Simpsorama Review

To start I'll say I passingly enjoyed the Family Guy crossover. It was an episode of Family Guy. It had Family Guy writing. Half the time jokes hit, half the time they don't. When they don't, who cares? It's just Family Guy. Maybe the next line will be better. I mean, pretty much none of the Simpsons characters said anything funny, mostly because they all just reiterated their primary Flanderized schticks (Apu and Wiggum come to mind), but there were plenty of forgettable Family Guy laughs.
 Simpsorama, however, is Zombie Simpsons. With Zombie Simpsons writing. This is trouble. Seeing these two shows I love so much get unceremoniously dragging through the mud, I feel like the Grinch suddenly realising I care. So I've decided to walk through this episode in detail, partly for catharsis, and partly to definitively discuss what I dislike about Zombie Simpsons.

Rest assured that I was on the internet within minutes, registering my disgust throughout the world.

- The Futurama music kicking in with the "Simpsorama" title is cool in a cheap thrill, spectacle kind of way.

Tagline: A show out of ideas teams up with a show out of episodes.
Well, it certainly is apt [Apt!], but the wording feels a little clumsy to me. And I don't think merely pointing out these things is as clever as some comedy writers seem to.

- The couch gag has Homer and Hedonismbot moaning a lot. It's long and uncomfortable.
- Chalmers shoots Skinner with a spit wad for... some... reason. What?
- Nelson reiterates his father issues schtick (a symptom of a long running series).
- Next it's Milhouse's turn to say some things. The formula for this joke is that he makes a claim about himself and is immediately undermined by happenstance. It suffers from sloppy timing and being slapsticky in nature.

Skinner: Let me guess, you forgot to bring something.
Bart: I am shocked that you think I forgot.
Bart's response is oddly delivered and written, repeating Skinner's opinion back at him, as if we need reminding what it was. It's like there's just a huge lack of trying with this script writing. Hell, I'm pretty sure Bart has used that faux-innocent "Mrs K, I'm offended" attitude plenty in the past without regurgitating what we already know he's being accused of. Unnecessarily wordy dialogue is a shocking plague on this entire ordeal and Zombie Simpsons in general.

