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

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..."