Category: The Simpsons

Celebs Bound for Springfield
No one knows for sure where the hell Springfield is, but we’re guessing it must be pretty close to Hollywood.
After all, look at the latest batch of celebs set for guest shots on The Simpsons this season.
William H. Macy, Lily Tomlin, Ricky Gervais, Frances McDormand, Richard Dean Anderson, Rob Reiner and Michael York will drop by during the 17th season, which kicks off Sept. 11. Also coming back for more ‘toon hijinks are previous guests Alec Baldwin, Kelsey Grammer and Joe Mantegna.
The season opener, titled “Bonfire of the Manatees,” will find Homer in serious trouble after allowing Springfield’s notorious Mafia don , Fat Tony (voiced once again by Mantegna), to use the Simpsons’ living room to shoot a “gentlemen’s film” to pay off a gambling debt. Having a cow, Marge runs away from the family to find herself and ends up meeting Caleb Thorn (Baldwin), a handsome marine biologist on a quest to save the endangered manatee–and Marge from her boorish hubby. Homer must figure out how to win back her affections. Baldwin previously appeared on the show as himself in 2002’s episode “Gump Roast.”
Meanwhile, fans will be treated to the first episode in three years featuring villainous Sideshow Bob (Grammer). When last he popped up in Springfield, Krusty the Clown’s former sidekick was released from prison into the custody of the Simpsons to help Homer catch a would-be killer. When Bob finally decided to murder long-time nemesis Bart, he ultimately couldn’t because he’d grown to like the kid.
And sure to please Patty and Selma will be the arrival of Richard Dean Anderson, who will undoubtedly use some of his MacGyver know-how to help the family out of yet another jam.
Other big names lending their voices to the show include Yankees’ pitcher Randy Johnson, boxing champ Joe Frazier, former basketball star Dennis Rodman and NFL legend turned Fox Sports broadcaster Terry Bradshaw. The latter two will appear as themselves in The Simpsons annual “ghoultide” special, “The Simpsons Tree House of Horror XVI” airing in its traditional post-Halloween slot on Nov. 6.
While unveiling the roster of guest stars, Fox reps and show producers didn’t immediately comment on Internet reports that Christina Aguilera turned down a Simpsons slot that would have had the “Dirrty” pop tart competing in an American Idol-esque show.
The Simpsons remains one of TV’s biggest franchises, consistently ranking tops in the advertiser-friendly 18-48 demo in its Sunday time slot. With the broadcast of its 350th episode last season, The Simpsons, ranking behind only Ozzie & Harriet as the longest-running comedy series in TV history.
Even though series mastermind Matt Groening has occasionally suggested the show’s end might be nigh, there’s no sign of stopping.
After some protracted negotiations, Fox agreed to a new four-year deal with the show’s six stars, giving each a raise to $250,000 per episode and keeping The Simpsons around for a potential 20th season.
And according to Fox reps, preproduction work is under way on a Simpsons animated movie, though no timetable for its release has been announced.

‘Simpsons’, ‘Family Guy’ Have Cartoon Feud
NEW YORK – “The Simpsons” took a shot at fellow Fox cartoon “Family Guy.” So that series’ creator is taking a shot right back.
Seth MacFarlane said an episode of “The Simpsons” where a Homer Simpson clone was identified as “Family Guy” dad Peter Griffin was “definitely a slam.”
But since the “Family Guy” team dishes out plenty of its own insults, it should be able to take some, MacFarlane told Blender magazine.
“To me, Peter is much more similar to Ralph Kramden than he is to Homer, right down to his voice,” he said, referring to the character from “The Honeymooners.” “That’s what I see. But because `The Simpsons’ and `Family Guy’ are really the only two shows of their kind of television, there’ll be comparisons made.”
MacFarlane said he was definitely influenced by “The Simpsons.”
“I mean, in its prime, it was one of the greatest comedy shows of all time,” he said. “But it’s not the show it was. It can’t be. You can’t do 16 seasons and be consistent.”