- Marge sixth senses her sandwich being desecrated. It's reminiscent of "Why'd you shudder just now?" which both plays a lot better and makes much more sense.
- That joke formula pops up again as Mr Burns says a thing and is immediately undermined by happenstance. This is a tired sitcom convention.
- And the very next scene opens with Kent doing it as well. He states a thing and immediately undermines himself.
- Bender makes some Bender noises as he falls out of the storm. I like Bender.
- Bart uses his Cartoon Facial Expression 101 half-down-eyelids-of-unimpressedness to make a snarky comment about America. Delivery is uninspired even for deadpan.
- Homer's reading a book with a funny-in-an-obvious-way title. The explanation he comes up with for the noise downstairs is far too stupid, but at least he doesn't seem to be a jerkass anymore. Y'know, for the most part.
- Homer mistakes a mirror (on his stairwell wall that he uses constantly) for a painting watching him, and Bart spends words to flatly (complete with eyelids) explain Homer's point of confusion. None of this is worth Homer's nonsensical punchline.
- Homer and Bart waste a bunch of time being afraid and not getting to Bender.
- Bart-does-the-same-thing-the-dog-just-did gag.
- Lengthy shot as the camera follows a rope across the basement ceiling to reveal Bart ridiculously hanging upside down as bait. [Think harder, Homer!]
- Bender emerges in shadow and Homer whacks him. Bender wastes no time in spouting his catchphrase, which Homer acknowledges. Unfortunately, being "meta" in very obvious and unsubtle ways isn't a free pass to clever writing.
- For some reason Bart's face fails to emote as he gives another weird delivery, this time antagonising Homer.
- Homer and Bender then literally take turns batting Bart around for way too long.
- Homer does a slow, tiresome "Oh. My. God." In my experience, this rarely plays well in what is meant to be a quick, snappy comedy setting.
- Bender belches fire at Moe's. Fanservice doesn't count as a joke.
- John DiMaggio makes some "dingity-dings" that clearly should have been "bippity-boops", but it's still worth a smile.
- Moe calls Bender "Blade Rummy". Now, I'm sure someone in the writers' room came up with that on the spot and was super proud of themselves, and good on you for it, but puns just don't play well in a scripted format. Save it for some form of social gathering.
- Bender is upset that he has no emotions. Futurama did it!
- Pin Pals shirts for no reason. Are people really suckered in by that "OMG I KNOW THAT THING" mentality? This is the Epic Movie brand of humour.
- Bender says "D'oh!" Meh, it was alright.
- Hah! Bromance. Current and hip, right? What a humourous and charming why does everything have to have a stupid name this isn't a romantic comedy. Ahem. It's just a lame variant on the old robo/romo joke.
- Next up, No-Fun Lisa with unimpressed eyelids out in full force is here to deliver the most egregious sequence of "meta" humour ever committed to film. She and Bart suggest that whoever designed Bender just lazily stuck an antenna on a drawing of Homer. Hey, guys, the kind of crap you jibe and joke about in audio commentaries doesn't cut it in an actual script. This isn't funny. It doesn't even make sense. This isn't like the Homer and Krusty situation. They just have the lightbulb head in common. That's literally it. Bender has no muzzle, no stomach, thin limbs, three fingers, footcups, etc. Lisa concludes by remarking "A little lazy, if you ask me" and Bart gives a smug knowing nod. Oh, you little rapscallions!
- Bender's impressive futuristic feat and "the Gs look like sixes" are perfectly fine gags.
- Getting very tired of characters expressing distainful attitudes with those half-down eyelids.
- John DiMaggio makes a wacky noise!
- Professor Frink rehashes some fifteen-year-old Futurama humour. [Try turning him off and on!]
- Lisa's question about the three laws is clunky at best.
- Homer now says multiple lines in his always hilarious loud-whisper-discreetly-filling-you-in-about-something voice. This never once becomes grating or tiresome, nor does it ever make me aware that I'm sitting here conciously waiting for a piece of dialogue to get done being said.
- Don't really care to wonder if Leela making a video call to the past makes any sense.
- So, the Family Guy crossover was largely about the two shows exploring each other, and the plot conflict was centered around their two mainstay beers. In contrast, this crossover is about ...rampant mutant rabbits. 'Cos that's a huge part of Futurama.
- Farnsworth explains some plot.
- Bender expresses outrage at the idea of stealing and is immediately undermined by himself. Jokes!
- We get a wordier version of Zoidberg's joke from the Futurama game. [I'm making a cameo!]
- Fry, Leela, and Farnsworth are sucked into the past, Bender gets shot in the head, and then his wound inexplicably and bafflingly heals on screen, Wolverine style. What? What were they even going for with that? Does being kind of easy to miss automatically qualify as funny now, regardless of how out of nowhere or inconsistent it is?
- Krusty calls Bender and co. freaks, and is immediately undermined by the freakish company he keeps.
- Oh, look who it is, Seymour Asses haplessly chucked in in some kind of forceful attempt to appeal to fans with something beloved, without any regard for why it is so. Seymour is special because of the story that encompasses him. Throwing a drawing of him up any old place with soppy music is a cheap grab for aduration by recognition. It has no meaning.
- Marge and Leela have an introduction scene because the female characters always have to interact in crossovers since they naturally have so much in common. All those, what, vaginas and whatever? Eitherway, they share a completely banal back and forth, Marge making a lame faux pas about Leela's eye [What's with the eye?] and Leela, instead of taking the joke in literally any other direction, disappointingly and predictably takes her turn to also misspeak in an even more laboured way about Marge's hair. [Awful, awful hair.] I again get that feeling of sitting around waiting for a piece of dialogue to be over so something else can please happen. But it keeps going with awkward uncomfortableness (which I don't think works in animation) and a shoehorned missuse of Leela's "Oh, Lord" catchphrase.
- The next exchange between Lisa and Farnsworth has a nice Futurama feel. [The hard part was getting the brain out!]

