The Simpsons First Two Seasons

Hi folks and welcome to another Simpsons Sunday. This week’s post is all about the first two seasons of The Simpsons. Obviously, the show was in its infancy and characters were being created, to go alongside all the characters who appeared in the Tracey Ullman Shorts. There were also changes to some of the Simpson family, during this period of the show’s history: in that Bart became more rounded and was not just this bratty 10-year-old. He showed that he does care for his Dad, when he finds out that he only has $13 to spend on Christmas gifts for the family from his earnings as a mall Santa. He gently encourages Homer that they should go home, before they are persuaded to go to the dog track and they get their dog, as we know. Lisa shows her true intelligence and her true feelings on the world, before becoming a vegetarian or converting to another religion.

Obviously, Homer’s voice still had the Walter Matthau sound to it and even Grandpa sounded a bit different too, compared to later seasons. Even characters like: Mr. Burns, Barney and Milhouse sounded a bit different during those years, from 1989 to 1991. Season 1 also saw the introduction to characters like: Nelson Muntz, Apu, Otto Man and Moe, whom Bart would make prank calls to throughout the series.

In Season 2, other characters began to be introduced like: Jeffrey Albertson (aka comic book Guy) and his voice actually got better as the series progressed. At first he spoke with a lisp but the main trade of his, which was his sarcasm was always evident. Even Wralph Wiggum was a bit different in that he wasn’t blurting out his random lines like “my cats breath smells like cat food” yet. He actually sounded more Normal then and wasn’t given a family to live with yet.

Also in Season 2, Homer began to work with a voice which was similar to the one we know today. This is because Dan Castellaneta found the Walter Matthau sound limiting and couldn’t hold the voice through the long recording sessions. He wanted something with more power and the change was complete in Season 3 and the rest is history.

Okay, let’s not forget Krusty The Clown and Sideshow Bob, because they are equally important to the early seasons too. Krusty was already a character when the Tracey Ullman Shorts aired but Sideshow Bob wasn’t yet, at least in a speaking roll. In Season 1, we first heard Kelsey Grammer voice Bob in the episode Krusty Gets Busted and it also established his hatred for Bart, for foiling his plan to completely take over Krusty’s show, while he was in jail. As the series progresses Sideshow Bob became more rounded too, with his own family and by Season 19, all the main components of his family were established, with mostly fellow actors from Frasier voicing family members. If you want to know more, there are many places on the internet where you can trace the evolution of his family, including the Simpsons fan sites.

As for Krusty, we find that he has to ware a pacemaker because of an on air heart attack which we saw during Krusty Gets Busted. We also discover that he is also illiterate. Later on, Krusty’s Father is introduced during Season 3 and he fakes his own death in Season 7.

As for my favourite episodes from those first two seasons, I have some that I will watch again and again such as: Bart The General, Moaning Lisa, Krusty Gets Busted, Bart Gets An F, Lisa’s Substitute, Oh Brother Where Are Thou, Principal Charming, Bart Gets Hit By A Car, among others. So, the first two seasons are a bit ordinary in that the plots and characters are much more conventional and not as silly and surreal as Seasons 3 to 8. However, they are just as important in the timeline of the show, as any other season since then and should never be overlooked.

This Tuesday, it will be 29 years since the Simpson family were first introduced on the Tracey Ullman Show, as shorts. I have mentioned them in previous posts and will probably have something for next year, when it will be the 30th anniversary.

On the birthday front, former Simpsons writer Conan O’Brien turns another year older tomorrow. Of course, he wrote two of the best episodes from Seasons 4 and 5: Marge vs. The Monorail and Homer Goes To College. He even guest starred in the Season 5 episode Bart Gets Famous as himself on his then new late night TV show.

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

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