While we wait for the World Series to be over and The Simpsons (and other Sunday night FOX shows) to return, here's something fun: a list of the 14 most awesome fake products from the show (The Simpsons I mean, not the World Series).
I'm sure that there have been a gazillion funny products over the years on the show. I can't even remember more than a few of them. But this list brought back a lot of memories of certain episodes with great fake products, including: Malk, Cheezus H. Rice, and Nuts and Gm (Together At Last!).
Even after I'd given up on watching The Simpsons every week many years back, I continued tuning into their annual "Treehouse of Horror" specials, the most recent of which aired Sunday. After a few more years of watching just that one episode each year, I eventually let it go as well. But I've been watching this 20th Anniversary Season of the show, and reviewing it for the site, so I settled in to see what we'd be tackling this year.
As always, the special is broken into three parts. This year's batch: a send-up of Alfred Hitchcock films, 28 Days Later, and Sweeney Todd. That sounded promising enough, and yet ...
Maybe I'm too old for the "Treehouse." Or maybe they just try and do too much. Or maybe, as was the case with all three of this year's segments, they have decent enough set-ups, but their endings are all stupid.
Do you just love it when life imitates art? It makes me wonder if art can legally sue for copyright infringement.
Fox wants Simpsons viewers to design a new character as part of a contest for a future episode at TheSimpsons.com. Aspiring character engineers have until Oct. 24 to submit their entry.
And here's the best part: you don't even have to know how to draw to enter. All you have to do is describe your character and the animators will draw it for you. That should come in handy for the next WGA Strike. I wonder if the winning character will go in a fire extinguisher case in case of contractual emergencies.
Warning: the following might be NSFW, if your W objects to cartoon nudity.
We told you last week about Playboy's new issue with The Simpsons mom Marge on the cover. Well, she's also the subject of a pictorial inside (complete with a questionnaire) and now the images have made it online. After the jump, one of the pictures (here are the rest).
The funny part is (and something I didn't really think about before) was that Matt Groening drew these pics himself.
I visited the pumpkin patch last weekend and totally massacred a 30 lb. pumpkin and feasted on its flesh, so I am officially in the Halloween spirit. Luckily, there's a crapload of TV to help sustain my ghoulish mood. TV Tango has compiled a pretty comprehensive list of Halloween-themed programming starting today and going through the rest of the month.
Some of the highlights include a Moonlight marathon starting today on SyFy, as part of their "31 Days of Halloween" programming. On Sunday, The Simpsons is airing their 20th "Treehouse of Horror" episode, while Monday has a some good kids' fare, with Halloween-themed America's Funniest Home Videos on ABC Family, and Pooh's Heffalump Halloween Movie on Disney.
As part of the 20th anniversary celebrations, Fox is holding a contest in which fans can create a character online that will appear in an upcoming episode of The Simpsons. Entries can be submitted on The Simpsons website (although apparently not yet) and should include such information as name, age, appearance, occupation and catchphrase ("D'oh!").
I suspect that all entries will be the property of Fox upon submission. Since the show has been around for so long, it must be tough to invent new, unique and interesting characters so Fox is having the fans do it.
Of course, everyone could always just submit themselves as a candidate. It would be a little like that "Simpsonize yourself" craze from not too long ago. So many celebrities have made appearances on the show over the years, it would be nice if a non-celebrity, the sort that kept the show in business, would have a cameo.
(S21E03) "Call me a killjoy, but I think that because this is not to my taste, no one else should be able to enjoy it!" --Marge Simpson on Ultimate Punching
I'm not a fan of Ultimate Fighting, though I think that other people should be able to watch it, if they're so inclined. But it is an all too common stance among watchdog groups, including mothers, sympathetic school officials and the clergy, as Nelson so kindly pointed out. Of course, this has been going on for years, but it was still a clever enough send-up of the problem.
Maybe it's because I don't find Marge to be one of the funnier characters on the show and this episode focused on her, so there weren't as many funny moments in the main storylines. Luckily, there were plenty of side characters and moments to spotlight.
Come on guys, admit it: you've wondered what Marge Simpson looks like naked, right? She has always had a great body for a cartoon character, looking great on the rare times that the Simpsons go out to a fancy dinner or party. Wait, is it just me that thinks that way? Never mind. Ahem.
Anyway, Marge is the cover girl for the November issue of Playboy! I wonder if we'll see more of her than we've ever seen before.
If you fondly remember watching the first Simpsons Movie hoping that the sequel would bring you equal amounts of life affirming excitement, keep hoping.
They didn't rule out the possibility of another movie, but it certainly won't be in the foreseeable future. The pair said the process for the first movie was so frustrating that they couldn't fathom even starting a second one without some kind of heavy duty anti-psychotic medication.