Groening Ponders Future of ‘The Simpsons’
LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) It’s a cliche for reporters to ask the creator of a long-running TV show about his favorite episodes, and the cliched response is for the creator to say that he loves them all and can’t possibly single out one or two.
Yet upon meeting “The Simpsons” creator Matt Groening Monday (April 26) at a party celebrating the show’s 350th episode — which airs Sunday, May 1 — the temptation to ask the favorites question was too hard to resist. Happily, he didn’t give the usual non-answer, rattling off a list of his top secondary characters — Apu, the Squeaky-Voiced Teen, Ralph Wiggum and Milhouse’s dad, Kirk, among them — and episodes he loves.
“I don’t have a single favorite. There’s a bunch I really like,” Groening says. “I love ‘Bart Sells His Soul,’ the old episode [from October 1995] where he sold his soul to Milhouse for five bucks. I love the one where we had Frank Grimes [‘Homer’s Enemy,’ from May 1997]. And I like an episode we have coming up where Bart converts to Catholicism.”
That episode, originally scheduled for earlier this month, was pulled following the death of Pope John Paul II and is now set to air Sunday, May 15. Groening says the decision was one the network made: “We think it’s offensive whenever you run it.”
It’s remarkable enough that “The Simpsons” has even made it to 350 episodes, more than any other scripted show currently on TV. That it can still create a buzz after that long, despite the now-familiar chorus that the show isn’t what it once was, is pretty much unheard of in this era.
“No matter how hard people try to run it into the ground by putting it on too many times a day, putting it on multiple DVDs and oversaturating the marketplace and all the rest, we still keep going,” Groening says. “In fact, I have to say I’m very proud of this season and the coming season.”
Groening thinks the show has lasted so long because “with animation, there are so many possibilities to surprise the audience. That’s really what we try to do. We try to keep surprising the audience and keep surprising ourselves.”
Groening was quoted in The New York Times Sunday as saying “the show has almost reached its halfway point.” Monday, he said he “was not serious at all” about whether “The Simpsons” can last another 350 episodes, but he quickly added, “I’ll do them if we can.
“That’s a long time, but if we, you know — unless we all get killed,” he says with a shrug. “I think five of the main people could get killed and the show could still go on. But any more than five — that’s why we all ride in separate airplanes.”

‘The Simpsons’ Hit 350th Episode Milestone
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – You know that a show has been around a long time when they start measuring milestones in episodic increments of 50. But it’s understandable that “The Simpsons” should want to make a big deal out of hitting 350 episodes with this Sunday’s installment.
As the legendary Fox series wraps up its 16th season, the denizens of Springfield are wading in some uncharted prime-time waters. When executive producer Al Jean boasts that “The Simpsons” “just enjoyed the best 16th season of any comedy ever,” that’s because no other comedy has ever made it this far.
How many episodes is 350? More than the combined total of “Seinfeld” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” “The Simpsons” will pass “Dallas” (357 episodes) on the all-time series list before 2005 is out. Then it takes aim at the only two comedies to have produced more segments: “My Three Sons” at 380 episodes and “The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet” at a somewhat astounding 435.
Can “The Simpsons” really make it to 435 — a feat that would require the show see a (gasp) 20th season?
“You know, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s really not out of the question,” Jean admits. “The cast is already signed through season 19. I think we’ll get at least that far. It required such a long negotiation to get the cast under contract for four years that I think it’s likely we’ll do them.”
The show is renewed through a 17th season. The only conventional entertainment show to run at least as many years was 20-year war horse “Gunsmoke,” though it need also be noted, of course, that “Law & Order” is nipping at the “Simpsons’ ” heels as it looks to a 16th season come fall.
At an age when any other comedy would be sputtering on fumes, “The Simpsons” is still pulling in respectable ratings — it’s the only thing keeping the lights on for Fox on Sunday nights this season — despite the fact that older episodes run at all hours of the day and night in syndication.
“My best hope in the beginning was that maybe we’d be some kind of cult thing like ‘Fawlty Towers’ that would go for five years,” admits Dan Castellaneta, the voice of Homer and Grampa, among many others. “Now we’re more than three times that far.”
People often ask Castellaneta how all of this happened, how this “Tracey Ullman Show” spinoff could survive fickle tastes and prime-time comedy lulls and the dismissive industry tag of being a mere cartoon.
The usual explanations for its uncanny longevity surround the fact that the characters never age and the magic of animation allows the writers to go places where live-action could never tread.
“I have to say that it really does come down to the writing,” he believes. “I’ve actually written a few scripts myself, and it’s just amazing how much time and effort goes into it. There are rewrites, rewrites of the rewrites, tweaks. And there’s no fear in the writers room. It’s all about getting it as good as it can possibly be.”
Of course, the conventional wisdom has it that “The Simpsons” has suffered a great nosedive in quality — and that if it hasn’t yet officially jumped the shark, it’s clinging to the shark’s fin. But Jean will have none of it.
“Have you ever known people to say that something is better now than it was in the past?” he asks. “Of course not. You have to take it all with a grain of salt. I remember during our fourth season, Entertainment Weekly wrote that we were going downhill. When the fourth season DVD was released, they said it was the 1927 Yankees of comedy.
“That isn’t to say we don’t do some bad shows now and didn’t then. But I say that by and large, the shows we’re doing now are just as good as any I’ve been involved with.”

