The Simpsons

Marge's line about "pimps and CHUDs" in the NY episode is like GOAT territory. And Homer's whole phone call to the NY police department, too. "Your plea has been . . . REJECTED. Please wait by your car for Detective Steve . . . GRABOWSKI." And the street vendor!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Skurheg3P6I&feature=related

xxp He's now just another Family Guy-type character whose only purpose is to make fun of the Catholic church with dumb, broad stereotype humor.

Uh, of all the things Flanders is, "Catholic" is not one of them.

Yeah I probably should have put "Christian" there but he typically stands with them on a lot of hot-button issues

lol yeah as soon as someone mentioned the nyc one, i immediately thought of the street vendor bit

man it'd be so awesome if someone or some group of people came up with a really discriminating guide to later seasons of the Simpsons or picked the very best episodes of those years. it'd be great to just have all those occasional great ones collected and never play rerun roulette with random shitty/forgettable episodes.

― some dude, Thursday, 10 February 2011 02:12 (14 hours ago) Bookmark

challenge accepted

clam juice

http://twitter.com/#!/simpsonsguide

as you can tell i am going to be spending the next six months poor and need cheap ways to kill time. could be worse ways than watching the simpsons and listening to wu-tang. also learning how to draw.

clam juice

that's how i remembered it, but it's actually crab juice!

lol whoops

The Japan episode has this exchange I loved:

Marge: Come on, Homer. Japan will be fun! You liked Rashomon.
Homer: That's not how *I* remember it.

And FWIW, one of the last recent eps I remember finding super-funny was "The Seemingly Never-Ending Story," which was 2006.

There's this brief reaction of stammering existential crisis when Homer encounters Mr. Spakeru for the first time that's hard to encapsulate as a joke or catchphrase, but it's just tops!

What are more bits like that?

"Marge vs. The Monorail" is just breathtaking for the sheer quantity & quality of jokes, all from so many different angles. I'd start a poll but narrowing it down to 50 gags would be difficult enough.

the cosmic ballet... goes on

it's an excellent episode but you can see the beginnings of bad use of celebrities in the nimoy-quimby exchange.
"you don't know who I am, do you?" is the joke! Then he beams out, breaking a long-standing "no cartoon logic" rule.

weirdly the later seasons handled the rock camp cameos fairly OK, and Ludacris nails the "you'll be hearing from my lawyer, Ms. Melissa BurlinGAME" line.

breaking a long-standing "no cartoon logic" rule.

this was a rule? seems like this gets violated pretty often

it's called "flexible reality"

they used to go out of their way to have fun with it -- like when bart and lisa get surprised by their news and their caps fly vertically off their heads, and they pull back to reveal it's because of some faulty ceiling fan.

there's some scene really early on where Bart and Lisa are talking about how cartoons are unrealistic and you see Homer walk by a window outside, even though he was just inside a couple frames ago or something like that

I know there's more this is jsut the first one that springs to mind

Top 50 Marge vs. the Monorail gags, go!

1. "Homer, I've brought someone who can help you?"
"Is it Batman?"
"No, it's a scientist."
"Batman's a scientist."
"It's not Batman!"

2. "I call the big one 'Bitey.'"

3. "I shouldn't have stopped for that haircut."

I call animals Bitey all the time. there's a Life in Hell series of strips where Groening has some pet ducks that uses the same gag

Another one of my favorites, taken from SNPP:

Taylor: Hi, Lisa, I'm Alison's father, Professor Taylor. I've heard
great things about you.
Lisa: Oh, really? I --
Taylor: Oh, don't be modest. I'm glad we have someone who can join us
in our anagram game.
Alison: We take proper names and rearrange the letters to form a
description of that person.
Taylor: Like, er...oh, I don't know, uh...Alec Guinness.
Alison: Genuine class.
Taylor: Ho ho, very good. All right, Lisa, um...Jeremy Irons.
Lisa: [looks with consternation] Jeremy's...iron.
Taylor: Mm hmm, well that's...very good...for a first try. You know
what? I have a ball. [pulls one from his pocket] Perhaps you'd
like to bounce it?

yeah that's great. I wonder how long the writers took to find a celebrity name that more or less can't be anagrammed

well I guess there's this one ha

worra jerk that Professor Taylor was.

I think I use the affectionate name 'Stitchface' a little more than I do 'Bitey'.

Yeah, Homer's nicknames for things are great. And then there's this:

http://deadhomersociety.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/picture21.png

Repeated from memory, a couple of pearls from maligned travel eps:

England-

Homer observing things he sees looking over the city: "Jimmy Page, one of the greatest living thieves of black American music."

Africa-

The tourguide detailing dictator Muntu's rise to power: "It was a bloodless coup--all smotherings!"

I've always wanted to name a pet Stompy.

it's STAMPY

which is the one where homer goes, "first, I'll become a cop. Then... over time... (punches fist into hand) a dirty cop." ?

Was it when they emigrated back to America from France?

wasn't time travel involved, too?

x-post Well, I've always wanted to name a pet STOMPY! It's not like I'm keeping an elephant tied up in the backyard or anything.

it's an excellent episode but you can see the beginnings of bad use of celebrities in the nimoy-quimby exchange.
"you don't know who I am, do you?" is the joke! Then he beams out, breaking a long-standing "no cartoon logic" rule.

this was a conan episode and apparently breaking the long-standing no-cartoon-logic rule was his biggest influence on the show

x-postSpeaking of France, one of the only good things from that ep where Homer and Carl went to Paris was when Homer called Sarkozy and he answered, "Hello, you are getting cozy with Sarkozy." Dumb, but I laughed.

The tourguide detailing dictator Muntu's rise to power: "It was a bloodless coup--all smotherings!"

Followed by Marge's "Just like Jimmy Carter!"

Also this:

Attention passengers -- please prepare for our landing in Tanzania.
[someone in the cockpit hands her a note] I'm sorry, it is now called
New Zanzibar. [she is given another note] Excuse me, it is now called
Pepsi presents New Zanzibar.

I remain baffled as to why people like the Aus episode but none of the other overseas ones. Groening didnt even TRY to make it look like australia. Nothing - not one single bit of the episode - had any actual reference point, or even landmark (no, not even the parlament house was right). It just looked like rural america. It was insultingly shitty and he actually said "well admittedly I know nothiing about Autralia" which is just pathetic idk?

I love the Japan epsisode, but it had some great jokes in it! Battling Seizure Robots!

Ugh excuse all the typos. I need to clean my keyboard.

favourite line in the Monorail episode, as the plane lands in Shelbyville

"there he is! seat 3F!"

Australia one is meant to be some absurdist version of Australia...same w/ the France episode

feel like it was probably funnier *because* there were no landmarks

"you don't know who I am, do you?" is the joke! Then he beams out, breaking a long-standing "no cartoon logic" rule.

the real joke was that quimby thought nimoy was one of the little rascals so wasn't even confusing star wars with star trek when he said "may the force be with you".

would start a thread for earlier examples of that kind of bait-switch-switch in comedies but feels like only the simpsons ever did it on that level

I remain baffled as to why people like the Aus episode but none of the other overseas ones. Groening didnt even TRY to make it look like australia. Nothing - not one single bit of the episode - had any actual reference point, or even landmark

THIS IS THE JOKE - it is entirely about Americans' stereotypes of Australia, it has nothing to do with ACTUAL Australia.

I remain baffled as to why people like the Aus episode

"so let your children run wild and free, for as an old man once said...let your children run wild and free"

+ knifey spoony obv

Yeah that and chuzza wuzzas was funny but I dunno, idgi. The overall premise with the boot thing was boring, to me. Though I know it was a riff on a recent (at the time) incident where an Australian had been punished in indonesia by being caned or something.

THIS IS THE JOKE - it is entirely about Americans' stereotypes of Australia, it has nothing to do with ACTUAL Australia.

exactly--the "australia" being mocked in the simpsons ep is essentially the "australia" sold to americans through crocodile dundee movies, fosters beer commercials, outback steakhouse etc.

WELL YOU ALL SUCK THEN

"Well, it's pretty big . . . I guess . . . "

http://deadhomersociety.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/bartvs-australia1.png