g r o t t o 1 1

Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets
Brian Tiemann
Silicon ValleyNew York-based purveyor of a confusing mixture of Apple punditry, political bile, and sports car rentals.

btman at grotto11 dot com

Read These Too:

InstaPundit
Steven Den Beste
James Lileks
Little Green Footballs
As the Apple Turns
Entropicana
Cold Fury
Capitalist Lion
Red Letter Day
Eric S. Raymond
Tal G in Jerusalem
Aziz Poonawalla
Corsair the Rational Pirate
.clue
Ravishing Light
Rosenblog
Cartago Delenda Est



Cars without compromise.



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Sunday, February 15, 2009
10:48 - HDTV IS WORTH EVERY CENT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZGz1Ajg7QU

(top)
And so is CG multiplaning, apparently. They redid the Simpsons opening for HD.



I'm amused, I suppose, though I hope it isn't this long every time, and just cuts after a reasonably normal couch gag. I applaud them on working in every cliché they could get their hands on, from the sawing-off of the head of the statue (temporarily, apparently) to the crow that always accompanies the establishing shot of the SNPP right on up through Apu's octuplets and beyond.

It's funny how the Simpsons has become a universe unto itself, so dense in its gravitational pull that to remain true to its original vision means to play endlessly in a sandbox of well-worn classic gags. They all feel right, it must be said. Yet I can't help but think the main reason why the early years are so much more closely identified with the show than the latter ones are—and indeed the reason why I don't know anything that's gone on in the last six years or so—is that it was more fun when we didn't know everything about everybody. Remember when Homer tried to impersonate Mr. Burns?

"Hello... my name is Mister Burns. I believe you have a letter for me."
"Okay, Mr. Burns. Um, what's your first name?"
".... I don't know."

Couldn't get away with that now, could they? And therein may lie the problem. There aren't any mysteries anymore. Nobody has to wonder about Smithers' love life or Apu's citizenship status or Flanders' age; it's all been laid bare, like Flanders' 60-year-old washboard abs, and found to be less than enthralling from a narrative standpoint after all. It was more fun to wonder.

I don't know if they're still able to wring stories out of this tired threadbare washrag; I haven't bothered to go see for myself, so maybe I'm talking completely out of turn here. But it would surprise me a great deal. Last I saw, they were filling time by shaking interstitial walk-ons by everyone from Duffman to Bee Guy to Kent Brockman into the crevices between plot points, becoming more a parody of Family Guy than the latter ever was of the Simpsons. It's a long way from the days when stories revolved around Homer's table dance with a bachelor-party stripper having to do with petty interoffice politics that rang all too true and depended on well-written dialogue to be told. Granted, those crudely-drawn first-year stories predated the seasons when the show really got into our psyches with their one-liners and running jokes—years 3-7 or so—but they overshot that sweet spot a long time ago, and by now a first-season episode looks like a transmission from a possibly hostile alien planet.

That's got to be it. I blame Kang and Kodos.


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