The Simpsons have been around for so long that one must wonder if there is an award they haven't been given yet. I mean other than that stupid, meaningless paperweight the industry calls the Emmy. The Paley Center for Media will pay a special tribute to The Simpsons at this year's annual fundraising gala. The Center's president Pat Mitchell said they chose to honor the show because of its "tremendous impact on the television sitcom over the last 20 years and continues to influence and redefine the medium."
So I guess now when the nominating committee for the Paley Center has their annual honor candidate hoedown and someone suggests The Simpsons, the South Park delegate can yell "Simpsons did it!"
Al Jean started out with The Simpsons 20 years ago as a writer working a couple of days a week. He was there when the series started, and even before it was officially a series, working on the Christmas show in 1989, when The Simpsons first broke away from its beginnings on The Tracey Ullman Show.
Now he's an executive producer and showrunner, staring down the twentieth anniversary of the official start of the series, which happens in January. I spoke with him this week about this Sunday's season premiere, a bit of Simpsons history, and just how long the Simpsons can keep making people laugh.
After 20 years of doing The Simpsons, how do you find something new to do with the show? How do you generate ideas you haven't done before?
Well, it's the best of both worlds. If something happens to you in your life or to the world, you can satirize it but you get to use these characters that people love and that you're very familiar with. To me, there's a lot of topics that are fresh and interesting.
Practically every other celebrity on Earth has been a guest voice on The Simpsons. Hell, then even managed to land the reclusive author Alan Moore for a comic book-themed episode. Now, Borat and Bruno star Sacha Baron Cohen will be lending his voice to an episode of the animated series.
Supposedly, Cohen will play an "angry but funny" tour guide that helps them while the family tours Israel with their church group. For such a low income family, the Simpsons sure get to tour a lot of different countries. Homer even went up into space at one point.
Cohen will not be playing any of his trademark characters, and that's probably for the best. They were getting a little stale anyway. Perhaps he could invent a new character (or at least a character voice) for this appearance.
In other facts about the episode, Homer gets Jerusalem complex while visiting and thinks he's God. And to the Fox network, he is.
I'm ashamed to admit this, but in the wake of Sen. Edward Kennedy's passing, a thought occurred to me: "I wonder what the late Senator and son of Camelot thought of The Simpsons' Mayor Quimby impression."
But what started as the nerdy thought of an overworked blogger also held a deep lesson in humility.
The late Sen. Kennedy, lampooned in the long-running Fox sitcom by actor Dan Castellaneta's voice-over caricature, actually embraced the animated politician as part of a contest held in conjunction with the theatrical release of The Simpsons Movie.
It's Fox day, at the TCAs, and they've started the day by giving us some announcements:
Guest voices on the 21st season of The Simpsons will include: Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, Anne Hathaway, Chris Martin, Sarah Silverman, Angela Bassett, Chuck Liddell, Jackie Mason, Neve Campbell, Eli and Payton Manning, Bob Costas, and the late Eartha Kitt.
From November 9 through November 15, Fox will hold a Simpsons "scavenger hunt" with clues scattered through their programming.
Gordon Ramsay will conduct a live one-hour cooking demonstration on December 15 at 9 ET. The show is called Gordon Ramsay: Cookalong Live.
Finally, Britney Spears will receive the "Ultimate Choice" award at the Teen Choice Awards.
While we wait for the World Series to be over and The Simpsons (and other Sunday night FOX shows) to return, here's something fun: a list of the 14 most awesome fake products from the show (The Simpsons I mean, not the World Series).
Podcast time again! In this episode, 
Even after I'd given up on watching 
Do you just love it when life imitates art? It makes me wonder if art can legally sue for copyright infringement. 
Warning: the following might be NSFW, if your W objects to cartoon nudity.
As part of the 20th anniversary celebrations, Fox is holding a contest in which fans can 
(S21E03) "Call me a killjoy, but I think that because this is not to my taste, no one else should be able to enjoy it!" --Marge Simpson on Ultimate Punching
If you fondly remember watching the first Simpsons Movie hoping that the sequel would bring you equal amounts of life affirming excitement, keep hoping. 
The Simpsons have been around for so long that one must wonder if there is an award they haven't been given yet. I mean other than that stupid, meaningless paperweight the industry calls 
Al Jean started out with 
Practically every other celebrity on Earth has been a guest voice on The Simpsons. Hell, then even managed to land the reclusive author Alan Moore for a comic book-themed episode. Now, Borat and Bruno star 
I'm ashamed to admit this, but in the wake of Sen. Edward Kennedy's passing, a thought occurred to me: "I wonder what the late Senator and son of Camelot thought of The Simpsons' Mayor Quimby impression." 
It's Fox day, at the TCAs, and they've started the day by giving us some announcements:
The TV Squad Podcast: Linda Purl talks about The Office, we talk spoilers, and more
Ask TV Squad: Ghost Whisperer and more!
The TV Squad Podcast: Bill Scheft of The Late Show, Cake Boss, Mad Men and more
