Happy Birthday Bill Oakley

Hi folks and welcome to another Simpsons Sunday. Did you enjoy Gal Of Constant Sorrow? I will write a post on it next week.

This weeks post is in celebration of a milestone birthday for a former Show Runner of The Simpsons. Bill Oakley turned 50 years old yesterday and he co-ran the show with Josh Weinstein from Season’s 7 to Season 9.

Some see this as the beginning of the End of the so called “golden era of The Simpsons but to me, it is another progression in the show’s evolution. To give you somewhat of a starting point as to when this began, in Season 8, The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show was the episode where The Simpsons surpassed The Flintstones’s longest running show mark. Then the episode Homer’s Phobia aired and the tone of the plots began to be centred on a “what if” premise. That is how we ran across Brother From Another Series, in which Sideshow Bob becomes a changed man and actually helps Bart and Lisa with foiling his brother’s skeem. The episode Homer’s Enemy is another example of this, where we see Frank Grimes working alongside Homer as a regular person in Homer’s world. You could also say that the seeds for this new plot structure were sow’n in the Season 7 episode Two Bad Neighbours. Most people see Homer’s enemy as a companion piece to this episode, in which what if a celebrity tried to become a regular person in Springfield and had to deal with Homer and even Bart. In this case it was George Bush, who had a feud with The Simpsons, from the early 90s .He gave a speech on family values in which he said something like wanting America to be “more like The Waltons and less like The Simpsons”. I love Two Bad Neighbours because it gave us a funny episode, poking fun at the man’s crotchetyness. Even teasing him about being a wimp, which is a call back to just before the first Gulf War, when some people saw him as such Because of his reputation as a whiner. This was also before he started ramping up the rhetoric in the fall of 1990, leading up to the Gulf War in January 1991. Whether the portrayal is true or not, I think it is one of the best episodes and especially from that period.

Another thing he did was develop some of the secondary characters and once again, put them in a what if type of situation. For example: the episode Lisa’s Date With Density shows Lisa and Nelson dating during the episode. Hurricane Neddy gave us a glimpse into how Ned Flanders ticks and into his past too. We also saw his faith and nice guy demeanor being tested by a weather event which destroys his home. We may also remember Troy McClure’s episode A Fish Called Selma and thankfully, we had the chance to get a better idea of what he is actually like, outside of his educational movies and infomercials.

Also during that period the show began to explore some of the characters backstories. In the episode Burns, Baby Burns we meet Mr. Burns’s son Larry who was voiced by Rodney Dangerfield. It is also revealed that Apu is an illegal alien and is made an American citizen by the end of the episode Much Apu About Nothing. The most controversial example of this was the episode The Principal And The Pauper from Season 9. A lot of people hated the episode because of what it did to make Seymour Skinner into an imposter. It doesn’t bother me that much but I understand other people’s negativity toward the episode. The thing I liked was that Agnes Skinner was actually challenged for the first time, by the real Seymour and it would actually be nice if the current Seymour would do the same. She needs to learn that Seymour has to be a man and make his own decisions.

Of course, my favourite episode from this period will always be Homer’s Enemy because of how great a character Frank Grimes was. All the same, it would have been nice if Homer and Grimy actually liked each other instead. It would add something new in a new character and a new dimension to Homer’s character. Frank lived between two bowling alleys and Homer likes to bowl. Maybe if it was discovered that they had that one comonality they would have got along and well, maybe it wouldn’t have been as funny but other comedic moments could have sprung from this. However, the episode is fine the way it is.

This was also the period when blindness was also mentioned on The Simpsons for the first of few times during the series. A blind man whom we know only as Mr. Mitchell briefly owned Santa’s Little Helper in the episode The Canine Mutiny. Later on, a blind boy named Kevin would be introduced in Season 21, with a prominent roll in the episode Stealing First Base as Nelson’s friend. Also, we see: Bart, Milhouse, Nelson and Martin all going on a road trip in the episode Bart On The Road, without adult supervision. Best of all, we see Homer getting a new job with a really cool boss, in the shape of Hank Scorpio (You Only Move Twice) but the rest of the family aren’t happy with their new home setting for various reasons.

For more on Bill Oakley, check out this Simpsons Wiki page. http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Bill_Oakley

I follow Bill on Twitter and he has always liked and retweeted my tweets but has yet to reply to them. If he does that’s cool and if not, that’s cool too.
Well that’s about it for this weeks post. Check out Chris Ladesma’s blog. He is the Music Editor for The Simpsons and has been since day 1.
http://simpsonsmusic500.wordpress.com/author/simpsonsmusic500/
Also, check out Yeardley Smith’s blog at http://gobbingoff.tumblr.com
Don’t forget about Marchez Vous, which is her women’s shoe designer company, which she started earlier in the decade. You can check out their website at
http://www.marchesvous.com
Additionally, for more news on The Simpsons, you can go to http://news.simpsonswiki.com/
You can also comment here or you can email me at blindgordie@gmail.com and I will reply as soon as I can to all messages I receive. If you follow me on Twitter or are my friend on Facebook you can comment directly to me that way too.
You can follow Simpsons Executive Producer Al Jean on Twitter and his Twitter handle is @AlJean.
He has ran the show since Season 13 and has ran it during Seasons 3 and 4.
Anyway, that is it for this weeks post. Talk to you again next Sunday

Sideshow Bob Do Good?

Hi folks and welcome to another Simpsons Sunday. I hope everyone enjoyed last weeks episode. It was also nice that Glenn Close made another appearance as Mona Simpson again, all be it in a flash back in Grandpa’s memory. I’m looking forward to this weeks episode Gal Of Constant Sorrow.

This weeks post is another look into what could have been. I recently watched the episode Brother From Another Series and it occurred to me that if Sideshow Bob hadn’t gone to jail with his brother he probably would have given up on his criminal activities. This would have meant an end to wanting to kill Bart or his former boss Krusty The Clown. His intentions in this episode were clearly good and he was grateful to Bart for saving his life, after his brother Cecil attempts to murder him and take all the money from their project together. Cecil is of course voiced by David Hyde Pierce, who also portrays Niles Crane, the brother of Frasier Crane portrayed by Kelsey Grammer himself. If you think about it and research both characters by both actors, both Niles and Cecil would have been what their brothers (Sideshow Bob and Fraisure) would have been, had their dreams come true. In the case of The Simpsons, Cecil tried out as one of Krusty’s sideshows and failed and was still pissed off that his brother became Sideshow Bob.

What would have happened if Cheif Wiggum actually believed Lisa about Sideshow Bob’s innocence in his brothers nefarious plot to blow up the Springfield damn? Would Bob become friends with Bart and Lisa and possibly reunite with Krusty in some form, without plotting to kill him? Would he have still got a job as the PA Announcer for Springfield Elementary School? He actually had this job in the Season 12 episode Day Of The Jackanapes, where Krusty is being bothered by network executives who are trying to tell him how to change his TV show for their own benefit and because they can. Sideshow Bob uses Bart to kill Krusty in a plan which almost works, except for Krusty giving an emotional speech for Bob, which changes Bob’s mind and he releases Bart as his Bomb boy.

There Also would have been no need for Bob to move to Italy and become a grape crusher and get married to Francesca and have his son Gino. However, other things could have come up as plot devices if Bob had become friendlier or an acquaintance of The Simpsons. Maybe Bob would have become another one of Barts frenemmys much like Principal Skinner or Groundskeeper Willie at Springfield Elementary School. Maybe he would have helped Bart in his pranks on Skinner, if it turned out that he didn’t like him either. Or, he would have teamed up with Skinner to make life hell for the students, much like in the episode The President Wore Pearls. This episode saw Skinner make Lisa School President in order to Cary out his evil plan to get rid of classes like: music, gymnastics and art. All though, I believe that Bob probably would have sided with Lisa and foiled Skinner’s plot instead. Obviously his brother would have been in jail while Bob was freed.

On the birthday front, Kelsey Grammer turns another year older today. He is still active both inside and outside The Simpsons. His most recent episode on The Simpsons was the latest episode in the Treehouse Of Horror series, where Sideshow Bob finally kills Bart. I wonder what Sideshow Bob will be up to in seasons to come after this non canon episode?

Also, let us not forget about the creator of The Simpsons and Futurama, Matt Groening turning another year older on Monday. He is still very much involved with the show and I am very happy he started this all back in 1987, when: Homer, Marge, Bart and Lisa all appeared for the first time on the Tracey Ullman Show as shorts in the short Good Night. You can find the entire short on the episode The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular, along with bits of other shorts. My favourite is when Homer and Bart are at home, while Marge and Lisa are out with Maggie. Homer and Bart can’t decide if they want fish nuggets or pork-a-roni. Homer unwisely mixes them together and Bart is not pleased, saying “yuck… ‘Tastes like dog food”. I think it is still on Youtube somewhere but I haven’t looked for a while.
Well that’s about it for this weeks post. Check out Chris Ladesma’s blog. He is the Music Editor for The Simpsons and has been since day 1.
http://simpsonsmusic500.wordpress.com/author/simpsonsmusic500/
Also, check out Yeardley Smith’s blog at http://gobbingoff.tumblr.com
Don’t forget about Marchez Vous, which is her women’s shoe designer company, which she started earlier in the decade. You can check out their website at
http://www.marchesvous.com
Additionally, for more news on The Simpsons, you can go to http://news.simpsonswiki.com/
You can also comment here or you can email me at blindgordie@gmail.com and I will reply as soon as I can to all messages I receive. If you follow me on Twitter or are my friend on Facebook you can comment directly to me that way too.
If you live in North America and you have any idea of what NOAA Weather Radio or Weatheradio Canada is, check out this new website, which was created by me. It is basically the Weather Radio Listeners Newsletter and all current and back issues, with plans of more things to be put into it in the future. https://weatherradiolistnersnewsletter.wordpress.com

Also, you can join the mailing list for the newsletter, which will also have other things that I will send out in mass blasts that will not appear on the website.

You can follow Simpsons Executive Producer Al Jean on Twitter and his Twitter handle is @AlJean.
He has ran the show since Season 13 and has ran it during Seasons 3 and 4.
Anyway, that is it for this weeks post. Talk to you again next Sunday

Wralph Wiggum Loves Someone

Hi folks and welcome to another Simpsons Sunday. First of all, my apologies to those of you who are following this blog and have received some strange emails about Weather Radio. I am currently in the process of updating a new website which I will announce here, next week at the end of the post.

Second, I hope that those of us in Southern Ontario are keeping warm, after a milder winter so far. We have been hit with a deep freeze and hopefully, it will be just a blip this season. Here’s hoping that spring will come soon and we can shed our winter jackets.

This weeks post is all about Valentines Day on The Simpsons. My favourite episode is I Love Lisa from Season 4. It’s the one where Wralph Wiggum doesn’t get a valentines card from any of his class mates and Lisa feels sorry for him, so she gives him a card. This causes him to say “you choo choo choose me”? This quote has also ended up as an alert tone for iPhones and other iOS devices!

Then Wralph thinks Lisa loves him but she just likes him. During the Krusty The Clown 29th Anniversary Special he declares his love for Lisa and she loudly tells him no and that she only gave him the card because nobody else would.

This got me to thinking about another story involving Wralph and Alison Taylor, that I found in the Fan Fiction archives last year. This one see’s the two becoming a couple and just like in the episode, they go to the Krusty The Clown 30th Anniversary Special together. He declares his love for Alison Taylor and she reciprocates. The story goes on to flash forward to their high school and college days and eventual marriage. Oh, the story is called For The Love Of A Special Someone. https://m.fanfiction.net/s/9429137/1/For-the-Love-of-a-Special-Someone

It would be nice if Wralph actually had someone who loved him and cared for him. I know he is rather an odd character but even he should have someone in his life. Maybe Alison Taylor may actually become the love of his life in an episode one day.
Well that’s about it for this weeks post. Check out Chris Ladesma’s blog. He is the Music Editor for The Simpsons and has been since day 1.
http://simpsonsmusic500.wordpress.com/author/simpsonsmusic500/
Also, check out Yeardley Smith’s blog at http://gobbingoff.tumblr.com
Don’t forget about Marchez Vous, which is her women’s shoe designer company, which she started earlier in the decade. You can check out their website at
http://www.marchesvous.com
Additionally, for more news on The Simpsons, you can go to http://news.simpsonswiki.com/
You can also comment here or you can email me at blindgordie@gmail.com and I will reply as soon as I can to all messages I receive. If you follow me on Twitter or are my friend on Facebook you can comment directly to me that way too.
You can follow Simpsons Executive Producer Al Jean on Twitter and his Twitter handle is @AlJean.
He has ran the show since Season 13 and has ran it during Seasons 3 and 4.
Anyway, that is it for this weeks post. Talk to you again next Sunday

All About The Clip Shows

Hi folks and welcome to another Simpsons Sunday. Okay, I hope those of you who are football fans enjoy the sooper bowl. Also, don’t drink and drive because I don’t and can’t.

This weeks post is about the clip shows that have aired during The Simpsons long run. Some people view them as bad or lazy, because of the use of clips from past episodes to tell a story or to help with the theme of the episode. I will offer my own opinion on this later in this post.

The first such episode involved April Fools Day and it had Bart shaking up a can of beer which Homer opened and it exploded. This landed him in the hospital and in a coma, until Bart admitted his prank to Homer. It had clips from the first 4 seasons such as: when Lisa played her sax for Homer when he thought he was going to die. Another clip which has been show’n a few times is Homer falling down Springfield Gorge in the episode Bart The Daredevil from Season 2.

The second clip show was all about love and romance. This had clips mostly from Seasons 4 and 5, including Homer and Mindy Simmons together at the hotel and Homer crying over a fortune cookie telling him he would be better off with a new love. It also had the clip where Wralph declared his love for Lisa and where Bart came to his treehouse with Lora Powers to find out that her boy friend is Jimbo Jones. However we don’t hear a repeat of Bart’s prank call that lands Jimbo in trouble with Moe.

The next clip show was a look back at The Simpsons from the Tracey Ullman Shorts to Season 7. It also included deleted seens from some episodes and an alternate ending to Who Shot Mr. Burns? Pt 2.

Season 9’s All Singing, All Dancing was mainly a look back at the songs from the first 8 seasons of the show and it included such classics as: Who Needs The Kwik-E-Mart, We Put The Spring In Springfield and many other classics from that period, along with some new numbers.

Behind The Laughter was a parody of Behind The Music and it also feature some clips like when Principal Skinner announced that he was an imposter in the episode The Principal And The Pauper.

The last true clip show was Gump Roast, written by Dan Castellaneta and his wife Deb Lacusta. It was a roast of Homer by his family and other characters in his life, using clips to talk about his brutish and buffoonish Behavior towards his family and his friends.Let us not forget his stupidity and childishness he shows when things don’t go his way with home projects. At the end of the episode, Dan Castellaneta sings a song called They’ll Never Stop The Simpsons and it mentions a lot of moments during the series, not unlike the song We Didn’t Start The Fire by Billy Joel, which mentions historical events in the verses and middle eight.

For me, I don’t mind these shows as much because they are just a greatest hits package of sorts, using clips to help tell the story, along with new dialog from the characters. They bring back memories and make you want to watch the episodes from where the clips came from again, at least for me. I wish there was at least one more clip show on the way but it looks like there won’t be anymore produced. However, I wouldn’t say never because you never know what the writers have up their sleeve. Maybe some clips will be show’n during the episodes in which Smithers finally comes out to Mr. Burns. Then again, he may just mention the moments in passing.

Actually, The Bob Next Door also has clips of him saying “hello Bart” as he see’s Sideshow Bob pull up to the house next to them. I just wanted to point that out before I forgot about it. Oh, another brief clip was in the Season 3 episode Like Father, Like Clown when we see the end of the Season 1 episode Krusty Gets Busted. This is when Krusty is reminded that he is supposed to go to the Simpsons house for dinner and the clip of Cheif Wiggum admitting his mistake on arresting Krusty is show’n again.
Well that’s about it for this weeks post. Check out Chris Ladesma’s blog. He is the Music Editor for The Simpsons and has been since day 1.
http://simpsonsmusic500.wordpress.com/author/simpsonsmusic500/
Also, check out Yeardley Smith’s blog at http://gobbingoff.tumblr.com
Don’t forget about Marchez Vous, which is her women’s shoe designer company, which she started earlier in the decade. You can check out their website at
http://www.marchesvous.com
Additionally, for more news on The Simpsons, you can go to http://news.simpsonswiki.com/
You can also comment here or you can email me at blindgordie@gmail.com and I will reply as soon as I can to all messages I receive. If you follow me on Twitter or are my friend on Facebook you can comment directly to me that way too.
You can follow Simpsons Executive Producer Al Jean on Twitter and his Twitter handle is @AlJean.
He has ran the show since Season 13 and has ran it during Seasons 3 and 4.
Anyway, that is it for this weeks post. Talk to you again next Sunday