Homer Simpson: Made in Korea
SEOUL (Reuters) – Homer Simpson, his dysfunctional family and his friends from the middle-of-the-road American town Springfield were sent to Seoul long before exporting job overseas became a hot-button political issue in the United States.
A stone’s throw away from a highway that tears through Seoul and upstairs from a convenience store called “Buy the Way,” Homer, Marge, and the rest of “The Simpsons” have been brought to life for about 15 years at South Korea’s AKOM Production Co.
The company has been animating “The Simpsons” at its studio in western Seoul since it premiered as a TV series in 1989.
Behind every blunder by police chief Wiggum, beer downed by Barney and wisecrack by Bart is a team of about 120 Korean animators and technicians who create the 22-minute episodes based on an elaborate storyboard and animation instructions from the show’s creators, Film Roman, in the United States.
AKOM gets the storyboard, camera and coloring instructions, as well as the voice tracks. It then turns out the episode about three months later. Music and other finishing touches are added back in the United States.
South Korea is one of the leaders in what is known as original equipment manufacturing (OEM) animation where a cartoon is drawn according to a storyboard provided by a client.
Nelson Shin, chief executive officer of AKOM, said “The Simpsons” ended up in Seoul because of the high quality of work.
Analysts say cheap labor also helped and industry estimates show that South Korean animators are paid about one-third of what their U.S. counterparts make.
“HEY MAN!”
When Shin first took a look at the yellow characters with bulging eyes and four fingers he thought it would be easy to animate the Simpsons. But now he thinks otherwise.
“When it comes to Bart’s spiky hair, if you make one mistake in drawing or pencil thickness, the animation looks funny,” Shin said. The elaborate stories and the range of emotion shown by each character, it turns out, make “The Simpsons” an exceedingly difficult show to draw, he said.
“The characters are really delicate and subtle,” Shin said.
For example, a typical cartoon has about six different mouths that can be attached to a stock face figure for talking. On “The Simpsons” the main characters have about 27 different mouths, Shin said.
If AKOM has trouble finding the correct way to show something, such as Krusty’s scar from heart surgery, another take of the scene will be produced after a phone call with the United States.
After several hundred episodes, production runs smoothly. On one floor, a staff of mostly young women sit at computers as they scan animation cells, add colors and put the final technical touches on the show.
They work with storyboards that show pictures drawn in the United States.
But dialogue can pose a problem.
At first, the Korean staff had difficulty understanding the show’s humor and the cultural references, Shin said.
“There was so much slang in the show. I looked up those phrases in my dictionary and I couldn’t find the meaning,” Shin said. “Bart speaks to his father and says ‘Hey, man.’ This is so disrespectful for us with our Confucian culture.”
DREAMS OF DUFF BEER
Shin sits in an office, decorated with cartoon figures, where his dogs bark for attention and an Emmy Award for his studio’s work on “The Simpsons” sits on a shelf.
Two floors below him is a room with dilapidated furniture and out-of date audio visual equipment. Attached to the desk of animation director Kim Jun-bok is a hand-drawn picture of a six pack of Duff Beer, the preferred brand of Springfield’s ludicrous lushes.
Over one of Kim’s shoulders is a drawing that includes almost all the show’s characters and on a shelf above his desk is a book in which each character is drawn at various angles, as if standing in a police line-up.
“I cannot really say there is one character I like more than others. They are all just one family to me,” Kim said.
“The Simpsons” is one of several U.S. animated TV shows made in South Korea, and in recent years other Korean animation studios have also been animating “The Simpsons” along with AKOM.
Shin, who teaches animation at a university, is one of the pioneers of the craft in Korea. He went to the United States in the 1970s and worked on shows such as “Scooby Doo” and was also responsible for animating the light sabers in the first “Star Wars” movie.
He started AKOM in 1985 and one of his biggest projects — a full-length animated film based on a Korean tale called “Empress Chung” — will hit cinemas in South Korea later this year.
There are worries in South Korea that OEM work is filtering out to other parts of Asia such as China and the Philippines where labor is cheaper.
But for now, fans of “The Simpsons” should know that each time they see Homer choking Bart and Lisa belting out the blues on her saxophone, there is an animator in Seoul who brought that image to life.