Bender: Kill all humans. Kill all humans.
Homer: Start with Flanders. Start with Flanders.
Drop the repitition and you may have had some impact. Even then, it's another uninspired mash-up joke. Did you guys know Homer doesn't care for Ned all that much? (endlessly reiterating tired concepts, symptom of a long (long) running series)

- Next, Fry gets one of his three lines and it's a pretty alright moment. Unfortunately, this is probably the only time he speaks to Bart (and I don't think he ever interacts with Homer) and that is so depressing I think I'm gonna cry.
- Now Professor Frink gets to do an immediately-undermining-myself joke and we hit unimpressed-eyelids critical mass with a stupid static shot of everyone staring disparagingly at Frink's hypocrisy. This has got to be one of the most overused and uncreative comedy beats of our time. Someone should have left a note in the writers' room that the novelty of Simpsons and Futurama characters being in the same frame isn't actually a good enough supplement for an interesting script.
- So Farnsworth says some plot, Marge and Homer eat up some very unamusing seconds exclaiming literally the very previous thing that was just revealed. I have to stress what afwul writing this is for a fast paced comedy.

Lisa: What a surprise, it's Bart.
And now Lisa (with eyelids) does the exact same thing! Why did she need to stick "it's Bart" on the end of that sentence? The line might be better if it was something like "What a surprise, Bart is the [some humourously worded description of Bart being ancestor to the creatures]." But no, she just says "It's Bart." I know it's Bart! I can plainly see! Tell me a funny!

- Bart makes a lame I'm-very-obviously-being-meta remark about doing the same jokes a thousand years later.
- The stupid split-second Scruffy suicide does not play at all. There's a lot of odd comedic timing throughout this episode and Zombie Simpsons at large.
- The Simpsons are sucked into the future and Marge needs to do a headcount and actually point and say numbers out loud before she can notice Maggie is missing. This serves to use up time because they evidently have nothing better to fill it with.
- Extended repeat animation sequence of Homer twisting the necks off the Bart mutants. It's funny because he's treating it like a mundane task. You can tell by his eyelids. And, ohp! What's this? He picked up the real Bart next! What hijinx!
- The atheist prayer gag is all fine and good I suppose, but a niggling part of me just wants to scream out that atheism has no rituals or dogma.
- Hedonismbot shows up and [sigh] isn't very funny. He even makes a pun. The problem, I think, with things like Hedonismbot or Randy is that all the magic they have evaporates as soon as the writers become aware of their popularity and use them intentionally. Randy's appearances in the Comedy Central era always had an air of "Hey guys, look, it's Randy! That funny character John does that you all like!" to them.
- Leela seems oddly off model. I think her top may have shrunk in the wash. Also her face.
- Lisa (eyelids) says she can manipulate Bart, Bart says she cannot, and is immediately undermined by ...things completely unrelated to Lisa. Odd. Classic misdirect?
- Chief Wiggum spits an extra "Happy?!" at Lou, because padding.
- LISAISSNIDETOBARTWITHEYELIDS!
- Sure toss in a holophonor.
- Madison Cube Garden is flung into space and everyone is happy. [This man wants to hit the ball too, and he does.] The Simpson children don't seem phased that they are in space.

Homer: I'll treasure it forever.
Bender: Lie detected.
This moment feels so laboured and uninspired and like it's a completely uncreative idea (long running series, etc.). [Now would you unhook me already? I don't deserve this kind of shabby treatment.]

- Bender is tossed in the basement and we get a Zombie Simpsons clawing-desperately-at-your-heartstrings ending.
- "My name is Kang, and this is my sister, Kodos." "Hello!"
- Closing has some nice sight gags, but Peter over the Gracie Films song was better.

Also he got a racecar. Is any of this getting through to you?

Awesome Disney Puzzle

Amazingly cool jigsaw puzzle we chanced to find.

Matt Groening Required Viewing

If you're looking to familiarise with Matt Groening's phenomenal animated sitcoms but it seems too mammoth a task, this is my personal recommendation on how to get all the essential nutrients while skipping the fluff.

