Hi folks and welcome to another Simpsons Sunday. Well I hate to begin this weeks post on a downer but I just can’t not talk about the passing of David Bowie. He was born David Robert Jones on January 8th 1947 and he died on Sunday night at the age of 69. He was a rock icon and he continually reinvented himself over his long career, both musically and visually. For example: he was both the thin white duke and Ziggy Stardust musically and visually, among other guises. He also branched out into electronic music and this includes a track with Trent Resnor from Nine Inch Nails called I’m Afraid Of Americans. He even worked with Bing Crosby on their cover of Little Drummer Boy and Peace On Earth, from one of dear Bingo’s last tellivision specials. He even recorded a novelty song called The Laughing Gnome, which was of great detriment to his career at the time of its release and became an embarrassment later on, when it charted after he became popular in the 70s. If you would like to hear it, it’s available on iTunes on his first album and on The Deram Anthology. I also recommend The Alan Cross Guide To Alternative Rock and you can also find it on iTunes or the David Bowie chapter as a standalone audiobook. You can also read up on him using Wikipedia too as well and there are probably other books about him out there too.
As for The Simpsons, his music has been used and he had been referenced a number of times. On the episode Homer The Whopper, Homer trained to the song Hero’s. In the episode The Musk who Fell To Earth the track Starman plays at the end of the episode. There are more but I’ll leave that to you to look up elsewhere on the internet.
I can’t think of anyone who has influenced more people besides The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Queen and Metallica. David Bowie has been a major influence on many genres of contemporary music from glam rock to alternative sub-genres like punk, goth, industrial, post-punk and every alternative sub-genre from the 1970s onward. You can drop the name of any band who has been labeled alternative rock and you can be sure that David Bowie has had some sort of influence on them. In fact, we wouldn’t have if there were no David Bowie there would be no Madonna or Lady GaGa. You could say the same for all alternative rock bands you can think of and let us not forget his work as an actor. Remember The Man Who Fell To Earth? Elephant Man and other movies he has had a roll in. He even played with Queen on the 1981 single Under Pressure and has played it during some of his own tours. This guy has done a lot and hopefully his buddy Iggy Pop will be around for a few more years. Yes, David played on the signature Iggy song Lust For Life and in his backing band. He even produced some of his albums including Blah Blah Blah, with the single Real Wild Child. I’m sure that where ever he is, he is entertaining everyone and having a great time, wheather he is waring a dress or whatever.
Another unfortunate death in the entertainment Industry this week is Alan Rickman, who is best known for his role in the Harry Potter movies. I wasn’t much into Harry Potter myself but the death is nonetheless significant. RIP To both David Bowie and Alan Rickman.
This weeks post is all about the most recent episode Teenage Mutant Milk Caused-Herdles and its plot. First of all, Miss Carol Bererra is Bart’s classes new teacher who is voiced by Sofía Vergara. I had actually never heard of her, until this episode was announced last summer! She is a retired Air Force Sargent and Bart thinks she is cute. He tries to be himself but he acts different toward her than he does to any other staff member of the school. She insists on helping him with learning, by tootering him on Tuesday afternoons after class and he agrees.
Meanwhile, Homer gets some milk at the Kwik-E-Mart, which Apu cells him after showing him a video. The milk turns out to have hormones in it which makes Bart and Lisa experience early puberty, with Bart growing a mustash and Lisa having “problem skin”, which Marge decides to help her cover up with makeup.
At School, Bart finds out that Principal Skinner also has a crush on Miss Bererra and Bart wants to ruin it by putting a firecracker up his but. However, she meets Seymour’s Mother and she dumps him. Oh, and Homer gets a refund on the milk after him and Marge discover that it was the reason for the changes in Bart and Lisa.
I hope that Miss Bererra doesn’t become another one time character in the long list of them. I think that Bart should have at least one person in athority whom Bart can look up to and have some sort of non combative relationship with. The fact that she is more forgiving than Mrs. Krabappel was and is a good thing. If she stays she can drive the point home that Bart isn’t just about being a mischievous prankster and can have a soft spot for someone in athority. We will see if she continues to play a significant roll in Bart’s life from here on in.
One more thing about the episode I liked was that Bart was actually nice to Seymour at the end, after he was dumped. It once again shows that Bart does have some degree of respect for him, despite terrorizing him and other staff any chance he gets. However I don’t think they will become friends as such again, like they were in the Season 5 episode Sweet Seymour Skinner’s Baadasssss Song, unless he is permanently fired and I don’t see that happening again any time soon. If it did the rivalry between the two would be over and it would change the whole reason for Bart behaving like he does at the school.
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
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