Simpsons Completes the Move to the Left

For a long time The Simpsons, the longest running animated show on TV, has been moving to the left. I've posted previous item here. They've now leaked a scene from their November 2nd show (two days before the election) which completes the journey all the way to Homer trying to vote for Obama.

Note the campaign signs in the opening sequence and how the McCain sign is on a pawn shop.

The Simpsons have usually been an equally opportunity offender, but they've pretty much given that up. I have to admit, though, if all voting machines worked like this one I'd feel a lot more confident in McCain's chances.

OK, Boys, Set Your Nightsticks on "Whomp."

Those famous words were spoken by Chief Wiggum in The Simpsons' "D'oh-in' in the Wind" espisode, and I think it's time for the Chief of Police in St. Paul to issue the same order. Here's a report from Powerline:

The first day of the RNC was fun but muted. One group, though, wasn't deterred from pursuing its agenda by events in the Gulf. The Communist/anarchist/truther/pro-Obama protesters were out in force, committing various crimes and attempting to disrupt the proceedings.

The most shocking events are described by Jim Hoft, who was on a bus that was attacked from above when a group of protesters dropped sand bags on to the top of the bus. This is attempted murder: if the protesters had succeeded in hitting the windshield, a sand bag would have crashed through and killed the driver. The resulting accident would have killed or injured others on the bus. To my knowledge, the left-wingers/would-be murderers were not caught.

A little later, a busload of Cub Scouts were en route to the convention, where they were to present the colors to open the convention. A group of protesters--liberals, Obama supporters, or whatever--blocked the road, surrounded the bus, and attacked it, rocking the bus back and forth, denting and scratching the sides, and generally terrifying the children trapped inside. The left-wing protesters attacked a number of buses in the same way, but there is something especially despicable about attacking a group of Cub Scouts.

In addition to this, bleach was thrown in the faces of some Connecticut delegates and an 80-year old female delegate had to be hospitalized.

Once again I quote Chief Wiggum: "Eh, it's time for an old-fashioned hippie ass-whomping!"

Exactly. If they want to Re-create 68, let's give them the 2008 version of the Chicago Police Department.

Simpsons Voice Actors Get a Lot More D'oh!

This has to be a great job:

The standoff between "The Simpsons" voice cast and series producer 20th Century Fox TV is over.

After months of negotiations, the cast of Fox's long-running animated series reached a new four-year deal with the studio during the weekend.

Under the pact, the top actors will be paid nearly $400,000 per episode. While this is lower than the reported $500,000 the cast originally sought, it remains a significant increase from their current paychecks of about $300,000 an episode.

Additionally, Dan Castellaneta, who voices Homer Simpson and has penned several "Simpsons" episodes over the years, is being named a consulting producer.

Castellaneta and most of the other key "Simpsons" voice players -- Julie Kavner (Marge), Nancy Cartwright (Bart), Yeardley Smith (Lisa) and Hank Azaria (Moe) -- are slated to begin work on the upcoming 20th season today with a table read.

As of Monday, the status of Harry Shearer, who voices Mr. Burns and Ned Flanders, among other characters, was unclear. Because of a last-minute snag, his deal did not close with the other cast members', and it was not clear if he would show up for today's table read.

As a result from the drawn-out contract negotiations, the upcoming season of "The Simpsons" has been reduced from 22 to 20 episodes. While the deal makes the voice cast available for four more seasons, Fox has yet to order the animated comedy beyond season No. 20.

Memo to Fox execs: If Shearer doesn't want to come back, I have a pretty good bass voice and I'll do the parts for half the price.

El D'oh!

The Simpsons are equal opportunity offenders, but the folks in Argentina aren't laughing along with a joke pointed at them:

BUENOS AIRES, April 16 -- If Homer Simpson and his family are planning any South American vacations in the near future, they might want to come up with a backup plan.

The television show "The Simpsons" is nothing short of a cultural phenomenon in many parts of the continent, but it also has become very good at exposing the region's rawest nerves, and then clawing them sore.

In the same week that Venezuela's government threatened to punish a television station for exposing children to the show, a snippet of dialogue from a recent installment is kicking up controversy in Argentina.

During the episode, Homer and his friends gathered at Moe's Tavern and grumbled about their choices of political candidates. The conversation seemed innocent enough, until Homer's buddy Carl Carlson opened his mouth.

"I'd really go for some kind of military dictator, like Juan Perón," Carl said, mentioning the general who was elected president by Argentines three times. "When he 'disappeared' you, you stayed disappeared."

Carl's friend Lenny then delivered a coup de grâce: "Plus, his wife was Madonna."

Most Argentines don't consider Perón a dictator, and they certainly don't blame him for the fact that up to 30,000 dissidents went missing during the country's "dirty war." Those disappearances are attributed to a military dictatorship that ruled from 1976 to 1983, after Perón's death.

