What's Your Favorite Simpsons Episode?

Cafe Society
61

Well, I have to vote for the Clinton/Dole election episode in “Treehouse of Horror VII”. I laughed so hard I cried. Kang and Kodos morph into Clinton and Dole for the presidential election, “always twirling, twirling, twirling toward freedom.”

Dole on the Capitol steps being beamed aboard the flying saucer:
“Uh oh. Bob Dole doesn’t need this!”

Kang and Kodos trying to figure out the abortion issue:

  • Abortions for everyone!
    Audience: Boo!
  • Abortions for no one!
    Audience: Boo!
  • Abortions for some, little American flags for everyone!
    Audience: Yea!

The Stonecutters episode is another one of my favorites, especially the song:
Who controls the British Crown?
Who keeps the Metric System down?
We do! We do!
[LYRICS DELETED]

I’ll lump all the Sideshow Bob episodes into my No. 3 favorite. But I digress.

The important thing is that I wore an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time.

62

Public Animal: Posting full song lyrics is not permitted. Please go to Rules for Posting on the Straight Dope Message Board and not especially Post #3… and also Forum Rules and note Post #2.

You’re fairly new, so no prob, we all goof now and again… please don’t do it again, though.

63

[QUOTE=Thudlow Boink]
:: flashes guizot ::
[/QUOTE]
Well LA-DEE-DA! Do you think I’m going to check homophones at 3:17 AM in the morning especially when the previous night I had only 2 hours of sleep?

[QUOTE=Thudlow Boink]
[Comic Book Guy]I believe Lisa is eight. If she were 12, that would make her older brother Bart a teenager.[/Comic Book Guy]
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, I should’ve looked this one up too, but you have to admit that she has the intellect of a 12-year-old. I love the show (and have almost every episode on VCR or DVD, but I’m really too busy to check the ages of the characters.

[QUOTE=Thudlow Boink]
[Professor Frink]No you can’t play with it. You won’t enjoy it on as many levels as I do… The colors, children![/Professor Frink]
[/QUOTE]
You clearly have a keen ability to observe the subtleties of the typical “Simpsons” satire/parody.

[QUOTE=Thudlow Boink]
Heh, and I always thought they put it in because it was funny!
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, the first time. I insist that it’s for international audiences. Do you really think it’s funny when a cartoon character scratches his butt?

[QUOTE=Thudlow Boink]
All mocking aside, The Simpsons truly does have a broad appeal, and is packed with both broad humor and more subtle references that will fly over many people’s heads. Unlike many of the other shows it’s often compared to, it really does appeal to all ages.
[/QUOTE]
Mocking well-taken, thank you.

Thank you, Thudlow. Your comments will give me an edge when I take the MCAT.

64

The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson

65

[QUOTE=guizot]
For example, how do you communicate Mayor Quimby’s accent in Spanish? His Boston (Kennedy) accent is meaningful only to people in the U.S. I have no idea how the Spanish-language voice-over artists accomplish this–or whether they even try to accomplish this. (They recently went on strike, but I don’t recall why.)
[/QUOTE]

My first thought was that they’d find a politician who is as legendary to the target audience as Kennedy is to us, and duplicate his accent. Then again, maybe they just go with a generic sleazy-politician accent.

66

[QUOTE=C K Dexter Haven]
Public Animal: Posting full song lyrics is not cell phone goes off, and either she just silences it or goes outside to take the capermitted. Please go to Rules for Posting on the Straight Dope Message Board and not especially Post #3… and also Forum Rules and note Post #2.

You’re fairly new, so no prob, we all goof now and again… please don’t do it again,though.
[/QUOTE]
If I post the complete lyrics to a, let’s say, a Bob Dylan song, who is legally liable: me or the Chicago Reader?

Along a similar vein, if–in a Straight Dope positing–I type the complete lyrics of (Sir) Paul McCartney’s song “Yesterday,” is he or (Michael Jackson), or whoever owns the song really going to care? They already make millions off it from radio and TV broadcasts. At least half the English-speaking world knows those lyrics by heart anyway. He’s already made tons of money off of it (even though technically John Lennon’s name comes first).

