Rate and Review: "Elementary School Musical" (MABF21)

How do you rate "Elementary School Musical?"

  • 5/5: Musical Legacy

    Votes: 8 3.9%
  • 4/5: Hit-Maker

    Votes: 20 9.7%
  • 3/5: One-Hit Wonder

    Votes: 55 26.7%
  • 2/5: Cover Band

    Votes: 68 33.0%
  • 1/5: South Park Already did it!

    Votes: 55 26.7%

  • Total voters
    206
1.5/5 rounded up to 2.
It was boring. I didn't laugh at all.
And Roofi returned. :eek:
Farts camp? 'Marge paid with her student visa'... surely you can write a better line than that. The subplot was pretty nonsensical too... I still don't understand how a video saved Krusty.

I liked the plaque though. :P
 
did people actually miss the part where they said "Sprooklyn" was the artsy part of Springfield? It seems like a lot of you think it was supposed to be Brooklyn but they just changed the name.
It was the latest in a line of terrible, terrible puns that the writers seem to have a hard-on for, in which they just change the name of something slightly, and apparently that is enough for it to be a parody.

Like the Funtendo Zii.

Seriously, I wish I got paid good money to come up with this shit. "How about instead of Subway, its SPRUBWAY!!! LOLOLOLOL COMEDY GOLD!!!"
This could have been a Family Guy episode.
Don't get me wrong, I hate Family Guy sometimes, but thats not even fair. Even the worst Family Guy episode can produce at least one good laugh. Plus, they know how to do musical numbers.

The Family Guy season premiere, while a little drawn out, was far better than this, if even only for the fact that they at least tried something different.
 
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ARRRRGH!!! Turntabling Stephen Hawking, stealing the title from a great episode of South Park, Sprooklyn, Maggie using the pacifier like a cigar, Marge just randomly dropping Lisa off at performing arts camp without checking, "I melt it and inject it into my eyelid", FRAKKING SPROOKLYN, Krusty "getting" a Nobel Peace Prize, every joke being the most obvious thing ever, Krusty being taken way too far, the Electric Company ripoff, having the cast of Glee on for no reason, DID I MENTION SPROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOKLYN, Euro-Cuffs, and THE SONGS. Now, whenever I think of "Good Vibrations", I'll think of this piece of dried horse vomit. At least it drove me to tears instead of putting me to sleep like all of last season. 1/5.
 
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It's not a secret the current writers like lazy parodies. Here are Matt Selmans words on it:

Here's a goofy thing that makes the internet want to commit suicide. In this show, we are completely inconsistent about using parody superheroes and real ones. This show mentions dozens of actual superheroes, like Superman and Wonder Woman, as well as creating paper-thin imitations, like the Thung (the Thing) and the Mulk (The Hulk). (Originally conceived, the Thung and Mulk were supposed to be blue and red, but somehow they ended up classic orange and green.) For some reason, it delights us to no end to make our parodies of things the laziest parodies in the world.
 
Were they supposed to have them live in Brooklyn? The joke (not that it's funny) is that they live in an area of Springfield that's exactly like Brooklyn called Sprooklyn. That's not at all comparable to the Funtendo Zii or MyPods or Space Wars.
 
Were they supposed to have them live in Brooklyn? The joke (not that it's funny) is that they live in an area of Springfield that's exactly like Brooklyn called Sprooklyn. That's not at all comparable to the Funtendo Zii or MyPods or Space Wars.

Yeah, I guess. I am sick and tired and I didn't really eat last weekend, so my annoyance at this frakkin' show is amplified by like 12 billion.
 
It's not a secret the current writers like lazy parodies. Here are Matt Selmans words on it:
Ok, so, have they forgotten than something that is funny to them in the writing room may not actually be funny to viewers? In the commentaries for the classic episodes, they always talked about how they would take the time to think it over to see if something would be funny to viewers, or if it was just funny to them at the time.
Were they supposed to have them live in Brooklyn? The joke (not that it's funny) is that they live in an area of Springfield that's exactly like Brooklyn called Sprooklyn. That's not at all comparable to the Funtendo Zii or MyPods or Space Wars.
I think it is. The Funtendo Zii is exactly like the Nintendo Wii, but with a different name because its in Springfield.
 
I thought it was a travesty of an episode, for a number of reasons. If this is what they're pushing as the premiere to hook people in, then that's a poor sign. My disclaimer is thus: I am channelling my inner Comic Book Guy and this "review" is full of nit-picking.

One thing I take issue with, despite its insignificance, is the fact it shares its episode title with a South Park episode. I find it hard to believe that it didn't come up once during production. You'd think they'd wish to avoid comparisons to a show that has arguably aged much better and produced a genuinely entertaining episode by the same name.

I also disliked the chalkboard gag as it seems to be cashing in on pop culture references. I wonder how well it will work when people are watching it five years from now. Perhaps I'm just jaded, though, and am forgetting classic episodes that are similarly guilty.

The voices just seemed off to me and I know that this is a common complaint, but Krusty just didn't sound right at all. Not just compared to earlier episodes, the enthusiasm (for the role, not in the context of the character) seemed absent.

I didn't like how they set up Krusty's plot. They set up faked Nobel prize awards just to arrest someone for stealing jokes? It's so weak and flimsy that it's insulting to the audience. To compound the laziness, they involve the Simpsons by having Homer laugh too much. Is this the best they can do?
Unless I've forgotten, this is never even used. Homer's ridiculous, forced laughter is used to help set up this poor plot and is then dropped without notice.

I really don't like how Maggie is being characterised as possessing awareness beyond her years. Simple things like leaning forward for and reacting to the results at the beginning add up. I bet the current writers wish they had established her as their Stewie.
Maggie treating the pacifier as a cigar was just pointless. I'm sure some people enjoyed it (perhaps that would be the writers, hence its inclusion) but I find it out of place in the Simpsons. In Family Guy, the suspension of disbelief is greater for the audience; you're not supposed to question lots of things because there simply isn't an answer a lot of the time. The characters themselves have broken the fourth wall to point this out. When Maggie lifts out her cigar cutter for the pacifier I just question why she had it, why she used it and why they hadn't questioned this "joke".

Could someone explain the condiments track that Lisa listened to? From where was the audience supposed to derive entertainment? But of course, it wasted a few precious seconds, didn't it?

The singing section wasn't entertaining to me. It's not just that I'm not a fan of Glee, it just wasn't entertaining in its own right. Someone inform me what is funny about these lines:
You're going to like Arts Camp, Lisa.
Marge paid with her debit visa.
I'm unable to and yet they keep repeating them, implying there's some sort of humour to be found.
Perhaps worse, Lisa's singing just sounded awful. I wonder if it's nostalgia, but when Lisa sang in previous series ("Jazzman"), it didn't sound this grating. I'd point out it's strange that adults voiced the song when it's supposed to be children singing, but perhaps I'm imagining that...

Speaking of the B plot, it just seemed like a vehicle for poor jokes. For example, a trope of the recent series, the clarification joke.
Homer: Did you say "A Hague"?
Other: No, "The Hague".
Homer screams.
I've noticed them do this before and it's just pathetic. It's not funny, it's not clever and yet it definitely smacks of thinking it's the latter. I can't imagine why such a joke can get through.

Once again, the list jokes with both the MyTube results and Lisa's camera. Why are they so enamoured with list jokes? Is the fact that they require little thought yet eat up a decent amount of time with no set-up?

This is halfway through the episode, apart from the MyTube reference, and I can stomach no more. I started re-watching it to give a proper "review" but it's not worth my time (nor aggravation).

Great job writers, you set the bar low.
 
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I'm truly beginning to think the writers are saying to themselves: "If the internet isn't laughing, they just DON'T GET IT!!!! God, we're so clever! Y'huck!".

The problem is YOU'RE NOT FUNNY and negative opinions on the internet doesn't give a right to suck at your job.
 
I'm sure they know their writing is lazy, and they're laughing all the way to the bank about it.

The whole "the fans just don't get it" act is just so they're not openly admitting to what the show is now.
 
Just watched the episode. God awful. One plot was a rehash of How I Spent My Strummer Vaction(Even worse than it as hard as that may seem to do) and the other was just I don't even know just complete crap. Basic plot secondary character has something to do and just soo happens Homer and Bart are invited for a completely stupid reason. It's followed by lame gag after gag about European culture(voice acting was brutal) and capped off by an absolutely brutal hash gag. Fucking bad. Lisa's plot line was filled with songs that were boring,forced and rigid. Also with guest stars that were terrible and used in the way neaarly every guest star has been used for the post classic era(Playing themselves or rather themselves with a slight twist). Roofi got brought back ugggghhhhh and the fat camp joke was stupid and family guy esque. The ending was the only thing that gave me a chuckle. With the " Of course we didn't teach her anything" line and him dropping the sandwhich. But Sprubway is a brutal parody and soo was Sprooklyn(wow they jsut keep on discovering new places in Springfield)

Overall Grade 1/5 on the Poll and an overall D
 
Well, doesn't exactly "suck", but...

There were a few bright spots in here to be sure. I absolutely adore the song Good Vibrations and any incorporation of that isn't going to get criticism from me. That started the musical aspect of the episode on a positive note. The Glee cast had such a short appearance is in a way a blessing but also highlights how trivial their incorporation was. I'd appreciate they use guest appearances only when it really adds something. The Flight of the Concords fit in surprisingly well into the Simpsons universe. While I don't think there was really anything exceptional or remarkable about the scenes with them, there was nothing cringeworthy either.

I was surprised at the vitriol towards the Glee people, since they were actually only there for less than a minute. However, I thought FotC were brilliant (especially their heckling!)

But on to the negatives. The subplot was pretty lifeless I must say. It seems they forgot to add anything humourous or interesting. Maybe they just patched something together to pad time. If it was actually meant to parody the whole Polanski business from July, that would indicate a rush job. I also see that in any given scene Lisa is either bitter or dull. I miss when I actually felt sorry for her in her crisis.

I was happy for Lisa here! Usually she gets totally dumped on and it's time she gets something a little more substantial.
I felt like it was kind of a cop-out one-sided approach to just have Bret and Jemaine be openly miserable about their lives in Sprooklyn and simply telling Lisa it's horrible to be an artist and simply leave it at that.
As someone who seriously considered living the artist lifestyle for awhile, I really appreciated it when someone told me to "pick anything, ANYTHING else you want to do, because the art life sucks." And now I have a successful career and a house (which isn't my car), whereas my artist friends... well, to each their own, I guess.

last season's Ke$ha business
What was that? I think I missed that epi (I missed lots last season :rolleyes:)
 
Maggie's diaper puffing up made me chuckle. I like poop jokes. That was about it.

It couldn't have been a Family Guy episode - Family Guy's episode was actually interesting that night.

Interesting and well-done, but not haha-funny. (I'm a FG fan, this isn't meant as trolling)
 
This episode simply put was unfunny. People keep saying "oh don't expect it to be as good as it used to be". This is true we shouldn't but what we should expect is something at least remotely entertaining. There was a couple chuckles but really there was nothing.

1/5 for the poll D
 
Yeah ... I know ... I expected something to make a full-fledged review of (good or bad), but there was so little and it was so stale that I couldn't even make more than one paragraph.

A completely terrible season premiere.
 
It couldn't have been a Family Guy episode - Family Guy's episode was actually interesting that night.

Yeah I have to really agree here. Family Guy was really something last Sunday. I mean, aside from hour premieres being nearly unheard of for animated series' its overall quality in so many ways just made this episode even more embarrassingly inadequate in comparison. Though this is probably going to be one of those rare...really good ambitious episodes that comes out of a McFarlane show every once in a while out of the sea of rambling exhibitionist garbage most likely at least they did something cool for the premiere episode.

Granted, I'm not saying that the season premiere should always be something different and great, but in this case it just adds even more shade to just how distinctively devoid of energy this episode was. AV Club's sentiments really sum it up well I think(aside from the ending.), it's not quite as bad as some are saying but it still comes across as a lame dog.

AVClub said:
The Simpsons: Lisa Simpson has always been my favorite Simpsons character. She's not the funniest Simpsons character, and she's not the most exciting, but she's the one that strikes me as the most well-drawn. She's a very, very smart and precocious person who learns with every new episode that the world doesn't value smart and precocious people. The Simpsons is a show that I'm on record as listing as my favorite TV show of all time (so much so that I enjoy most latter-day episodes as a chance to hang out with old friends), and Lisa is my favorite character on it. Even in the terrible Mike Scully years, Lisa was the one character who could still drive pretty solid episodes (though she was also integral to "Bart to the Future," so ...). Anyway, I liked many of the elements of the season premiere of The Simpsons without thinking the elements all came together into a successful piece. I have no idea if the writers wrote new songs for the two guys in Flight of the Conchords to sing (as Lisa's arts camp counselors), but the songs they sang were pretty weak. Similarly, bringing in the Glee kids to sing a take on "Good Vibrations" that was, frankly, awful mostly just felt like an attempt to have guest stars in nothing parts so they could be promoted. (Though, admittedly, the Glee kids' voices were probably recorded well before it was certain Glee would be the mega-hit it is today.) I always like episodes where the people of Springfield keep Lisa's dreams alive, even though they know those dreams are mostly lies but they don't want to disappoint the little girl, so I liked where everything ended up, even if I didn't like the journey on the way there. The Oslo plot was mostly a throw-away (with too few laughs for such a bizarre conceit as Krusty getting the Nobel Peace Prize), but it did feature the fat, Dutch clown riding up and slapping Krusty for stealing his material, the single gag in any of the shows that made me laugh hardest tonight. Grade: C+
 
I gave it a 3. I thought the songs were funny and the switching betweens plots was done well.

This was the FIRST episode I ever let my kids (10y, 7y) watch (after I reviewed it). They only objectionable parts were Krusty's language (Shut up, etc.)

M@
 
1/5 - Worst Season premiere ever! I thought "Homer the Whopper" was bad, but at least I laughed at the gags. This just made me cringe - esp. the appearance of the cast from Glee (a bunch of talentless so-and-so's). I'm usually a huge fan of Lisa episodes, but this was rather poor.
 
^Sorry? You don't have to like the show but those cast members can usually sing (I say "usually" since they sounded dreadful in this episode. So did Lisa, for that matter).

Nothing I can say that hasn't already been said, really. The episode was dull as ditchwater and the only good parts were, in my opinion at least, the guys from "Flight of the Conchords".

1/5. I don't think it's as bad as "Homer the whopper", but that doesn't make it good. God, no.
 
As an artist myself, the pressures of the art field can certainly be a deterrent in following your dream, and for a lot of people, this can even lead to a major career change into something "safer." Is it better to do what you truly want to do while risking being in financial trouble for much of your life, or is the security of a less-exciting job necessary to keep an artist's head above water?

Lisa herself has seemed aware of struggles in the art field herself: Well, I'm going to be a famous jazz musician. I've got it all figured out. I'll be unappreciated in my own country, but my gutsy blues stylings will electrify the French. I'll avoid the horrors of drug abuse, but I do plan to have several torrid love affairs, and I may or may not die young. I haven't decided.

This is actually a very good premise and has the makings of an insightful exploration of the conflict between staying true to oneself and supporting oneself, and Lisa's the perfect contender for that role of exploration.

Things start off on a promising note with a brief but entertaining scene in OFF's living room late at night. The usual bad parenting line from Homer was good ("It's 5 AM, you kids should've been asleep a half hour ago") and the reactions of Springfield Elementary's geekiest were also fun to see (as well as Maggie's diaper in a well-timed poop joke). But beyond this somewhat intriguing premise of Krusty receiving the Nobel Prize, things start to slip quickly. Homer accompanies Krusty for the same reason he was hanging around Burns in Weekend at Burnsies--he's easily amused by bad jokes. Okay, I guess I can buy that for a lighthearted B-story. But Bart's inclusion was just laziness...it's literally a case of "Sure, why not?" This is the kid that saved his career like eight times. Would it kill the writers to have a little continuity? And yeah, maybe Krusty acknowledging Bart's constantly helping him over the years might be too much, so why not have both Homer and Bart be the ones laughing at Krusty's routine? Bart idolizes the clown, I can't see him not at least scrounging up a pity laugh at his flop-sweat-filled act.

Anyway, Bart's unusual inclusion is not really a big deal compared to some of the later issues of the episode, so let's move on. In a sort-of-neat method of tying together the two plots (at least for a moment), Lisa mutters how unfair it is for Bart to go on this cross-continent adventure that's likely full of educational value. This moment was really too much, though--Lisa's spells out everything in a far-too-obvious way; one of the biggest offenders of "show, don't tell" I've seen in the show, as we get a paragraph of exposition from stuff that's better off implied. It also makes Lisa uncomfortably self-aware for my tastes, and even a little whiny.

And that leads me into one of the main issues of the episode: when you're making a story like this, which is about Lisa's passion, and finding her place in the world, focusing on a possible future career for herself, and exploring the positives and negatives of those choices, you've got to make your lead endearing. Lisa wasn't at her most insufferable, but throughout the entire episode, she did feel too shallow altogether and not particularly relatable, sympathetic, or charming (unlike, say, Moaning Lisa which nails all three, and even shares a very similar scene with this show). Let's take a look at what could've been improved with Lisa:

-The setup. Something a little more subtle would've gone a long way. I can understand Lisa's frustration at Bart and Homer's commonplace journeys (especially when the show acts like it's a regular thing that they're flying across the country for some minor reason again. Remember when The Simpsons made a huge deal out of traveling to a neighboring town, much less a neighboring continent?)...but the whining was pretty much out of nowhere.

-Lisa at arts camp. As others have pointed out, the viewer gets to see a quick slideshow/list joke (gah, another one) of what Lisa's been up to at camp...yet we never get to really feel her passion for it. What void does this fill in Lisa's life? What friends has she made that she can relate to? The only people there besides the counselors were these completely one-dimensional guest stars. I'd suggest axing the Glee thing entirely and adding a couple kids that are similar to Alison Taylor--someone Lisa can relate to on an artistic and intellectual level, and that she'd believably miss being around. But no, the show needs ratings or something. Who cares about these Glee kids? They're guest stars, we know we'll never see them again, and right from the beginning they have zero personality outside of happily accepting Lisa. The extra character weight of this episode was just absent, and it can largely be accredited to the lack of showing us how the camp reached Lisa on a personal level (instead, we get camera pictures). I mean, really, the emotional core of Elementary School Musical arguably sits in a list joke. This is not good.

Those are the two major points, as the stuff afterward (Lisa trying to express herself in music class, Lisa feeling down at dinner) wasn't too bad and would've been a decent build-up to her running out if only we had related to her a little more. But anyway, Lisa hits the road and learns the ugly truth about us artists, and the rest of her story is decently handled. But still, the whole first half of this set-up is just not done well and makes everything afterward feel cheap and rushed.

In short, the script feels like a first draft.

Writing is a tricky process; things need to have a natural flow, and your scenes need to support each other to make for a compelling story and a cohesive whole. This episode did pretty well with the skeletal structure of Lisa's journey, but it fumbled in the details, and a few extra minutes would've been much better served supporting Lisa's story than wasted in the subplot.

This is already running long, so let's make this quick: ANOTHER lame list joke (gah, enough already), A Very Family Guy Reference Gag (I don't use the term lightly but that's exactly what the Electric Company joke was--it went on far too long and it was cryptic to anyone who hadn't seen the show), and a completely nonsensical ending (seriously, can someone please explain to me how that video got Krusty off the hook?). The entire sting was just way too ridiculous to buy, and the lack of laughs added up to a subplot that should've just been left on the cutting room floor. Bart and Homer can get by without an adventure every now and then.

The songs were a mixed bag. The first one sort of bothered me with how basic it was. Here're the full lyrics:

I love the elegant pearls you wear,
And the starfish-shape that constitutes your hair.
You'll be staying in Cabin Twelve,
And we think that you'll be very happy there.

You're gonna like Arts Camp, Lisa.
Marge paid with her debit Visa.
Art, art, art and education.
(repeat 4x)

I'm getting into nitpicky territory here, but I gotta with comedy-centric songs (of which I've churned out a couple of my own): if you have a repeating background chorus, it just works better for comedy if there're different words than the same stanza over and over. That way you can pick up extra jokes on repeat. They even missed a really easy rhyme with "Registration." Not to mention the kids' soulless expressions made everything kinda boring to watch.

Also, what's with the "tell joke" + "show joke right after" structure lately? We learn Krusty stole his jokes from a European clown. Pretty funny, but then they have to go and show the clown, who's right there for some reason, beat Krusty and the viewer over the head. Likewise, the fat camp line was a pretty fun one-liner...but again, then it cuts away to us seeing the thing just described, and it loses all punch, quickness and subtlety. It's just like with Homer's stomping setting off car alarms from last season--it would've been much funnier to see a callback to it later in the episode than immediately after the line.

And maaaaaan I'm tired of jokes like this:

"We don't put 'euro' in front of everything. Euro-guards! Take him away in euro-cuffs."

Self-contradicting stuff is well-worn territory, and I can generally see it coming a mile away.

Okay, this is already super-long, so time to shoot through the good stuff in the ep: Marge overshooting the sign, I liked that a lot for some reason. Maggie's cigar pacifier was cartoony but still pretty fun. But most central to the laughs were Bret and Jemaine, who stole the show as...well, slightly more pathetic versions of themselves. They had plenty of funny lines ("Your dog is dead!"), and the song about artists in the middle felt extremely FotC to me, which is a good thing. I loved the s'more line in particular: "Three layahs, mutha nature!" The delivery really helped sell their stuff and made for a slightly different brand of humor than the usual Simpsons material. This is exactly how a guest star should be used in the first place!

Okay, enough of this. All in all, it was a missed opportunity that seriously needed some heavy editing to make the ambitious premise really hit home. Even though this isn't among the flat-out WORST episodes of the Jean era, it's made me a lot more pessimistic about the show than many of those because...well, it doesn't feel like a one-off dumb idea (Greatest Story Ever D'ohed). I get the feeling that they wanted a character-driven Lisa episode with a good premise, and this was all they could do with it. It's a little distressing. Let's hope things get back on track.

(I liked the couch gag though)

2/5, D+/C-

I gave it a 3. I thought the songs were funny and the switching betweens plots was done well.

This was the FIRST episode I ever let my kids (10y, 7y) watch (after I reviewed it). They only objectionable parts were Krusty's language (Shut up, etc.)

M@
Interesting. I guess thinking back on it, there wasn't really anything too bad in terms of objectionable content for younger children. But I still think there are several season 2-era episodes that are both more family friendly and of a higher quality (Bart Gets an F comes to mind).
 
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don't watch the show much anymore, but i tuned in hoping to get a watered-down ten minute flight of the conchords episode out of it. so i guess i can't complain too much?

2/5
 
I disliked how much of the episode consisted of lazy new characters and locations. Even a mediocre episode is better when we see recognizable faces and places. Instead it was art camp filled with bland Glee characters, camp counselors that look exactly like FotC but aren't FotC, a lazy new area of Springfield called Sprooklyn and a lazy trip abroad which spent most of it's time in a courtroom, hotel and airplane.

Next week I hope we stay in Springfield.
 
Notice how the 3 people who gave it 5/5 aren't saying a word? Of course, it's possible those were gag votes. At least, I hope so.

I'm wondering what Brian Wilson's position is on the song?
 
This episode was complete shit, it amazes me that anyone enjoyed this. Why isn't anybody doing anything about this?
 
This episode was complete shit, it amazes me that anyone enjoyed this. Why isn't anybody doing anything about this?

Because the writers won't get paid any more for further effort. They obviously don't have the pride that inspired the classic writers to scrutinise every joke.
 
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