WE'RE SENDING OUR LOVE DOWN THE WELL: The Simpsons Season 3 Poll

For reference:

Season 1 results

Season 2 results

Season 3 descriptions on WIkipedia

Love Matt Groening's note in the DVD set: "Season 3 makes Season 2 look like Season 1."

When I was a kid (sorry Trayce), I actually got choked up when Sting and Groundskeeper Willie started digging Bart out, 100% unironically.

"Homer, you're as smart as you are handsome!"

"Quiet, Marge, he's a really good digger!" xp

The camera shot in Radio Bart from Lisa telling Bart he probably left one of those stupid labels on his radio, to the radio at the bottom of the well, is one of my favorite things on this show.

If you haven't watched "Homer Alone" in a while, I recommend it. It's even funnier then I remembered and might get my vote. But "Saturdays of Thunder" is a particular favorite of mine. But then there's "Homer at the Bat" . . .

if nothing else, 'start raving dad' is a poignant time capsule of an era when you could see michael jackson (sort of) hanging out in a kid's bedroom and go 'awww.'

True story: "Stark Raving Dad" was somehow my first (sort of) exposure to the song "Ben."

http://deadspin.com/5886723/the-making-of-homer-at-the-bat-the-episode-that-conquered-prime-time-20-years-ago-tonight

"Lord Palmerston!"
"Pitt the Elder!"

"first you didn't want me to get a pony, NOW you want me to take it back! make up your mind!"

"homer at the bat" is glorious -- feels like the beginning of full-fledged absurdist "monorail" era simpsons, where they stick in so many little gags that you miss half of them the first time around.

homer at the bat's gonna dominate right? so many great choices tho

Now we're talking. Not the most audacious episode conceptually, but Bart's Friend Falls in Love is so jam packed with great jokes. The subplot with Homer learning long words is a delight: "In the boudoir the gourmand becomes the voluptuary!"

Ken Griffey, Jr. did not understand his line "there's a party in my mouth and everyone's invited" and got quite frustrated when he was recording it.

gut reaction; When Flanders Failed, Flaming Moe's or Homer Alone. hard to go for just the one!

that deadspin piece is great by the way balls.

http://meblogwritegood.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/screen-shot-2011-07-30-at-8-54-11-pm.png

love the shot immediately after this where homer imagines a tombstone reading 'r.i.p. ned flanders,' pauses for a long second, and then goes 'eh, too far.'

so many great moments in that episode. fave bit; when Homer is crying and apologising to Ned for being such a rotten neighbour and taking half of his belongings, he pulls out a hankie to dry his eyes and it says NF in the corner. just genius.

At the time I thought this was the most absurd joke I had ever seen.

http://ironcladfolly.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/underwaterfathering.jpg

Interesting to see all the love for Homer at the Bat, never been a stand-out for me. Not being American I get virtually none of the baseball references.

Also now that I think about it, I distinctly remember the night "Saturdays of Thunder" first aired, because we had my late friend Matt over for dinner that night and watched it, and he just about shit his pants when Martin crashed his soapbox derby racer and rolled out of it in flames.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UJ9RvXOvgs8/UG2huFeCWFI/AAAAAAAAAug/_8T9dYL2Ol4/s400/03-18.png

"¡Ay, caramba!"

I didn't even have to think about voting for Homer at Bat!

Homer at the Bat's a contender for me even though I know nothing about baseball. Are there even any real specific baseball references in it? I've always had the impression that part of that early-series absurdity was that the characters had very little relation to the actual players. For instance, Ozzie Smith has never done this:

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/8pGdzmx-7Wo/hqdefault.jpg

well it helps to have some background knowledge of jose canseco

I am not American and understood none of the baseball references when I first saw it but it's probably my favourite episode ever. I mean I still don't have a clue who Don Mattingly is but the sideburns bit is immortal

heh

Regular cast members Harry Shearer and Julie Kavner disliked the episode because of its focus on the guest stars and its surreal tone.[6] They were particularly annoyed by the Mattingly sideburns joke.[5]

what's the significance with canseco?

yknow no doubt the show got pretty crazy and unrealistic, but I wonder if there's any single non-Treehouse of Horror moment in the series that's been crazier and less realistic than Ozzie Smith falling into another dimension?

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/869972/straw.jpg

Kneejerk vote for 'Stark Raving Dad'.

RLY?

i say that unfairly cuz whenever i watch it i remember it has a lot of funny moments, but the second half has a sitcommy corniness that i think is even worse than any in season 1.

actually the canseco thing is apparently different than i thought acc to that deadspin piece, i thought it was jose himself who demanded the episode present him in a better light. but canseco is a horrible person, even back then, so i always heard that the burning house was the writers being extremely sardonic about it

uh "lisa it's your birthday" is the best

gr8 song, gr8 moment

Yeah it's corny. Love it regardless.

Ugh I hate that song, but I love singing it to anyone whos birthday it is to annoy them (along with "youre the birthday boy or girl", natch)

Damn this ones going to be impossible.I think I'm gonna have to go for TOH. Frogurt! Bart mind controlling everyone!

maybe under my fluffy exterior i am a harsh and cold cynic. :'(. the 'you're the birthday boy or girl' song, on the other hand, i can appreciate.

Wow, guess I gotta rewatch that baseball one - haven't seen it since it first aired, remember it as a bunch of baseball jokes I didn't get.

But indeed, this is where this gets impossible. First shortlist:

When Flanders Failed: "Bart, stop using the Touch of Death on your sister."
Bart the Murderer: "What have I done to deserve this flat, flavorless Manhattan?"
Burns Verkaufen der Kraftwerk: "Zat vas ten minutes ago!"
Dog of Death: "If that were a real Girl Scout, I'd've been bothered by now!"

Definitely think I need to rewatch "Lisa the Greek," "Saturdays of Thunder," "Radio Bart," "Homer Alone," "Bart the Lover"...lots of 'em really.

if you don't laugh when you look at this screenshot then u r a monster:

http://www.rockethideout.com/articles/images/cadbury/cadbury3.png

Bart The Lover has some of the most amazing stuff ever
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESqrbf6HX7c

o i thought bart the lover was the one with lovejoy's daughter, but that's bart's girlfriend. both gr8.

OMG "five dollarsshss.. geddoudda here" BEST, use that one a lot.

And Lisa should be this bitchy more often:

Ms.H: Lisa, what nineteenth-century figure was named `Old Hickory'?
Lisa: I don't know. You? [snickers from the class]
Ms.H: Lisa, if you'd bothered to do the assignment, you'd know the
answer is... [flips to answer key] The Battle of New Orleans.
I mean... Andrew Jackson.
Lisa: Well, you're earning <your> eighteen grand a year. [more snickers]

Nigel Tufnel twisting his hair in "The Otto Show."

The one ep in this season that leaves me unmoved is Homer Alone. It doesnt rly go anywhere interesting.

Vibrating Homertazoa.
Homer scratching his nuts in the dugout.
Skinner dribbling the basketball.

xpost :O

Well it doesnt! Marge freaks out, goes to rancho relaxo, maggie goes missing. Maybe it did something else ive forgotten but eh.

Now "black widower" on the other hand.
Sideshow Bob: [rubbing Selma's feet] [quietly] Soon I will kill you...
Selma: What?
Sideshow Bob: Son pied sent il beau.
French for ``Her foot smells lovely.''

Though tbh I ALWAYS confuse "Homer Alone" with "Marge in Chains."

Actually not a fan of Bouvier episodes! Except maybe the one with Jub Jub.

''Homer Alone'' has their second-greatest hold music gag with ''Baby Come Back''...

ha yeah and the best being the "everybody loves a clown" bit from one of the Treehouse Of Horrors?

Marge in Homer Alone = HOTT

http://www.wtsof.tv/images/i58_206517.jpg

Yeah, her ordering a bottle of tequila from room service to go with her hot fudge sundae is A+

I love the Bouvier subplot in Homer Alone. Tongue sandwiches, the blackhead gun... it's a brilliant use of contrast against the Marge scenes.

LOL yes the "everybody loves a clown, so why dont you?" kills me every damn time.

tbh 'black widower' lingers a bit too long on the idea of bob and selma actually having sex -- erg!!

love the MJ birthday song but i'm a sucker for moments between bart and lisa -- also always tear up at the end of 'lisa on ice.'

"Homer at the Bat" by a country fucking mile

'bart the lover' has this incredible line from flanders, which i can't believe they got away with on network tv in the early '90s:

'homer, i have a bone to pick with you...i know all of us pull a few boners now and then, go off half-cocked, make asses of ourselves, i don't want to be hard on you...'