I recognize with compassion you’re just “doing your job,” but if you’re a lawyer, you’re over inflating your importance.,

The post in and of itself is not going to garner any income (unless you think that people subscribe [and pay] to the SDMB in order to read short, extracted scripts from the “Simpsons”). Moreover, that dialog is so readily available on other internet sites it’s sort of ridiculous to hold the SDMD responsible for some kind of copyright violation.

When a quote from a TV show like the Simpsons is amusing–and a message board reader is inspired by that quote, they are most likely to say: “Hey, that sounds like a great episode. I’ll buy the whole season on DVD.” And (you don’t really have to) guess what? Everyone from the voice-overs to the animators (in Korea) to the director and producer get more money, from more sales.

I am not a lawyer (and I don’t bother to type “IANAL” because the four extra seconds to type out the full sentence won’t reduce my lifetime by that much–in fact, those four extra seconds will probably involve some kind of excruciating pain from the disease that eventually kills me off). But I think that if the SDMB were taken to court because of someone’s posting exact dialog from a “Simpsons” episode on the SDMB (a highly unlikely occurrence), just about any judge would though it out of court and get on to more important things.

It’s like a security guard in a public library. A patron’s cell phone goes of; she turns it off or leaves the building. The security guard could technically give her a ticket. But really the security guard should be looking out for people who are trying to steal books.

67

[QUOTE=guizot]

Yeah, the first time. I insist that it’s for international audiences. Do you really think it’s funny when a cartoon character scratches his butt?

[/QUOTE]

Heh, those American shows, always having to dumb themselves down for an international audience. I’m from New Zealand, and I don’t laugh when Homer scratches his butt - it’s not my kind of humour. When I was eight I would have laughed though - is it maybe more likely the physical humour is included for the younger spectrum of the audience?

68

[QUOTE=manx]
Heh, those American shows, always having to dumb themselves down for an international audience. I’m from New Zealand, and I don’t laugh when Homer scratches his butt - it’s not my kind of humour. When I was eight I would have laughed though - is it maybe more likely the physical humour is included for the younger spectrum of the audience?
[/QUOTE]
Yes, but you speak English (of a sort :wink: ) and English-speaking counties are not what I was referring to. I’m thinking more of a place like Colombia.

69

No love yet for the Itchy & Scratchyland episode?

Interesting that that the security staff seems to run by pissed-off Germans.

Marge: I’m so embarassed I just want to crawl in a hole and die!
Security guy: OK, throw her in the hole!

“We have run out of Bort license plates!”

Marge: That bartender looks just like John Travolta.
Bartender (sheepishly): Yeah. Looks like. (Damn, this show has been around awhile.)

“With a dry, cool wit like that, I could be an action star!”

“I wish they wouldn’t scream.”

Paraphrasing:
Frink (horrified): People, random chaos theory tells us that robots will eventually become self-aware and turn on their masters in an orgy of blood and the screaming and the kicking and the biting!
Scientist (gravely): How much time do we have, doctor?
Frink: According to my calculations, the robots won’t go mad for at least 24 hours.
(Robot grabs a scientist by the throat and proceeds to choke him.)
Frink: Oh yes. Forgot to carry the one, mwah-hey.

Bart: Smashy smashy.
Marge: I don’t approve of that.

Searing Gas Painland. Pure gold!

70

[QUOTE=mobo85]
Hitchcock never directed a film called A Room With A View. The movie was called Rear Window.
[/QUOTE]

Of course. My mistake.

I should also add that the biggest loss in dubbing the Simpsons is not in losing certain accents, but with losing the great voice-acting. The Simpsons without Hank Azaria or Dan Castellaneta just isn’t the same.

71

[QUOTE=cactus waltz]
I should also add that the biggest loss in dubbing the Simpsons is not in losing certain accents, but with losing the great voice-acting. The Simpsons without Hank Azaria or Dan Castellaneta just isn’t the same.
[/QUOTE]

Maybe not :

I can’t imagine The Simpsons any differently, but I guess neither can non-English speakers.

