Star Wars on The Simpsons

Starwars.com  has a feature about all Star Wars references in The Simpsons. The list is pretty long, and you can check it out here.

This one instantly came to my mind:

"Mayored to the Mob" (12/20/98) One of the richest troves of Star Wars references starts with a visit to a sci-fi convention (The Bi-Mon-Sci-Fi-Con) which boasts appearances of "the gay robots of Star Wars" and Chewbacca at the event. Mark Hamill is one of the guests (and one of the guest voices), and ends the episode with a dinner theater appearance where some creative liberties were taken to make Guys and Dolls a little more like Star Wars ("Luke be a Jedi, tonight!"). When Homer gets targeted by mobsters at dinner, Mark implores him to "use the forks!"

I'd never seen this on TV, but man it's awesome.

Simpsons causes stir in Argentina

 In Argentina, an episode of The Simpsons has caused a bit of an uproar. The episode in question is E Pluribus Wiggum, which aired January 6, 2008 here in the United States, but hasn't yet aired in Argentina.

The part that is so controversial is Leny and Carl talking about the Argentine dictator, Juan Peron, making people disappear and "[staying] disappeared." Unfortunately, this statement is not accurate. According to Vareity, who picked up the news:

"...it wasn't the Peron regime but the 1976-83 military dictatorship that followed his rule that has been blamed for the disappearance of 30,000 citizens."

Argentine national broadcasting regulator Comfer was asked to intervene, but The Simpsons is one of the highest rated shows in Argentina, so it is open to question what Comfer will do.

Read the story on Variety

Simpsons 300 trailer

Found this while perusing Youtube. I thought it was pretty good, so enjoy!

Review: Papa Don't Leech

April 13th - Papa Don't Leech

Season 19 Episode 16 [KABF09] 

*Warning: Contains spoilers.

The Simpsons returned this week after taking last Sunday off. According to The Hollywood Reporter, 6.9 million people watched this episode. In my opinion, The Debarted was the last good episode this season. This episode is probably on the same level as the previous episode from this season, Smoke on the Daughter. My expectations for new episodes haven't been very high in a long time. I'm sad to say this episode did not break any ruts.

When Homer smothered Abe with his hand to kill him, I was a bit shocked. It seemed really out of character to me. I know Homer always acted spiteful against Grandpa Simpson, but killing your own dad? That's gotta be a new low. And then Homer woke up. What a surprise. Not funny at all, seriously, writers. I will admit that when they showed Patty and Selma in the car that ran Homer and Abe off the road, I laughed out loud. Haha, typical Patty and Selma. I almost laughed at how the car kept falling and Abe keeps yelling "Ah, no! We're gonna die!" Abe's voice was tickling my funny bone. I also couldn't help but laugh when FEMA scammed Springfield out of $25,000. I wasn't expecting that at all, haha!

Simpsons songs have been pretty catchy for the most part. The new song sung by Lurleen, her dad, and the Simpsons family in this episode was not as catchy, but I still think it was a pretty good song. When Lisa sang "I'm reading Harry Potter" I cracked up for a moment. "And here comes Grandpa with an otter" was funny too.

Easily the funniest part for me was when Homer, Bart, and Lisa were at the carnival photobooth. "Daddy's special pair." Oh man, that killed me.

The Dixie Chicks follows a long string of famous Simpsons guest stars in this episode. However, all jokes involving them were pretty lame. The show basically went south after their debut. 

Something interesting happened while I was writing this review of the episode. Right after I finished watching it the first time, I thought the episode was a C, but after watching the episode two more times I realized there are many parts that I found funny. So I'm raising the grade to a B-. The beginning part when Homer kills Abe really left a bad taste in my mouth, but I can forgive the occasional tasteless joke (hell, Family Guy and South Park do it all the time). 

Grade: B-

The Telltale Head

The Telltale Head

Airdate: 2/25/1990

Quick Plot Refresh:

Bart meets Jimbo, Kearney, and Dolph while going to watch the movie Space Mutants IV. Instead of paying to get in like he originally intended, Kearney invites Bart to sneak into the movie with them. 

After the four of them get kicked out of the theater, they all go around Springfield being generally up to no good. At the Kwik-E-Mart Bart buys his new "friends" a squishie while they steal items from the store. When they're through with that, the gang go to the statue of Jebediah Springfield and hurl rocks at it.

