Peeve Farm

g r o t t o 1 1

Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets

  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
     A stream-of-consciousness Web journal, containing
     links, commentary, and pointless drivel.

On My Blog Menu:

InstaPundit
USS Clueless
James Lileks
Little Green Footballs
As the Apple Turns
Entropicana
Cold Fury
Capitalist Lion
Red Letter Day
Eric S. Raymond
Tal G in Jerusalem
Secular Islam
Aziz Poonawalla
Corsair the Rational Pirate
.clue

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Thursday, February 21, 2002
11:54 - D'oh!	(top)
Last night, UPN showed one of those inexplicably rare early Simpsons episodes: "Dead Putting Society", the one where Bart is pitted against Todd Flanders in a miniature golf competition. It's a second-season episode, one of the first ones where we start to see Homer shift from being the grouchy but erudite breadwinner to being the giddily vacuous but beloved moron. We also start to see Lisa be book-smart and philosophical, Flanders be religious (though he actually responds like a human would to Homer's tauntings, unlike in later episodes where he becomes much less realistic), and Rev. Lovejoy be sarcastic, cynical, and devoid of either love or joy. In short, it's one of the first times where the show really starts to be identifiable as the one we've grown to know as well as the insides of our eyelids. But there's a problem: in syndication, they tend to chop out bits of scenes in order to save time and insert more commercials. Not out of any kind of censorship, purely because of licensing agreements. Usually the edits don't affect the story very much. But in this episode, there's one edit that manages to destroy what I think was one of the best early Simpsons moments ever. It's when Homer is uproariously reading the sappy apology letter that Ned slipped under his door, and the kids are laughing along with him: Homer: [reading Ned's letter] ``You are my brother.'' Homer+Lisa+Bart: [giggle] Homer: ``I love you.'' Homer+Lisa+Bart: [laugh] Homer: ``And yet, I feel a great sadness...'' [tries to stifle a giggle] ``... in my bosom.'' Homer+Lisa+Bart: [finally lose it and laugh uproariously] Marge: I think that's terrible! A man opens his heart to you and you make fun of him! Marge then excuses herself, stomps off around the corner-- and starts giggling helplessly herself. Lisa: Read the `bosom' part again, Dad! Marge returns and tries to restore order. `Bart: Bosom. Marge: I wish our family was as close as the Flanderses.` Except... this is what originally aired, and what we had on tape for a long time. But it's not what showed last night in syndication mode. The edited version takes this carefully crafted, exquisitely-timed scene and chops the heart out of it: it cuts straight from Homer and the kids losing it over "In my bosom" to Marge trying to restore order and Bart saying "Bosom". It skips over Marge hurrying into the next room so she can guffaw out of sight-- one of the greatest bits I think the writers ever came up with. It makes Marge human, subject to the same urges as the rest of her family, instead of the joyless drudge that she appears to be in the edited version. It's like Cartman's mom in South Park... when the boys are talking and laughing about how much of a fatass Cartman is, his mom sweetly tries to defend him: "Oh, he's just big-boned!" Stan responds, "He must have a huge bone in his ass!" And unable to keep it up any longer, Cartman's mom helplessly laughs along with the kids. That is an effective use of a character, and some of the funniest stuff in any of these shows. The problem with syndication editing runs deep, though, and one has to imagine that the people doing it don't have much in the way of humoristic sense-- despite the fact that the job of editing broadcast TV shows for time is quite possibly one of the jobs where that skill is most crucial. (Why is it that everybody in every job is the least suited to do it? Like when I go into a sporting goods store to buy squash equipment, and none of the employees have even heard of squash? You'd think they'd, like, probe people's knowledge of the field they'd be specializing in, during the job interview? Bah, anyway....) So a biting scene like: `Bart: Nothing you say can upset us. We're the MTV generation. Lisa: We feel neither highs or lows. Homer: Really? What's it like? Lisa: Ehh. [shrugs]` Turns into... `Bart: Nothing you say can upset us. We're the MTV generation. Lisa: We feel neither highs or lows.` ... Thoroughly emasculating the exchange of its punchline and its reason for existence. Don't these people get it? C'mon, Fox-- we need that second-season DVD set! Don't let us down! We've got the full first season in its unedited glory; now for the rest of 'em!