72

You can put anything in Wikipedia and make it automatically true. Or, as Homer once put it: “Facts are meaningless. You can use facts to prove anything that’s even remotely true.”

73

[QUOTE=cactus waltz]
A reply to guizot:

I have watched the Simpsons for many years now, and it’s my opinion that the best episodes have enough universal humor to make them worth watching (and indeed very worth watching they are). But it is also a trademark of both the Simpsons and Futurama that there are many references and points behind the scripts, some obscure, some not so obscure. If you catch them, you’ll likely enjoy the episode a bit more, but it won’t hurt if you miss them.

I recently saw the episode Bart of Darkness and my girlfriend pointed out that murder plot is a straight homage to the Hitchcock film “A Room With a View”. It made a lot of sense when she pointed it out, but it’s a hilarious episode nevertheless.
[/QUOTE]
I agree with you completely, cactus, (though see comment below), especially about the references behind the scripts. But “The Simpsons” and “Futurama” require a knowledge of American culture and history to truly appreciate.

EX: The Simpson family (a suburban family) goes on a rafting trip, and end up taking a wrong turn. The sound track plays the "Dueling Banjos, " a song-track which was used in the film* Deliverance*, a film based on a novel written long ago by someone whose name I can’t recall at the moment. In the novel, the three or four (suburban) men who just want to go an “all male” fishing-river-rafting trip somehow get caught up with shotgun-armed “hillbillies,” who sodomize one or two of them.

“The Simpsons” and “Furturama” expect you to know U.S. history and culture for at least maybe half of the humor. Let me put it this way: if you don’t, you really don’t get all the fun out of them.

[QUOTE=cactus waltz]
It can get frustrating when you watch an episode and a scene makes you think “That just HAS to be a reference to a movie, I just haven’t seen it”. But that’s why you have Google, right?
[/QUOTE]
Well, there are myriads of websites devoted to the Simpsons, but those also assume you have the cultural and historical background to be able to discuss the show. And it’s not just movies or TV. When Homer goes off on a (seemingly) peyote-induced search for his “soul mate,” that’s a reference to the writer Carlos Castededa. And, in fact, I wonder if few Americans even get that. Without knowing that, you might think, "Well that’s certainly strange and amusing that Homer eats a Guatemalan chili and then is suddenly taken to the desert where a coyote is encouraging him in bizarre ways to find his “soul mate.” But that the episode is essentially a direct satire about Casteneda is probably missed on even a lot of Americans.

COMMENT REFERENCED ABOVE:
The Simpsons is not written by just one writer at a time, just like most TV and films. But the Simpsons goes through many re-writes by many writers, much more than most. It’s a finely honed humor, and people from non-English speaking cultures miss it. Many, in fact, believe the show celebrates child misbehavior (ala Bart). But just about every episode ends with a “lesson learned,” and some kind of “family values” tone.

74

[QUOTE=mobo85]
guizot, do you happen to write for the New York Sun, by any chance?
[/QUOTE]
I may, or I may not, but I certainly didn’t write that article. David (Blum) holds this bizarre notion that the purpose of The Simpsons or Family Guy is to give kids literacy in l popular cultural history. (I rarely watch Family Guy anyway–it’s just not that funny.) But you (or at least I) laugh at The Simpsons because, for example, here’s a somewhat crude, somewhat ignorant, (but admittedly somehow likable) guy from a cartoon suburban family that just wants to drink beer and strut himself by eating “the hottest” chili ever suddenly in a Carlos Castenada book. (It’s an oblique form of satire or parody.) Certain incongruity can be both really funny and a source of literary beauty (like the Magic Realism in Garcia Marquez). As children grow, they’ll eventually realize that the head of Jebedia Smith in Bart’s bed originally came from the Godfather, not the Simpsons, simply because more people will talk about it in association with the film rather than the TV show.

