Rate & Review: "Welcome to the Club"

How would you rate this short?


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Brad Lascelle

A Fixture in Online Simpsons Fandom Since '93
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Available to Stream on Disney+: September 8, 2022

Writer & Showrunner: Al Jean
Additional Writers: J. Stewart Burns, Joel H. Cohen, Christine Nangle & Loni Steele Sosthand
Director: David Silverman

Synopsis: With her heart set on becoming a princess, Lisa Simpson is surprised to learn being bad might be more fun..

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R&R Poll Average Score: 2.00 / 5 (as of September 25, 2023 / 21 votes)
IMDb User Rating: 5.3 / 10
 
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Well, there's really not much to talk about here as the predictable villain music number took up the brunt of the runtime and left the core question of whether Lisa would choose to be a Disney villain over a princess entirely unresolved. There was a callback that no one asked for to The Good, the Bart and the Loki and arguably the worst Mickey Mouse impersonation I've ever heard. Like seriously... it's really bad.

As for the song itself, I thought the writing for the first part was pretty damn excellent - not to mention that it properly focused on the "tempting Lisa with the allure of villainy" angle. The second half with the doppelganger princes didn't land for me, however.

I've actually been surprisingly favourable on the scoring front for these shorts over the past year... 3.5 for Te Deseo Lo Mejor, 3.5 for Barti, 3 for When Billie Met Lisa, 2.5 for Balenciaga. That said, I can't give this any higher than a 2. It's slightly better than Plusaversary but not appreciably so.
 
I was liking where this was going initially and laughed at the Queen of Hearts delivery of "Depressing kid..." but it wrapped up right when it was getting good, which was a shame. As it stands I think this is about on par with When Billie Met Lisa and better than Plusaversary, but it could have been higher had they not ended it so abruptly. Pleasantly surprised to see Kaa make an appearance and loved the artwork over the end credits. It's a 3 for me.
 
So...I went into this with very low expectations....and this is going to sound really harsh, but this short might be worse than the worst Simpsons episode for me. Just feels like a generic, boring promo for Disney+. I personally give it a 1/10, but who knows, maybe reading other people's opinion on it might change my ranking higher.

The main reason why I went into this with low expectations is due to the idea of Lisa hanging out with the villains isn't one I'm fond of. Also, again this short showed me the one thing I hate about Modern Lisa, and that's the fact that she has no friends. It could of been better, but its in the "Trash Tier" for me for now.

I will say, this is probably the first Disney+ short that I've seen that I've actively despised, I liked Pluseversary & the music short, and if it weren't for the Spider/Tarantula scene, I would of given "When Lisa Met Billie" a 10/10. I haven't seen the Loki one (I'm afraid to watch that and be disappointed by it), or the Star War ones yet, haven't even seen the two Maggie ones "The Longest Daycare" & "A Date with Destiny" yet.

As I said earlier, this could of been better, the credits depict the villains messing with the Simpsons family & a moment where Hades appears in Lisa's class, scaring everyone except Ralph who is drawing a volcano (which I did chuckle at, I will admit).
 
@TheIrishJackomon You should take the time to scope out the two Maggie shorts at some point.

Yes, there are technically 3 but I refuse to acknowledge The Force Awakens from Its Nap... which, for all intents and purposes, is a reskinned Longest Daycare with added Star Wars fan service.

They're both quite excellent and an optimal use of how to craft an engrossing story within the narrative short story structure. I'd love to see more of them.

Incidentally, I added a poll to the top of the thread. Apologies for not including it earlier but I'm out of practice.
 
