to complain about FXX marathoning all Simpsons episodes cut down from the original 4:3 ratio to fit 16:9 widescreen TVs. That is some fucked up shit.

 

What is wrong with people and correctly using a god damn TV? If it's not people stretching their shit, it's cutting it. Even worse is when something ends up pillar and letterboxed because of either non anamorphic formatting (early DVDs get a pass) or because people don't format their shit right.

 

GOD DAMN IT PEOPLE TVs ARE NOT THAT COMPLICATED! AND NETWORKS NEED TO STOP CATERING TO THE IDIOTS!

 

Finally, something in this thread I can get behind. That verges on a war crime to me.

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Wait, FXX chopped off the top and bottom of the 4:3 episodes to make them 16:9?!

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Wait, FXX chopped off the top and bottom of the 4:3 episodes to make them 16:9?!

 

I think so. Just like people used to demand that their Blu-rays have so much DNR that the actors looked like they were made of plastic, because noise is obviously a "flaw" in the transfer, people would rather have a full quarter of the image cut off than see black bars that only belong on "grandpa movies."

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Ugh, what a way to introduce themselves as the SImpsons channel.

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