Jmunney's Blog

Season Analysis: Watching modern-day Simpsons renders quite the existential toll: it does not look like it will ever die, even though it seems like it has already lived its entire life.

“The Day the Earth Stood Cool”
Classic Simpsons is known for its spot-on cultural homages and parodies.  Modern Simpsons still takes aim in the same direction, but it is rarely memorable anymore, so it is especially gratifying nowadays to have an episode like “The Day the Earth Stood Cool,” which is essentially an animated episode of Portlandia.  Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein voice a couple of Portlanders who pave the way for a Portland-to-Springfield migration, thus turning the Simpsons’ hometown into a hipster paradise (that is to say, Portlandia).    Considering that there is already an entire show built around the concept of hipster paradise, one might think this episode would suffer from lack of originality.  But there may not be any original concepts left for The Simpsons anyway, so they might as well borrow another show for an entire episode.  As a loyal A.V. Club reader, I must point out the gag with the print version of The Onion, in which Marge mistakes it for a real newspaper and then mistakes the A.V.’s harsh reviews of The Wizard of Oz and The Graduate for fake reviews.  This gag paints The A.V. Club as harsher/more alternative than it actually is, but it still hilariously gets the point across.

Season Analysis: It’s a post-post-post-Simpsons world, and the show’s best moments sneak in when nobody is paying attention.

“The Book Job”

Parodies of heist movies (as well as heist movies themselves) have been done plenty of times, satires of the publishing industry – not so much.  That’s probably because satirizing the book world doesn’t sound like that much fun, whereas heists are all about fun.  But, fun or no, there is plenty worth targeting in the literary realm, so the idea of combining a publishing industry satire with a heist parody was an ingenious move by The Simpsons writing team.  The relentlessness of the double crosses in the last act as well as the flashback reveals that the heist had actually worked when it seemed otherwise is the sort of thing that would ruin most heist movies or heist parodies, but it worked because all these elements also served as a satirical knife cutting into the teen fantasy literary genre: the book executives want to replace the trolls in the story with more easily marketable vampires, Lisa just wants her name on a best-seller, ghost written or not, and Neil Gaiman ultimately heists his way to the best-seller list “once again.”  Also, the book titles revealed in the establishing shot at Bookaccino’s were a boon to freeze-frame inclined TV viewers (highlights included Percy Sledge and the Olympians, Are you there Glycon? It’s Me Alan Moore, Chat Roulette with the Vampire, The Girl with the ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ Tattoo, Cocktail Party Make-You-Thinks by Malcolm Gladwell, and of course, Death to Freezeframers).

“MoneyBART”

“MoneyBART” represents a foreign element in a new environment two times over: Lisa Simpson in the world of baseball and the language of sabermetrics in America’s pastime.  Just as baseball “purists” cried foul when Bill James, Paul DePodesta, and Billy Beane ushered in the era of moneyball, Bart bemoans what happens to his Little League team when Lisa becomes the manager, even though the Isotots move up to the top of the standings.  Lisa knows nothing about baseball until she becomes enamored with sabermetrics.  “It’s a triumph of number crunching over the human spirit!”  Bart wonders what happened to the game he grew up with, and as with real-life baseball traditionalists, it is not clear that he really knows what makes baseball great, bemoaning as he does the “misty ballparks” of corporate-owned Enron Field and “Pac-Bell, then SBC, now AT&T Park.”  There is a good deal of yin and yang to baseball, and the ability of the writers of The Simpsons to recognize all of its diverse elements make “MoneyBART” one of the most joyful episodes in a while.  The Simpsons-specific gags weaved into the baseball moments were on target as well (Milhouse reveals that his parents are brother and sister, he thinks; Nelson reminds Bart that they are no longer cellar dwellers – “well, at least the team isn’t”; and this gem from the baseball announcer – “speaking of Homer, Bart’s father’s name is, you guessed it, not on my fact sheet”).

Next up: Bob’s Burgers

“To Surveil with Love”

In response to fears of terrorism, Springfield hires a British security consultant to install security cameras around town.  Marge and Ned Flanders become the resident Big Brothers when they are put in charge of surveillance of the security cameras.  Ned proceeds to nag the whole town for the most minor of infractions, but then Bart discovers a blind spot in the Simpson backyard.  Then all the Springfield residents head to the Simpsons’ to partake in debauchery for the sake of debauchery.  Meanwhile, Lisa has to deal with the dumb blonde stereotype; it is a joke as old as time, but one that never gets old.  Simply put, the gags were on, particularly the gay bar that Maggie was watching on a security camera because it looked like Sesame Street.  Putting everything in satisfying context was the twist ending, which revealed that the Springfield security camera footage was being aired as a British reality show entitled American Oafs.  And the true highlight of the episode was the opening, set to the tune of “Tik Tok,” Ke$ha’s hit for all ages.

Though it did not appear in the season’s best episode, the best scene of the year needs to be mentioned.  It appeared in “Love Me Tender,” in which Moe was hired as a judge on American Idol after showing off his judging skills in various local competitions.  Here is his encounter with a talent agent:
“So, what kind of reality shows are we talkin’ about here?”
“Well, to name just a few: America’s Ripest Bananas, So You Think You Can Judge, Who Wants to Be a Welder?, Poodle Vs. Elephant, Leg Swap, Old People Try to Figure Out Computers, American Idol, Dancing with Cars of the Stars, America’s Drunkest Nobody, Let’s Make a Veal…”
“Love that show.”
“Somali Pirate Apprentice…”
“Right, yeah, with those guys.”
“Fix Andy Dick…”
“It’s about time.”
“Bottom Chef, My Life on Kathy Griffin, Pimp My Crypt, Are You Fatter than a Fifth Grader?, and Grave Robbers of Orange County.”
“Geez, that’s, uh, quite a list.”
“Hang on.  I’m getting a text.  Ooh, those were all just cancelled, except for American Idol.”
“Did you just say Armenian Idol?  Cause that’s my favorite show!”
“No, no, no, no, no, American Idol!”
“Oh, yeah.  Who’s their Igor Glumov?”
“Randy Jackson.”
“Ah, good enough.”

Next up: The Cleveland Show