The short was not what I  really expected, and for some reason, I don't see Aladdin at the end, as if he got married, it is implied that he becomes an official prince. Anyways, this short felt weak and felt like it was only one scene that have its own appeal. There were a couple enjoyable parts of the short, but the rest were not as creative and detailed enough to gives its energy and effort. It could've been made more entertaining and funnier than that. Overall, a weak short, and nothing is the same without Pat Carroll as Ursula! D+
 
Not great or anything but I think it was better than the last couple shorts. It seemed to have a point of view even if it's not exactly breaking new ground (I mean nowadays they're making fun of these tropes within the films themselves) and a semblance of a plot beyond "what if these characters hung out together"
  • It's been four years, enough with the "disney owns the simpsons??? bwuhhh???" jokes.
  • General gripe not related to the short but there's a serious imbalance whenever Hades hangs out with the other villains. Oh, the snake hypnotized a man cub once? Yeah that's definitely on the same level as Satan Incarnate
  • Bart got beheaded, this should be rated NC-17 or something higher, not safe for kids. Do better Disney+
  • How come some of the characters are white and some of them are yellow. I would like to see a little more consistency
  • Mickey Mouse voiced by Daisy Duck??? Now I've heard everything!
  • They can have Mickey Mouse but they can't have Baby Yoda... that little gremlin is more powerful than I thought
  • I like that the image they're using as the title art isn't actually from the story, it's from the end credits. Very misleading
  • I like the image of Hades in Lisa's class... again, I think these would work better as like calendars or an art book or something instead of these stupid shorts.
  • Another idea: bring back house of mouse and have the simpsons cameo once in a while
  • Poisoned Apple Store. Like Apple Store, but Poisoned Apple. From Snow White. Do you get it
 
♪ Loki’s back, back again, Loki’s back, tell a friend… ♪

This a pretty decent short in my opinion, I thought the main plot was good and it was put together pretty nicely. Only thing I hated was the Loki as Bart reference. It was a tad predictable with all of the music numbers.

Overall B+
 
Guess it'll be a while til I really watch this but... can they just use someone else? Even the supposed Bart and Homer shorts gave Lisa more.
 
The main reason why I went into this with low expectations is due to the idea of Lisa hanging out with the villains isn't one I'm fond of.

Yeah, aside from the Lisa overdosing... it's just not much of a concept.

If anything, feel the shorts would be a great way to be a little more experimental if anything, since all these properties would be enough of a draw, could give some characters a push if a full episode doesn't seem that feasible with them.

I guess they're put out to appease the most surface-level fans of both but then it's weird if they're going with the most divisive character all the time. So, I guess it's more about them being unimaginative. If anything the "lisa revenge fantasy" has been done enough. I mean, really not expecting the upcoming Death Note segment to be anything but that also.

Guess Bart'd be more fitting (and actually make it about him too) with Lisa with the princesses, him feeling left out so the villains spend time with him instead or something. Or any of the other girls, or Ralph or something... might as well get experimental so there's some merit to these shorts.

But I guess if any secondaries got any shorts it'd probably be Shauna so... maybe it's good they can't be bothered to star anyone other than Lisa in these.
 
Along the same lines as the other shorts.

I think Disney is missing an opportunity with these shorts. If they want to mix the Simpsons so much with other properties of the franchise then they should dedicate adequate time to a crossover, it doesn't help that they only seem to focus on a single character and more considering the intentions they carry. Shit, I don't even care but I wish they would do justice to some of these premises that in the right hands could turn into something special but at the end of the day are as inconsequential as they are innocuous when they didn't even bother to follow the supposed plot thread that it's about Lisa's decision on whether to become a villain or a princess but i guess it was more important to have a song and a stale "satire" about disney princes that has nothing new to say and just take a subversive stance just to say "hahaha we still make fun of disney!!!!" do you get it?.

The artwork in the credits was a nice touch but it also exemplifies why I don't care much about these shorts, at the end of the day they're just a collection of vignettes that will most likely make you smile.

2/5 but not an angry one, just an oh well.
 
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Didn't think it's just a musical number for most of time. When Bart is turn to be Loki I was like "So, that's enough. Stop":oops:. But then that song hadn't actually much of pun on Disney tales, but was fun enough. The Princes part of song was, maybe, the best, and I like the (un)hidden Mickey.

The characters were drawn very accurate to classic Disney standards. I believe it can be enjoyable, but for me - not this time. I was just OK. 3/5 for the poll (downtaken 3.5).
 
This was better than most of them (not a high bar). I smirked a bit at the princess saying she was 19 and three-quarters, and I did think the song with the princes was decent. Other than that, nothing to write home about, but I’ll give it a low 3/5.
 
Oh my, this one was bad. I get that these are still essentially promo shorts for Disney stuff, but come on, this didn't even have any minimum effort or any remotely decent spoofing or satirizing in it.

I guess the premise of Lisa wanting to be a Disney princess is fine for a cross-promotion, but the execution of that idea was terrible, with some of the most obvious jokes and satire they could think of. There was nothing clever about it and just nonsense stuff that happens: Bart is really Tom Hiddleston's Loki in disguise and it just felt unnecessary (and his 4th wall break talking to the audience about cynical corporate cross-promotions or whatever was terribly on the nose and kinda cringeworthy to be honest) & Lisa finding herself among the most famous of the classic Disney villains (interestingly no ones post the 1990s for some reason) wasn't much better, with a kinda bland song with some lame-ass references to how all the Disney prince characters are so deathly dull and boring (conveniently ignoring that it began to change with the advent of the Disney Renaissance) & some other forgettable moments I don't recall.

And then it is over just as it had begun (of course), with the end credit freeze frames presenting perhaps the most interesting scenarios (that we never really got to see). I just sat there with a blank expression after seeing this pointless, lackluster, unmaginiative promotional piece that didn't have the bare minimum them at least trying with the spoofing. Worst one so far of these D+ shorts. I guess they can't get any worse than this (and I do hope I could say that without it being jinxed).

1/5
 
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Out of all these shorts, this one is perhaps the worst and most boring of them all. The theatrical Maggie shorts were great because they had plot in them, these Disney+ shorts up to “When Billie Met Lisa” to decently good, but THIS, the only things interesting here was Mickey Mouse and the Disney references.

2/5

P. S. Loki being in Bart’s body, that I understand, but why is Lisa wanting to become a Disney princess at her age?
 
but why is Lisa wanting to become a Disney princess at her age?

Well, Lisa is still an 8 year old girl and is evidently a fan of Disney movies (to pull out an example, in a Scully episode she stated that her favorite movie was 'The Little Mermaid' until Homer taped over it) so I don't think it is all that surprising or confounding she'd have (day)dreams or fantasies of that (and speaking of dreams, this short did feel like a fantasy dream of hers).
 
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Worst one yet. I'd like to see some of Disney+ demographics, I get that they have a huge following amongst the Female Tweens market as is evident by a lot of their programming, like the marvel shows. I enjoyed the hawkeye show but it was clearly produced for girls. It seems like they are leaning heavily on that market for the Simpsons shorts.. maybe it blunts the edge a little.. I never expect anything out of these because they're really just tools for cross promotion.
 
Yeah Lisa wanting to be a princess makes sense... the villains less so. Why would half of them want to be friends with Lisa? Like Scar when Lisa's the golden child of the family just like Mufasa was. Or Cruella, why would she and Lisa want to be pals? Seems half of them would have more reason to resent her on the spot, if anything.
Kind of a disservice to them too, homogenizing them as just "Lisa's revenge squad" On the bright side, they spared the two best villains, Ratigan and Yzma, from all this.
 
YOr Cruella, why would she and Lisa want to be pals?
I didn't even think about Cruella, as that would make zero sense giving Lisa's stance on animal cruelty, and the fact that Cruella essentially wants the dalmatians to make clothes from them (at least, that's what I remember, haven't seen the Dalmatians movies in a long time).

Also, while I think about it, I do wander if Ursula could just be using Lisa, although I wouldn't really see a reason for it.
 
I loathe these disney plus shorts, they just get worse with each new one. Really gotta beat that horse eh disney
 
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