Last week my friend Jen(n)a sent me a post from another site ranking “the best obscure Simpsons characters.” While I appreciate the effort of the original, I felt that some of their choices were too mainstream and that I absolutely had a duty to compile my own list.
The awesome folks at LEGO upped their Simpsons game this year with a new Kwik-E-Mart set and another batch of 16 mini figures.
Having spent a ton of money on the Simpsons house and 16 characters last year, I couldn’t bring myself to justify getting the Kwik-E-Mart set too, and instead “compromised” down to just getting the new group of characters.
You may recall that I made a fancy platform for the house and first set of characters to sit on, and with the addition of so many other residents of Springfield, it was time for an expansion. So I made a matching platform on a shelf down below:
Of course that also meant re-imagining the scenes playing out among all these folks. Here’s the new top shelf:
And the new bottom:
Let’s zoom in on the lower level, where chaos seems to be the theme. Grampa is riding Santa’s Little Helper into battle against Snowball II. SLH has no idea what is happening:
Fallout Boy brought a Buzz Cola to a beaker fight with Professor Frink:
Two Maggies really have no idea what’s going on:
“Eat bat, Willie!”
“In Scotland, we call this a bat!”
Krusty with an impressive, but probably unwise barehanded block of a plutonium rod. I have a feeling Burns is about to get pied:
I hope for Wiggum’s sake that Lisa recently cleaned out the spit valve:
Bart is just trying to shred on that halfpipe, but Bartman and his slingshot aren’t about to let that happen: 
Sing it with me now: “They fight, the bite…” 
That was intense. Now, let’s focus our attention on the much more relaxed upper level, where Milhouse and Martin are discussing important issues of the day:
Meanwhile, Homer is professing his love for Marge (probably after doing something dumb) and Patty and Selma seem less than impressed:
Ralph Choo-Choo-Chooses Lisa. She does not Choo-Choo-Choose him back: 
Ned mans the grill and mentions to Edna how their names are almost the same:
While the boys check out Homer’s car, Dr. Hibbert commits what must surely be a HIPAA violation and shares Homer’s x-ray with the group. Homer can’t believe it:
And then there’s Hans Moleman.
Poor Moleman.
I wonder what random thing is going to happen to me in May.
Yesterday, my friend Jena sent me a link to an article about how The Simpsons will no longer be putting out old seasons on discs. That news comes after seasons 1-17 and 20 were released. Add to those the Simpsons movie and I have an entire shelf dedicated to the folks of Springfield:
But take a close look at the destiny here. I don’t just have a shelf devoted to Simpsons DVDs/blu-rays, I have exactly a shelf of them. A season 18 collection would seriously stress my organizational mind. So while it is sad for anything Simpsons to go away, I’m not terribly heartbroken at this one. After all, some people have it worse:
Last month, the randomness involved dinner with a friend, Twitter and a Metro ride.
I was in D.C. and my friend told me about a conversation she had where the other party expressed that her goals were not good enough and that she could/should be doing something different. I told her about this line I had heard recently: “Don’t yuck someone else’s yum.”
That came from a Nats Twitter friend I had interacted with a bunch, but never actually met in person.
After dinner, I got on the Metro to go home, and tweeted about a guy in my car:
There’s a guy on my Metro train saying things like “Pelosi said get the bill drafted” into his phone and I want to believe it’s a fake convo
— Chris Hannas (@cjhannas) March 13, 2015
I got a few responses, but one was from that very same Nats Twitter friend. She was on the Metro too, and it turned out, on the very same train:
@vandygirl1998 haha ok I’m right behind you in car two
— Chris Hannas (@cjhannas) March 13, 2015
What are the chances I mention someone I’ve never met, and then an hour later meet them?
Maybe I should incorporate this into my dating strategy.
The greatest projects in history spring from people recognizing needs that are holding society back and taking steps to address them.
About a month ago, I moved into a new place with new bookshelves and a vision for what would go on them. One of those things was my Simpsons LEGO house. But what I did not think about was that the open slats on the top of the shelf gave little stable room for the LEGO Simpsons characters:
Time for bold action.