It was rare they did stuff that made me raise an eyebrow but Apu's "I salute you, you magnificent bastard!" was def one of those times.

Oh and stupid sexy flanders and his ASS *shudder*

Flaming Moe, mostly because of the Cheers lampoon in the middle, mostly because Cheers is the only show I love more than The Simpsons.

Yes thats one of my picks for that reason. And also that it shows up Moe as the asshole he really is - why is Homer even friends with him, with all the times Moe's stolen his ideas/taken advantage of him!?

....which reminds me, whichever season the "moe and his girlfriend" ep is from, that one's getting my vote for "stealing, stealing, stealing a car for Moe ,du du du dunn duh duuuuhh duuuh, insurance fraud today!"

"lisa its your birthday" is legit one of the most emotionally effecting pieces of music I've eve heard.

Got my choice narrowed down to Flaming Moe's ("HELLOOOOOOO ST LOUIS!") or Burns Verkaufen der Kraftwerk ("ve Germans aren't all smiles und sunshine").

Oh, alright, and Bart The Murder ("TV's Doogie Howser, Neil Patrick Harris as Bart Simpson").

I made a game of it - seeing how many times I could bounce it in an hour, and then trying to beat that record.

I always forget The Otto Show is season 3 (same wort Separate Vocations), which is to say I always think it's 4 because it's just so matured as an episode. Like, what a perfect episode.

Wort? I mean with

narrowed it down to these five:

bart the murderer
homer at the bat
bart the lover
burns verkaufen der kraftwerk
flaming moe's

ugh, forgot about teh leftorium!!

Bart: Uh, say, are you guys crooks?
Tony: Bart, um, is it wrong to steal a loaf of bread to feed your starving
family?
Bart: No.
Tony: Well, suppose you got a large starving family. Is it wrong to steal
a truckload of bread to feed them?
Bart: Uh uh.
Tony: And, what if your family don't like bread? They like... cigarettes?
Bart: I guess that's okay.
Tony: Now, what if instead of giving them away, you sold them at a price
that was practically giving them away. Would that be a crime, Bart?
Bart: Hell, no!
Tony: Enjoy your gift.

I made a game of it - seeing how many times I could bounce it in an hour, and then trying to beat that record.

― Doctor Casino, Tuesday, October 22, 2013 7:19 AM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark

really great because it references this line earlier:

Bart: You're making me lick envelopes?
P.S.: Oh, licking envelopes can be fun! All you have to do is make a game
of it.
Bart: What kind of game?
P.S.: Well, for example, you could see how many you could lick in an hour,
then try to break that record.
Bart: Sounds like a pretty crappy game to me.
P.S.: Yes, well... Get started.

okay, bart the murderer it is.

this whole dream sequence was brilliant
http://www.springfieldfiles.com/albums/signs/0300.JPG

Wort? I mean with

― Fiddler on a hot tin roof (ed.b), Tuesday, October 22, 2013 7:26 AM (32 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

My son's name is also Wort.

I voted for Stark Raving Dad completely unironically, and actually I think it might be my favorite episode ever. It's just structured so great, everything builds from inside the family. Bart puts his red cap in the laundry, Homer doesn't want to do fill out his questions, Lisa's birthday is coming up, and all of a sudden the episode simply explodes. But what I really love about it is the darkness in it, the glimpses of Lisa singing to herself (Happy birthday, overlooked middle child) and obviously her incredible poem (I hat a cat named Snowball / he died, he died / mom said he was sleeping / she lied! she lied!) But also the darkness of what happens at the mental institution. And also, when it turns corny - and boy, does it turn corny - it only helps the episode, because it never undercuts the darkness of the earlier scenes. The song is still written by an insane person, and their final explanation of his behaviour only makes him more insane.

All in all, I love this episode, and I've obviously spent way too much time thinking about it. It just hits a sweet spot between cynicism and corniness, which I fall for every time. I would put money on the episode having suffered from the association with Michael Jackson, but it's really a marvel all the way through.

Oh god, I forgot Lisa's poem! Ugh, yeah, gotta rewatch that one. I do think the Jackson connection put me off, even originally, as I didn't really know his music and was just bothered that the Simpsons was getting derailed by this weird cameo for a big celebrity.

Best bit of the ''made a game of it'' is how Skinner gives Bart a knowing look, as if this is a little inside joke they share.