‘Simpsons’ character comes out of the closet
Marge Simpson’s sister is out of there.
In a twist that shocked few, chain-smoking Patty revealed she’s gay on last night’s much-hyped episode of The Simpsons.
As Homer put it: “Big surprise! Here’s another surprise — I like beer!”
Last night’s episode, There’s Something About Marrying, saw Springfield legalize gay marriage to attract tourists. When Rev. Lovejoy refuses — “I can’t marry two people of the same sex any more than I can put a hamburger in a hot dog bun” — Homer becomes a minister in the hopes of generating — as the town’s mayor put it “hot gobs of gay green.”
In the end, Patty remains single since her bride-to-be turns out to be a man disguised as a woman.
“I like girls!” Patty declares before leaving him/her at the altar. Can a cameo by the ladies of The L Word be far behind?

Ned a Valued Member of ‘The Simpsons’
NEW YORK – Good heavens! Ned Flanders has come into his own. A zealous instrument of God, Ned has long been instrumental to “The Simpsons” as it lampoons organized religion (that is, when not mocking virtually every other human institution, from business to democracy to its own TV network).
But lately the ground has shifted beneath the Simpsons’ hometown of Springfield, U.S.A., along with the rest of the nation. The new term has begun for a president whose re-election was clinched by the “moral values” ballyhoo. The current climate finds faith synonymous with patriotism, while “secular” is code for un-American.
Before on “The Simpsons,” Ned was a secondary figure ó Homer’s cloyingly pious next-door neighbor. But the values he embodies in exaggerated form now monopolize the political scene. In fact, one might say that Homer is Ned’s next-door neighbor, not the other way around, so clearly does Ned bask in the mainstream.
“The values he represents have become more visible in American life,” agrees “Simpsons” executive producer Al Jean, “as people who maybe are outward advocates of Ned’s values have come into positions of power. We always satirize who’s in power and what the cultural zeitgeist is, so currently the point of view Ned has is a little more ripe for satire.”
Ned stands front and center in Sunday’s edition of “The Simpsons” when, in an unlikely collaboration with Homer, he co-produces the Super Bowl halftime show as (what else?) a biblical pageant. Homer portrays Noah. The stadium is flooded from a Duff’s Beer blimp. Ned preaches the Word. Take that, Janet Jackson.
(The episode follows Fox’s real-life Super Bowl telecast, except in the Pacific time zone, where it airs at 7 p.m.)
Ned answers the call of show biz after seeing a sex-aid commercial for seniors and declaring, “There’s nothing but filth on TV.” He seizes his camcorder and films a backyard biblical drama: a bloody re-creation of the story of Cain and Abel, with his two young sons in the starring roles.
Homer’s wife, Marge, is troubled by Ned’s “Passion of the Christ”-inspired antics. “There’s more to the Bible than blood and gore,” she says.
But Ned (voiced by Harry Shearer) sneers in response, “I guess you’d rather see a film about a liberal European wizard school. Or the latest sexcapade of Miss Ashley Judd.”
Ned’s cinematic crusade fizzles when money man Mr. Burns withdraws his backing. But a panic-stricken Homer ó who was hired to create the Super Bowl show, then can’t think of anything to do ó desperately needs Ned to help him.
“Maybe,” says Ned, thrilled to get this globe-spanning pulpit, “God brought us together for a reason.”
Whatever the reason, Ned has been a holier-than-thou thorn in Homer’s side since the very first episode of “The Simpsons” in 1989, when Ned decorated his house with a dazzling array of Christmas lights.
“Too bright,” pouted Homer, embarrassed by his own house’s shabby display.
Homer still feels bedeviled by Ned’s goody-two-shoes style, his glossy cheer, his habit of injecting “diddly” into things he says, like his chipper greeting, “Hi-diddly-do!”
In a startling admission, Ned once disclosed that he was 60 years old, then attributed his youthful appearance to “the three C’s: clean living, chewing thoroughly and a daily dose of `vitamin church’.”
Mighty easy to see why Homer would say, “I don’t care if Ned Flanders is the nicest guy in the world ó he’s a jerk!”
Of course, Homer knows jerks from the inside out. For 16 seasons of “The Simpsons,” he has been a champion jerk ó lazy, dimwitted and irresponsible. His chief pleasures are beer, snacks and endless hours of TV while planted on the couch. He reigns as the flawed secular Everyman.
“I think Homer is a pretty bad guy in a lot of ways,” says Jean, who helps shape his personality, and adds, “The writers like Ned as a person better than Homer.”
But Ned’s faith-based deficiencies serve “The Simpsons” well as a Homer counterbalance. Spiritually in bondage, Ned is a model of righteousness gone wrong.
He must surely have been shocked to behold (or, more likely, learn about second-hand) Janet Jackson’s flash dance during Super Bowl XXXVIII, and definitely would have supported the anti-media backlash. Like he says, “There’s nothing but filth on TV.”
But how to explain why his squeaky-clean extravaganza flops with the public?
“All over America today,” reports newsman Kent Brockman, “viewers were outraged by the Super Bowl halftime show’s blatant display of religion and decency.”
This can only be a temporary setback. These days, Ned represents the nation’s ruling point of view. And what of citizens who beg to differ with it? Thank heaven “The Simpsons,” at least, still guarantees them a laugh.

