He didn’t die in any episode. The writer hated hom so much they killed him by naming the hospital “The Marvin Monroe Memorial Hospital”.
There is a joke about him dying in the episode hosted by Troy McClure.
I feel kind of silly putting this into a spoiler box, but I guess I’ll err on the side of being considerate.[spoiler]Homer gets a LARGE breakfast at the Krusty Burger Drive-Thru. As he drives away and heads for the Nuclear Power Plant, he realizes that he needs more lap to hold his food. So he puts his seat back into full recline, which prevents him from seeing where he is going. Ultimately, he drives through a wall in the power plant and squashes a government regulator (last words: “Promise me you’ll report this.”)
This loses Homer his job at the plant. While he walks home, he passes a used car lot, and sees a “Salesman Wanted” sign. His plan is to steal the sign so the car lot owner will pay him a bunch of money to make a new one. Instead, he gets hired. While he’s learning the ropes at the dealership, he sees an ambulance from the sixties. Upon being assured that he’ll never sell this vehicle, he decides to buy it, and become an ambulance driver.[/spoiler][Homer]And that’s the story of April Fool’s Day.[/Homer]
Dr. Marvin Monroe’s name has also appeared on a headstone at the Springfield cemetary in a previous ep. (more than one?).
I once argued with several people online who were convinced his books were written by Kurt Vonnegut. I had trouble convincing them that although he doesn’t do book tours, we do know he’s a real person with like a biography and stuff.
He once had Vladimir Nabokov as a professor at Cornell. After Pynchon was famous, old VN was asked about him, and VN had no recollection of a promising young writer named Thomas. I guess TP just sort of fades into the background in person.
I would think the bag over his head would have made him more memorable.
Even without Pynchon–or is that despite Clancy?–that was an awfully good episode. And I can imagie no other show getting Pynchon and not JUST because it’s animated; I assume he watches as religiously as we.
They didn’t even get the story right. The usual myth is that Pynchon is really J. D. Salinger.
I guess the joke’s on me. I didn’t check the credits but I just assumed that they wouldn’t be able to get Pynchon for the show, but they were doing it for the “inside joke” factor.
Loved the sleazy book quote scam- it explains where a lot of those quotes come from.
All and all a fast moving episode.
Let me add a strangely monochrome smiley:
“Though it did teach me not to judge people by the color of their skin…although what good would that do me?”
Looking, I see Thomas Pynchon does go out in public, but does not have photographs taken that much (if at all). To paraphrase William Poundstone, it’s easier to find a clear photo of Bigfoot than it is one of Pynchon. Therefore, the joke about Pynchon trumping the fact he’s a reclusive author seems to fit. (I’m reminded of a gag in the episode where Bart writes love letters to Mrs. Krabappel under the guise of ‘Woodrow:’ “THIS ISSUE: WE INTERVIEW J.D. SALINGER”)
“Am I going to say something like, if you’re 'hunt’ing for a good ‘read’ this ‘October,’ The Harpooned Heart is a ‘clear and present danger’ to your spare time? No, I’m not. I’m going to…what do you mean I just did? That doesn’t count!”
“What two popular Simpsons characters have died in the last year? If you guessed ‘Bleeding Gums’ Murphy and Dr. Marvin Monroe, you’re wrong. They were never popular.”
Funniest Episode This Season!!!
Homer: “So how do you feel after drinking all that bleach? …Not the talkative one, are you?”
Pynchon is about as well known in his NYC neighborhood as that other famous “recluse” Greta Garbo used to be. A reporter for Esquire had no trouble tracking him down a few years ago, and also published a back of the head photo.
And Pynchon loves popular culture. For example, he’s contributed the liner notes to two albums, Lotion’s Nobody’s Cool and Spiked! The Music of Spike Jones.
And he has actually given blurbs to an amazingly long list of books.
He’s private, but he’s not Salinger.
Also interesting to see a Lisa-centered reference to that other show Yeardley Smith was on long after it was cancelled. You know the one…about some guy named Herman who had a head.
Wait a tick… this is a thread about the latest episode of the Simpsons… and not a single person has said anything negative about it yet? OK, that does it, I’m betting my life’s savings on the Cubs to win it all next year…
Now you did it…
::waiting for headphone wearing fan to strike in this thread::
Pynchon also “appeared” on CNN a few years back, probably when Mason & Dixon came out. They profiled him without interviewing him naturally. But the kicker to the story was a shot of a prototypically crowded New York City sidewalk and said that Pynchon was somewhere in that shot.
Laugh a minute, that Pynchon fellow…
The official story about Marvin Monroe (according to the DVD commentaries) is that the producers hated how his voice sounded and Harry Shearer hated doing the voice because it made his throat hurt. So they just never bothered to put him in any more shows, and they later made jokes about his demise. Now, they’re making another one, and I thought it was great.