General Simpsons Thread

Maybe they should just have the Simpsons do all their shopping at the Grocery Store, Try N Save, and whatever the Sam's Club knockoff was. That said, it would be fine to at least keep him in the comics, as there's no issue of a white guy voicing an Indian there (since it'll just be written).

The problem with Apu isn't that he's voiced by a White Guy (although that doesn't help); it's that for the longest time he was the only Indian on American TV, and his character is completely built around Indian Stereotypes (A Genius who works below his intellect, devoted to said below intellectual job, in an arranged marriage, with a large family, and a deep cultural/spiritual bond to his homeland he won't shut up about), which then made people treat real Indians (and Pakistani's, Bangladeshi's, Sri Lankans, Nepalese and Bhutanese) poorly as well.

While the Simpsons has a lot of Characters that are just as Stereotypical as Apu, they also have many of these Characters actively break these Stereotypes for entire episodes, even if only for the Episode (Groundskeeper Willie, for instance, had an entire 'My Fair Lady' Episode built around him where he actively broke his Scottishness in an attempt to improve his lot in life). Otherwise, the Stereotypical Character (like the Italian Chef or the one Asian Guy) are never focused on outside of minor jokes. Apu actively embraces these Stereotypes, and the few times in life where he could've broken them, he doubled down on them hard, and we get entire episodes dedicated onto this.

Now, I like Apu a lot, he's a good, hardworking man who's one of the kindest people in Springfield; but the problem is his entire character is built on bad ground. I honestly don't know how I would fix Apu, but I know for a fact that replacing Hank Azaria with an actual Indian/Indian American Actor wouldn't solve the problem (it might honestly make it a lot worse).

edited 26th Apr '18 3:24:48 PM by DingoWalley1

After seeing the show's response, all I could think is "What's next, the flapping dickey?".

Oscars and Razzies for Season 29

Best Episode: Forgive And Regret

Worst Episode: The Serfsons

Best Line: In “Throw Grandpa From The Dane”, Bart & Marge reveal their desire to move back to Springfield. Lisa wants to stay in Denmark but acknowledges that nobody listens to her. Homer, mistunderstanding Lisa or not listening, declares it unanimous that The Simpsons want to return to Springfield.

Worst Line: In “The Old Blue Mayor She Ain’t What She Used To be”, a woman cheerfully praises Kelly Conway for proving a woman can be Joseph Goebbels

Best Visual Gag: Maggie killing Helen Lovejoy in Treehouse Of Horror’s Exorcist parody, a long overdue comeuppance for bitchiness towards Marge. Marge indeed is quite thankful to see Helen bite the dust.

Worst Visual Gag: In “King Leer”, Marge has a fantasy of Bart playing trombone in a school band and knocking everybody around him except for Martin Prince. Martin was the one person I WANTED to get knocked down!

Character Who Needs To Be Seen More In Season 30: Was Disco Stu even in season 29?

Character Who Needs To Be Seen Less In Season 30: I could always use a little less Millhouse

Best Guest Star: Ray Liotta as Moe’s pop in “King Leer”

Worst Guest Star: Valerie Harper as an obnoxious teacher in “Ms. Lisa’s Opus”

Best Pop Culture Reference: The jokes in “3 Scenes From A Marriage And A Tag” about post-credit scenes in superhero films.

Worst Pop Culture Reference: Treehouse Of Horror’s parody of the vomiting in The Exorcist.

Best Sports Moment: Homer has to do the opening chalkboard gag for “Lisa Gets The Blues” because he lost a March Madness bet to Bart.

Worst Sports Moment: The entire “Singing In The Lane” episode

Best Musical Moment: The opening to “3 Scenes From A Marriage And A Tag” where Homer sings a heartfelt love song while bizarre animation distorts his face.

Worst Musical Moment: That lousy song in “Frink Gets Testy”

Very nice list. :)

I'm wondering: where did the joke that Uter got brought back to life with the Dragon Balls come from? XD

Recently Doug Walker did a Nostalgia Critic video on the "Do The Bartman" music video. Doug mentions that he prefers the rougher, more stylized Simpsons animation of the early 90's.