COMIC GUY NAMED
The elusive real name of Comic Book Guy will finally be revealed in “Simpsons” episode No. GABF02, Act 1.
The blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment airs in the show after the Super Bowl on Feb. 6.
In the episode, Homer inadvertently performs a wild, crowd-pleasing dance at a local carnival and is hired by several major sports figures to choreograph their victory dances.
He is so successful that he gets tapped to choreograph the Super Bowl halftime show.
Comic Book Guy, the snobbish know-it-all, pops up in the episode clad in a “Nerds do it Rarely” T-shirt. Since the series began in 1991, his real name has never been used, although in an interview a few years ago series creator Matt Groening joked that his name was “Louis Lane.”

HOMER MEETS HIS MAKER
Homer is going to die.
“Simpsons” creator Matt Groening says he is going to kill off Daddy Simpson so that the star can go to heaven to argue with God.
Fear not.
Homer comes back at the end of the episode, he says, after deciding he misses wife Marge and kids Bart, Lisa and Maggie too much.
“Homer gets into an argument with God,” Groening told reporters late last week at an award show in London.
“He tells God he should go back in time and change things that are wrong in the world.
“Homer says Superman could do it,” the show’s creator says.
This will not be Homer’s first confrontation with the Almighty.
He has, in an earlier episode, argued with God about the relative merits of football and chuch (“Hey, what’s the big deal about going to some building every Sunday? I mean, isn’t God everywhere?”)
But this will be the first time he dies in order to meet the Lord.
The creator of “The Simpsons” also said that he was excited that TV comic Ricky Gervais ó the writer and star of “The Office” ó had agreed to pen a “Simpsons” episode.
“It is the first time anyone has been given free rein to write an episode.
“We trust Ricky because we’ll take his scripts and just rip it apart.”

‘OFFICE’ STAR GOING HOMER
Ricky Gervais, the mastermind behind the BBC’s cult hit “The Office,” will write an episode of “The Simpsons.”
“I had lunch with [series creator] Matt Groening and we chatted over some bits and pieces,” Gervais told The Post yesterday.
“I’d already been in talks with [executive producer] Al Jean about doing a voice for the show, and he said it might be a good idea for me to have a go,” he said.
Gervais, who called “The Simpsons” “the greatest TV show of all time,” also called the assignment “intimidating.”
“It’s like improving the Mona Lisa, you know, ‘Give her a bigger smile,’ ” he said, adding that he’s got some ideas for the episode.
“It’s not so much a plot as a theme,” said Gervais, who’s also gearing up for his first post-“Office” series, “Extras.”
“I got some sample bits and pieces that might happen; what I’m doing is banging it down as I go along and sending it to Al [Jean],” Gervais said.
Gervais said the show’s writers will help whip his ideas into shape.
“Me banging down a couple of ideas is one thing, but it’s not an episode of ‘The Simpsons’ until it’s had the full treatment from the show’s writers,” he said.
“But whatever happens ó if they look at it and say, ‘Sorry, it’s rubbish,’ or if it gets on the air ó they asked,” he said.
“It’s a pleasure for me to do things like this. The awards, money and fame are secondary ó I still get to do exactly what I want and I get offers from people like Al Jean.”
Gervais said he has “no idea” when his “Simpsons” episode will air on Fox.
“There are so many ‘ifs’ along the way,” he said. “I could just burst into tears and have a breakdown and say I can’t do it.”