Catch it here’
Very,ummm, interesting, and a testament to what the Simpsons can get away with.
Wow! They have unicorns in China???
Of course not, don’t be ridiculous.
The real surprise is that they have giant pandas in South Korea.
That opening was so dark and twisted and unexpected, I loved it. It was the highlight of the episode.
FOX have had the video taken off YouTube. Anyone got any other links? Cheers.
Too bad they pulled it from YouTube. One question, though. In one scene, someone picked up an animation cel, climbed a ladder and dipped it into a giant vat. What was that supposed to be?
It was on io9 this morning, but I don’t know if it’s still there now.
The unicorn was pretty obvious to me, but it was a funny opening.
Nope. Anywhere else anyone?
Hulu has it now.
Could that have been in support of the new Chinese Nobel Prize winner? Does the Simpsons have the ability to do a quick-turnaround thing like that? South Park does, but of course, they’re a bit cruder (in more than one sense of the word).
No, their potential turn-around time is nowhere near as short as South Park, which can only do what it does because it’s animated entirely on computers.
Also, the show is animated in Korea, not China, so presumably that would be the location of the fortress of misery.
Agreed.
I don’t know exactly, but there was a “biohazard” symbol on the side of the vat.
Worst… couch gag… ever!
VarlosZ:
But between the panda and the dolphin head (wasn’t there a species of dolphin found only in China that recently went extinct?), seems to me like he was swiping at China. He wasn’t necessarily making a statement about the Simpsons, he was making a statement about China, using Simpsons animation and merchandising to illustrate it.
Yeah, seriously…what the hell was that?
It was sort of funny but it went on forever. If they’d just pulled away and shown the Chinese workers for a few seconds, then I would have liked it.
Also, maybe a stupid question but if no one knows who Banksy is, how do they contact him or work with him? And if they do then how does is identity remain secret?
It wasn’t long at all, but it is a huge push against cheaply mass-produced products, The Simpsons gear in particular.
Are people going to call 20th Century and tell them to stop using slave-wage labor to produce their gear?
That’s explained in this NYTimes blog post. Basically, the casting director contacted the producers of “Exit Through the Gift Shop,” a documentary directed by Banksy that was released earlier this year.
Thanks, Dewey.
Well, it was only a few minutes but considering that it was tacked on to the opening credits and most couch gags are a few seconds in length, it felt like they were laboring the point. When I saw the first few seconds, it was a real, “Whoa” moment, but after a while I got really bored with how over the top it was. I just thought it would be more effective with the first ten seconds or so of it.