Tag: miscellaneous

Ever wonder what it’s like to be in a room surrounded by the people who conjure up the lives and comedy of the longest-running sitcom on air?

According to television writer, producer and screenwriter Don Payne, The Simpsons writing room is a “smorgasbord of personality disorders.” Payne, a Wilmington native, is an Emmy-award winning writer/co-producer for The Simpsons and recently spoke to an auditorium full of people at UNCW Friday night.

SOURCE: The Seahawk

It may not be the most popular show on Australian television but it is without doubt the most repeated. The Simpsons has screened in prime time virtually every night of the week for what seems years, and not just in a single dose but often in blocks of multiple episodes. Only a tiny amount of what is shown is new, and some repeats occur within a few weeks. The show may seem ephemeral to non-fans, but the sheer repeatability of The Simpsons provides a clue to the role played by repetition in popular culture and beyond. The secret of The Simpsons – and other seemingly inexhaustible cultural franchises such as James Bond and Doctor Who – is devastatingly simple. Unlike real life, in which inevitably we grow older, these characters do not change in any meaningful way even as the world around them changes. The cartoon world of the show is altered instantly through the wild antics of a family whose members nevertheless remain the same, and whose bonds with one another are, despite everything, unbreakable.

SOURCE: The Age

It’s the one that has outwitted and outplayed just about all other shows – and that threatens to outlast them as well. “Survivor”? Be serious. It’s “The Simpsons.” My criteria were simple. The great American show has to embody the breadth and depth of who we are. And the shallowness. I considered “The Wire,” David Simon’s heroic attempt to show us the nuts, bolts, nit and grit of how a modern city works (or doesn’t), and “Deadwood,” David Milch’s raunchy microcosm of how we civilized ourselves. I thought about “The Honeymooners,” “All in the Family” and “Roseanne,” our three great comedies about everyday working stiffs and our dreams. Worthy candidates all, but none of them has the scope and seeming inexhaustibility of Matt Groening’s cartoon about a curiously yellow family and the town of Springfield, at once generic and unique, where they live and shop.

SOURCE: Newsday

Homer has morphed into a lanky fellow and Marge’s towering blue hair is brown and tastefully cropped. The event is a “table read,” when the cast of The Simpsons gathers with a roomful of writers, producers, and guests and use their imaginations to conjure the animated family with the distinctive mustard hue. It is just one of the steps towards crafting an episode of this television phenomenon. The table read is held in a trailer at the 20th Century Fox studio in Los Angeles, where the series is produced. Actors, producers and writers sit at a huge table littered with water bottles and note pads. Invitation-only visitors ring the table. Noticably absent are the network executives who often haunt rehearsals for shows, but The Simpsons has a rare stipulation, won by executive producer James L. Brooks, limiting Fox executive meddling. “It’s sort of the hottest ticket on the lot,” says Yeardley Smith, who voices Lisa Simpson.

SOURCE: Lardlad.com

Homer Simpson might be the all-American suburban anti-hero but the Brits have no problem identifying with the beer-swilling couch potato from the nuclear power plant town of Springfield. A recent list of favourite animations by Channel 4 showed American humour rates highly with the Brits, as it does in New Zealand. And a top-five selection of history’s greatest cartoons by the Independent newspaper confirms the Americans are on top when it comes to animated hi jinks and mockery. In first place was The Simpsons, A dozen series ago, during the 1992 presidential election, George Bush senior awarded the animated couch-potatoes from Springfield the ultimate subversive accolade. The ideal American family, he said, should be a little “more like the Waltons and less like the Simpsons”. For an out-of-touch Bush, it was a case of “Good night, John Boy”, and he lost the election.

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“For many Christians, The Simpsons is at best a guilty pleasure. It is on many families’ lists of television shows children are absolutely not allowed to watch. They consider the show a travesty and a mockery, displaying nothing but bad role models and irreverent attitude. Now in its 15th year as a television series and having passed its landmark 350th episode, the show inspires both rabid fans and rabid detractors. And both sides have a point.” Read More >>>

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Was it good fun being in The Simpsons?

Mark Hamill: “The Simpsons helps me to understand the Star Wars fan thing. I am mad about the show. I was very excited to be asked to be on it, though I didn’t really want to play myself – I had to pretend that I appear in public in my Luke outfit for money, which I’ve never done. I was shouting to the scriptwriters that I’d been on Broadway six times! My kids had to tell me to get over myself.”

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Even though some of its most ferocious fans suggest that it ran out of gas some time ago, the show remains in high gear, with 20 writers working on next year’s season, searching for yet another joke that has yet to be told on “The Simpsons.” An animated sitcom that seemed to lose some of its bite as it grew long in the tooth has been back in the news, with an episode on gay marriage earlier this year and later this season, a satirical, some would say sacrilegious, episode about the Simpsons’ dalliance with Catholicism and another about the apocalypse. “The Simpsons,” which had become as familiar as a pair of Homer’s roomy trousers, has found a way to get its finger back in the eyes of viewers. Read More >>>

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Why do children across the world find the Simpsons funny? That is just one of the questions being considered by researchers from five countries who are looking into what makes children laugh. Researcher Maire Messenger-Davies is joining academics from Germany, Israel, South Africa and US in the year-long project. They have begun to compile “funny” material – primarily from tv shows – which they will show to children aged between eight and 12 from selected schools in each country. Specialists from the funding body, the Munich-based International Institute for the Study of Youth and Media, will measure their mirth using a “fun-o-meter”. The children will be asked what they thought and these responses will be analysed. Marie says “Programmes like the Simpsons are shown throughout the world and this study will demonstrate if that particular brand of humour is universally appreciated.”. Read More >>>

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Opinion (Beth Rodio): The Simpsons was a groundbreaking show when it came out. Now, despite a few highlights, the last few years have been slightly painful for long-time fans. Somewhere inside, my cooler-than-thou seventeen-year-old self is rolling her eyes at my slightly more cynical adult self for even suggesting it. But the question has to be asked; is the cartoon family done? Before we even discuss the downhill, all-too-familiar themes and plots of the latest episodes, let me give nay-sayers a clue: in high schools, the only people who watch The Simpsons are nerds. Before I start getting hate mail, potential mobs should know that I was (am?) one of those self-proclaimed geeks. So with a tip of the hat to geek culture, let me explain. Remember how it was back in our day? The Simpsons spanned social classes in and out of high school. Read More >>>

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Cartoon Brew has posted a CalArts student film from the late 1980’s by longtime Simpsons director Jim Reardon (and Rich Moore). A parody of the “heart-warming holiday” Peanuts specials, Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown has Linus, Lucy, and the rest of the gang trying to bump Charlie Brown off to collect a bounty put on his head by the Great Pumpkin. The 33mb film is available for download at the Cartoon Brew site.

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