The Simpsons (170 episodes out of 569)
[S1 E01] Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire
[S1 E03] Homer's Odyssey
[S1 E04] There's No Disgrace Like Home
[S1 E06] Moaning Lisa
[S1 E07] The Call of the Simpsons
[S1 E09] Life on the Fast Lane
[S1 E12] Krusty Gets Busted
[Season 2]
[Season 3]
[Season 4]
[Season 5]
[Season 6]
[Season 7]
[S8 E01] Treehouse of Horror VII
[S8 E02] You Only Move Twice
[S8 E05] Bart After Dark
[S8 E06] A Milhouse Divided
[S8 E08] Hurricane Neddy
[S8 E09] The Mysterious Voyage of Homer
[S8 E10] The Springfield Files
[S8 E11] The Twisted World of Marge Simpson
[S8 E12] Mountain of Madness
[S8 E13] Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious
[S8 E14] The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show
[S8 E15] Homer's Phobia
[S8 E16] Brother from Another Series
[S8 E18] Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment
[S8 E22] In Marge We Trust
[S8 E23] Homer's Enemy
[S8 E24] The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase
[S8 E25] The Secret War of Lisa Simpson
[S9 E01] The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson
[S9 E03] Lisa's Sax
[S9 E09] Realty Bites
[S9 E17] Lisa the Simpson
[S9 E22] Trash of the Titans
[S10 E03] Bart the Mother
[S10 E07] Lisa Gets an "A"

Futurama (53 episodes out of 140)
[S1 E01] Space Pilot 3000
[S1 E02] The Series Has Landed
[S1 E03] I, Roommate
[S1 E04] Love's Labours Lost in Space
[S1 E05] Fear of a Bot Planet
[S1 E06] A Fishful of Dollars
[S1 E07] My Three Suns
[S1 E08] A Big Piece of Garbage
[S1 E09] Hell Is Other Robots
[S1 E10] A Flight to Remember
[S1 E12] When Aliens Attack
[S1 E13] Fry and the Slurm Factory
[S2 E01] I Second That Emotion
[S2 E03] A Head in the Polls
[S2 E04] Xmas Story
[S2 E05] Why Must I Be a Crustacean in Love?
[S2 E06] The Lesser of Two Evils
[S2 E07] Put Your Head on My Shoulders
[S2 E09] A Bicyclops Built for Two
[S2 E10] A Clone of My Own
[S2 E13] Bender Gets Made
[S2 E14] Mother's Day
[S2 E15] The Problem with Popplers
[S2 E16] Anthology of Interest I
[S2 E17] War Is the H-Word
[S3 E01] Amazon Women in the Mood
[S3 E02] Parasites Lost
[S3 E04] The Luck of the Fryrish
[S3 E06] Bendless Love
[S3 E07] The Day the Earth Stood Stupid
[S3 E10] Where the Buggalo Roam
[S3 E11] Insane in the Mainframe
[S3 E14] Time Keeps on Slippin'
[S3 E15] I Dated a Robot
[S3 E17] A Pharaoh to Remember
[S3 E18] Anthology of Interest II
[S3 E19] Roswell That Ends Well
[S3 E20] Godfellas
[S3 E21] Future Stock
[S3 E22] The 30% Iron Chef
[S4 E01] Kif Gets Knocked Up a Notch
[S4 E02] Leela's Homeworld
[S4 E03] Love and Rocket
[S4 E07] Jurassic Bark
[S4 E09] Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles
[S4 E10] The Why of Fry
[S4 E11] Where No Fan Has Gone Before
[S4 E12] The Sting
[S4 E15] The Farnsworth Parabox
[S4 E16] Three Hundred Big Boys
[S4 E18] The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings
[S6 E07] The Late Philip J. Fry
[S7 E26] Meanwhile

My Orifices Cannot Take Any More Sexbang

I got very upset yesterday when I bore witness to garbage billowing out of a human's face at the end of the 15th episode of Game Grumps' Pokémon FireRed series, and so I wanted to share the following on here because evidently I feel quite strongly about it.

