The Simpsons At Home

Hi folks and welcome to another Simpsons Sunday. This week it is all about The Simpsons @ Home | Comic-Con@Home 2020. Here is a link to the video, which was posted on YouTube shortly after the event. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knks1yv7RaU

Okay,I didn’t want this post to be only the link to the video and not talking about some aspects of it, so we will do that. Ready?

So, let’s go over who are the main voices we hear and such. Moderating it again is Yeardley Smith and with her as a part of The Simpsons panel were: Al Jean, Matt Selman, David Silverman, Carolyn Omine and Mike B. Anderson. If you know the names I have mentioned, you are certainly a true hard-core Simpsons fan. I knew the names but, didn’t recognize all of the voices! I have wished Al Jean and Yeardley Smith each a happy birthday for the past few years and so far, that’s it.

One of the questions people have every year for the panellists is who will be guest starring this season. So far the list is: Hannibal Buress, Olivia Colman, David Harbour, Ben Platt and Sir Michael Palin of Monty Python fame are among those who will be making their voices heard in Springfield this year. There were even to sneak peeks from the upcoming Treehouse Of Horror episode, which I’m guessing will be airing in October. Some years they have held them over to November and as the season premier will air on September 27th I think that is how it will go. As for Michael, I wonder if he will use his own voice or, one of the variance of it, which are used for certain Monty Python characters. Will he be the “It’s” man, will he be a Simpsonized version of the lying shop keeper, telling Homer that there is nothing wrong with his car, or Marge that she has no need to be nervous? Will he use his ministerial voice, like he did on a 1987 Motörhead album and on a Python sketch called Martydom of St Victor? There is the other character he could be bringing out but, that might be too obvious. Or, will he be himself, as he does his travelogs?

Something else that most people who are hard-core fans may know but others don’t, is that David Silverman plays the tuba and indeed, he actually played The Simpsons Main Title Theme, on the tuba. I must admit that it was kinda weird to hear that but, I won’t be surprised if his work shows up at the end of an episode. After all, there have been many renditions of the theme in different musical capacities and different instrumentations at the end of most episodes, much like with Sesame Street. By the way, the tuba appeared in a sketch with Simon Sound man on Sesame Street, which really excited Bert, as the tuba is his favourite instrument.

Something else to know if you have yet to watch the video, is that it was done over Zoom and I have my own reservations about using zoom, because of what I’ve heard from other people. Also, I don’t like when people phone it in, as opposed to using the Zoom application. Besides, if you’re on the app you sound better. Also, please don’t have your iPhone ringing during a zoom chat. It’s fucking rude and if you’re going to chat on zoom, please put your phone on airplane mode and you can use Wi-Fi with it. I’ve done it so, you can do the same thing. This actually happened with one of the panelists and the default ringtone for the iPhone, went off. There are better ones you can purchase from iTunes, which are not the same old same old same old same old iPhone ringtones. For example: you can purchase the emergency alert which is used for severe weather alerts and ringtones for other phone manufacturers. For example: you can purchase BlackBerry, Samsung, Motorola and Nokia among others so, you don’t have to rely on the same old boring alert and ringtones. Obviously, I would recommend purchasing as many good Simpsons related ones as well. There…….. now I have that off of my chest and I feel better now.

So, will The Simpsons ever be stopped? Well, the pandemic hasn’t ended the show so, I wouldn’t think so. After all, Al Jean said so and I believe it. Then again, it’s hard to say if it will suddenly have to end, unexpectedly. I quite enjoyed The discussion and even getting questions from fans was really cool. I’m curious, how they were selected to get into the zoom call? … … I’m just curious.

Bad Doggy

Hi and welcome to another Simpsons Sunday. For those who are Irish, happy St. Patricks Day and for those who aren’t, let’s just enjoy ourselves anyway. I could talk about the episode which Pokes fun at prohibition and has St. Patricks Day in the early stage of the plot, but I’m not going to. Maybe I will in a future post and I guess, I should have talked about it back in 2017 when it turned 20. Ah well!!!

In this week’s post, I’m going to talk about an early episode, which I posted about in the other blog as well as downloaded and watched for the first time in March 2014. It’s the Season 2 episode Bart’s Dog Gets An F, which centres around the Simpsons family dog Santa’s Little Helper. Basically, he’s being a bad dog. Eating things he shouldn’t and ruining a valuable family heirloom. Bart and rolls SLH in an obedience school, where he does not do well, because Bart is reluctant to use the choke chain to correct the dog. He does and he feels sorry after Santa’s Little Helper whines and yelps and Bart says “sorry boy, you can’t help being dumb. ”

That is the part that brings me to tears every time I hear the whine. I’m not the biggest fan of dogs but I don’t like to hear an domesticated animal cry out in hurt. This shows Bart’s soft side toward’s his other best friend, besides Milhouse. Anyway, eventually Santa’s Little Helper learns to obey Bart’s commands and passes his test. So, the family keep him.

Voice actor frank Welker does all the dog noises. He is so good, I actually thought it was a real dog. Frank Welker turned 72 last Tuesday and has done voices for many characters over the years. Such as: Dr. Claw, Barney Rubble, Scooby-Doo, Garfield the cat and many other voices and vocal affects. He was even a part of the McDonald’s McDonaldland commercial’s where he voiced the once villainess character Grimace, alongside: Ronald McDonald and the hamburglar as the other main characters.

Let us not forget his work on the TV show Transformers where he voiced many characters including Meggatron. He is still active as a voice actor and still provides voices for characters as a part of the Transformers franchise. Currently on The Simpsons, Dan Castellaneta does all the animal noises, except for the sound affects of cat meows and other real recorded animal and bird communication.

Another interesting thing about the episode is that Tracey Ullman guests star’s as 2 characters: The Simpsons neighbour Mrs. Winfield and the dog trainer Emily Winthrop. She has obviously done well for herself and despite her past misgivings with Fox, I will always remember her for the voices she gave to both characters I have mentioned.

Speaking of Tracey Ullman, on March 13th 1987, Nancy Cartwright first did the voice for Bart Simpson as an audition for Matt Groening. She was supposed to do the voice of Lisa but she found Lisa’s character at the time, not quite as interesting as Bart. As we know, Yeardley Smith got the part for Lisa instead. See Nancy Cartwright’s book My Life As A 10-year-old Boy for more on this. This, of course leads us to the Simpsons Shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show, which lead to where we are today, with 30 seasons of The Simpsons almost finished and a movie, as well as a few albums of songs by the characters and from the show.

Also, happy belated birthday to longtime Simpsons: animator, Producer and Director David Silverman born March 15th, age 62. He is not only known for his work on The Simpsons but he is also a musician too, playing the tuba in a marching band. Want more on this? Look him up on Wikipedia through any Simpsons related Wikipedia page. There are many other people with his name, if you do a Google search on him so, it’s safest to do a hyperlink to him, either through a Simpsons related Wikipedia article or Simpsons fan websites.

I am looking forward to the coming of spring and future episodes during this season. It should be interesting how it ends and how the next two seasons will play out, as Seasons 31 and 32 will have parts of it airing during the American election cycle for 2020. I’m not going to get into the whole Donald Trump prediction discussion because, there is no need. Besides, I will leave that hornets nest known as politics for another post, hopefully much later and even more hopefully, never.