Secret

Hi all and welcome to another Simpsons Sunday. First of all, as of last Sunday I got the jabbity, jabbity, jab, jab, jab from Pfiser, so I am now among the partially vaccinated. Up yours, anti-maskers and anti-vaccers! Normally, I’d be on your side but in this case, I had decided to go for the jab and now, I am helping to bring us one step closer, back to some Version of how we all used to live, before March 11 last year.

On the birthday front, happy belated birthday to Simpsons theme composer Danny Alfman, who turned another year older Yesterday. Of course, he has composed a bunch of film and television scores and came to prominence in the 1980s as the singer and songwriter for the new wave band Oingo Boingo. Yes kids, there really is such a band by that name and if you want to know more about new wave, just do a search on it and you will find out that there were a bunch of genres, which came after punk rock in the 1970s, all under what can be called post-punk and yes, new wave is among them.

This week I thought I would take a look at a secret society and a secret bar, within the Simpsons universe. Yes, those who are conspiracy theorist’s no all too well about the illuminati and the role freemasonry plays in our daily lives. In fact, numerology is even used, with a bunch of numbers being used again and again in news stories. Apparently, everything that we see is rigged, including the Oscars and sports events, along with planned disasters. Some people even think that the current COVID-19 pandemic was planned, which has brought out the anti-VAX or’s and the anti-mask movement. Don’t worry, they are only a small minority despite how loud and aggressive they can be. Anyway, I digress.

The Stonecutters is the secret society and The Confidential is a secret bar, where bartenders go to talk about the problems of their patrons and aren’t allowed to blab about the bar.

The Stonecutters is the secret society based on freemasonry, which had 907 members, before homer Simpson joined and if you look at the members list, they have Springfield members and World Council members. In the illuminati there is such a committee as a Counsil on Foreign Relations, or CFR. Yes, George HW Bush was a member of the World Council. The reason for George and his son being allowed to be president (According to conspiracy theorists) is because they both were and are both members of Skull and Bones, which I wish I knew more about.

The Stonecutters meet on Wednesdays and they drink beer and play ping-pong… mostly. The leader is Number 1 and they go by numbers, rather than names. However, we all know that males in Springfield (except for Homer) were members until he joined. They get privileges, unlike you and I who don’t. For example: they drive on secret roads and get swift house repairs when needed, among other things which you and I have to wait to get done, when workers get around to it. Here is more on the Stonecutters and I will have one more thing to say about them later. https://simpsonswiki.com/wiki/Stonecutters

Now, we have to get confidential, with The Confidential and here is where both it and Stonecutters overlap, with one member. The Confidential was a bar, which was originally set up so that bartenders could talk about the stories they had been told by their patrons to other bartenders, who would also keep their secrets and, guess who went there, after closing time? Yup, Moe went and spoke to Artemis about his day and told him all the secrets he had been told by his barflies. When Moe had a drunken night out with his friends and blerted out secrets about other bars’ patrons, he got kicked out of The Confidential and his barflies were to be injected with an “Antibooze” drug, which would make it so they could never drink again. However, there was an antidote, which reversed the effects of the drug, which were given to Moe’s barflies at the end of the episode, in which this bar appears.

One thing about both the bar and Stonecutters is that both leaders are voiced by English actors. Sir Patrick Stewart voiced Number 1 in the episode Homer the Great and Ian McShane voiced Artemis in the Season 32 finale The Last Barfighter. Hmm! I just found that interesting, as I was watching and listening to both episodes, at different times.

Before I forget, let’s end off this post with that song, about the Stonecutters and if you know the words, sing along. https://youtu.be/b1LxLYWe4bQ

The Man From G.O.R.D.I.E

Hello and welcome to another Simpsons Sunday. This week, the blog turns five as of this past Tuesday. I’m glad to do it and I’m glad that any Simpsons production or writing staff have not objected to what I’m doing. I’ve always been and always will be respectful to the series and I will not fall into that rabbit hole of being a blogger, who a Pines for the sake of giving opinions and crapping on the show, for how much it has changed over the years. It’s not the same but, it’s still funny.

I had the opportunity on Thursday morning, to watch the latest episode. The Man From G.R.A.M.P.A. Had aired this past sunday and it had come into my TV app through iTunes on Wednesday! I encourage you to watch the episode and note the call backs to older episodes, from seasons 8 and 13 respectively, among others which have Abe Simpson centric episodes.

One of the most striking features of this episode was the guest starring appearance of English actor and comedian Stephen Fry, as the British secret agent Terrence. I almost didn’t recognize his voice, as he sounded different than from how I’ve heard him in the past, as he had both read the book , The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, for the most recent audiobook adaptation and as a character in it’s radio series counterpart, adapting the story of the book So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, as Murray Bost Henson. Anyway, I quite enjoyed hearing Mr. Fry on The Simpsons.