Here's the text of my YouTube comment:

Danny... what the fuck? What the fuck even are you saying with these words? "Some people are, some people aren't." Wow. So, hey, any lovelies out there who might be going through some body image issues at the moment, you're probably just unattractive. So sayeth our dearest Sexbang. Thank you, Danny. Also, all babies are adorable. Like, literally, the qualities that humans find cute are the qualities found in our young. I have no idea why you are specifying Asians at all. Did you just, like, take leave of all rationality for a few minutes there? I also like "There are lots of beautiful Asian people." as if that makes it okay that you just said some of them apparently turn out gross. Because what could possibly be more important than being physically beautiful?

Now, Danny would never, for example, single out an overweight woman in the street and tell her she's ugly. I know he would never do that. But apparently it's okay to offhandedly declare that some segment of people aren't attractive. I just don't see a difference between those two actions. Because when you say something like that in a public forum like Game Grumps, viewers with pre-existing insecurities will connect the dots, and it hurts just as bad.

I realise Danny's not out to hurt anyone, and I don't hate him as a person or anything. But this isn't the first straw. It would be cruel and extremely entitled to expect him to be a "replacement Jon" or something like that. He's just himself and that's fine, but I don't like it very much at all. So I guess I'm done now.

Praiser? I Hardly Know Her!

I was watching this video with Richard Dawkins and Ricky Gervais about religion, thoroughly enjoying being a preached-to choir, when Mr Gervais made a comment about agnosticism in regards to mythical creatures, as well as the existence of multiple different organised religions*. This gave me pause as I thought about how I really felt, and I ended up coming to some conclusions that I'd like to share here.
 Maybe I'm wrong here, but this is how I generally interpret the word agnostic: "Since there's no way of gaining any evidence either way, and believing in it does no harm, it's just not worth discussing or debating. To each their own." The only thing I really feel this way about** is the idea of something spiritual existing somewhere in the universe that we couldn't ever really feasibly find out about, nor would it have anything to do with our little speck of dirt. Something I will always debate and argue against at every turn, however, is religion itself. Organised religions, I believe across the board, preach ideas of sacrality and worship that I feel ultimately result in nothing more valuable than violence and hate.
 I was thinking about that Aussie radio DJ prank call involving the royal family that ended up driving the woman involved to suicide. I couldn't understand how being taken in by a harmless prank could cause a person that much mental anguish, but then I had a thought: she let down the Queen. This is obviously just a theory and entirely speculation, but what if she was raised in an environment where everyone just revered the royal family and the ground they walk on? That isn't really a religious example, but it's the same idea, and I really feel strongly that conditioning people to hold something sacred (like a book, for example) or worship someone on a pedestal like they are somehow higher or more important than anyone else, on a basic human level, whether it be a god, the Queen, the Pope or Tom Hanks, is terribly counter-productive to humanity. People do terrible things in the name of their god.
 And of course, this all starts at a criminally young age, or else it would have no staying power in the mind. Parents indoctrinate their children (and that is what it is) into whatever faith happens to be popular in the household when they're too young to even understand what thinking for one's self is, and by the time they've become rational, critically thinking adults, some people just never stop to look back questioningly on something that simply has been in their entire lives.

*To kind of respond to what Ricky Gervais said about agnostics, it's really just the one thing I mentioned that I feel that way about, and I'm certainly not walking around saying "Well maybe some made-made religions could be true I don't know!" (If you could read that last sentence in that voice you use when you're telling a story and you want someone to sound stupid, that would be great.) And I don't believe in auras, psychics, ghosts, goblins or Santa Claus for two reasons. One: they, too, were invented by people, and two: we can and have scoured the Earth and found nothing substantial.

**I'm not agnostic about Heaven, but I do think the basic idea is harmless and even beneficial***. I have no doubt that the simple belief in being able to meet your deceased loved ones again is what gets a lot of people through some of the tougher times. But even that can get twisted into a tool for manipulation when you start subscribing to a holy text. "Don't do this or you won't go to Heaven, blow up this and be eternally rewarded," etc. Not good times.