I was always partial to Bart's Allan Sherman-esque first pass at Lisa's birthday song:

Lisa, her teeth are big and green.
Lisa, she smells like gasoline.
Lisa, da da da Disa.
She is my sister, her birthday, I missed-a.

Also:

- The One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest group therapy session where Homer can't stop mocking the agoraphobe.
- "You mean there really is a Bart? Good lord!"
- The asylum hold music being Patsy Cline's "Crazy."
- This argument:

Marge: I told you kids you were going to send your father to the crazy house!
Bart: No, Mom, you said poor house.
Marge: I said crazy house.
Bart: Poor house.
Marge: Crazy house.
Bart: Poor house.
Marge: Crazy house!

Oh, and "Careful, men, he wets his pants!"

Man, they were LOVING those hold music gags for a couple of years there.

''Do you really think your son could be the leader of an underworld criminal syndicate?''
''Well, no....not the LEADER...''

Best bit of the ''made a game of it'' is how Skinner gives Bart a knowing look, as if this is a little inside joke they share.

― Doctor Casino, Tuesday, October 22, 2013 8:35 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The clock's second hand going backwards was a genius touch.

Also great delivery from Cartwright. ''Cad..I ..Gho... DOW.'' The whole opening sequence is a lovely link between the 'believable trials of a real life kid' and the absurdism of the 'Bart becomes a Mafia bartender' storyline.

Also: Homer walking into Bart's room, completely filled, to the ceiling, with cartons of cigarettes: ''have you started smoking? ..Don't lie to me, boy... A-HA!''

These weren't the conventional character patterns that had worked so well, and one could see why cast members Harry Shearer and Julie Kavner openly hated Swartzwelder's script.

looking at shearer's wiki it appears he does still care about the qualify of the simpsons - sad to see him continue, though getting paid $300k per episode seems like a 'cool deal'

love the shot immediately after this where homer imagines a tombstone reading 'r.i.p. ned flanders,' pauses for a long second, and then goes 'eh, too far.'

Great variation on this in "Lisa's Pony," when Homer is late with Lisa's saxomophone reed, and Marge is going through scenarios in her head.

[imagines Homer fixing a flat tire] Maybe.
[imagines Homer chased up a tree by a bear] No.
[imagines Homer abducted by aliens] That's a long shot.
[imagines Homer at Moe's Tavern] Bingo.

http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130915164231/simpsons/images/6/69/Lisa

Ended up voting for Bart The Murderer because this:

Flowers
By
Irene

And also that it shows up Moe as the asshole he really is - why is Homer even friends with him, with all the times Moe's stolen his ideas/taken advantage of him!?

http://popdose.com/wp-content/uploads/homerbeer5.jpg

Haha yes fair point :)

STING!
MOM!
DAD!

What's up with Homer recognizing Sting and never having heard of Michael Jackson?

well, homer is also the guy who didn't seem to recognize george harrison and has a starland vocal band tattoo

yeah, good point. A tattoo that appeared once and vanished forever: Contoonuity!

Lisa the Greek: Easily overlooked but great. While the climax is a little too labored to really strike home, there are some great gags, including one of my all-time favorite Marge moments:

BART: Mom, do you know why these clothes are on sale? It's because the kids who wear them get beat up.
MARGE: Well, anybody who'd beat you up for wearing a shirt isn't your friend.

haha, that is such a universal 'mom' thing to say.

It's going to be hard not to vote for either "Lisa the Greek," "Homer Alone" or "Flaming Moe's" simply because they were a few of the episodes that I recorded on VHS at the time of airing and watched over and over. Classic era "Simpsons" is always major comfort food for me anyway, but these episodes in particular.

That said, "Lisa the Greek" is probably my fave because it evokes years of Sunday afternoons of my dad watching football and me occasionally trying to care enough about football to join in.

You

have

reached

the

coach's

hot

line

"Not Duff Dry, Washington!" "OK, OK, they're both great teams."

In sad news related to these polls, Marcia Wallace died yesterday. :(

http://www.tmz.com/2013/10/26/marcia-wallace-simpsons-newhart-show-dead-70/

Very sad to hear.

According to Al Jean, they're going to do the right/respectful thing:

“She was beloved by all at The Simpsons and we intend to retire her irreplaceable character. Earlier we had discussed a potential storyline in which a character passed away. This was not Marcia’s Edna Krabappel. Marcia’s passing is unrelated and again, a terrible loss for all who had the pleasure of knowing her.”