Step 1: Acquire a piece of wood
Step 2: Acquire three colors of paint
Step 3: Apply said paint to said wood
Hello Simpsons yard, sidewalk, driveway and bonus foundation (clearly I spent more time doing the visible parts):
Project manager Maggie approves:
Homer and Marge invited the whole town over for a barbecue to celebrate their new yard:
Naturally Ned is manning the grill, and even though hot dogs are in his near future, Homer still brought a donut with him. Chief Wiggum is trying to talk some sense into Homer while ignoring the assault of Krusty that’s about to happen behind him. That’s a police department with its priorities in line.
In idle moments, sometimes the relic from my past would creep into my mind. It was only part of my life for a short time, and then, gone. Its ghost lingered, partially because I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where it went.
And then, years later, wrapped in paper inside a container at the bottom of a box, it suddenly reappeared:
A can of Buzz Cola.
If you’re not familiar, Buzz is the soda brand in The Simpsons. When the show spawned a movie, they did a promotional deal with 7-Eleven selling Buzz cans along with Squishee-branded Slurpee cups. Naturally, I had to get them, along with the Krusty O’s cereal and Radioactive Man comic book:
But then I moved, and before leaving my former home in Florida I got rid of a bunch of stuff. That was the last time I remembered seeing the soda can. I figured I accidentally threw it out with some bunch of trash.
I moved again. And then a second time. All the other relics were accounted for, but still no Buzz Cola. Last month, I moved a third time, fully exploring a set of kitchen-related things I somehow hadn’t opened at my last few stops. I unwrapped a set of four glasses and salt and pepper shakers. In the same area, a lone item the same size remained obscured in the National Geographic pages I had used to wrap fragile things in Florida.
I had absolutely no clue what it could be. I slowly peeled back the pages and held the can in all its Buzzy glory. The world is once again complete.
It’s no secret I am a huge fan of The Simpsons, so when a friend alerted me that LEGO was putting out a Simpsons set, there was no question I was going to get it. That’s one of the perks of being an adult, right? Right?
This was one of those times in life when the product vastly exceeded my expectations. I never looked to see how many pieces were in this thing before I hit the “Check Out” button, so I was surprised when this giant box arrived at my door with more than 2,500 LEGOs inside.
I have to give them tremendous credit for their attention to detail with things like little hot dogs that go on the grill, or the “Property of Ned Flanders” stickers that are meant for a few items. They also get huge points for cleverly finding ways to make certain objects in the Simpson household. More than a couple of times I was following the instructions for building some small item, not sure of what it was, then hit a eureka! moment and had to laugh at the crib, kitchen sink or shower head that somehow emerged out of regular LEGO pieces.
With that many pieces, it took me several hours over two days to complete, but with the magic of time-lapse photography, you can watch it all come together in two minutes:
I used the tiny bit of battery life left in my camera after all that to take a few other shots, including what I think is the proper way to transport a baby safely with a car:
And Lil’ Lisa checking the mail (at the mailbox I only now noticed isn’t quite fully snapped together…):
I think the car is really my favorite piece. It rolls smoothly enough that it could be its own toy, and in my younger days would have already crashed against a wall and smashed into a hundred lego pieces. And that would have been awesome.
The time-lapsing was super easy to do using an app on my phone and a simple trick in Adobe Premiere, so definitely look forward to more of those in the future now that I know how.
Also, go buy yourself LEGOs! They are super fun.
It’s been a big week for The Simpsons.
In addition to extending its streak of being my favorite show, two more pieces appeared in its wide cultural wake. The first was a win in the battle of Simpsons vs. Seinfeld over at Vulture.com’s “Sitcom Smackdown,” a bracket-style competition pitting some of the best shows from the past 30 years against one another.
This was the semi-final round, and the way it works is that someone writes a thoughtful piece breaking down and comparing each show. I was expecting a cheap, quick-vote style bracket like so many others you see pop up this time of year, but instead, writer David Lipsky penned a really deep essay that does both shows justice. As someone who has read a 430-page book about the residents of Springfield, I loved it. (Homer and company went on to beat Cheers in the finals.)
The other thing that popped up on the Web this week might take a deep Simpsons geek to truly appreciate. It involves my favorite fictional character, Milhouse Van Houten, the nerdy, loveable-loser best friend of Bart Simpson.
In short, this is what you need to know:
Then watch this:
I was already going to give them serious props for honoring Milhouse with a song, but a peek at their YouTube channel shows they also deserve extra life points for songs about Maeby from Arrested Development and Sam from Freaks & Geeks. Well done.
It’s always nice to find out that the show you watched that it seemed like nobody else watched actually has other watchers.
I hope that makes sense. In this example, it’s “Veronica Mars,” which lasted three seasons on TV before getting the ax. I knew a few people who were fans, but wouldn’t have guessed how many were out there before the people behind the show launched a Kickstarter campaign to help fund a movie version.
They were asking for $2 million, with a deadline of a month. It’s been two days, and nearly 50,000 people have contributed about $3.2 million. That includes people who pledged $6,500 to name a character in the movie and one guy who kicked in $10,000 to earn a speaking role.
In short, the Internet is a pretty amazing place.
I’ve watched the entire series several times, but in case my connection to the show wasn’t strong enough already, check out what I saw 20 seconds into the promotional video the stars did for the Kickstarter page:
That Krusty O’s box on the table looks pretty familiar. Hmm, where have I seen that before…Oh, right. Five feet from where I’m sitting now:
That’s how you get me to back your Kickstarter project.
I watch a lot of late night television, mainly due to the fact that I work overnights and thus am awake when the shows start at 11:35.
If you’re a connoisseur of the genre and know me at all, it’s probably no surprise I gravitate towards David Letterman and Jimmy Fallon. But for a short time, I at least had to make a choice in that early time slot. That’s when Conan O’Brien hosted the “Tonight Show.”
I just finished reading Bill Carter’s “The War For Late Night” which chronicles the rise and fall of Conan’s “Tonight Show” run, from his initial guarantee to host to the day last year when he accepted a settlement from NBC and took his show to TBS.
I knew all the big-picture stuff about this saga from having watched it play out on TV at the time, and also read about some of the insider stuff as well. It was fascinating to read Carter’s description of how everything was working inside NBC, as well as the Leno and Conan camps, as all the decisions and negotiations were taking place.
If you’re not familiar, here’s a very basic timeline of what happened:
-NBC gave Conan a guarantee that he would host the “Tonight Show” after a set number of years, upon which they told Leno he would be done
-Leno wanted to stay on TV, and combined with NBC’s fear he would bolt to compete with them at say ABC, he ended up with an ill-fated show at 10 p.m. on NBC
-Neither show did great in ratings, and NBC affiliate stations complained their news ratings were being crushed
-NBC reacted by floating a plan to move Leno back to 11:35, and shifting Conan and the “Tonight Show” to 12:05
-Conan balked, the network chose to stay with Leno and pay Conan a multi-million dollar settlement
Throughout the entire process, and especially in the accounts in the book, Conan comes across as sort of the righteous character in the story. He didn’t do everything perfectly, and maybe what NBC was asking wasn’t so bad, but people generally felt Conan was being screwed.
The shame is that in the end Conan is now stuck on TBS while Leno continues to dominate the late night ratings on NBC. Carter talked to many of the other players, who gave really candid assessments of the situation and their colleagues. Many of the major names are Letterman disciples and don’t get Leno’s appeal. Jimmy Kimmel, who hosts a show on ABC at 12:05 describes Leno’s brand of comedy saying, “I think he turned comedy into factory work–and it comes across.”
Sure, there are “Leno people” and everyone is definitely entitled to their opinion about which shows are more entertaining. But I think actor and one-time Conan roommate Jeff Garlin sums up my view pretty well:
“It’s like comparing John Coltrane to Kenny G,” he says in the book. “One of Kenny G’s albums probably sold more than all of John Coltrane’s library. But you can’t tell me for a second that Kenny G is better than John Coltrane.”
While I knew a lot about this set of events, a lot of what I enjoyed about this book was learning more about Conan. I was vaguely aware that he had written for Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons, but even as a total Simpsons nerd I had no idea he wrote the amazing “Marge vs. the Monorail” episode and the one where Homer goes back to college.
But there is also a lot of real insight into Conan’s mind as a creative individual, particularly with the self-doubt that often comes along with the process. Carter describes it as “imposter syndrome” saying that as eager as Conan was to take over the “Tonight Show,” there was always “the thought that, no matter how successful you became, ‘they’re about to catch up to you.'”
I don’t know many creative people who don’t think that way. As much as we are proud of our work and know that some things we do rock, hitting the “publish” button and sending our stuff out into the world can be extremely nerve-wracking. There’s always a sense that it could be better, and that there has to be some kind of luck to people thinking what we are doing is special. I know that when I was in school, no matter how good my grades were I had the feeling that some day, someone was going to figure out I’m really not that smart.
I’ll close with Conan’s closing to his “Tonight Show” run. He spent his final days absolutely lampooning NBC in a string of shows that belongs in some kind of entertainment hall of fame. The process crushed him. NBC was ripping away something he had dreamed of since he was a kid sitting and watching the show with his father. And yet, while his legion of young fans who don’t need much to be pushed into a cynical view of the world rallied behind him, Conan said this:
“Please don’t be cynical. I hate cynicism — it’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.”
Amen.
I like “The Simpsons.”
That actually might not capture my true feelings. Let me try again.
I just read a 430-page book about “The Simpsons.”
Chris Turner’s “Planet Simpson: How a Cartoon Masterpiece Defined a Generation” is a discussion of the social impacts of the show, both the factors that brought it to popularity and the reflections of our world depicted in Springfield.
It’s not a book solely for super Simpsons nerds, since Turner gives a enough background with his show references that even those who haven’t seen a particular episode can follow along. Though most of the important points he makes seem to reference Season 7, so maybe watch that first.
His discussion veers into pop/political/tech influences as whole, whether that’s early ’90s indie filmmakers (Tarantino/Rodriguez/Coens), the music of Nirvana or the early Internet culture. At times it’s easy to forget the book is ostensibly about “The Simpsons,” but all of that background helps to give the show a context.
I took away three major arguments from the book — Homer as America, Consumerism is King (or not), and Culture: Reflected or Absorbed?
Homer as America
Homer Simpson is brash, selfish, loud and inflexible in his beliefs. He does what serves his life at that moment the best, or what he thinks is best for those around him. The consequences of those actions on others are not important. He is a force in the town — what he does affects everyone and nobody has a choice in the matter.
Turner argues Homer is an allegory of America. What the United States does (good/bad/well-meaning/successful) has a great impact on the rest of the world, whether that involves economic policy, military action or FCC policy.
More importantly, there is an acceptance of that force, a resignation by the people of Springfield/the world that this is just another factor in their lives that isn’t going to change soon. It’s what Homer’s friend Lenny would call “Homer being Homer.”
But it is the show’s ability to lampoon that type of influence through the Homer character that Turner argues makes it not only popular in the U.S., but especially so abroad.
“The show can look, at times, like a pirate broadcast from inside the palace gates, the work of double agents whose sympathies might well lie as much with those caught under America’s thumb as with the people in charge,” Turner writes. “In the realm of mainstream, mass-market American pop disseminated worldwide, ‘The Simpsons’ is — by a wide margin — American society’s most strident critic.”
Just before this section, however, he also notes the work of a Mexican scholar who says that for those who see life in America as a perfect, unattainable example, the show serves to put the reality of American life within reach.
Consumerism is King (or not)
Besides creating a deep character universe that allows for boundless realistic storytelling, it is the underlying satirical take on many aspects of our culture that keeps the show running. Turner highlights the show’s railing against rampant consumerism and its ill effects. The copy I have is dated 2004, so the commentary is post-dotcom bubble, but pre-financial meltdown.
One interesting thing for me in reading this book is the description of the early years of the show. I was certainly alive in the early ’90s, but I wasn’t exactly plugged into everything that was going on.
In describing the boom in the SUV-driving culture, Turner talks about an episode in which Marge Simpson gets a behemoth Canyonero. It’s the typical over-the-top vehicle for a mom who’s really just driving to the grocery store and soccer practice, yet has the vehicular capability of taking on a small army in any terrain on Earth. The result is a feeling of protection inside her tank-like car, and a mean case of road rage.
Turner argues the me-me-me/SUV culture more or less created a boom in road rage, “which barely existed before 1990.” This struck me as a crazy statement — but being only 7 years old in 1990, I have little reference of what it was like to drive at the time. The statement seemed like one of those short-sighted ideas we hear so often that something today is the best, worst, biggest, most outrageous that has ever been without a true comparison with history.
But I could be wrong.
Another of the show’s examples has Bart visiting the local mall, which is made up mostly of Starbucks stores. He walks into a piercing store and is warned by an employee to act fast, “because in five minutes this place becomes a Starbucks.”
I spent some time working at a mall in a Washington, D.C., suburb that had two Starbucks locations when I started. Those stores are at either end of the same wing, no more than a five-minute walk from each other. Of course, that’s a ridiculous spacing for coffee stores. Good thing they later installed a third Starbucks store, right in the middle.
A final piece of the modern consumer puzzle is the ad gimmick. In Springfield, that is best personified by DuffMan, a character who exists entirely to promote Duff beer. Turner draws a parallel to Budweiser and its early ’90s ad campaign featuring Spuds MacKenzie. We wonder sometimes why we hang onto certain items, but the moment I read that section I felt vindicated in carrying this item from house to house as I moved over the years:
God Bless America.
Culture: Reflected or Absorbed?
“The Simpsons” is a show that at certain times during its run has been criticized by many groups who say it is a bad influence. Turner draws parallels between that thread of argument and the backlash against rapper Emimen. Turner says critics who blasted Eminem’s work “implicitly argued that pop culture was not a mirror of society but [rather] its engine.”
That is, the things artists/musicians/filmmakers/writers create are not a reflection of the values/events of society, but rather the things that drive those events and define those values.
At first, I totally disagreed with that statement. But it was one of those lines I re-read, and thought about for a little while. I would argue it’s much more in the middle, a kind of give-and-take. Art reflects society, which can then shape it, and further reflect it. It’s an on-going process in which both entities feed off one another, like the Moon going around the spinning Earth as both revolve around the Sun.
Turner says one of the factors in the show’s longevity is that unlike non-animated shows, we don’t see the actors in other roles or in real life. If you watch The Office, you see the character Michael Scott. But you also see actor Steve Carrell in movies, on Access Hollywood, on Leno or maybe at Starbucks. Every character he plays carries not only his real persona, but a history of all of his other roles.
With the residents of Springfield, you would be hard-pressed to find people who actually know what the actors look like. It is only the character that we know, and “we will not get sick of seeing them hawking crap on every other TV channel, nor of reading about their on-again, off-again romances with J.Lo or their painful struggles with alcoholism. We’ll never know anything about their lavish estates in the Hollywood Hills.”
Of course, to some members of Springfield, that anonymity is a ridiculous expectation for any celebrity.
Homer: “I believe that famous people have a debt to everyone. If celebrities didn’t want people pawing through their garbage and saying their gay, they shouldn’t have tried to express themselves creatively.”
My only real beef with Turner’s work is in his recreation of a certain scene in which he left out what is one of the show’s greatest lines.
Turner is talking about the characters’ ability to go immediately from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other. In this case, Springfield has a bear sighting, and naturally the citizens are incensed that the government/police aren’t doing enough to protect them from bears. When the city creates a bear task force, and an accompanying tax to pay for it, the people are equally angry that they have to actually pay for the service they demand.
Homer (upon receiving the tax bill): “Let the bears pay the bear tax! I already pay the Homer tax!”
Lisa: “Dad, that’s the home-owner tax.”
Homer is by far the most popular character, perhaps because of his logic skills. For me, he’s got nothing on the comedic genius that is Milhouse Van Houten.
And yes, I did write this entry while drinking out of a Simpsons cup:
