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

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.'

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