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Watched a bunch more of these over the last few days... "Stark Raving Dad" is indeed as good as y'all said (though the song seemed kinda generic). "Lisa's Pony," "Radio Bart," "Saturdays of Thunder" - all have moments of greatness, though in some the plot mechanics get in the way (I still sort of cringe at the resolution to "Flaming Moe's" - like, Moe couldn't call Homer on the phone once he'd made his decision?). Agreed that "Homer Alone" sort of doesn't go anywhere, and I don't get anything out of the kids hanging out with the aunts. "Separate Vocations" is a solid Bart-and-Lisa episode - Lisa going in the 'bad girl bathroom' is great, but they don't have enough for Bart to do as hall monitor (the great newspaper montage notwithstanding).

"Homer at the Bat" the best surprise of the bunch; I pretty much tuned it out as a kid because baseball, but there are some hilarious jokes in this thing even if I just take the sports people as a bunch of unknowns getting to do funny lines. The warp to another dimension, the 'sideburns,' and Strawberry kissing up to "Skip!" Plus the Wonderbat and basically everything Burns says or does.

I hoped to get around to "Dog of Death" which I think I really like, and "Black Widower" about which I remember almost nothing.

Still, though: "Bart the Murderer."

i'm guessing the 'dinosaurs' parody that opens 'black widower' is one of the more baffling you-had-to-be-there jokes for kids these days and non-americans.

Dinosaurs was broadcast in the UK as well! (I don't know about other parts of the word). We didn't have sky so I saw Dinosaurs years before I ever saw an episode of the Simpsons.

I could probably make a long list of US cultural phenomena and figures who I only knew about as a kid via references the Simpsons.

Does anyone have first hand information about what kids of today make of the George H W Bush moves in next to the Simpsons episode?

I mean, they've probably heard of him! I was aware that Nixon jokes were Nixon jokes even if I couldn't always find them funny.

"the man never drank a Duff in his life"

When I saw the episode with the Jimmy Carter statue I had no idea who Carter was, same with Ford at the end of the end of the Bush episode. I used to irritate my Dad by asking him to explain all the references I didn't get.

I don't remember ever not knowing who Nixon was, though.

haha i'd just done a report on nixon for school when i saw that episode and i felt so proud of myself for understanding why that was funny. ditto the alger hiss joke they made in another episode.

I think the only famous person ever mentioned on The Simpsons that I wasn't familiar with right away was Pablo Neruda. #philistine #yolo

I saw the 'Lisa's first word' episode for the first time in years recently and finally got the 'where's the beef?' 'no wonder he carried Minnesota!' bit that had baffled me when I was 12 or whatever

Makes me think of reading old Mad magazines as a kid and having to figure out references based on context.

"I'm afraid it's splitsville for Delta Burke and Major Dad" was a puzzler. Still funny tho

I was also surprised when I found out MacGyver was a real TV show.

what about Matlock?

have to admit i had no idea who linda lavin (object of bart's prank calls in some episode) was until recently.

And Dr. Demento's been off the air for a few years, so that might be another noodle-scratcher for today's kids.

Makes me think of reading old Mad magazines as a kid and having to figure out references based on context.

They used to get the Mad super special/ reprints in my local newsagents when I was a kid, but not the new issues, and I must have spent hours reading spoofs of American TV shows that that got cancelled years before I was born, and possibly were never broadcast in the UK anyway.

i had never heard of alger hiss until right now. i guess that joke flew by me each of the hundred times i heard it.

I used to get kind of freaked out as a kid when they would have caricatures of Peter Lorre or Bing Crosby etc in loony toons cartoons.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-H7_3XKUG_5U/TxJYcU1dwbI/AAAAAAAAMJ4/fDg2cfl000g/s1600/OUTTA%2BWOIK.png

Coming up next season we have STOCKDALE FOR VEEP

i still don't know who rory calhoun is.

Actually, thinking about Mad, there's a Simpsons gag that is both about this kind of thing and was an example of it for me when I was a kid, where Bart and Milhouse are reading a Mad super special: 'they're really sticking it to this Spiro Agnew guy! He must work there or something'.

xp He's the one that's always standing and walking.

ah right.

Dammit Phil beat me to it.

i had never heard of alger hiss until right now. i guess that joke flew by me each of the hundred times i heard it.

I'd only heard of Alger Hiss this past week, when he was the answer to a crossword puzzle.

As someone who grew up in the UK consuming a lot of US TV/movies/comics etc, looking back I'm always disconcerted at how easily I just didn't notice a lot of the references I was unfamiliar with, it makes me worry about how much I'm still missing now.

I don't know if this ever came up in the 'that's were I'm a viking' thread, but I wonder if non North American viewers were more likely to interpret the line as 'ralph means that sleep is an area in which he excels', because they were used to there being references/phrasings etc that they were unfamiliar with and inferring what they meant based on context, and N Americans were more likely to understand the line literally if they had never heard 'viking' used as a metaphor for 'adept'.

(I had always taken it to mean 'ralph means that sleep is an area in which he excels', and I don't think it occurred to me it could be read any other way until I saw that ilx thread.)

more likely to understand the line literally if as they had never heard 'viking' used as a metaphor for 'adept'

"and that little boy that nobody liked, grew up to be.... Roy Cohn"

was the first time I ever heard of Roy Cohn (altho I was familiar with HUAC and the blacklist and McCarthy etc.)

that line still makes me lol. Harry Shearer's delivery is so perfect, the pause lasts exactly the right amount of time.

I have always gotten Nixon (and Alger Hiss!) jokes thx to reading Doonesbury when I was like 8

Fox to air "Bart the Lover" on Sunday:

http://www.avclub.com/articles/fox-will-air-bart-the-lover-in-honor-of-marcia-wal,105011/

http://i.imgur.com/7OOzo.png

Doh, thought "Bart the Lover" was the one with Sarah Gilbert. It's a lovely sendoff, though one that, when I first watched, completely confused me with all the Gordie Howe stuff.

xpost hah!

Gordie Howe = Kayser Soze

Oooh, I'm so afraid of the Geeermans!

Weird to realize just how uneven my familiarity with these seasons are. Whenever I got hold of a VHS tape, I'd fill it with episodes, then watch the tape over and over and over. We never saw the US titles, so I always know the episodes by whatever shorthand I wrote on the label, so, uh, "Bart joins the mob" would be one I've seen tens of times.

I've sometimes wondered if growing up with a lot of US entertainment like the Simpsons made it easier for me to get into supposedly difficult fiction, cuz I had no problems following stuff that was full of allusions I didn't get.

Incidentally, it was a mild disappointment for me to see the Wizard of Oz a few years ago and realize how many wonderful absurdities of The Simpsons were pretty straight references. Mr Burns' winged monkeys! That used to be one of my favorite gags! Goddammit.
The baseball episode is one I haven't seen a lot of times -- I found it kinda uncomfortable somehow. I don't think I got that the players were *real* players and I just wondered at the really dull line deliveries. I don't think I ever enjoyed a sports episode of the Simpsons, tbh.
I think the first two Simpsons episodes where I felt something was *off* and I didn't like it was the baseball one, plus one that must've been much later, where they had a Pulp Fiction parody + the Skinner "steamed hams" bit, which I just haaaated (and am thoroughly amazed to have found to be one of the favorites of a lot of people)

Dinosaurs was on in Norway too, fwiw. Vaguely recall hating it.

On the topic of references, a few weeks ago I realized that 'The B-Sharps' are the opposite of 'The B-Dulls'... Actually, I think I realized it some years ago, but then I forgot it.

um

something something Burt Ward

That sounds vaguely like Krusty and Better Midler's race horse, Krudler (as opposed to calling it Misty).

I think the first two Simpsons episodes where I felt something was *off* and I didn't like it was the baseball one, plus one that must've been much later, where they had a Pulp Fiction parody + the Skinner "steamed hams" bit, which I just haaaated (and am thoroughly amazed to have found to be one of the favorites of a lot of people)

Including me!

Yeah that whole skit is genius.

Not allowed to comment in Simpsons threads if you don't love the steamed hams gag though you qualify for the Norway exception so proceed

the steamed hams bit is funny but that episode on the whole is kind of a mess

Perhaps the whole problem is that I'm not a big fan of skits in general. Tbh, I'm not sure I'm generally fond of the whole Skinner/Supernintendo Chalmers dynamic. Reminds me too much of Norway's old days under tyrannical Swedish rule, obv.
(better shut up before my exceptional privileges are revoked)

"seymour, for once i am impressed. i'm going to give this school a perfect 10! let me just make the 'zero' first..."