They finish their crime spree by laying on grass, looking up at clouds. This is when Bart notices one of the clouds looks like Jebediah Springfield's statue without the head. The rest of the bullies think it would be cool if someone were to actually cut the head off the statue just like the cloud. When Bart defends Jebediah, the bullies ridicule him, and Bart walks away.

On his way home, Bart gets the idea to cut the head off of the actual statue of Jebediah. He asks Homer how important being popular is, and Homer says that "being popular is the most important thing in the world." So that night, Bart sneaks out of the house in a ninja costume to saw the head off the statue.

Immediately after sawing off the head, Bart regrets it. "What have I done?" he moans.

The next day the town is shocked. Everyone seems to be affected by what Bart did. Thinking he will earn respect from the bullies, Bart puts the statue's head in a bag and brings it to school to show them. But as he is just about to take the head out of his bag, the bullies change their decision about the coolness of cutting off Jebediah's head.

Bart: Hi guys, what's up?

Jimbo: We were just saying we'd love to meet the guy who cut off the head of that statue.

Dolph: Yeah, we wish he were here right now.

Bart: Oh, really?

Kearney: Yeah, we'd break every bone in his stupid little body!

Realizing he's made a huge mistake, Bart starts digging a hole in the backyard to bury the head. But after talking to the head, which had started speaking because of Bart's active imagination, Bart decides to confess what he has done to the family. When Marge asks why he did it, Bart responds by saying that he "somehow got the idea that being popular was the most important thing in the world."

Homer realized it was because of his own lecture that Bart committed the crime, so they both head out of the house to confess. But on the way, an angry mob finds them, and they demand justice. To gain the sympathy of the mob, Bart tells them the story of how he just wanted to fit in, and the mob forgives him. 

Character Comparison: Past and Present

I'm also a huge Futurama fan

I also happen to be a big Futurama fan. I own all the DVDs, including the movie, and I plan to buy the other 3 Futurama movies when they come out. 

I don't have any Simpsons DVDs yet, but that's because I plan to buy the entire series at once. One problem with that plan is there doesn't seem to be an end in sight for The Simpsons. It also takes too long for the DVDs to come out. They're only up to season 10! Most shows now take about a year after the season is over for the DVD box set to become available in stores. Why doesn't The Simpsons get the same treatment?

Simpsons movie - sequel?

Right now there isn't a sequel announced for the Simpsons. Back in September last year, The Simpsons executive producer Al Jean said that there are no plans to make a Simpsons Movie sequel at this time, and there is no movie script at this point. However, themovieblog.com thinks that's bull. In Al Jean's quote, he said that "We wouldn’t want to do it just because the first one was successful, or because we wanted to make money off of a movie." John Campea from themovieblog.com thinks that when studios say they're not doing it for the money, they're lying.

Personally, I thought the Simpsons movie was great. I saw it twice in the movie theaters, once at the midnight launch, and again the next day. I would happily hand over another $10.50 to see a sequel, but the question is will it happen? It's no secret that the number of viewers of the show have been declining for quite some time. Season 18 was very hard for me to watch, but right now in Season 19, I've enjoyed many of the episodes. Off the top of my head I can say E Pluribus Wiggum and The Debarted were my favorite episodes this season. Some of my non-Simpsons obsessed friends agree that E Pluribus Wiggum was really an intelligent, funny episode, and having Jon Stewart as a guest star surely helped become one of my new favorites. I can't find any data about the show's current ratings, but I can say that the quality is definitely better than Season 18. Hopefully this new trend of high-quality funny episodes will make Al Jean reconsider a Simpsons Movie sequel.

First post - What this blog is.

The Simpsons' ratings have been dropping lower and lower. Simpsons fan sites all over the internet aren't being updated and Simpsons forums are slowly dying out. We must bring back the Simpsons!

My goal is to bring back The Simpons back to it's original glory. The Simpsons movie was a huge hit, with an 89% on rottentomatoes.com and grossing over $520 million worldwide. There is a fanbase out there, but not many places on the internet serves hot, fresh, weekly updates like Save the Simpsons will! I will be reviewing all the new Simpsons episodes and going over classic Simpsons moments. Remember when Bart sawed the head off Jebediah Springfield's statue? Moments like that will live on in television history forever, and I plan on traveling far down memory lane. So here's to many, many posts in the following months to come.

Long live The Simpsons!