This is it. You've nailed it. I walked away from Not It yesterday feeling vaguely dissatisfied and I couldn't quite pinpoint the reason why. However, after reading Mike Amato's review and now yours, I've realised this meta commentary is exactly the fundamental problem I was sensing. I couldn't get fully invested because nothing felt internally real - quite the opposite of A Serious Flanders. It was indeed like watching a slightly more competent, focused and efforted Jean episode than a Selman one. I mean, sure, this kind of clunky dialogue and overly self-aware writing still pops up in Selman episodes, but not to this extent. Bizarre and disappointing to say the least.
Burning Down the Treehouse: Some Idiot Reviews Ninety THOH Segments in Thirty Days
- Thread starter tyler
- Start date
CousinMerl
dunno what that is
Well, that review came out fast. I had expected it to take a while, but I'm not complaining
So anyhow, having read through that I find myself agreeing about a lot of things. I may not have found it as disappointing as you guys (in fact, I liked it), but there was still a lot of things that did feel off to me.
I also find the direction, aside from Krusto's scenes, felt surprisingly and sometimes blandly straightforward: It felt like most scenes were characters standing talking to one another while the story pushed forward (even in the confrontation scenes) & it rarely felt like it came especially naturally. I'd have liked more visual storytelling (maybe even having the characters be more physical & less static during the fights with Krusto) and smoother pacing, but I guess one can only do so much condensing a long book (later a miniseries and a two-part movie) to 22 minutes, but even so I thought there was clear room for improvements.
So anyhow, having read through that I find myself agreeing about a lot of things. I may not have found it as disappointing as you guys (in fact, I liked it), but there was still a lot of things that did feel off to me.
I also find the direction, aside from Krusto's scenes, felt surprisingly and sometimes blandly straightforward: It felt like most scenes were characters standing talking to one another while the story pushed forward (even in the confrontation scenes) & it rarely felt like it came especially naturally. I'd have liked more visual storytelling (maybe even having the characters be more physical & less static during the fights with Krusto) and smoother pacing, but I guess one can only do so much condensing a long book (later a miniseries and a two-part movie) to 22 minutes, but even so I thought there was clear room for improvements.
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Wile E. the Brain
Just killin' time til the inevitable island
It still depresses me knowing that I'll never write something as insightful as many of your reviews, let alone in the span of a single day.
I remain pretty positive about the episode, if only because, as a Treehouse story, I still believe it does the job better than many atrocities, or worse, atrocities with a great potentiel, the last 15 seasons or so has pulled out, and I really like the artistry, but the more I think about it, the more the Nostalgia Critic-y approach on some of the jokes and the structure hurts my vision of the whole thing... especially during the first part actually, the second one feels toned down in that regard and I think that's for the best when the Homer-Marge-CBC situation becomes central, helps me giving a bit of a damn. If anything, I guess it shows that Selman is at its best when his stories don't involve straight parodies, as you can tell with Thanksgiving of Horror (the stories are parodies but they totally stand on their own). Maybe he's still a little shy with the exercise... so better luck with the annual anthology, hopefully ?
I still think It wasn't the best choice to try a full-length Treehouse for the first time. With enough experience with the exercise, maybe they could've done better, but it's just too big of a meat to handle easily. Again, for what it is I appreciate the episode and it kept me invested... But I can easily see where one who didn't enjoy the thing is coming from. Oh well.
I remain pretty positive about the episode, if only because, as a Treehouse story, I still believe it does the job better than many atrocities, or worse, atrocities with a great potentiel, the last 15 seasons or so has pulled out, and I really like the artistry, but the more I think about it, the more the Nostalgia Critic-y approach on some of the jokes and the structure hurts my vision of the whole thing... especially during the first part actually, the second one feels toned down in that regard and I think that's for the best when the Homer-Marge-CBC situation becomes central, helps me giving a bit of a damn. If anything, I guess it shows that Selman is at its best when his stories don't involve straight parodies, as you can tell with Thanksgiving of Horror (the stories are parodies but they totally stand on their own). Maybe he's still a little shy with the exercise... so better luck with the annual anthology, hopefully ?
I still think It wasn't the best choice to try a full-length Treehouse for the first time. With enough experience with the exercise, maybe they could've done better, but it's just too big of a meat to handle easily. Again, for what it is I appreciate the episode and it kept me invested... But I can easily see where one who didn't enjoy the thing is coming from. Oh well.
John95
Stonecutter
Yeah, there were points where I was reminded of some of his later reviews, specifically the clipless ones for (mostly) currently playing films... Like the It duology. Not a good sign when I can say his review of the original miniseries was better than this.
I actually thought the first half was where all the best material was and that it was running out of steam in the latter half as I couldn't care at all about the conflict (regardless of how true to the source material it was).
Wile E. the Brain
Just killin' time til the inevitable island
Fair enough. I personally thought that it was when they finally decided to take it properly and seriously, and with some good ideas to boot : I really like, for example, the idea that Krusto's captive audience laughs at the misery of people - in this case, CBC regarding his lies - and therefore makes him even more powerful. So I kinda cared, personally.
CousinMerl
dunno what that is
I think both halves of the story had their ups and downs and I cared for both parts pretty much equally, but I would say I liked the first half more if I had to choose (Just like how with the miniseries I liked the half with them as kids much better than the part with them as adults. I cannot speak of the recent two-part movie remake as I've only seen Part 1, but judging by how most audiences seem to have reacted negatively against Part 2 I doubt that I'd like it more than the first half of the story).
tyler
A Burden on Online Simpsons Fandom Since '13
who up jackin they lantern
tyler
A Burden on Online Simpsons Fandom Since '13
#97
Selman's first true THOH! Toss all the cynicism aside for a moment, forget last week (well that's me talking to me as the minority but y'know), because after Thanksgiving of Horror and Halloween of Horror I have two solid separate pieces of evidence that when it comes to spooky outings, Selman's Helmin' can turn out Well Man. Under his tutelage, the show's first canon Halloween episode gave Springfield a great nostalgic energy, an active feeling of that small town revelry in the rituals, where the whole town feels utilized and we get a sympathetic Lisa story at the core, and we know his first crack at a proper trilogy wound up better directed and more creatively detailed than anything Jean has lead in ages, even if my opinion on its middle segment has further dwindled and characterizes it with weaknesses that transcend the matter of showrunner discrepancy. I still think The Last Thanksgiving is excellent and understands everything about what a THOH-like segment should be, to parody but keep it within the Simpsons universe, to make the scares authentic without forgetting to give it some levity and sardonicism, and most importantly, CHARACTER. Not the Simpsons dressed as Mad Max characters or portraying Na'vi or acting out Sherlock Holmes with a fake blood budget, at some core level they have to be the characters we love, but once you get that core right, go nuts! So here we go, let's see if it was a fluke or the result of the Thanksgiving theming or if THOHs have a brighter future. I want them to, I wouldn't scribble this preamble in year four for Jean.
So! Out of the three segments on display this go-round I was most trepidatious about this one, hard to read through the nearly 100 Sincerely Angry and Not At All Hyperbolic Screeds I've so passionately scrawled on the walls of my looney bin room I've named the NHC and not sympathize with the fear that oh dear, here we go, another pulseless excuse for parody where the series latches onto some big property like a BONG JOON HO'S PARASITE and sucks until the thing is dry of vital fluids and soul, wears the skin suit and tap dances listlessly through a Wikipedia summary of the plot to collect their fat paychecks, a conundrum I have well and truly run out ways to articulate with satisfying variation. This is especially worrisome when the source material isn't some genre schlock and deserves to be handled deftly, lest you just end up insultingly lazy or condescendingly snarky. The Babadook almost feels like it was the shockwave that set off an ongoing era that critics annoyingly call "elevated horror", as I believe it may have been among the first of this new crop of original horror stories where a monster acts as a physical manifestation of traumas, before it had become so commonplace that even Halloween's soft reboot adapted it's heavy focus on turmoil, on aftermath. The Babadook is a mournful tale about a mother and son enduring the aftermath of losing a husband/father and the disconnect and resentment in trying to go on, and how those plaguing emotions erupt into a bleak fairytale monster in the shadows. Now I never figured the show would bother to axe Homer to nail the parallel, and the source material is a bit too weighty to give levity if played straight, so I didn't know what to expect beyond them going through the scary storybook rigamarole, which honestly without the details isn't really the Babadook anymore. That could so easily become another Parasite situation, gesturing half heartedly towards gravity and running the clock out with mimicry, but they actually go another route.
So this is an odd case, where I wouldn't really say there is much of a parody taking place for most of it, but the show also isn't trying to mimic the movie outright. A classic tactic as far back as the Monkey's paw has been to toss some spooky object at the Simpsons and see how the modern-for-the-90s family would use them, time traveling toasters and teleporters and such, and here the Pookadook acts more as a generic cursed tome, the beginning has no real inference of the meaning behind the curse beyond saying it uses yr rage, there's no backstory it simply ends up on Maggie's bedtime book shelf and fires its nasty black smoke into Marge's body and bing bong curse time. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of direct parallels, the design of the Pookadook feels exactly the same as the Babadook, the book has the same feel of a twisted fairytale with folklore aesthetics to misdirect one from the source of the evil, and the ultimate result is pitting Marge against Maggie, thus mirroring the element of struggle with parenthood manifesting into a chaos that has to be tempered by the child's love. Check check aaaaand check, well it sure sounds like a modern THOH parody, but something's different. For one I actually think this segment understands that less is more, that to directly riff on the material is probably a black hole if yr going for a breezier and more genre fiction style tale, we don't have the time to slow burn through bittersweet memories and what have you, so it works the barebones rhythms of the original but it streamlines them such that what you get is an idea as direct as "what if Marge got possessed and tried to kill Maggie?". It won't blow any minds on a conceptual level but it's an open playground to do some spoopy cat and mouse.
The dynamics of the characters also change from the original when you have a baby, Maggie was the smart choice here as she would be most receptive to the ominous things the storybook alludes to, it plays to the believability of the fantasy before it actually comes true, a sense of danger to emphasize Marge as a source of comfort so that when said comfort is overpowered by the danger and Maggie has no security it's genuinely effective, and the opening book reading sets up just the right pieces to get schmoovin', the monster feeds on rage and you woke him by reading the book good job idiot. It's more Evil Dead than Babadook but we can work with that, book appears in the crib, reforms itself after being ripped, still gets across a sense of being supernatural. The genuine sense of danger for Maggie is accentuated too when the rest of the family are sent away, as Marge straight up pulls a knife on Maggie and lurches toward her with this devilish grin, its this exact moment Maggie's truest security blanket becomes her worst nightmare, the house has a claustrophobic feel as we are put in her...shoes? Does Maggie own any shoes. Put in her perspective running around the house cuz y'know, baby, don't have anywhere to go, and even with her usual smarter-than-average-baby tactics can't hide her fear. Marge meanwhile has sounded pretty haggard for awhile as Kavner's voice deteriorates but that goblin-like sneer works for the vibe of this segment, Marge doesn't have much of a transformation she just sports Scary Eyes >: ) but Kavner camps it up and as the segment goes the voice falls progressively in pitch as the monster takes completely over. There's a choice bit of direction where Marge yanks a knife from the block stabbing randomly at surfaces with a bloodlust, almost like practice for the real thing. When she hears Maggie in the basement, suddenly she takes flight and her overwhelming energy causes the kitchen light to shatter, as she glides towards the basement door, the Pookadook seen fully in her shadow to signify that there is no Marge at the surface. Tone! Vibes! Sweet sweet fucking Halloween energy, is this show having fun? Am...am I having fun???