***This is a thing I made up today about the idea of Heaven.

My Writing Process

As I've been going through the initial writing process for Since It's V Day, I found it interesting to note how monumentally helpful a simple thing like a text editing program can be. I can't imagine the headache involved in trying to organise scenes written on paper, after you've jotted them down in the order they came to you. So I thought I'd detail here how I go about writing a story and why the easy functionality of WordPad is a fucking godsend.
 Basically what it comes down to is the ability to get the basic plot events marked down with several blank lines inbetween so I can easly insert content in its chronological place as it's formulated. Using this method I can begin to fill out the document with more detailed plot points and scenes, small bits of dialogue, character moments, descriptions and notes. It also helps to easily signify where I still have gaps in the sequence of events that require filling in.
 Now rather than set time aside for dedicated writing sessions, I'll usually just go about my day and, as I said in my last post, when an idea is new and exciting, it tends to fill my mind at every silent moment. This makes it easier for ideas for scenes and such to come more naturally as I mull over the plot, and I can simply insert them into the document as I go.
 Once I feel like I've got enough material, I'll begin stitching the scenes together, figuring out how they'll flow into each other, etc. Then, once most of the events and dialogue are written out, I'll go back to the top and begin systematically figuring out how each sequence will break down into comic panels, and begin producing the pages as I go. This is also how I wrote Two Guys Walk Into the Internet....

Since It's V Day

Something incredible has happened. Something amazing that I never imagined would happen to me, or rather, I often imagined would never happen to me. I... have had an idea. Yes, an idea. Phenomenal. But, as I say, it was a kind of idea I never thought possible. Not an idea for a joke, but rather something... else.
 I woke up at about 9pm last night, and for whatever reason, just lied in bed for a while, letting my mind wander. The tapestry of a small story began to weave itself into existence without permission. I considered it carefully, molding and refining it, and before long I knew I had to get up and write it down. Being new and intriguing, it filled my mind at every silence, and so ideas begat ideas, the story began to grow, and my excitement mounted.
 I've now just spent all night and day typing notes, thinking about characters and designs, and sketching out storyboards for a climactic scene towards the end of the story. A purely dramatic story is, once again, something I never even dreamed of attempting in all my days, so this will be completely untested water for me. Maybe I'll suck at it and it'll be terrible. But I'm not gonna find out by thinking about it.
 I'm making this post to mark down in the history books the day this project was birthed and pre-production began. I'll be quite interested to see how many superhero reboots have happened by the time this thing is done. This is a story called Since It's V Day.

Toby

                        

3x22: Through the Looking Glass

28. Screenshot Comic #1

A few years ago on IMDb's Lost board there was a little fad for a while where someone would make a comic strip template out of Lost screenshots and a bunch of people would take it and insert their hilarious captions. The dialogue for this first one jumped out at me pretty much as soon as I saw it, except for the third panel, which took a while to figure out, but I'm pretty happy with how it ended up. I'm glad I thought of something that actually uses Ben's pose, instead of just ignoring it and telling the story through dialogue.
 Also, the M&M's are peanut.

An Ode to Time Well Spent

There might be too much stuff on the internet. I've been finding that I don't write, draw, or even play games nearly as much as I'd like, and yet I still can't keep up with all the web content I want to. So these are the sites and serieses that I just can't fit in anymore. Maybe in twenty years I'll return to this post and see where all these great sites are at or ended up, but for now, there's just not enough time (well, for some kids, that is).

Cinemassacre
http://cinemassacre.com/
Ctrl+Alt+Del
http://www.cad-comic.com/
Explosm
http://www.explosm.net/
Irregular Webcomic!
http://irregularwebcomic.net/
That Guy With The Glasses
http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/
Weebl's Stuff
http://www.weebls-stuff.com/
Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series
http://www.yugiohtheabridgedseries.com/
GamesRadar
http://www.gamesradar.com/uk/
Knox's Korner/The Benfer
http://thebenfer.com/
Hi, I'm a Marvel... and I'm a DC
http://www.youtube.com/user/ItsJustSomeRandomGuy
How It Should Have Ended
http://www.howitshouldhaveended.com/
MS Paint Adventures
http://www.mspaintadventures.com/
Red vs. Blue
http://www.youtube.com/show/redvsblue?s=1
Zero Punctuation
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation