The Simpsons Revealed!

Lately I've been watching The Simpsons on Disney+, revisiting a lot of classic episodes I haven't seen since the 1990s.

At one point during the opening titles there's a whip pan across the various inhabitants of Springfield— it's sandwiched between Marge honking the car horn and Homer pulling into the driveway.

The scene's composed of a whopping EIGHT frames, and flies by in less than a second— far too fast for it to register in my brain.

Until now, that is! I was curious to see who all's in the scene, so I slowed it down about 2000%, so it now lasts around twenty seconds. Now at long last we can finally get a good look at all the characters in the scene. I think my favorites are Patty & Selma, sunbathing in their matching bullet bras. Shudder!

Anyway, it only took thirty years, but now we know who's in this scene. You're welcome!

Life Imitating The Simpsons (Again)

This week a British man who suffered from headaches and breathing problems for the past forty years, finally found relief when he sneezed a toy dart from his nose.

Steve Easton thought his chronic condition was caused by allergies, but was stunned when a particularly strong sneeze dislodged a dart he stuck up his nose when he was a child.

Apparently we've reached the point in history where every single Simpsons episode is going to happen in real life.

Fans will remember that in the Season 12 episode HOMR, a young Homer Simpson stuck an entire box of crayons up his nose.

Years later, an x-ray revealed that one of the crayons was still inside his head, lodged against his brain, and was the cause of his well-below-average intelligence.

This is hardly the first time an episode of The Simpsons has come true. In 2012 a Wisconsin man sued an all-you-can-eat buffet for throwing him out before he was full (just like Homer did), and last year the Discovery Channel ran a special in which a man was consumed by a live snake.

That's Unpossible! Twelve Other Things You Could Do In The Time It Would Take To Watch The Simpsons Marathon

On Thursday, August 29, the FXXX Network, whatever the hell that is, will be running an epic marathon of all 552 episodes of The Simpsons. Oy gevalt! That works out to about 276 hours, or 16,560 minutes. That's almost TWELVE days!

If you decide to watch, and frankly, what the hell else do have going on, be sure and have someone come in and turn you periodically to avoid bedsores.

Any way you put it, 276 hours is a lot of time. Here are Twelve Other Things You Could Do In The Time It Would Take You To Watch The Simpsons Marathon:

• Boil 5,520 three minute eggs.

• Run 662 twenty minute miles (let's face it, no one reading this is capable of running a four minute mile).

• Play Chopin's The Minute Waltz 16,560 times (or alternately, listen to John Cage's experimental composition Four Minutes, Thirty Three Seconds 3,824 times).

• Watch 75% of the Doctor Who Marathon (to date there are approximately 372 hours of Doctor Who).

• Drive between Indianapolis and Terre Haute, Indiana 276 times (highway and traffic conditions permitting).

• Watch ten straight hours of Mama's Family, then sit on the edge of your bed and stare at the floor for 266 hours, wondering where your life went wrong.

• Wait for your wife or girlfriend to finish getting ready for a night out after she says it'll just be "another fifteen minutes."

 
• Download a single episode of Game Of Thrones (Time Warner Cable customers only).

• Watch Nicholas Sparks' The Notebook once. What's that? It only lasts 124 minutes? That can't be right. Seriously? I guess it just seemed like it lasted twelve days.

• Fill out the IRS 1040-EZ Form four times. "E-Z" my ass!

• Watch Aunt Irma and Uncle Ira's slideshow of their trip to Eastern Schenectady. 

• Stand in line to renew your driver's license at the BMV. BOOYA! IN YOUR FACE, STATE GOVERNMENT! (drops microphone and walks out)

Ooh, That's A REALLY Useful Invention!

This week a desperate United States Secret Service challenged the scientific community to invent a social media Sarcasm Detector. Que hundreds of "Wow, that sounds like a GREAT idea" comments.

I admit that on the surface it seems like a preposterous idea, but I get why they need one. When their agents are sitting in their underground bunkers, monitoring every online comment we make, it's tough for them to tell when we're serious and when we're just being snarky assholes. 

When some Tweeting tween types "All men must die," does it mean they're a fan of Game Of Thrones? Or are they planning on poisoning the city's water supply with a compound that kills anyone with a Y chromosome?

So a sarcasm detector does make a certain amount of sense. It's just too bad the government is asking for devices The Simpsons already invented...

R.I.P. Edna Krabappel

I've been trying to get away from posting news of celebrity deaths on my blog, lest it become the obituaries page, but occasionally I'll make an exception. Like today.

Marcia Wallace, of The Bob Newhart Show fame and long-time voice of Bart's teacher Edna Krabappel on The Simpsons, has died. She would have turned 71 on November 1.

I always enjoyed Wallace's work on The Bob Newhart Show and watched her on the Match Game and $25,000 Pyramid. She's been on television in one form or another pretty much my entire life.

Simpsons producer Al Jean responded to Wallace's death, saying they intend to retire the character from the show. I think that's probably for the best. They did the same thing with the many characters voiced by Phil Harman after his death.

At the risk of being morbid, The Simpsons has been on for so long that we're now in danger of the voice talent dying off!

Life Imitates The Simpsons

Today in the news, a man from Thiensville, Wisconsin is suing an All You Can Eat restaurant because the establishment allegedly cut him off before he was full.

The restaurant was holding a fish fry last Friday, and they refused to serve him after he'd already eaten twelve pieces of fish.

"It's false advertising," said the 6' 6", 350 famished customer, who then called the police, saying, "I think that people have to stand up for consumers." The customer is now picketing the restaurant and will continue to do so until there's a resolution in the case.

Something about this story seems very, very familiar.

Waaaaay back in Season 4 of The Simpsons's in an episode titled New Kid On The Block, Marge and Homer visit Capt. McAlister's All You Can Eat Seafood Restaurant. Homer proceeds to take an entire steam tray from the buffet line and carry it back to his table.

Homer continues to gorge himself, prompting Capt. McAlister to say, "Tis no Man. 'Tis a remorseless eating machine."

Long after closing time, the wait staff drags Homer, still trying to eat, from the premises. Outraged that he didn't get "all he could eat," the next day he visits attorney Lionel Hutz. After hearing Homer's story, Hutz says, "Mr. Simpson, this is the most blatant case of fraudulent advertising since my suit against the film The Never-Ending Story" and advises him to sue.

In court, Hutz places Homer's wife Marge on the stand. She says that after they were ejected from the restaurant, they drove around until 3 A.M. looking for another All You Can Eat restaurant. When they couldn't find one, Homer then went fishing. Hutz rests his case by saying, "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, does this sound like a man who had 'all he could eat?"

Eventually Capt. McAlister offers Homer a settlement, which he accepts. At the end of the episode, we see Homer gorging himself in the window of McAlister's restaurant, with a sign above him that reads, "Bottomless Pete: Nature's Cruelest Mistake." McAlister has placed Homer in the window to attract curious customers, saying, "Come for the freak, stay for the food."

The real life story is practically a scene by scene recreation of the TV show!