HERE'S THE REAL FUCKED UP PART: there's a moment where it could have all fallen apart. Right at the end the segment sort of fumbles into trying to make Marge's possession about her resentment, ala the source, of being left out of fun and feeling like she's just y'know mom and wife figure and all. Fair characterization that fits Marge's persistant ennui about her being limited by her status as housewife, or frustration that she's never the one engaging in the fun, but it should have been brought up in the beginning somehow, maybe instead of having evil Marge shoo away the family, have them go off on some fun activity and thoughtlessly but sincerely not imagine she wants to take part. Sets up a house with just these two and illustrates the state of mind before the basement scene. This execution is flawed, but honestly this time it feels like a nitpick I can let go, especially because it feels like Maggie here holds it together. From the beginning of the segment Maggie represents the unspoken gestures between nurturer and nurtured that define the value of being a parent, but Marge fueled by feeling unappreciated makes Maggie's sweet gestures at first insufficient, shattering a childhood WORLDS BEST MOM mug in the process, while all other nearby evidence only supports Marge's emotions, crummy gifts and photographs where she is left out, pushing her into a box, no wonder all the pressure waiting to burst. Last ditch effort, Maggie resorts to giving Marge a little pinch on the cheek, which as shown at the beginning is from a little bedtime ritual where the two give each other these pinches, and this is what snaps her out of it. From here all Marge has to do is what she does best, repress! In the end Marge defeats the Pookadook with her own ability to pretend nothing's wrong, and a vacuum cleaner she was given by a family who loves but may not understand her, now that's some tasty dark irony.
Honestly on first watch I already thought this was decent, the two halves switching between basic possession stuff and the resentment angle ala the movie didn't feel very reconciled but each worked on their own terms, but on second watch I realized Maggie actually does bring it all together, the very last moment kinda got me in the FEELS as they say, for a non-canon segment it gets to the root of the dichotomy of Marge's position in a way that supports her own valid version of the Babadook story, where she puts up with and accepts being taken for granted or boiled down to mother and wife because she knows they mean well and still love her, and one more cheek pinch is all it takes, a reminder of how important that is, Marge certainly has regrets and what-ifs but she wouldn't trade her family for the any number of alternate possibilities. Yet there's a sincerely fun Halloweeny energy too, it uses the source details as jumping off points to get a wild spooky chase going, Marge getting more and more evil and Maggie using whatever makeshift weapons she can to escape, it doesn't beat you over the head with the YOU WILL CRY IN FIVE SECONDS, its spooky when it should be and pulls back right at the end in a fitting way, it establishes a dynamic of comfort and care that makes the turn towards menace fun because you can imagine Maggie is in real danger, and it makes the emotions in resolving that feel earned. Its a novel Simpson pairing we don't get alot (if ever?) and turned out to be the smart choice for this story, Homer and Bart and Lisa all love Marge of course but y'know words get messy and they could likely make things worse in the heat of uhhhhhhhh Possession, its Maggie's unspoken and untainted love (oh woah oh) that resonates, the simple touches and smiles that make it all worth it. Here's the truth: on my second watch I did something I never do anymore, and just started...watching the segment. Just enjoying it like a bite-sized Halloween morsel, in a way I forgot was still an option with this show, even better Jean THOH segments I've liked in the HD era feel labored to be unique to be fun, this just feels like, easily rewatchable and sweet and fun and good. So yeah...great segment? How do I end these when the segment is good what's a snappy funny way to end something positive?
Selman's first true THOH! Toss all the cynicism aside for a moment, forget last week (well that's me talking to me as the minority but y'know), because after Thanksgiving of Horror and Halloween of Horror I have two solid separate pieces of evidence that when it comes to spooky outings, Selman's Helmin' can turn out Well Man. Under his tutelage, the show's first canon Halloween episode gave Springfield a great nostalgic energy, an active feeling of that small town revelry in the rituals, where the whole town feels utilized and we get a sympathetic Lisa story at the core, and we know his first crack at a proper trilogy wound up better directed and more creatively detailed than anything Jean has lead in ages, even if my opinion on its middle segment has further dwindled and characterizes it with weaknesses that transcend the matter of showrunner discrepancy. I still think The Last Thanksgiving is excellent and understands everything about what a THOH-like segment should be, to parody but keep it within the Simpsons universe, to make the scares authentic without forgetting to give it some levity and sardonicism, and most importantly, CHARACTER. Not the Simpsons dressed as Mad Max characters or portraying Na'vi or acting out Sherlock Holmes with a fake blood budget, at some core level they have to be the characters we love, but once you get that core right, go nuts! So here we go, let's see if it was a fluke or the result of the Thanksgiving theming or if THOHs have a brighter future. I want them to, I wouldn't scribble this preamble in year four for Jean.
So! Out of the three segments on display this go-round I was most trepidatious about this one, hard to read through the nearly 100 Sincerely Angry and Not At All Hyperbolic Screeds I've so passionately scrawled on the walls of my looney bin room I've named the NHC and not sympathize with the fear that oh dear, here we go, another pulseless excuse for parody where the series latches onto some big property like a BONG JOON HO'S PARASITE and sucks until the thing is dry of vital fluids and soul, wears the skin suit and tap dances listlessly through a Wikipedia summary of the plot to collect their fat paychecks, a conundrum I have well and truly run out ways to articulate with satisfying variation. This is especially worrisome when the source material isn't some genre schlock and deserves to be handled deftly, lest you just end up insultingly lazy or condescendingly snarky. The Babadook almost feels like it was the shockwave that set off an ongoing era that critics annoyingly call "elevated horror", as I believe it may have been among the first of this new crop of original horror stories where a monster acts as a physical manifestation of traumas, before it had become so commonplace that even Halloween's soft reboot adapted it's heavy focus on turmoil, on aftermath. The Babadook is a mournful tale about a mother and son enduring the aftermath of losing a husband/father and the disconnect and resentment in trying to go on, and how those plaguing emotions erupt into a bleak fairytale monster in the shadows. Now I never figured the show would bother to axe Homer to nail the parallel, and the source material is a bit too weighty to give levity if played straight, so I didn't know what to expect beyond them going through the scary storybook rigamarole, which honestly without the details isn't really the Babadook anymore. That could so easily become another Parasite situation, gesturing half heartedly towards gravity and running the clock out with mimicry, but they actually go another route.
So this is an odd case, where I wouldn't really say there is much of a parody taking place for most of it, but the show also isn't trying to mimic the movie outright. A classic tactic as far back as the Monkey's paw has been to toss some spooky object at the Simpsons and see how the modern-for-the-90s family would use them, time traveling toasters and teleporters and such, and here the Pookadook acts more as a generic cursed tome, the beginning has no real inference of the meaning behind the curse beyond saying it uses yr rage, there's no backstory it simply ends up on Maggie's bedtime book shelf and fires its nasty black smoke into Marge's body and bing bong curse time. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of direct parallels, the design of the Pookadook feels exactly the same as the Babadook, the book has the same feel of a twisted fairytale with folklore aesthetics to misdirect one from the source of the evil, and the ultimate result is pitting Marge against Maggie, thus mirroring the element of struggle with parenthood manifesting into a chaos that has to be tempered by the child's love. Check check aaaaand check, well it sure sounds like a modern THOH parody, but something's different. For one I actually think this segment understands that less is more, that to directly riff on the material is probably a black hole if yr going for a breezier and more genre fiction style tale, we don't have the time to slow burn through bittersweet memories and what have you, so it works the barebones rhythms of the original but it streamlines them such that what you get is an idea as direct as "what if Marge got possessed and tried to kill Maggie?". It won't blow any minds on a conceptual level but it's an open playground to do some spoopy cat and mouse.
The dynamics of the characters also change from the original when you have a baby, Maggie was the smart choice here as she would be most receptive to the ominous things the storybook alludes to, it plays to the believability of the fantasy before it actually comes true, a sense of danger to emphasize Marge as a source of comfort so that when said comfort is overpowered by the danger and Maggie has no security it's genuinely effective, and the opening book reading sets up just the right pieces to get schmoovin', the monster feeds on rage and you woke him by reading the book good job idiot. It's more Evil Dead than Babadook but we can work with that, book appears in the crib, reforms itself after being ripped, still gets across a sense of being supernatural. The genuine sense of danger for Maggie is accentuated too when the rest of the family are sent away, as Marge straight up pulls a knife on Maggie and lurches toward her with this devilish grin, its this exact moment Maggie's truest security blanket becomes her worst nightmare, the house has a claustrophobic feel as we are put in her...shoes? Does Maggie own any shoes. Put in her perspective running around the house cuz y'know, baby, don't have anywhere to go, and even with her usual smarter-than-average-baby tactics can't hide her fear. Marge meanwhile has sounded pretty haggard for awhile as Kavner's voice deteriorates but that goblin-like sneer works for the vibe of this segment, Marge doesn't have much of a transformation she just sports Scary Eyes >: ) but Kavner camps it up and as the segment goes the voice falls progressively in pitch as the monster takes completely over. There's a choice bit of direction where Marge yanks a knife from the block stabbing randomly at surfaces with a bloodlust, almost like practice for the real thing. When she hears Maggie in the basement, suddenly she takes flight and her overwhelming energy causes the kitchen light to shatter, as she glides towards the basement door, the Pookadook seen fully in her shadow to signify that there is no Marge at the surface. Tone! Vibes! Sweet sweet fucking Halloween energy, is this show having fun? Am...am I having fun???
HERE'S THE REAL FUCKED UP PART: there's a moment where it could have all fallen apart. Right at the end the segment sort of fumbles into trying to make Marge's possession about her resentment, ala the source, of being left out of fun and feeling like she's just y'know mom and wife figure and all. Fair characterization that fits Marge's persistant ennui about her being limited by her status as housewife, or frustration that she's never the one engaging in the fun, but it should have been brought up in the beginning somehow, maybe instead of having evil Marge shoo away the family, have them go off on some fun activity and thoughtlessly but sincerely not imagine she wants to take part. Sets up a house with just these two and illustrates the state of mind before the basement scene. This execution is flawed, but honestly this time it feels like a nitpick I can let go, especially because it feels like Maggie here holds it together. From the beginning of the segment Maggie represents the unspoken gestures between nurturer and nurtured that define the value of being a parent, but Marge fueled by feeling unappreciated makes Maggie's sweet gestures at first insufficient, shattering a childhood WORLDS BEST MOM mug in the process, while all other nearby evidence only supports Marge's emotions, crummy gifts and photographs where she is left out, pushing her into a box, no wonder all the pressure waiting to burst. Last ditch effort, Maggie resorts to giving Marge a little pinch on the cheek, which as shown at the beginning is from a little bedtime ritual where the two give each other these pinches, and this is what snaps her out of it. From here all Marge has to do is what she does best, repress! In the end Marge defeats the Pookadook with her own ability to pretend nothing's wrong, and a vacuum cleaner she was given by a family who loves but may not understand her, now that's some tasty dark irony.
Honestly on first watch I already thought this was decent, the two halves switching between basic possession stuff and the resentment angle ala the movie didn't feel very reconciled but each worked on their own terms, but on second watch I realized Maggie actually does bring it all together, the very last moment kinda got me in the FEELS as they say, for a non-canon segment it gets to the root of the dichotomy of Marge's position in a way that supports her own valid version of the Babadook story, where she puts up with and accepts being taken for granted or boiled down to mother and wife because she knows they mean well and still love her, and one more cheek pinch is all it takes, a reminder of how important that is, Marge certainly has regrets and what-ifs but she wouldn't trade her family for the any number of alternate possibilities. Yet there's a sincerely fun Halloweeny energy too, it uses the source details as jumping off points to get a wild spooky chase going, Marge getting more and more evil and Maggie using whatever makeshift weapons she can to escape, it doesn't beat you over the head with the YOU WILL CRY IN FIVE SECONDS, its spooky when it should be and pulls back right at the end in a fitting way, it establishes a dynamic of comfort and care that makes the turn towards menace fun because you can imagine Maggie is in real danger, and it makes the emotions in resolving that feel earned. Its a novel Simpson pairing we don't get alot (if ever?) and turned out to be the smart choice for this story, Homer and Bart and Lisa all love Marge of course but y'know words get messy and they could likely make things worse in the heat of uhhhhhhhh Possession, its Maggie's unspoken and untainted love (oh woah oh) that resonates, the simple touches and smiles that make it all worth it. Here's the truth: on my second watch I did something I never do anymore, and just started...watching the segment. Just enjoying it like a bite-sized Halloween morsel, in a way I forgot was still an option with this show, even better Jean THOH segments I've liked in the HD era feel labored to be unique to be fun, this just feels like, easily rewatchable and sweet and fun and good. So yeah...great segment? How do I end these when the segment is good what's a snappy funny way to end something positive?
tyler
A Burden on Online Simpsons Fandom Since '13
#98
America's perception of anime can often be embarrassing, the right niches know that anime is not a genre but a medium but ever since I saw Fairly Oddparents just boil it down to things like Speed Racer and shounen tropes in Channel Chasers as a kid I realized that anime is viewed often with a very archaic lens, and I knew this before I knew anything really about anime so not a great sign. Sure back then Toonami was around and Adult Swim Saturdays slowly introduced people to shows that were more deliberate, more cinematic and more atmospheric as well as telling tighter and more thematic stories instead of elongated epic arcs of long haired guys screaming, but it was a process for those things to spread, and hell all over the internet you'll find people who still think its nothing but perversions and power levels, so from potentially anyone in the biz in the US but especially from older sitcom writers I feared the tone of the out-of-touch, I couldn't help but worry that here we would get a Futurama Reincarnation episode style anime spoof that feels too snarky and meta in a way that's as derisive as it is tired, as if anime is just stilted dialogue and sensory overload, especially if yr doing a modern series with more 00s Hot Topic moodiness like Death Note, you can't fake that with boomer perceptions of anime.
Right off the bat though I did have a little faith, when it comes to jettisoning the Simpsons into other pop culture worlds, Death Note is alot more admirably niche than desperately trying to meet the moment on a recent movie or skewer some vaunted classic, if this segment was like DBZ or even recent popular fair like MHA I'd worry more, not that DN itself is a small anime but the scale is relative and nobody in American animation is doing anime pastiche that operates so specifically. The worry of course is whether its too specifically. Now watching an entire anime to assess one of these is above my paygrade but bare minimum suffices to key in on the parallels here anyway, Light finds the Scary Book, learns of its power, tries to resist it on moral grounds but eventually gives in, starts with local criminals but slowly accelerates as he is further tempted by his Shinigami, pushes so far the murders are linked and a detective named L is sent after him, thats about all one needs to get the reference points of this segment. It's a bit of a brilliant pull because I imagine the average Simpsons fan isn't privy to the Death Note story being lifted, so it registers as its own thing regardless, even though many details are only vaguely changed. Lisa as Light is a solid choice as it gives us a protagonist with hierarchies to combat and moral gray areas to tightrope walk, you won't see me crying for corrupt industry CEOs and the like that she cartoonishly banishes but eventually her power leads to her will to kill just to survive and escape imprisonment, convinced she alone knows the greater good. Bart as proxy for the detective I can't speak thoroughly on but him being Lisa's foil just makes sense, and provides a direct confrontation where Lisa almost commits fratricide to show her slipping near the point of no return.
Alot of the plot beats don't have much subversion to them though, they're Lisa's version of events by aligning it with very real pressing matters such as the climate crisis and those perpetuating it but the unfolding of the events is still vaguely how Light Yagami's delusions are described, a self-assessed act for the greater good. I actually think it may be too specific to make Lisa convincingly malevolent, maybe from a liberal ass show like this there's implicit feelings that acting in wrath and murdering those responsible is bad, but like...nah. Light's thing seems interesting because the framework seems to be his own subjective assertion of immorality, Lisa's subject fits Lisa but I can't quite shake that I'm not supposed to be rooting for her offing these rich freaks. Oops! Comedically, the only real punch they seem to have is "write funny ways to die in the book", it'll do and sure I laughed when the Second toilet related kill caught me off guard but on a scripting level its not biting per se, this is actually similar to the first segment but given the more detail heavy plot it doesn't have much room to invent its own rules and so simply following them gives us a somewhat rote script to deal with, right down extraneous use of exposition though to be fair that might be part and parcel with a convincing imitation. That's the thing, the show has so many times annoyed me by just lazily retracing some other beloved thing's steps but this doesn't just register as a brand synergy piggybacking to me, Death Note is far too nerdy a choice, one I don't think a Jean THOH would have ever done, to simply be done for the convenience, this is more of an imitation than reinvention to be sure but its imitation on the "sincerest form of flattery" level. The key is sheer commitment, I like that THOHs have on occasion been a chance to leave the familiar artstyle behind but this is probably the most the Groening style has been eschewed entirely, more than the half-cocked CGI of Coralisa or Toy Gory, here the entirety of the segment is an alternate reality reimagining of Springfield and its denizens, and top to bottom the character and background designs are fantastic, any worries about broadened anime parody are off the table, this looks and feels like Death Note, with its overcast palette and sharpened intensity of character details, distinctly human yet with demonic glint in the eye, overacted in the right ways and never in cartoonish manner than betrays the form.
I have no idea if the Simpsons staff storyboarded this as it stands or the outsource studio did the bulk work but I do know it was animated by Studio DR Movie, who along with working on other American animated works like Avatar: The Last Airbender (and Possibly many DC shows but the entire wikipedia page is like filled with citation needed lol), have been partners with Studio Madhouse who produced the original Death Note, and the pedigree speaks for itself. Alongside great designs, the animation offers some excellent flourishes, atmospheric establishing shots, intense close-ups, and a dazzling montage aplomb with melodramatic choir and fast cutting to illustrate the madness of picking off all these criminals, its so 1:1 that it maintains a very specific vibe and its analogous worldbuilding feels genuinely thought out such that the script alone can't sink the segment in its aloof silliness. I'm sure the more studious anime nerd could pick out the minute out-of-place details but for the casual fan I just respect the commitment, the animators are always carrying the Simpsons on their backs but this is above and beyond, anything less than sinking all the way into the spectacle and it would feel flat but here the specificity of the material informs the vibe, as derivative as it may be it feels like a tribute, a love letter, if yr gonna keep writing so close to the material this is the way to do it, because it balances out the safe script with a different form of non-canon abandon to make THOHs still feel worth existing.
America's perception of anime can often be embarrassing, the right niches know that anime is not a genre but a medium but ever since I saw Fairly Oddparents just boil it down to things like Speed Racer and shounen tropes in Channel Chasers as a kid I realized that anime is viewed often with a very archaic lens, and I knew this before I knew anything really about anime so not a great sign. Sure back then Toonami was around and Adult Swim Saturdays slowly introduced people to shows that were more deliberate, more cinematic and more atmospheric as well as telling tighter and more thematic stories instead of elongated epic arcs of long haired guys screaming, but it was a process for those things to spread, and hell all over the internet you'll find people who still think its nothing but perversions and power levels, so from potentially anyone in the biz in the US but especially from older sitcom writers I feared the tone of the out-of-touch, I couldn't help but worry that here we would get a Futurama Reincarnation episode style anime spoof that feels too snarky and meta in a way that's as derisive as it is tired, as if anime is just stilted dialogue and sensory overload, especially if yr doing a modern series with more 00s Hot Topic moodiness like Death Note, you can't fake that with boomer perceptions of anime.
Right off the bat though I did have a little faith, when it comes to jettisoning the Simpsons into other pop culture worlds, Death Note is alot more admirably niche than desperately trying to meet the moment on a recent movie or skewer some vaunted classic, if this segment was like DBZ or even recent popular fair like MHA I'd worry more, not that DN itself is a small anime but the scale is relative and nobody in American animation is doing anime pastiche that operates so specifically. The worry of course is whether its too specifically. Now watching an entire anime to assess one of these is above my paygrade but bare minimum suffices to key in on the parallels here anyway, Light finds the Scary Book, learns of its power, tries to resist it on moral grounds but eventually gives in, starts with local criminals but slowly accelerates as he is further tempted by his Shinigami, pushes so far the murders are linked and a detective named L is sent after him, thats about all one needs to get the reference points of this segment. It's a bit of a brilliant pull because I imagine the average Simpsons fan isn't privy to the Death Note story being lifted, so it registers as its own thing regardless, even though many details are only vaguely changed. Lisa as Light is a solid choice as it gives us a protagonist with hierarchies to combat and moral gray areas to tightrope walk, you won't see me crying for corrupt industry CEOs and the like that she cartoonishly banishes but eventually her power leads to her will to kill just to survive and escape imprisonment, convinced she alone knows the greater good. Bart as proxy for the detective I can't speak thoroughly on but him being Lisa's foil just makes sense, and provides a direct confrontation where Lisa almost commits fratricide to show her slipping near the point of no return.
Alot of the plot beats don't have much subversion to them though, they're Lisa's version of events by aligning it with very real pressing matters such as the climate crisis and those perpetuating it but the unfolding of the events is still vaguely how Light Yagami's delusions are described, a self-assessed act for the greater good. I actually think it may be too specific to make Lisa convincingly malevolent, maybe from a liberal ass show like this there's implicit feelings that acting in wrath and murdering those responsible is bad, but like...nah. Light's thing seems interesting because the framework seems to be his own subjective assertion of immorality, Lisa's subject fits Lisa but I can't quite shake that I'm not supposed to be rooting for her offing these rich freaks. Oops! Comedically, the only real punch they seem to have is "write funny ways to die in the book", it'll do and sure I laughed when the Second toilet related kill caught me off guard but on a scripting level its not biting per se, this is actually similar to the first segment but given the more detail heavy plot it doesn't have much room to invent its own rules and so simply following them gives us a somewhat rote script to deal with, right down extraneous use of exposition though to be fair that might be part and parcel with a convincing imitation. That's the thing, the show has so many times annoyed me by just lazily retracing some other beloved thing's steps but this doesn't just register as a brand synergy piggybacking to me, Death Note is far too nerdy a choice, one I don't think a Jean THOH would have ever done, to simply be done for the convenience, this is more of an imitation than reinvention to be sure but its imitation on the "sincerest form of flattery" level. The key is sheer commitment, I like that THOHs have on occasion been a chance to leave the familiar artstyle behind but this is probably the most the Groening style has been eschewed entirely, more than the half-cocked CGI of Coralisa or Toy Gory, here the entirety of the segment is an alternate reality reimagining of Springfield and its denizens, and top to bottom the character and background designs are fantastic, any worries about broadened anime parody are off the table, this looks and feels like Death Note, with its overcast palette and sharpened intensity of character details, distinctly human yet with demonic glint in the eye, overacted in the right ways and never in cartoonish manner than betrays the form.
I have no idea if the Simpsons staff storyboarded this as it stands or the outsource studio did the bulk work but I do know it was animated by Studio DR Movie, who along with working on other American animated works like Avatar: The Last Airbender (and Possibly many DC shows but the entire wikipedia page is like filled with citation needed lol), have been partners with Studio Madhouse who produced the original Death Note, and the pedigree speaks for itself. Alongside great designs, the animation offers some excellent flourishes, atmospheric establishing shots, intense close-ups, and a dazzling montage aplomb with melodramatic choir and fast cutting to illustrate the madness of picking off all these criminals, its so 1:1 that it maintains a very specific vibe and its analogous worldbuilding feels genuinely thought out such that the script alone can't sink the segment in its aloof silliness. I'm sure the more studious anime nerd could pick out the minute out-of-place details but for the casual fan I just respect the commitment, the animators are always carrying the Simpsons on their backs but this is above and beyond, anything less than sinking all the way into the spectacle and it would feel flat but here the specificity of the material informs the vibe, as derivative as it may be it feels like a tribute, a love letter, if yr gonna keep writing so close to the material this is the way to do it, because it balances out the safe script with a different form of non-canon abandon to make THOHs still feel worth existing.
tyler
A Burden on Online Simpsons Fandom Since '13
#99
Let's address Groening's "unbroken rule" first shall we? Indeed, Those Yellows have never directly acknowledged themselves as existing within a TV show, or so I'm told, Selman could be lying to me I'm not combing through 750 episodes to clarify. Aside from the gimmick having a bit of Jean-esque YOU GOTTA WATCH THE SHOW THIS WEEK CUZ SEE THEY'RE GONNA THEY'RE GONNA energy to it, its something of a half-truth. The Simpsons may not directly mention it, but the series' characters in their modern jokebox form have rattled off plenty of meta references and winks at the audience, and nostalgia dickrubs are a key tactic to keep fans tuned in, they aren't stupid whatever they think of the current seasons they know the consensus and its basically free attention, if not viewership then meme status as the series has taken kindly to embracing its memes to an exhaustive degree. The show can be so eager for you to Remember When This Happened that a pressurized canister of high octane nostalgia might just blow up in their faces, it would be the Simpsons version of the typical THOH parody problem. Hey looks its Thing! Ok but what about Thing? Nope that's it. Thing. I'm not here to slap my fins together because Hey Look It's Monorail. With the distinction they've presented we have to get a clear sense of why the Simpsons themselves becoming aware of their state as fictional is affecting and sets itself apart, and acts as more than a gallery of sight gags.
The start is rough, a wombo combo of Homer catchphrases plucked from throughout the seasons that mattered, followed by a scenic drive through a projectile vomit of Oh Yeah That Joke. However it doesn't take long for the Westworldiness of the premise to set in and make it make a deeper sense. Now I've never seen Westworld, but I have seen Black Mirror, and I'm a sucker for stories about A.I. and inquiring about their agency, and in this context Homer very much is presented as A.I., minus perhaps the I. He is operated via a series of convenient sliders and learns that he exists as a vessel to act out beloved scenes from his series, to his horror. That detail is crucial, the sentiment isn't "oh my God I'm a cartoon", its "oh my God I'm an intellectual property", a word with alot less soul and alot less dignity, the word property isn't there for nothing, Homer's self awareness is not cutesy and meta on his own terms, its existential, trapped in a cycle he hasn't been aware of, all for the glee of the most insane people alive: Simpsons fans! The segment certainly has its cake and eats it too, plenty of references feel like opportunities for an easy Pog all the while lampooning those so eager for said Pog, but that dimension makes all the difference if you ask me. Simpsons memes like the hedge joke carried out like theme park photo-ops only with sentient versions of the characters, the jokes have a layer of the sinister that prod at the fans, perhaps specifically at the classic era obsessed for their ravenous adoration of those ten or whatever seasons, all the while feeding them in real life. Cake had, cake eaten, but the layers pay off, one thing that works on both levels is we see rooms with huge piles of old characrers, the less frequently used sat in one room looking disheveled like an old amusement park animatronic set to be discarded might, obscure winks yet tragic figures set to never feel sentience again, then we see a room of different past Lisas, clearly a Highlights Magazine moment of spotting the reference but contextually leans back into the existential by considering each entity, even as one pair of Simpsons make their escape many lay lifeless on the ground waiting for their role, eternally unaware. Also I dunno about you but I can't think of much scarier than thousands of Ralph Wiggums far as the eye can see.
The word again is commitment, and for the first time in ages it's a word a THOH keeps sticking to. Indeed alot of the references feel like backpats for legacy's sake but I also don't know how you would pull off this idea without littering it with those details for the sake of the simultaneously nostalgic and unnerving, and its an idea worth exploring, a uniquely Simpsons-centric horror of deconstructing their legacy in front of them as a series of moments that may all be fabricated, how far does it go, are they even actually family or simply glued together by the Intellectual Property? It helps that most of the references don't call attention to themselves, and still others become useful assets, such as Canyonero or Lisa wielding the makeup gun, I would have liked to see a little more recontextualizing of the references and props in this way but I got Bart with the megaphones so I'm reasonably satisfied. The key is its abundant without feeling strictly self-congratulatory, to me it reflects the very complexities of being a beloved IP, the great memories are there but so too are the chronically obsessed, the unraveling of a series into merely memes, the reckoning with becoming so powerful, the horror that the Simpsons is indeed a property powerful enough to eventually outlive the agency of its creators, if I could believe the staff was honestly self-reflexive enough to push it there I'd say it smothers the viewer in a way that acknowledges they've created a monster, and in the internal logic of the series, it makes a sort of grim sense that The Simpsons would in the end be dwarfed by well, The SimpsonsTM. A massive intellectual property, a powerful ball of nostalgia able to conduct exponential sparks of electricity and maintain renewal via its accrued legacy. This is a good THOH, the best in nineteen fucking years, but make no mistake, nothing is gonna make that power not haunting to me, because even if the Simpsons became consistently this good again by some magical force, there's always the next iteration. Really if there's any horror the writers may especially grasp is that though the Simpsons as it stands may seem infinite, it isn't, it belongs to Fox and Disney, and its a hell of a thing to reckon with, like the show's writers or not they are still built of the foundation of the group Simon started so long ago. Withered and oh so rare to be as inspired as this, but that it can be shows me there's a heart buried in there even now, and what happens when The Simpsons no longer belongs to any of them? Nothing dies anymore, legacies are curses, properties use your sentimentality against you and references ad nauseum are shouts of the damned. Something something zombie Simpsons, and we talk about wondering if this series will ever end, as if even if it did it would stay dead long. You can't kill the profitable. If that doesn't scare you, rewatch the ending of this. We aren't even as far from that as this estimates. Futurama season 8 sooner than ever hahahahaHAHAHAHA capitalism there I said it give me my cookie.
Happy Halloween!!!
Let's address Groening's "unbroken rule" first shall we? Indeed, Those Yellows have never directly acknowledged themselves as existing within a TV show, or so I'm told, Selman could be lying to me I'm not combing through 750 episodes to clarify. Aside from the gimmick having a bit of Jean-esque YOU GOTTA WATCH THE SHOW THIS WEEK CUZ SEE THEY'RE GONNA THEY'RE GONNA energy to it, its something of a half-truth. The Simpsons may not directly mention it, but the series' characters in their modern jokebox form have rattled off plenty of meta references and winks at the audience, and nostalgia dickrubs are a key tactic to keep fans tuned in, they aren't stupid whatever they think of the current seasons they know the consensus and its basically free attention, if not viewership then meme status as the series has taken kindly to embracing its memes to an exhaustive degree. The show can be so eager for you to Remember When This Happened that a pressurized canister of high octane nostalgia might just blow up in their faces, it would be the Simpsons version of the typical THOH parody problem. Hey looks its Thing! Ok but what about Thing? Nope that's it. Thing. I'm not here to slap my fins together because Hey Look It's Monorail. With the distinction they've presented we have to get a clear sense of why the Simpsons themselves becoming aware of their state as fictional is affecting and sets itself apart, and acts as more than a gallery of sight gags.
The start is rough, a wombo combo of Homer catchphrases plucked from throughout the seasons that mattered, followed by a scenic drive through a projectile vomit of Oh Yeah That Joke. However it doesn't take long for the Westworldiness of the premise to set in and make it make a deeper sense. Now I've never seen Westworld, but I have seen Black Mirror, and I'm a sucker for stories about A.I. and inquiring about their agency, and in this context Homer very much is presented as A.I., minus perhaps the I. He is operated via a series of convenient sliders and learns that he exists as a vessel to act out beloved scenes from his series, to his horror. That detail is crucial, the sentiment isn't "oh my God I'm a cartoon", its "oh my God I'm an intellectual property", a word with alot less soul and alot less dignity, the word property isn't there for nothing, Homer's self awareness is not cutesy and meta on his own terms, its existential, trapped in a cycle he hasn't been aware of, all for the glee of the most insane people alive: Simpsons fans! The segment certainly has its cake and eats it too, plenty of references feel like opportunities for an easy Pog all the while lampooning those so eager for said Pog, but that dimension makes all the difference if you ask me. Simpsons memes like the hedge joke carried out like theme park photo-ops only with sentient versions of the characters, the jokes have a layer of the sinister that prod at the fans, perhaps specifically at the classic era obsessed for their ravenous adoration of those ten or whatever seasons, all the while feeding them in real life. Cake had, cake eaten, but the layers pay off, one thing that works on both levels is we see rooms with huge piles of old characrers, the less frequently used sat in one room looking disheveled like an old amusement park animatronic set to be discarded might, obscure winks yet tragic figures set to never feel sentience again, then we see a room of different past Lisas, clearly a Highlights Magazine moment of spotting the reference but contextually leans back into the existential by considering each entity, even as one pair of Simpsons make their escape many lay lifeless on the ground waiting for their role, eternally unaware. Also I dunno about you but I can't think of much scarier than thousands of Ralph Wiggums far as the eye can see.
The word again is commitment, and for the first time in ages it's a word a THOH keeps sticking to. Indeed alot of the references feel like backpats for legacy's sake but I also don't know how you would pull off this idea without littering it with those details for the sake of the simultaneously nostalgic and unnerving, and its an idea worth exploring, a uniquely Simpsons-centric horror of deconstructing their legacy in front of them as a series of moments that may all be fabricated, how far does it go, are they even actually family or simply glued together by the Intellectual Property? It helps that most of the references don't call attention to themselves, and still others become useful assets, such as Canyonero or Lisa wielding the makeup gun, I would have liked to see a little more recontextualizing of the references and props in this way but I got Bart with the megaphones so I'm reasonably satisfied. The key is its abundant without feeling strictly self-congratulatory, to me it reflects the very complexities of being a beloved IP, the great memories are there but so too are the chronically obsessed, the unraveling of a series into merely memes, the reckoning with becoming so powerful, the horror that the Simpsons is indeed a property powerful enough to eventually outlive the agency of its creators, if I could believe the staff was honestly self-reflexive enough to push it there I'd say it smothers the viewer in a way that acknowledges they've created a monster, and in the internal logic of the series, it makes a sort of grim sense that The Simpsons would in the end be dwarfed by well, The SimpsonsTM. A massive intellectual property, a powerful ball of nostalgia able to conduct exponential sparks of electricity and maintain renewal via its accrued legacy. This is a good THOH, the best in nineteen fucking years, but make no mistake, nothing is gonna make that power not haunting to me, because even if the Simpsons became consistently this good again by some magical force, there's always the next iteration. Really if there's any horror the writers may especially grasp is that though the Simpsons as it stands may seem infinite, it isn't, it belongs to Fox and Disney, and its a hell of a thing to reckon with, like the show's writers or not they are still built of the foundation of the group Simon started so long ago. Withered and oh so rare to be as inspired as this, but that it can be shows me there's a heart buried in there even now, and what happens when The Simpsons no longer belongs to any of them? Nothing dies anymore, legacies are curses, properties use your sentimentality against you and references ad nauseum are shouts of the damned. Something something zombie Simpsons, and we talk about wondering if this series will ever end, as if even if it did it would stay dead long. You can't kill the profitable. If that doesn't scare you, rewatch the ending of this. We aren't even as far from that as this estimates. Futurama season 8 sooner than ever hahahahaHAHAHAHA capitalism there I said it give me my cookie.
Happy Halloween!!!
Wile E. the Brain
Just killin' time til the inevitable island
Happy Jean-free Halloween !
There was something that bugged me with the Death Tome segment, good as it is. I think the "you can't kill the same way twice" rule only used as a gag here is a little reductive for such a possibility, even if the jokes coming out of that are a lot of fun, mainly how they use the "word for word" side of that rule, cue Lisa claiming that puréed and liquefied aren't the same thing. That's all I wanted to add 'cause why not.
Every single thing you said on The Pookadook pleases me. There's a thing that segment understood, I believe. To parody something is one thing, but this one also actually adapts the source material, aware that it can't cram everything into 6 minutes and a half. And I think it does it brilliantly for modern standards, dare I say, almost to the level of a classic segment.
There was something that bugged me with the Death Tome segment, good as it is. I think the "you can't kill the same way twice" rule only used as a gag here is a little reductive for such a possibility, even if the jokes coming out of that are a lot of fun, mainly how they use the "word for word" side of that rule, cue Lisa claiming that puréed and liquefied aren't the same thing. That's all I wanted to add 'cause why not.
Every single thing you said on The Pookadook pleases me. There's a thing that segment understood, I believe. To parody something is one thing, but this one also actually adapts the source material, aware that it can't cram everything into 6 minutes and a half. And I think it does it brilliantly for modern standards, dare I say, almost to the level of a classic segment.
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CousinMerl
dunno what that is
Another Halloween, another set of brand new Treehouse' reviews. Great job done with the new batch of four (!), @tyler. I agree on many things; 'Treehouse XXXIII' really is the best one in a long, long time.
I think that 'Simpsons World' might end up being one of the more misunderstood & overlooked modern segments. Feels like a lot of people are just seeing another instance of the show overdosing in the metafictional with the self-referencing and mocking, when it really does deconstruct and satirize its legacy & longevity, even poking fun at how the fandom views it (even highlighting the meme culture with how some fans are obsessed with the memes, want to hear the memorable classic lines and so forth).
It is still a cavalcade of references to classic (and some modern) episodes, but like I said in the review thread, I think that doing so in a 'Westworld' parody (I have not seen the modern series, but I have seen the original 1973 Michael Crichton movie) was the perfect place in overdosing and really be wacky & creative with the blatant references, but it at the same time didn't lose focus from the satirizing on the show as a property (and how it could look like in a future where the milking of the franchise has gone way, way too far. It really is some existential horror), but many will likely still see it as the show being overtly meta & back-patting again.
I think that 'Simpsons World' might end up being one of the more misunderstood & overlooked modern segments. Feels like a lot of people are just seeing another instance of the show overdosing in the metafictional with the self-referencing and mocking, when it really does deconstruct and satirize its legacy & longevity, even poking fun at how the fandom views it (even highlighting the meme culture with how some fans are obsessed with the memes, want to hear the memorable classic lines and so forth).
It is still a cavalcade of references to classic (and some modern) episodes, but like I said in the review thread, I think that doing so in a 'Westworld' parody (I have not seen the modern series, but I have seen the original 1973 Michael Crichton movie) was the perfect place in overdosing and really be wacky & creative with the blatant references, but it at the same time didn't lose focus from the satirizing on the show as a property (and how it could look like in a future where the milking of the franchise has gone way, way too far. It really is some existential horror), but many will likely still see it as the show being overtly meta & back-patting again.
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tyler
A Burden on Online Simpsons Fandom Since '13
didn't ever expect this to meaningfully change but here we are eh
THE BEST TEN POST-SCULLY SEGMENTS
#10. the greatest story ever holed
#9. death tome
#8. a-gobble-ypto
#7. simpsonsworld
#6. the pookadook
#5. the last thanksgiving
#4. reaper madness
#3. frinkenstein
#2. stop the world, i want to goof off
#1. the fright to creep and scare harms
THE BEST TEN POST-SCULLY SEGMENTS
#10. the greatest story ever holed
#9. death tome
#8. a-gobble-ypto
#7. simpsonsworld
#6. the pookadook
#5. the last thanksgiving
#4. reaper madness
#3. frinkenstein
#2. stop the world, i want to goof off
#1. the fright to creep and scare harms
tyler
A Burden on Online Simpsons Fandom Since '13
burp these might be a little slow hope thats ok kiss kiss
tyler
A Burden on Online Simpsons Fandom Since '13
#100
Matt. Matthew. Mr. Selman, buddy. Listen.
I appreciate your willingness to actually examine modern culture through the series in a way that feels more specific and focused, but you're really gonna make me talk about NFTs in late 2023? Listen I have some sympathy to be fair, nobody could have expected how abruptly the crypto craze would hemorrhage, NFTs came about as soon as they went, likely because they were the actual stupidest idea ever conceived to a degree that even the majority of casual onlookers saw through the scheme immediately. Put a pin in that. Let's accept for now that the Simpsons simply felt the need to offer its two cents - the average price of an NFT now I believe - on such an inherently ridiculous turn in modern culture, in tech culture and framed as being in art culture, Selman especially has always been eager to examine these subcultures grown from influencers and digital scam artist types, so let's accept that reality. The problem then lies in the inherent shallowness of the well we're tapping. Fact is, NFTs were not targets of rich, sharp satire, because you need not hone your comedic skills to dunk on something so outwardly unlikeable, a steaming douche stew of smug tech bro babble and disdain for human creativity built on a foundation of immense delusions of grandeur and presumed fortune, all designed with the worst aesthetics humanly imaginable, with such a glaring tone-deaf expression of the value of money at a time when wage gaps only widen and inflation only soars, nobody was trying to hear it, for once the majority all agreed how ridiculous and mockable a hot new trend was, how it was all so transparently a scheme. A pin, put one in that! Due to this, NFT humor is all pretty one-note and obvious, we laughed because the target was deserving and because of their pathetic reactions, if anything being almost petty and childish in the dismissal of their scam was the best you could offer, the way they flip out when you say you'd screenshot their precious NFT is funnier than actually going through any effort cuz let's face it, to assemble a rationalized counterpoint presumes that NFTs are worth debating in the MARKETPLACE OF IDEAS, that they've even earned it. Point is, you can smell the jokes from a mile away, we all agreed why this stunk months ago and we all clapped when it died, so why would the Simpsons' take be any different?
Wanna go through the checklist? NFTs are useless, NFT prices are ridiculous, digital value is meaningless, we got Bored Apes, Nyan Cats, those ugly pixelated faces, design wise its some very Funtendo Zii shit, the only ways it gets creative with in-universe NFTs is pretty obvious stuff like a golden Poochie, and at the end the NFT hype crashes just as in real time. Not only does it hit all the overdone jokes, it reveals how few jokes there are even are to overdo, and weirdly doesn't actually feature any techbro types to skewer for easy points. So what does the Simpsons try to add to the conversation? The weird thing is this segment is pretty stiff, the characters mostly feel like passive observers who barely understand the shit they're saying, but it has some elements that are almost too abstract to get a grip on, like how the NFT world is housed inside of a Snowpiercer environment caused by crypto bros uh...somehow? But that metaphorical environment only exists inside the phone so its not even an actual dystopia just where the NFTs...live I think? The idea of the different valued NFTs having different cars on the train could have been interesting in terms of the hierarchy of the sentient NFTs and yeah even as I say that I don't really believe it but hey it would be a form of creating some cyber class system for the values of the creations to reflect on the fabricated digital values of the things themselves. It's more of an outline of an idea as it stands, vague worldbuilding that mostly serves as a battleground for Marge to advance through the train by laying waste to NFTs to gain value, I think by desaturating the market? I dunno even if this was good satire would I know it all the shit is so made up! You get to see cats get slung at each other though, if you like that, go wild.
The core concept here is the one that ultimately craters this for me beyond being merely redundant though, that being that the Blocktrain is powered by collective FOMO. This makes the metaphor even more bizarrely abstract first off, all this Snowpiercer stuff is visually nice, some great backgrounds here, but it feels convoluted without communicating much, like they very much overthought the metaphorical to the point that we are rather lacking the actual mechanics, I get they wanted to make it a film parody as is their wont but it feels like the weird internal logic here only works if its inside a totally unique THOH segment pocket universe like most movie parodies and not just...inside a phone? Call that a nitpick though, but what I majorly debate is the conceit that NFTs are powered by the FOMO of regular people. And this isn't a matter of critique of the social element regarding who receives blame, but if we review, one of the things that made NFTs distinct from almost all modern cultural fads is that everyone clowned them relentlessly!!! FOMO has nothing to do with it, it wasn't about nameless schmoes trying to hop on a trending topic, it was hand wringing by greedy nerds who had to take a break from making every app worse every update with no exception to attempt to ruin something else that didn't need changing.
That's the unique thing, NFTs have no trickle down, they cannot fathomably assemble the dystopia painted here, even as a joke. Like, I have a hard time believing Homer would understand NFTs long enough to wanna be one, I guess any money making scheme would appeal to Burns but he's such an old fashioned capitalist type to act as proxy for NFT shills. I don't like to put it this simply but, the jokes just don't ring true, if the Simpsons is meant to be a reflection of culture, this does not accurately reflect anything about the actual cultural attitude around NFTs. I dunno, F? You failed the assignment, study harder! For all its specific and blatant references it becomes a much more toothless and generic parody of the relationship between tech influence and society by failing to recognize the actual dynamics of the NFT craze, you picked like the one wrong thing! This is the worst case of a Selman THOH segment, playing to an eagerness to skewer modern subcultures and specific trends with little to no ammo to get the job done that has exposed weaknesses in his showrunning ever since The Food Wife. If it feels like I didn't really deep dive, I ask you to point out the deeper waters, the segment feels extremely shallow and perfunctory because the topic lacks depth or nuance. As bad THOHs go it's not offensive it just barely registers cuz it's so pathetically late to the party and for what? Once again TV struggles to offer valid incentive that it should be considered a useful tool of satire in the social media age.
Yet for me, in the end what's funny is this sorta Snowpiercer angle of categorized worth and digital world dictated by tech culture would have better suited an A.I. segment, where debates are more gray, morals are complicated and the technology's advancement and spread is undeniable, I don't believe in SkyNet cuz I'm an adult but y'know, there will be consequences, moral and ethical dilemmas, the world will be warped to some degree and the digital world will hold weight to a degree that could be dangerous, and it even holds the same disdain for human created art as if its inferior or primitive. You could do almost everything the same only involve ChatGPT and such, and look it would likely still feel like a feeble and relatively late entry to the discourse as is inevitable with the Simpsons and basically all TV comedy now lets be honest, but the A.I. conversation is far from over, whereas the NFT conversation wasn't even really a conversation, it was a joke, and arriving to a conversation late can make you look sloppy, but arriving and posting the jokes that were hot months ago, way after the fact? That just makes you look old.
Matt. Matthew. Mr. Selman, buddy. Listen.
I appreciate your willingness to actually examine modern culture through the series in a way that feels more specific and focused, but you're really gonna make me talk about NFTs in late 2023? Listen I have some sympathy to be fair, nobody could have expected how abruptly the crypto craze would hemorrhage, NFTs came about as soon as they went, likely because they were the actual stupidest idea ever conceived to a degree that even the majority of casual onlookers saw through the scheme immediately. Put a pin in that. Let's accept for now that the Simpsons simply felt the need to offer its two cents - the average price of an NFT now I believe - on such an inherently ridiculous turn in modern culture, in tech culture and framed as being in art culture, Selman especially has always been eager to examine these subcultures grown from influencers and digital scam artist types, so let's accept that reality. The problem then lies in the inherent shallowness of the well we're tapping. Fact is, NFTs were not targets of rich, sharp satire, because you need not hone your comedic skills to dunk on something so outwardly unlikeable, a steaming douche stew of smug tech bro babble and disdain for human creativity built on a foundation of immense delusions of grandeur and presumed fortune, all designed with the worst aesthetics humanly imaginable, with such a glaring tone-deaf expression of the value of money at a time when wage gaps only widen and inflation only soars, nobody was trying to hear it, for once the majority all agreed how ridiculous and mockable a hot new trend was, how it was all so transparently a scheme. A pin, put one in that! Due to this, NFT humor is all pretty one-note and obvious, we laughed because the target was deserving and because of their pathetic reactions, if anything being almost petty and childish in the dismissal of their scam was the best you could offer, the way they flip out when you say you'd screenshot their precious NFT is funnier than actually going through any effort cuz let's face it, to assemble a rationalized counterpoint presumes that NFTs are worth debating in the MARKETPLACE OF IDEAS, that they've even earned it. Point is, you can smell the jokes from a mile away, we all agreed why this stunk months ago and we all clapped when it died, so why would the Simpsons' take be any different?
Wanna go through the checklist? NFTs are useless, NFT prices are ridiculous, digital value is meaningless, we got Bored Apes, Nyan Cats, those ugly pixelated faces, design wise its some very Funtendo Zii shit, the only ways it gets creative with in-universe NFTs is pretty obvious stuff like a golden Poochie, and at the end the NFT hype crashes just as in real time. Not only does it hit all the overdone jokes, it reveals how few jokes there are even are to overdo, and weirdly doesn't actually feature any techbro types to skewer for easy points. So what does the Simpsons try to add to the conversation? The weird thing is this segment is pretty stiff, the characters mostly feel like passive observers who barely understand the shit they're saying, but it has some elements that are almost too abstract to get a grip on, like how the NFT world is housed inside of a Snowpiercer environment caused by crypto bros uh...somehow? But that metaphorical environment only exists inside the phone so its not even an actual dystopia just where the NFTs...live I think? The idea of the different valued NFTs having different cars on the train could have been interesting in terms of the hierarchy of the sentient NFTs and yeah even as I say that I don't really believe it but hey it would be a form of creating some cyber class system for the values of the creations to reflect on the fabricated digital values of the things themselves. It's more of an outline of an idea as it stands, vague worldbuilding that mostly serves as a battleground for Marge to advance through the train by laying waste to NFTs to gain value, I think by desaturating the market? I dunno even if this was good satire would I know it all the shit is so made up! You get to see cats get slung at each other though, if you like that, go wild.
The core concept here is the one that ultimately craters this for me beyond being merely redundant though, that being that the Blocktrain is powered by collective FOMO. This makes the metaphor even more bizarrely abstract first off, all this Snowpiercer stuff is visually nice, some great backgrounds here, but it feels convoluted without communicating much, like they very much overthought the metaphorical to the point that we are rather lacking the actual mechanics, I get they wanted to make it a film parody as is their wont but it feels like the weird internal logic here only works if its inside a totally unique THOH segment pocket universe like most movie parodies and not just...inside a phone? Call that a nitpick though, but what I majorly debate is the conceit that NFTs are powered by the FOMO of regular people. And this isn't a matter of critique of the social element regarding who receives blame, but if we review, one of the things that made NFTs distinct from almost all modern cultural fads is that everyone clowned them relentlessly!!! FOMO has nothing to do with it, it wasn't about nameless schmoes trying to hop on a trending topic, it was hand wringing by greedy nerds who had to take a break from making every app worse every update with no exception to attempt to ruin something else that didn't need changing.
That's the unique thing, NFTs have no trickle down, they cannot fathomably assemble the dystopia painted here, even as a joke. Like, I have a hard time believing Homer would understand NFTs long enough to wanna be one, I guess any money making scheme would appeal to Burns but he's such an old fashioned capitalist type to act as proxy for NFT shills. I don't like to put it this simply but, the jokes just don't ring true, if the Simpsons is meant to be a reflection of culture, this does not accurately reflect anything about the actual cultural attitude around NFTs. I dunno, F? You failed the assignment, study harder! For all its specific and blatant references it becomes a much more toothless and generic parody of the relationship between tech influence and society by failing to recognize the actual dynamics of the NFT craze, you picked like the one wrong thing! This is the worst case of a Selman THOH segment, playing to an eagerness to skewer modern subcultures and specific trends with little to no ammo to get the job done that has exposed weaknesses in his showrunning ever since The Food Wife. If it feels like I didn't really deep dive, I ask you to point out the deeper waters, the segment feels extremely shallow and perfunctory because the topic lacks depth or nuance. As bad THOHs go it's not offensive it just barely registers cuz it's so pathetically late to the party and for what? Once again TV struggles to offer valid incentive that it should be considered a useful tool of satire in the social media age.
Yet for me, in the end what's funny is this sorta Snowpiercer angle of categorized worth and digital world dictated by tech culture would have better suited an A.I. segment, where debates are more gray, morals are complicated and the technology's advancement and spread is undeniable, I don't believe in SkyNet cuz I'm an adult but y'know, there will be consequences, moral and ethical dilemmas, the world will be warped to some degree and the digital world will hold weight to a degree that could be dangerous, and it even holds the same disdain for human created art as if its inferior or primitive. You could do almost everything the same only involve ChatGPT and such, and look it would likely still feel like a feeble and relatively late entry to the discourse as is inevitable with the Simpsons and basically all TV comedy now lets be honest, but the A.I. conversation is far from over, whereas the NFT conversation wasn't even really a conversation, it was a joke, and arriving to a conversation late can make you look sloppy, but arriving and posting the jokes that were hot months ago, way after the fact? That just makes you look old.
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Wile E. the Brain
Just killin' time til the inevitable island
I believe it was said Jim Brooks "suggested" the idea of a whole story on NFTs ? If so I have to wonder how much Selman and co were in on the concept. Sure one of Selman's apparent weakness is to believe sometimes things are more trendy than they actually are (it wouldn't be the first time there are NFTs references in one of his joints) but you can tell some things are more or less forced on them and they have to do the best with those, which they sometimes seem to do to be fair, even if it's not great. It's probably the case here... cramming a lot in so maybe they could move on from it ? It's not like you can get so much out of it. A seven-minutes story is probably more than enough already.
Still, I think it pinpoints why this Treehouse couldn't rival with the previous one. It's very specific. XXXIII was fairly refined, taylor made to be accessible for everyone despite some concepts that would appear more appealing to some people in particular. Sure there was the gigantic satire of SimpsonsWorld but people akin to watch a THOH nowadays are long time fans and they'd certainly get what the whole point of this segment is pretty easily. I don't think I can say the same about this one... and not just because NFTs and stuff. Homer telling to Jimmy Fallon that he "ruined Cowbell" ? Very specific. Too specific to be natural and compelling.
Still, I think it pinpoints why this Treehouse couldn't rival with the previous one. It's very specific. XXXIII was fairly refined, taylor made to be accessible for everyone despite some concepts that would appear more appealing to some people in particular. Sure there was the gigantic satire of SimpsonsWorld but people akin to watch a THOH nowadays are long time fans and they'd certainly get what the whole point of this segment is pretty easily. I don't think I can say the same about this one... and not just because NFTs and stuff. Homer telling to Jimmy Fallon that he "ruined Cowbell" ? Very specific. Too specific to be natural and compelling.
CousinMerl
dunno what that is
Okay, so reading all that analysis on NFTs and them being the subject of that episode, it all the more feels apparent that they were a bit too late to tackle something like that & the episode really could've benefitted from spoofing A.I. instead, which is on the rise while NFTs (and cryptocurrency in general really) is being talked about less prominently: It was just a glorified fad, pretty much.
It is odd the producers are seemingly so obsessed with NFTs but as I understand it, some of the guys in the crew have an interest in those dumb pointless things so it kinda makes sense they'd reference it and now ultimately make a story around it & to be fair, they have done a lot of worse and lamer jokes about NFTs before than this segment (and like @Wile E. the Brain, with how they now have done a full NFT storythis may mean they will move on from them, hopefully at least: I don't think it's worth it to go further than our favorite family being turned into literal NFTs (as done in this segment), which do feel like the end of the road of relative creativity when it comes to the subject).
I feel that they have pretty much done all the jokes they could about them and now when NFTs are falling out of favor and becoming a lot less like the "next big thing", they should move on to rather spoof A.I. and stuff like ChatGPT instead (but I dunno how they would do with that, let alone if they could get close to what South Park did with their A.I. spoof episode 'Deep Learning).
(Also gotta like @tyler's lengthy slam of NFTs in general. That nonsense deserve a good bashing like that).
It is odd the producers are seemingly so obsessed with NFTs but as I understand it, some of the guys in the crew have an interest in those dumb pointless things so it kinda makes sense they'd reference it and now ultimately make a story around it & to be fair, they have done a lot of worse and lamer jokes about NFTs before than this segment (and like @Wile E. the Brain, with how they now have done a full NFT storythis may mean they will move on from them, hopefully at least: I don't think it's worth it to go further than our favorite family being turned into literal NFTs (as done in this segment), which do feel like the end of the road of relative creativity when it comes to the subject).
I feel that they have pretty much done all the jokes they could about them and now when NFTs are falling out of favor and becoming a lot less like the "next big thing", they should move on to rather spoof A.I. and stuff like ChatGPT instead (but I dunno how they would do with that, let alone if they could get close to what South Park did with their A.I. spoof episode 'Deep Learning).
(Also gotta like @tyler's lengthy slam of NFTs in general. That nonsense deserve a good bashing like that).
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Well, from the episode you can feel it was written by people who know nothing about the subject and just read a few articles so they can create expeditionary dialogue in an attempt to explain it to themselves.
NFT collection sales are very much built on creating FOMO and a (fake) sense of community, though. Abused by greedy nerds and the GaryVees of the world who devise superficial trends to sucker in nameless schmoes who blindly follow them instead of doing any proper research. People really invested in and knowledgable about crypto currency don't buy NFT art. They know it’s bullshit to scam regular people who vaguely heard these investments will make them rich and thus hastily buy buy buy. (Unless they’re evil and buy NFT art at mint to re-sell it with a lot of profit to one of these suckers.)
There even is a weird hierarchy in this NFT collection world where you have the bored apes for rich people, and then derivative bored ape collections for people with less money. Plus there's a lot of rich people consciously using NFTs to get richer off of poor people (could've used celebrities for that aspect, but of course The Simpsons only dares to step on their toes ever so lightly). They don’t really go into any this, because as pointed out, nothing is explored in depth. Not even the FOMO aspect: since the tech bros and rich abusers are absent from the story the writers don’t do anything with the actual exploitation of FOMO. It’s just a whole lot of shallow observations taken from internet articles cobbled together into a messy heap because James L Brooks told them to do something with NFTs. I agree with Tyler that the combination of NFTs and FOMO and metaphores and Snowpiercer as the rules of this story's universe feels extremely convoluted; I'm afraid to even starting thinking about it logically. And the train stopping because of the loss of FOMO is something that doesn't ring true. In real life you just run out of people who are willing or capable to buy NFTs for even more than the previous owner paid, I don't think that's directly linked to FOMO.
Perfect time to point out these same writers once threw out an entire THOH short parodying Spirited Away, because James L Brooks hadn’t seen the movie and was confused at the table read, so they quickly threw together a Transformers parody in probably less than a week.
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Wile E. the Brain
Just killin' time til the inevitable island
I indeed remember how Brooks made them throw away an entire 'Spirited Away' parody (it really shows that the Transformers crap was hastily put together) and that's part of why I did wonder how much the writing staff actually wanted to do an entire segment on NFTs following his demand. On top of being something they hardly know something about (can't blame them, I don't either), so it's a double poison here. It's somewhat a miracle that it ended at least watchable as far as I'm concerned, if only from a technical standpoint.
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CousinMerl
dunno what that is
I remember when I read about that info about the scrapped Spirited Away' spoof (I think it was recently?) for that shitty Transformers segment and and it honestly made me really sad. They had a potential goldmine of parody there and they just threw it away due to Brooks' not understanding it, yet now they did this NFT segment (despite not clearly being all into the subject).
I mean, I really don't think a good idea should be thrown away just because a producer didn't see the source material, yet the others must do something they aren't too familiar with because the producer apparently knows all about it & pushes it. Feels disrespectful with the "We will scrap your idea since I don't get it, but we'll do my idea even if you don't get it" type approach.
It did feel like they were forced to do this NFT segment by a higher up but then again, I don't feel they really failed with this segment despite clearly knowing only the basics of the NFT ""phenomenon"" since it was still relatively decent put together (and was made coherent enough to not be some kind of mess of a story but one that could actually be followed without any big issues).
In the future, I would hope this won't get repeated and they all agree on only doing something they know about (like how I felt with Jessica Conrad's script for the 'Ei8ht' segment, which obviously a fair bit of care went into with the David Fincher crime story style), including being allowed to do a proposed script most have agreed with even when one of the producers doesn't understand the story (like the 'Spirited Away' instance), but I don't think much will change about this, unfortunately.
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I'm gonna guess nobody in the writers room cared about NFTs.
It really is bizarre they threw out a Spirited Away segment they were passionate about. I would've been interested to see how The Simpsons handles East Asian storytelling. Though I guess I got my answer on that one with the terrible Parasite segment. Probably would've been nothing more than Simpsons characters looking like Miyazaki characters walking through Miyazaki setpieces without much substance, like that sequence they did in the 2nd Married to the Blob.
CousinMerl
dunno what that is
I'm actually not feeling as cynical when it comes to imagining how the 'Spirited Away' segment would've been.
If they were as passionate and dedicated to it as they truly seemed (showing a lot of love for the source material), I think they'd have done a really nice and thorough job with it to capture the tone, style and feel of the source movie: With the right writer and showrunner and director it could've been a really neat entry in the 'Treehouse' canon (also maybe also doing of a bit of a darker spin on the original?).
Had they not been so enthused about it as they apparently were, it could've ended up a superficial spoof like the 'Parasite' segment (and nothing about the latter's making seem to explicitly point to the same amount of passion as for the 'Spirited Away' segment).
Also, let us not forget last year's 'Death Tome' that really did show they can do East Asian storytelling justice.
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I'd be curious, but not overly optimistic.:
- It was more going to be a mash up of all famous Miyazaki films with a Spirited Away overtone, hence the Married to the Blob comparison
- Death Tome doesn't really adhere to East Asian storytelling. It stops just as the story in the original Death Note starts, so it's more like the first 2 episodes of Death Note remodelled into a Western 3 act structure. It works effectively enough for a 7 minute segment, so it's possible, though the visuals and comedy by far are it's strengths. If you don't restructure and don't understand how East Asian story structure works, it could become superficial fast, like the Parasite segment, despite the passion for the material (I'm assuming they picked Parasite because they loved that film).
- Most THOHs in the last 20 years have been pretty dire, really. Maybe I've gotten too used to really being into a concept for a segment, only to be let down by the execution.
- If they were really passionate about a segment, would they that easily throw it away and replace it with a half-assed Transformers parody? Or would they convince Brooks of their passion, and how the fans would probably appreciate a Spirited Away parody more (I assume. Maybe not the mainstream audience)? The whole situation sounds bizarre.
CousinMerl
dunno what that is
I would obviously not be overly optimistic either. Certainly intrigued and hopeful, but with some reservations (much depending on whom are nvolved in the making of the segment and/or how the story description would look like).
I don't know much of the details, but a mashup of everythng Miyazaki definitely seem like a potential disaster at their hands. I've always been cautious with modern 'Treehouses' that doesn't focus on a particular movie in a series or by one director and want to do everything all at once (the main reasons why the likes of 'Homerzilla & 'A Clockwork' Yellow didn't work for me: They started out focused, but then started throwing everything at the viewer, the former shifting from a parody of the original 1954 Japanese Godzilla to American studio execs wanting to do their own Godzillas & the latter at first only doing 'A Clockwork Orange' and then devolving into a Kubrick mashup).
I wasn't referring to how Death Note was structured, more that is is a work made in East Asia (Japan specificiall) and therefore naturally is linked to the way they are telling their stories (like most manga & anime, most of which is always a bit different from how western storytelling tend to be, even though there's some works that are distinctly less Asian with their style: 'Death Note' is one it seems, but I also think 'Fullmetal Alchemist' as well) and they do limit themselves and are focused (I'm not incredibly familiar with the source material but I get that the sefment truncate the material and essentially just adapt a few early episodes) and the stylized animation and jokes are part of why it works as well as it does (I think the characters are handled really well, too). It's a good one.
But that said, my point still stands: They could theoretically do a good job with a Miyazaki spoof if they are focused and focus on just one piece of source material, such as 'Spirited Away' , but certainly, without the proper structure and lack of understanding of the source, it will fall flat and they'd end up with a surface-level plot and/or a mashup of references. They must've had a fondness for 'Parasite', but it was the wrong writer and wrong showrunner to handle it: They missed pretty much all the depth and nuances of the film.
The 'Treehouses' have indeed been very uneven with the quality: One year we might get a good one, but the next we may be let down, only for the year after that get one that is just OK or average so I don't blame you for feeling like you do. But that said, I don't think it is wrong to be into the concept of the segments but it could be a good idea to temper expectations and see whom are involved in the making of the episode and the segment(s) in question: Maybe it could be the right ones to handle it? Doesn't hurt to be curiously optimistic yet have some reservations and lowered expectations (so as to not be too let down if the execution isn't up to snuff).
I would think they would've fought for the 'Spirited Away' segment than just let it be discarded because one voice say that they don't get it, only to pull one out of their ass and slap it onto the episode in the replaced one's place, but apparently they just agreed with Brooks and tossed it away, which makes it sound like there was some disagreements in the group. It's confusing.
Maybe some started agreeing with Brooks and they decided to just toss it in the bin? I have no idea what was going on, but had it really been a Miyazaki mashup and parade of references, I am not sure I'd have liked it very much on aside from it, to some, being fun to see the show do an entire Miyazaki-themed segment, but I guess that after that, it would've aged poorly and the flaws would've been strikingly apparent when it has had sunk in and the flaws would be readily apparent (I guess kind of how some would view a popular new Marvel movie and then when it is not the hot new thing anymore, people would turn against it with more critical eyes).
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I've just rewatched Death Tome for the first time since it aired and I was totally wrong. It actually sticks pretty well to East Asian story structure. Due to the alloted time, the 3rd and 4th act are paced quite fast, and it doesn't do a lot story-wise compared to Death Note, so it stuck in my mind as a 3 act structure. But it's definitely there, and it works. Very interesting stuff. Sorry, should've done a proper rewatch before commenting on it. I've grown a new appreciation for the segment and I applaud the writers. Not sure if Al Jean could've pulled it off, because...
I did rewatch the Parasite parody earlier today. While that also sticks to the original's 4 act structure, it's just paced so much more clumsily. It never feels like it's building or conveying anything, and the twist is used with no effect. I'm curious how it comes across to people who have not seen the movie, though. And let's be honest, story structure is not one of Jean's strong suits, no matter which one he uses.
CousinMerl
dunno what that is
Hey, no worries (thanks for the apology, tho). Nice that you went back to 'Death Tome' and saw the light, haha. Was also good that you did go to it for refresher and saw that it was mimicking the East Asian story structuring well as it's been a long while I last saw it so I don't remember the exact details, but I was thinking that you had missed/misremembered something as I distinctly recall it echoing the structure as seen in manga & anime (and now that you say it, it does have that 4 act structure rather than 3 acts, like in most western media).
It is kind of wondrous they managed to fit relatively much material into 7 minutes, simplifying the premise and story for all audiences yet still delivering a superbly written and animated homage. Though it's definitely on Selman & Omine for making it work as well as it did & I am sure Jean could never have done it as well as they did, no way (even if he tried his best, that balance wouldn't be hit by him).
Jean seem to often have a lot of trouble with basic story structure and making the damn script come off as organic, usually ending up with something clunky/clumsy that tend to feel badly paced, choppy and inorganic, often missing on letting the story be properly anchored with proper characterizations and drama, preferring joke-driven stories that throw a bunch of wacky gags at the audiences.
I guess their 'Parasite' parody falls into that as well: At the time it aired, I had not seen 'Parasite' yet (I have now though so I have better context now) and I thought it still fell flat as it felt flat, basic and straightforward and not even the twist worked properly & now that I have seen the movie, it is even lamer and doesn't at all capture what made the film uniquely strange and weird but also dramatic & emotional: It's pretty much just a beat-for-beat parody that covers the basics without any finesse or subtleties or anything that makes it feel soulful and something with real, hands-on effort behind it (like 'Death Tome' was, which didn't skimp out on story, tone, characterizations or humor, being well balanced). It ends up feeling kinda mechanical & factory line-produced and therefore doesn't represent the source material well.
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tyler
A Burden on Online Simpsons Fandom Since '13
#101
I talked about the Simpsons being cursed by its legacy in my Simpsonsworld review, having its classic era endlessly regurgitated as the show's immensity reflects back onto itself ad infinitum to the point of suffocation, celebratory yet keenly aware of its status as product that may very well outlive even its less hailed but still driven creatives to become something made by pure committee or y'know, robots. A show whose best moments are slowly unraveled and devalued by algorithms and models designed to feed instant gratification driven by nostalgia, but let's of course be honest, The Simpsons has been doing this long before increasingly short form content consumption and the powerhouse of meme culture made it an industry, and while they may never dethrone the almighty saint of bite-sized albeit already been chewed TV content, Family Guy Funny Moments, the series has known and leaned on its legacy forever, they may recognize the insidious nature of the series becoming Content but they're still evidently not immune to the temptations of nostalgia. It's actually a little surprising it took this long for them to try twisting Cape Feare, an episode lauded by many dumb wrong stupid people as the best of the series! Granted, I can't say I have ever wondered "what if Bob actually wasted Bart at the end" because Cape Feare is Looney Tunes and he has no gravity or intensity after act one, but I do think it's an interesting springboard, THOHs should play with sacred cows and here we rewrite a classic ending (so called) and commit to at least a brief view of Bob being as evil as his intentions, seen through to the end, and I always want more segments at different points in the timeline.
First I'll offer what in the general low bar of Modern THOHs are compliments, a section I will call Ways They Didn't Fuck This Up. Because there's a looot that could have gone outright wrong here, off top the Lisa/Nelson pairing has proven to barely work especially on a romantic level where its become weird internal fanfic, and while they still lack chemistry as partners in un-crime, they don't waste any time with cringe romance angles, though I still don't understand the persistence, but the segment stays on task. Per the title, this is going for Fincher-esque psychological thriller, and whenever modern THOHs go all-in on a specific tonal parody, it usually pushes too hard on poking at tropes through cheeky exposition and stops the segment from speaking for itself, such as with their ill-fated It parody, but this segment largely evades cheap send up and actually attempts a clear and specific mood and tone in direction, dialogue, line delivery and plot. I have no Fincher experience but I've seen a share of grim, twisty American thrillers of the same spirit, and within this segment lie two commonalities that also help navigate potential pitfalls, I especially worried about a completely predictable answer to the mystery, that it was just Bob again or Bart somehow survives and goes bananas or some entirely inconsequential rando is the culprit like a secondary picked via dartboard, the heady result is its own familiar trope but at least suits the style its approaching and has some fitting darkness for the what-ifs of these characters. The other trope is just shocking displays of gore, arranged in a way that truly displays the twisted psyche that eviscerated them, and giving THOHs a chance to be blatantly gory is usually boring, another way the tonal sophistication of the classics is traded for genre shortcuts with dull direction, but here the designs are so vile that they're pretty inspired, the slow build-up of victims such that the two can't even keep up with the discoveries all leading to the insane flesh Rube Goldberg machine in the kitchen is genuinely funny but also a striking image that doesn't feel forced in context, you're meant to see these crime scenes as especially unnerving and ruthless so that the twist hits harder. It's tropey but the tropes are the right ones!
Lastly, the segment doesn't actually rely too hard on Cape Feare minus the jumping off point and its full circle at the end so it gets to live in the specific parody universe it created. I do think this brings about one of the weaker parts of the segment tho, namely Bob himself, who frankly hasn't said or done anything interesting in about a quarter century. Should we be done with Bob honestly? Like, forget Cape Feare specifically, at this point Sideshow Bob is a character whose entire being is boiled down to hammering his legacy with diminishing returns, even this is a recycle of the concept of Louse Detective, and he just isn't imposing anymore, he literally murders Bart in this segment and I feel no gravitas from him, it's such a springboard it almost feels like nothing more, just business as usual. Bob also serves too little purpose given the angle of his wits being used to solve the crime, this aspect feels a bit tacked on ultimately, Bob hasn't been written with convincing highbrow wit and intellect in awhile anyway, Grammer still captures the smarm but the depth is lacking, and anyway there isn't enough time to involve him regardless. Honestly I think This would've benefitted from the Not It/Serious Flanders treatment, room to breathe would fix most of its actual issues which lie in how despite making the right general decisions the suspense just isn't there because we have to speedrun them, obvious or not on a cliche level I think Lisa going gradually mad and playing protagonist when her split personality was devilishly acting out her trauma in ghoulish ways is effective and works given time to create a more thoughtful and detailed puzzle to crack, to mislead about what the point even is, that the footsteps lead anywhere but back home. The Ana Gram joke is a pretty good screw the audience bit but it also makes Bob's involvement and the would-be mystery at large feel trivial, and there isn't much else in terms of hints that I could find. Time could also allow them to make Lisa/Nelson's partnership have a little character, could play with misleads regarding Bob and also the tension between him and Lisa, etc. Each time I ran this segment back I began to enjoy how gleefully it embraced the hauntingly composed viscera of the style, and I equally like the gruesome shots of Lisa committing them at the end, there is something tragic and terrifying captured there even in snapshot of genre parallels, but the aesthetic brutality is ultimately favored to the point of eliminating cerebral elements that would balance them out.
An ending where a fully deranged Lisa guts Bob as ultimate revenge yet displays her point of no return shouldn't feel so anticlimactic, but it rather does because Bob is a character these writers just can't get a grip on these days. I don't foolishly expect the mastery of Black Widower here but I think about how Bob's sharp intellect acted as a weapon there such that even on repeat viewings you still almost wanna believe him, he controls a room at his best, he isn't just a loopy killer with a deep voice, in a cryptic rabbit hole thriller there are so many ways Bob could hold the cards, even as anti hero. It all just goes back to time, a half-hour could give you all the space to lay the pieces out, provide a mystery at the same time as ramping up the visceral horrors in tandem, engage and then when the audience is leaned in, jab and twist the knife all at once. Sure these are the mechanics of the genre at large not a Simpsonian subversion but that's the feel the segment is aiming for, given the grimness of this alternate reality for Lisa and how the typical lazy pointing at genre trappings are avoided to live within the mood of the segment, I think it could work, as with Death Tome it doesn't really have a unique take but the pieces fit and the character story is in there somewhere, but while I respect the shot for headier horror uncommon in THOHs, it may just be that more thinky, more dramatic subgenres don't play nice with the bite-sized format. I dunno, I still respect this though? For all its faults they are blatantly trying here, with a sort of effort utterly foreign to Jean's myriad terrible film "parodies", with clear knowledge of the style and a distinct aim in tone, the art and VA teams especially are delivering. Don't mind me just limboing under the low bar. But yeah, best bad segment? Worst good segment? I'll go artsy film style, and leave you without a clear answer.
I talked about the Simpsons being cursed by its legacy in my Simpsonsworld review, having its classic era endlessly regurgitated as the show's immensity reflects back onto itself ad infinitum to the point of suffocation, celebratory yet keenly aware of its status as product that may very well outlive even its less hailed but still driven creatives to become something made by pure committee or y'know, robots. A show whose best moments are slowly unraveled and devalued by algorithms and models designed to feed instant gratification driven by nostalgia, but let's of course be honest, The Simpsons has been doing this long before increasingly short form content consumption and the powerhouse of meme culture made it an industry, and while they may never dethrone the almighty saint of bite-sized albeit already been chewed TV content, Family Guy Funny Moments, the series has known and leaned on its legacy forever, they may recognize the insidious nature of the series becoming Content but they're still evidently not immune to the temptations of nostalgia. It's actually a little surprising it took this long for them to try twisting Cape Feare, an episode lauded by many dumb wrong stupid people as the best of the series! Granted, I can't say I have ever wondered "what if Bob actually wasted Bart at the end" because Cape Feare is Looney Tunes and he has no gravity or intensity after act one, but I do think it's an interesting springboard, THOHs should play with sacred cows and here we rewrite a classic ending (so called) and commit to at least a brief view of Bob being as evil as his intentions, seen through to the end, and I always want more segments at different points in the timeline.
First I'll offer what in the general low bar of Modern THOHs are compliments, a section I will call Ways They Didn't Fuck This Up. Because there's a looot that could have gone outright wrong here, off top the Lisa/Nelson pairing has proven to barely work especially on a romantic level where its become weird internal fanfic, and while they still lack chemistry as partners in un-crime, they don't waste any time with cringe romance angles, though I still don't understand the persistence, but the segment stays on task. Per the title, this is going for Fincher-esque psychological thriller, and whenever modern THOHs go all-in on a specific tonal parody, it usually pushes too hard on poking at tropes through cheeky exposition and stops the segment from speaking for itself, such as with their ill-fated It parody, but this segment largely evades cheap send up and actually attempts a clear and specific mood and tone in direction, dialogue, line delivery and plot. I have no Fincher experience but I've seen a share of grim, twisty American thrillers of the same spirit, and within this segment lie two commonalities that also help navigate potential pitfalls, I especially worried about a completely predictable answer to the mystery, that it was just Bob again or Bart somehow survives and goes bananas or some entirely inconsequential rando is the culprit like a secondary picked via dartboard, the heady result is its own familiar trope but at least suits the style its approaching and has some fitting darkness for the what-ifs of these characters. The other trope is just shocking displays of gore, arranged in a way that truly displays the twisted psyche that eviscerated them, and giving THOHs a chance to be blatantly gory is usually boring, another way the tonal sophistication of the classics is traded for genre shortcuts with dull direction, but here the designs are so vile that they're pretty inspired, the slow build-up of victims such that the two can't even keep up with the discoveries all leading to the insane flesh Rube Goldberg machine in the kitchen is genuinely funny but also a striking image that doesn't feel forced in context, you're meant to see these crime scenes as especially unnerving and ruthless so that the twist hits harder. It's tropey but the tropes are the right ones!
Lastly, the segment doesn't actually rely too hard on Cape Feare minus the jumping off point and its full circle at the end so it gets to live in the specific parody universe it created. I do think this brings about one of the weaker parts of the segment tho, namely Bob himself, who frankly hasn't said or done anything interesting in about a quarter century. Should we be done with Bob honestly? Like, forget Cape Feare specifically, at this point Sideshow Bob is a character whose entire being is boiled down to hammering his legacy with diminishing returns, even this is a recycle of the concept of Louse Detective, and he just isn't imposing anymore, he literally murders Bart in this segment and I feel no gravitas from him, it's such a springboard it almost feels like nothing more, just business as usual. Bob also serves too little purpose given the angle of his wits being used to solve the crime, this aspect feels a bit tacked on ultimately, Bob hasn't been written with convincing highbrow wit and intellect in awhile anyway, Grammer still captures the smarm but the depth is lacking, and anyway there isn't enough time to involve him regardless. Honestly I think This would've benefitted from the Not It/Serious Flanders treatment, room to breathe would fix most of its actual issues which lie in how despite making the right general decisions the suspense just isn't there because we have to speedrun them, obvious or not on a cliche level I think Lisa going gradually mad and playing protagonist when her split personality was devilishly acting out her trauma in ghoulish ways is effective and works given time to create a more thoughtful and detailed puzzle to crack, to mislead about what the point even is, that the footsteps lead anywhere but back home. The Ana Gram joke is a pretty good screw the audience bit but it also makes Bob's involvement and the would-be mystery at large feel trivial, and there isn't much else in terms of hints that I could find. Time could also allow them to make Lisa/Nelson's partnership have a little character, could play with misleads regarding Bob and also the tension between him and Lisa, etc. Each time I ran this segment back I began to enjoy how gleefully it embraced the hauntingly composed viscera of the style, and I equally like the gruesome shots of Lisa committing them at the end, there is something tragic and terrifying captured there even in snapshot of genre parallels, but the aesthetic brutality is ultimately favored to the point of eliminating cerebral elements that would balance them out.
An ending where a fully deranged Lisa guts Bob as ultimate revenge yet displays her point of no return shouldn't feel so anticlimactic, but it rather does because Bob is a character these writers just can't get a grip on these days. I don't foolishly expect the mastery of Black Widower here but I think about how Bob's sharp intellect acted as a weapon there such that even on repeat viewings you still almost wanna believe him, he controls a room at his best, he isn't just a loopy killer with a deep voice, in a cryptic rabbit hole thriller there are so many ways Bob could hold the cards, even as anti hero. It all just goes back to time, a half-hour could give you all the space to lay the pieces out, provide a mystery at the same time as ramping up the visceral horrors in tandem, engage and then when the audience is leaned in, jab and twist the knife all at once. Sure these are the mechanics of the genre at large not a Simpsonian subversion but that's the feel the segment is aiming for, given the grimness of this alternate reality for Lisa and how the typical lazy pointing at genre trappings are avoided to live within the mood of the segment, I think it could work, as with Death Tome it doesn't really have a unique take but the pieces fit and the character story is in there somewhere, but while I respect the shot for headier horror uncommon in THOHs, it may just be that more thinky, more dramatic subgenres don't play nice with the bite-sized format. I dunno, I still respect this though? For all its faults they are blatantly trying here, with a sort of effort utterly foreign to Jean's myriad terrible film "parodies", with clear knowledge of the style and a distinct aim in tone, the art and VA teams especially are delivering. Don't mind me just limboing under the low bar. But yeah, best bad segment? Worst good segment? I'll go artsy film style, and leave you without a clear answer.
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2001
- Messages
- 3,715
This desperately needed a writer more experienced in writing these two intellectual characters and creating a cat and mouse game between them (maybe like with the mentioned Black Widower, where they consulted an actual crime novelist). An interesting dynamic where they're both in on what's going on, fully focus on that and build to the big confrontation between the two.
I'm repeating myself from discord, but with all segments this year it's like they left in every idea they came up with instead of editing out the ideas that don't work for the story, and the entire episode feels unpolished as a result.
I'm repeating myself from discord, but with all segments this year it's like they left in every idea they came up with instead of editing out the ideas that don't work for the story, and the entire episode feels unpolished as a result.
Wile E. the Brain
Just killin' time til the inevitable island
I don't mind the use of Bob in this segment, or underuse as it'd be more appropriate. Would I dig a cat and mouse game between him and Lisa, sure, but I don't think that's what they were fully going for given how Bob is written. I believe the point is more to show... just how pathetic he is, now that he killed his 10 yo nemesis a long time ago. He's in jail for life, has got nothing to him, and yet he's still gloating about the day he did what he was so obsessed with, that's pretty much the only thing he brings to Lisa when she interacts with him. And now it's Lisa who's obsessed with Bob's death, at least, her hidden second personality. It's clearly one-sided and that makes the ending all the more bitter to me. Cathartic in a sense, but no so much if you just think about it. She kills this pathetic criminal after being obsessed with the deed for 30 years, and when she does it, he's just at his lowest (coupled with a rake joke to add insult to injury), and then what ? That's the same cycle all over again, with some HMS Pinafore playing in the background. It's a narrative choice but I like it a lot, personally.
CousinMerl
dunno what that is
Yeah, I have no problems with how they utilized Sideshow Bob in 'Ei8ght' so therefore I cannot agree with tylers criticisms regarding that. It is actually one of, if not the, most interesting aspects of the story, such as viewing this as a "What If...?" tale.
As I said in my review, I really like how this Bob contrasts with the regular one, as while this one was successful in killing Bart, he's stagnated so bad, being in prison for life and all, that the only thing he's got going for it is boasting about his one murder and is overly smug and confident so here he i as much of a loser as he's ever been shown; He's literally accomplished nothing but becoming a permanently incarcerated child murderer and is nothing but a pale shadow, an imitation, of the regular normal series Bob as we know him.
The real Bob have repeatedly failed at killing Bart, yes, but he has accomplished a lot of things and grown as a character (taking every appearance into account, including having spawned a family and even has a girlfriend), while this child murder Bob is an loser of an old man who thinks he's accomplished much when he really hasn't, a true pathetic shadow of his former self prior to this version of the Cape Feare events & when faced by the consequences (the psychotic split-personality serial killer Lisa) he doesn't even put up a fight but fearfully is cornered and then killed (in an ironic sequence, faced by a demon he created himself out of his singular goal of killing Bart, whom the real Bob has mostly moved past). It made me realize that the actual Bob should be glad he never managed to kill Bart (as he really benefitted from it as otherwise he'd be a pathethic old loser confined to prison, with his only joy is wallowing in a 30 year old murder).
That and I like the Silence Of The Lambs approach of Lisa in her investigation visiting Bob earlier on to try get some help (so therefore I didn't mind his relatively minor yet important role either). I really liked that. I wish they'd expanded that among other things since this segment had a lot of potential, but as I've said in abeformentioned review, this segment if any recent one deserved 22 minutes.
(And tyler, you're really missing out having no experience of David Fincher and his style of crime stories).
As I said in my review, I really like how this Bob contrasts with the regular one, as while this one was successful in killing Bart, he's stagnated so bad, being in prison for life and all, that the only thing he's got going for it is boasting about his one murder and is overly smug and confident so here he i as much of a loser as he's ever been shown; He's literally accomplished nothing but becoming a permanently incarcerated child murderer and is nothing but a pale shadow, an imitation, of the regular normal series Bob as we know him.
The real Bob have repeatedly failed at killing Bart, yes, but he has accomplished a lot of things and grown as a character (taking every appearance into account, including having spawned a family and even has a girlfriend), while this child murder Bob is an loser of an old man who thinks he's accomplished much when he really hasn't, a true pathetic shadow of his former self prior to this version of the Cape Feare events & when faced by the consequences (the psychotic split-personality serial killer Lisa) he doesn't even put up a fight but fearfully is cornered and then killed (in an ironic sequence, faced by a demon he created himself out of his singular goal of killing Bart, whom the real Bob has mostly moved past). It made me realize that the actual Bob should be glad he never managed to kill Bart (as he really benefitted from it as otherwise he'd be a pathethic old loser confined to prison, with his only joy is wallowing in a 30 year old murder).
That and I like the Silence Of The Lambs approach of Lisa in her investigation visiting Bob earlier on to try get some help (so therefore I didn't mind his relatively minor yet important role either). I really liked that. I wish they'd expanded that among other things since this segment had a lot of potential, but as I've said in abeformentioned review, this segment if any recent one deserved 22 minutes.
(And tyler, you're really missing out having no experience of David Fincher and his style of crime stories).
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