Chalmers: Aurora Borealis? At this time of year? A this time of day?
In this part of the country? Localized entirely within your
kitchen?
Skinner: Yes.
Chalmers: May I see it?
Skinner: Oh, erm... No.

He does the running and the thing with the ... person.

sadly, the simpsons wikia seems to have displaced SNPP in google search results for looking up episodes.

SNPP hasn't been updated in years, though...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMPT09lJjcE

i always assumed they just sort of gave up after the show's decline got too depressing to keep up with. i read through a bunch of those av club classic simpsons reviews a while back and i was kind of amazed at how lame they were -- they're basically just long episode recaps. has anyone written really well about the simpsons?

I still rely on SNPP for all my quotes and whatnots.

The Usenet reviews that are archived on SNPP are so, so great. The greatest TV show of all time at its absolute pinnacle... and they just get these middling-to-passable reviews, and they are an absolute joy to read 20 years later. Parody of It's a Wonderful Life gets dismissed as "Too sappy"! One reviewer chides the Itchy and Scratchy Movie episodes because Bart's the "Chief Justice of the Supreme Court" and not the correct "Chief Justice of the United States"! Fun fact: if you look really hard you'll recognize the name of a future ILXor!

And yeah SNPP is still the only place that has the entire scripts. So, for example, last week I had to know the exact words that Count Homer says to the Bentley car salesman, and I found it at SNPP

Ever since it became common knowledge how horrible Jose Canseco was making that episode, it's intriguing to me that (if Wikipedia is to be believed) he's since then never apologized or given his side of the story or really given any details. I can't imagine how many times he gets accosted by irate Simpsons fans, like "Heeeey! Why were you such a dick to the people on The Simpsons?!?!" I know that's the first thing I would say if I ever saw him.

I don't remember this

Real World Affect

The episode has been credited with helping to save several lives. During the scene in which Homer chokes on a donut, a poster explaining how the Heimlich maneuver works is on the wall behind him. In May 1992, Chris Bencze was able to save his brother's life by performing the Heimlich Maneuver on him, having seen it in the episode,[26] and in December 2007 Aiden Bateman was able to save his friend Alex Hardy's life by recalling the same.[27]

When asked in 2007 about his part by the San Jose Mercury News, he responded, "that was 100 years ago," hung up the phone and did not answer any of the paper's subsequent calls for an interview about his guest spot.

Dick.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

And yeah SNPP is still the only place that has the entire scripts.

Wait, actual scripts, or just transcripts? And they don't have every line of dialogue, I thought?

Five votes for Stark Raving Dad! I'm happy. Burns Verkaufen der Kraftwerk is the surprise for me, but yeah, it's a really good episode.

we need more voters so we don't get all of those sad zeroes :'(.

i often think treehouse of horror ii is the best one.

The Otto Show, Colonel Homer, Mr Lisa Goes to Washington, Homer Alone and I Married Marge are all A+ episodes in spite of receiving no votes.

Otto Show has some interesting DVD commentary; apparently, one of the Spinal Tap actors was a dick. One of the writers on the commentary said, "We can't name names, but he was one of the GUEST voices."

So that's either McKean or Christopher Guest.

iirc they also note that aside from the dickish one one of the other spinal tap actors was very mcKEEN to please. and the other was harry shearer. (they weren't subtle about it.)

Wait, I could swear I voted for TOH in this poll so either I forgot, or... gah.

xp similar to the homer at the bat commentary where they say that all the guest stars were very nice apart from the one whose name rhymes with 'blo-se blanseco', or something like that.

iirc they also note that aside from the dickish one one of the other spinal tap actors was very mcKEEN to please. and the other was harry shearer. (they weren't subtle about it.)

Could you dumb it down a little? (Sorry, that belongs to the season 4 poll.)

I agree with Homer at Bat and Burns Verkaufen leading this poll, but 0 votes for The Otto Show makes me ;_;

Couldn't vote, paralyzed by goodness all around.

So I saw on another forum that Fox won't be showing "Bart The Lover" tonight as an announced Marcia Wallace tribute after all, because they couldn't find a master that was "HD enough" or something, so they're showing a newer one about Krabappel & Flanders instead.

D:

uuuugh

the HDness would be enough to drive me away from new simpsons even if it didn't suck.

ffs

(at Fox, not Zachylon, obv)

Do youuu come with the car?

well shit, that was meant for the s4 thread. O well.

oh, you! tee hee

http://media.avclub.com/images/441/441545/16x9/627.jpg?2138