To call this form of humor “cannibalizing” is bizarre, to me. I would go so far as to say that no humor is really possible without some referent (or cannibalizing :rolleyes: ) to something in the culture beyond.
NOTE:
“Mr. Sparkle” is actually “Mr. Sparukulu,” because Japanese typically have difficulty in pronouncing adjacent consonants.

75

[QUOTE=Snooooopy]
My first thought was that they’d find a politician who is as legendary to the target audience as Kennedy is to us, and duplicate his accent. Then again, maybe they just go with a generic sleazy-politician accent.
[/QUOTE]
Could be. When the Lion King came out, I saw it in Colombia. While all the other characters had typical, Mexico City voice-over accents, the three side kicks had Cuban accents. Everybody thought it was funny, but I don’t really know why.

76

I would like to point out that cultures that have access to the Simpsons are very likely to have access to a lot of other american popular culture.

If the Simpsons however was an isolated source of insight into the USA, then I could see that some lot of the jokes wouldn’t deliver. But as mentioned, most of the jokes that are references to american culture are also carefully vowen into the plot line (unlike a show such as Family Guy).

77

[QUOTE=manx]
Maybe not :

I can’t imagine The Simpsons any differently, but I guess neither can non-English speakers.
[/QUOTE]

I’m sorry, and I don’t care if Groening chose the artists himself. I’ve had to sit through way too many versions of the Mexican voice over Simpsons, which I’d seen before in English. It just doesn’t work, even if they throw in local references. The best stuff is lost in translation, and Mexican voice over artists don’t catch the subtletiesof voice referring to American speech–their Spanish speech is usually just generic. The American version is just too densely packed with references, and if they want to make something “even better than the original” they might as well just make a whole new show about Mexican culture.

For the same reason, “Ugly Betty,” while good, just doesn’t have the same punch as “Betty la fea,” which was an “anti-telenovela” directed at the tradition of the hugely popular regular telenovelas, which we don’t have in the States during prime time. (I think there once was an “anti-soap opera” a long time ago, however.)

78

millical: my favorite is KRUSTY KAMP

79

HOMR. The one where he gets the crayon removed from his nose. Great storyline, touching ending, and so many gems:

Homer: Animotion.
Quoter: Animotion: Up one and one-half.
Homer: Yahoo!
Quoter: Yahoo: Up six and a quarter.
Homer: Huh? What is this crap?
Quoter: Fox Broadcasting: Down eight.

"Point of order – I didn’t lose all the money. There was enough left for this cowbell. [rings it softly, and the bell breaks apart in his hands] Damn you, eBay!

Scientist 1: Who’s going to buy a pill that makes you blind?
Scientist 2: We’ll let marketing worry about that.

“I’ll show myself out.”

“Dr. Joyce Brothers may be highly known, but her psychological credentials are highly suspect.”

“Don’t tell me how to feel.”

“Point out your plot holes elsewhere.”

Scientist 1: I’m sorry; we don’t play God here.
Homer: That’s ridiculous. You do nothing but play God, and I think your octo-parrot would agree.

“Yep, I’m a surgeon.”

Moe: All right, tell me when I hit the sweet spot.
Homer: Deeper, you pusillanimous pilsner pusher!
Moe: All right, all right. [with a small hammer and chisel,
taps the crayon further up Homer’s nose]
Homer: De-fense! [woof-woof] De-fense! [woof-woof]
Moe: Eh, that’s pretty dumb. But, uh … [taps once more]
Homer: Extended warranty? How can I lose?
Moe: Perfect.

Marge: Sweetheart, the missing crayon could be anywhere.
[Homer crashes through the living-room window]
Homer: Who wants lottery tickets! [holds up two fistfuls of
tickets]

And it was years before “Idiocracy”.

80

[QUOTE=Happy Wanderer]
Scientist 1: I’m sorry; we don’t play God here.
Homer: That’s ridiculous. You do nothing but play God, and I think your octo-parrot would agree.
[/QUOTE]

[squawk] Polly shouldn’t be!