He's not the first person I've heard say that but I myself prefer the more polished high-quality style of Simpsons animation from recent years.

Anyone notice how while the kid characters can't age, they can meddle with the adult's age? Homer and Marge have fluctuated across the 30s range

Well, you can't really play with a child's age the same way you can with an adult's. There's a much bigger difference between an eight-year old and a ten-year old vs. a thirty-six-year old and a thirty-eight-year old. You can't really fudge Bart and Lisa's ages too much without having them go up an extra grade. With Homer and Marge, making them a couple years older doesn't really effect their lives too much.

So, if you took out the need to keep the status quo, what kind of developments would you imagine?

Well, if we're talking about the characters aging with the show, Homer would be 68, Marge 66, Bart 39, Lisa 37, and Maggie 29. So if the characters actually aged like real people, Bart and Lisa would be as old as their parents are now. Weird, isn't it?

Yeah, but in general I meant what would happen if during those times the show ran to push the reset button, things don't end up the same. Or if what happened in the episodes had long term effects.

Just got a bit curious.

Edited by Blueace on Jul 2nd 2018 at 12:44:30 PM

What was the episode where The Simpsons are going to some alcohol-based event and Marge is thrown into a prison-type cell because she's the designated driver?

We later see Marge pumping iron in the prison-type cell.

She points out there's going to be a lot of opened pickle jars when she gets home.

I think its call Pygmoelian Season 11 episode sixteenth.

It was indeed the episode "Pygmoelian"

Thanks for your help

For me, the big question for "The Simpsons" now is: how long before they reference the Netflix Matt Groening animated series "Disenchantment"?

Off the top of my head, the first time I recall The Simpsons referencing "Futurama" was Milhouse identifying Matt Groening as the creator of "Futurama" in the episode "My Big Fat Geek Wedding".

"The Simpsons" must of referenced "Futurama before that. "My Big Fat Geek Wedding" was 2004 so it was already after Fox cancelled "Futurama".

There was an scene set at a convention where a character (I think it was Uter) was wearing a Futurama t-shirt, BEFORE the series even started airing.

Edited by J79 on Sep 23rd 2018 at 6:38:57 AM

There were a bunch. The first was "Treehouse of Horror IX" in 1998 with David "Watch Futurama" Cohen. Uter wore a "Futurama" t-shirt in "Mayored to the Mob".

https://simpsonswiki.com/wiki/Futurama

In an interview with Indiewire, Adi Shankar, the filmmaker who launched a spec script contest called "the Apu Problem," has learned from Simpsons staff that Apu is likely to removed from the show and will likely be shunted off rather than be given a proper farewell.

I understand that they want to remove him, but I wish they'd at least give him a proper sendoff.

According to a producer of the Simpsons, Apu is NOT dying, and will NOT be written off the show: https://twitter.com/RiseFallNick/status/1057053473601134593

Okay, so we have some contradictory news, then.

I know Halloween is over, but I just remembered one of my favorite jokes from one of the Treehouse of Horror segments. In that one, Kang said "Set coordinates for the obscure T-shirt-producing planet known as Earth." Did he mean that the planet is obscure or the T-shirts are obscure? XD

Did The Simpsons ever parody the CBS reality show "Undercover Boss"?

I have a vague memory of Krusty doing the "Undercover Boss" thing but I might of just dreamed it.

Yes episode 6 season 27 friend with benefit.

The Y2K segment in Treehouse of Horror X always stuck with me, despite watching it a few years after 2000. The whole Explosive Decompression wasn't that scary to me considering they looked like human balloons and were sighing in relief rather than spend another second with B-class celebrities

I wonder if there's a case where someone dies in a Treehouse of Horror episode that was eventually killed off in the show

Edited by RJ-19-CLOVIS-93 on Nov 23rd 2018 at 5:10:32 AM