Another feature was the inclusion of Orson Welles, as a character. Yes, George Orson Welles is long dead and has been since 1985 but, he was voiced in this episode by Maurice LaMarche, Who voiced a character with a similar voice in the episode Clown In The Dumps from Season 26 and Orson Welles has been in a few episodes, such as Treehouse of Horror XVII… which I had done a post on in 2019. There was even music in the episode, from the movie The Third Man and which was also heard in the companion radio series The Adventures of Harry Lime, also starring Orson Welles. If you are a fan of Jack White, you know that he had his own record label called Third Man Records. He has even admitted to being a fan of Orson Welles and obviously, the name of the movie had inspired him too.

If you are a long time reader of this blog, you know that I had done a post on The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, where I had made it clear that I would love it if The Simpsons had crossed over with the radio series and or, the book series… somehow. After all, Douglas Adams is in Ned’s book of lefties and Homer did go into space. Now, we have Stephen Fry guest starring so, I guess that one box has been ticked. Although, I would like it if others (who are still with us) would venture to guess star and make an appearance in Springfield. For example: Simon Jones would be interesting as a character.

Back to Orson Welles for a moment, what if he was alive and had guests start on the Simpsons? Would he indeed have done it in the first place? Would he have guessed starred as himself, or as a character? Would the writers have parodied his films or, any other radio shows he had a hand in either narrating, or participating in as a character? I would love it if they could do a comedic spoof of The Black Museum, which was a drama on the radio in 1952 and it had a total of 51 episodes. Thankfully, they have all survived in varying degrees of fidelity and are all available on YouTube, in various playlists. I won’t give a link to one here, so I will let you find the series on your own. My guess is that if they did a spoof of the radio show, it would have to involve either Snake, or Sideshow Bob and a one time character being murdered. Maybe even Fat Toney or one of his henchmen in a mob killing. I don’t know, I’m just trying to find something they could do. The writers are smart enough that they can figure out something on their own and if it will work or not.

I can’t wait until tonight, when the last episode of Season 32 will be aired and then on to Season 33 in September. Tonights episode will be The Last Br Fighter and obviously, it will involve Moe and from what I hear, it should be interesting. Now, I will leave you with this, which was heard at times during the episode. https://youtu.be/opiaGrRLtQ4

Greyhound

Hi all and welcome to another Simpsons Sunday. So, what did you think of the episode Mother and Child Reunion. No surprise here, as we knew it would be a flash forward episode and Lisa would become president, just like she would in Bart To The Future. Cool! The episode was dedicated in memory of Olympia Dukakis, who passed away on April 29, 2021 and guest starred as the character Zelda in the episode The Old Man and the Key. RIP

This week it’s a rather short one, as something happened in the news this week that made me very sad. No, nobody in The Simpsons cast or crew had died and no guest stars had also passed away. However, a certain bus company is being removed from Canada, due to the pandemic and the unsurprising drop in passengers because of it.

Greyhound Canada is discontinuing all service in Canada and unfortunately, it was predictable and I personally have a long history with them. For one thing, I went to school on greyhound buses From a certain pick up and drop off point on Sundays and Fridays. I went to a boarding school (For the blind) in Brantford Ontario and occasionally during my younger years, I would go on the greyhound buses to various points throughout Ontario. For example: going to visit my grandma in Amherst Berg (Which is near Windsor) in 1983. In more recent years, I would take day trips out of town and come back the same day, usually getting a same-day fair. Sometimes however, I would go out of town for the night to see one or two friends and I enjoyed the long trips. But, I wish it was free.

I mentioned this because, even though The Simpsons has not mention Greyhound directly, the family has traveled by bus at least once. Remember in the episode The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson from season nine? Remember that homer, Marge and the kids all traveled from Springfield to New York to get Homer’s car, after Barney had taken it there, probably during a drinking binge after being the designated driver about a week earlier, for homer, Lenny and Carl. Anyway, on the bus we see the family wake up from snoozing and homer says that he can’t feel his legs and starts slapping… what he thinks are his own limbs. Unfortunately, it’s the Man in front of him and obviously, he’s embarrassed. That may not be a goof, because some buses have had seats arranged with some of them facing toward the back and because it was the family, that makes sense. Only if you hadn’t ever traveled by bus, you wouldn’t get it.

Unfortunately, that’s the only flirtation with Bus travel, as every other trip has been either in the car, or on a plane. The only other mention of any type of bus travel was by public transit and I might go into that at some point if something in the news sparks a post. Oh yeah, I can’t forget about the kids going to school, on The school bus every day, but I’m not gonna post about that unless something in the news inspires me to write one.

Renaissance

Hi all and welcome to another Simpsons Sunday. First of all, happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there who are reading this blog post… or not. Also, if you live in a locked down area and she is still with us, call your mom and wish her a happy Mother’s Day and if not, wish her a happy Mother’s Day on zoom if it’s possible. I called mine before publishing this post, as she is hopeless when it comes to the Internet.

On the birthday front, we have three birthdays to acknowledge and here they are in no particular order. First of all, Sir Michael Palin turned 78 years old on May 5 and he had guest starred as a museum curator in the episode I, Carumbus.

Our second birthday is former Simpsons show runner Josh Weinstein and he had turned 55 years old on May 5th. He co-ran seasons 7 and 8 with his best friend Bill Oakley. They had also written episodes together, before becoming executive producers and they did a damn good job too.

Finally, James L. Brooks turns another year older today and we know how much his influence has shaped The Simpsons, in that if he hadn’t spoken up and demanded that there be no network notes, there wouldn’t be a very long series. We probably wouldn’t have had such crazy episodes, including the Treehouse of Horror episodes. The envelope wouldn’t even be pushed, by such characters as Frank Grimes, or even George Bush in their respective episodes against them. If there had been notes, it would have been a safe and rather short series, with no twists and turns along the way and no new ground would be broken, with younger riders and animators, who were willing to gamble on a series and take it as far as they could. Obviously, it’s still creating new episodes and there’s one tonight, which I will get to at the end.

This week I thought I would talk about a flash forward episode, which is a bit of a sleeper, when it comes to episodes from the classic period. During season six there’s an episode called Lisa’s Wedding, in which The Simpsons visit a renaissance fair, where Lisa meets a local fortune teller. The fortune teller successfully names Lisa’s entire family and describes Lisa’s wedding in the future. She is engaged to a charming British man, named Hugh Parkfield. Obviously, the family inadvertently screws it up, with Lisa realizing she will wait a little longer to find true love.

That is the basic gist of the story and I want to talk about a few things about the episode, which are worth mentioning. We first get the hint about Lisa becoming a vegetarian, as both her and Hugh Parkfield are both militant vegetarians. If we all had been paying attention, we would’ve figured it out before the episode Lisa The Vegetarian had aired, during the next season.

Also, Hugh Parkfield is voiced by American actor Mandy Patinkin, born Mandel Bruce Patinkin. He is also a singer and has also appeared in the series Criminal Minds, as Jason Gideon. The other connection from Criminal Minds, to The Simpsons is Joe Mantegna, as David Rossi.

Something else I am excited to talk about is how Bart’s voice is electronically altered, for this episode. We know that Bart is voiced by Nancy Cartwright and in all other episodes flashign forward to the future, the voice has remained the same as a normal episode in the present day of Springfield. I can’t say for sure but, what I think happened is that Barts voice was lowered in pitch with a harmonizer. What that does is it lowers or raises your voice, so you can sound like a chipmunk or a monster, depending on the pitch. In the olden days, this pitch manipulation was done by a Studio technique called vari-speeding, which required recording the voice at a different speed on tape. That’s how a song like Witch Doctor came to life and in turn, the chipmunks also were created. These days, there are smart phone apps in which you can do the same thing, or computer programs which allow for this sort of pitch manipulation. In fact, you hear it sometimes in EDM and The Simpsons has used it in more recent episodes, but I think we will talk about that later on in another post. Anyway, do you remember Bart’s twin Brother Hugo in Treehouse of Horror VII? Yep, the voice was lowered to sound exactly the same as Bart’s voice wasin this episode two. I wonder why this was done back then and not in all future… future episodes (if you like)? Either way, this was interesting to

One more thing about this episode, is that we almost heard Maggie singing Amazing Grace, before the wedding was abruptly called off. Apparently, Mr. Parkfield could not put up with Lisa’s family, even though she had also trash them in this episode two. According to Dr. Hibbert, Maggie was a real hellion but had a very good singing voice. I would’ve liked to of heard Maggie singing, just to hear what she would sound like with Nancy Cartwright doing her voice.

It is certainly a sweet episode and because the family had visited the renaissance fair, the end theme has that sort of sound and in case you haven’t watched the episode in a while, here is the closing theme, as it had aired at the end of it. https://youtu.be/4yN5tG_5Sl8

Before we end this post, the episode which will air tonight is called Mother and Child Reunion, which will also be a flash forward episode involving Lisa. Apparently, she will shock her mother, with a surprising College decision.