"This type of program causes great harm, because the disappearances are still an open wound here," former congressman Lorenzo Pepe, who now heads the Juan Domingo Perón Institute, said of the episode. "This is highly offensive to Argentines."

The reference to Madonna also riled Peronistas. Perón's second wife, Eva, is so beloved here that her ardent backers launched protests after the pop star was cast to portray her in the 1996 movie "Evita."

"The part about Madonna -- that was too much," Pepe said.

We laughed out loud at the Madonna line. It doesn't matter what your race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or any other defining description, sooner or later The Simpsons will skewer you too. You might as well sit back and enjoy it.

Disney Admits to California Misadventure

Being a Disneyland annual passholder for over 20 years (and a former employee from long, long ago), I take a keen interest in what goes on over there. My family visited California Adventure for the first time on the second day it was open and was shocked to see a nearly empty park. It had been raining during the day and the weather was cold and damp, but in about six hours we were able to walk onto nearly every ride and attraction in the park. Given the hype and buildup during the months prior to opening and the large crowds that showed up on opening day, we had expected to be cheek-to-cheek with thousands of other visitors.

In the subsequent years we've always found California Adventure to have a fraction of the crowd that would be in Disneyland, and often when Disneyland was too packed for any fun, we'd cross the plaza and go to the wide open spaces of California Adventure. Even The Simpsons poked fun at the park in an episode in which Homer was trying to hide his fugitive mother:

HOMER: Mom, I'm gonna hide you where there's no one around for miles. Disney's California Adventure!

Disney has tried to fix the attendance problems by adding A Bug's Land for little kids and the Hollywood Tower of Terror for the bigger kids, but the park is still under performing. Today the Wall Street Journal is detailing plans by the Disney company for an overhaul of the park that will cost more than the original construction cost of the park. (h/t Hugh Hewitt)

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Since its 2001 debut, the Walt Disney Co. theme park Disney's California Adventure has floundered in the shadow of its legendary neighbor, Disneyland. To fix it, Disney is now planning a $1.1 billion overhaul -- the most extensive makeover the company has ever given to a theme park.

Disney's board recently approved the investment, which will be poured into California Adventure over roughly five years, according to people familiar with the plan. The sum is particularly significant, considering the theme park cost around $1 billion to build and Disney has already spent more than $100 million trying to improve it.

Originally aimed at luring visitors to spend more time and money at the Disneyland Resort, California Adventure has been criticized as lacking Disney's trademark creative spark. The California theme has fallen flat with visitors from the western U.S., who make up the bulk of attendance. Last year, the park drew just under six million visitors, compared with nearly 15 million at Disneyland and short of Disney's original forecast of seven million visitors a year for the new park.

Now Disney hopes to turn the park around by making it more like its successful neighbor, filled with references to company founder Walt Disney, say people familiar with the plan. A key project will be redesigning the entrance plaza, now a hodgepodge of California icons, and replacing it with something akin to Disneyland's signature Main Street.

Just as Main Street harks back to Walt Disney's hometown of Marceline, Mo., in the early 1900s, California Adventure's new entrance will trace the footsteps of Walt Disney from when he arrived in Los Angeles in the 1920s, these people say. Similar to Disneyland's iconic castle, the redesigned park will feature a replica of Hollywood's former Carthay Circle theater, where Walt Disney premiered the movie "Snow White" in 1937.

The new-look park also will be expanded by around 12 acres and will bulk up its attractions, with a heavy emphasis on animated movies created by Pixar, including "Cars" and "Toy Story."

I think my family's feelings about the park would pretty much mirror what this young annual passholder had to say:

On a recent afternoon at the Disneyland Resort, 18-year-old season-pass holder Megan White made a standard complaint: "Disneyland is a magical place, but California Adventure is just a theme park you can get anywhere." Ms. White, of Valencia, Calif., adds she spends most of her visits at Disneyland, only entering California Adventure for one or two rides because it has "no imagination."

Instead of "imagineering" a bunch of new, creative...and expensive, attractions for this park, Disney went with off-the-shelf rides that you can find at just about any amusement park or county fair. There really wasn't much special about them. When you visit the Haunted Mansion or Pirates in Disneyland you know you're seeing something you can see anywhere else (except another Disney park), and there are lots of attractions like that in Disneyland. The Tower of Terror and Soaring Over California are the only attractions at California Adventure that have the special Disney "Wow!" factor. I'm convinced that Walt Disney would never have approved California Adventure as it exists today.

I'm glad to see them try and improve the park because the costs of the annual passports keep increasing and I'd like to think I'm getting more for my money. However, there's part of me that hopes the crowds don't increase that much since it is nice not to be in the constant crush of people that you find in Disneyland.

UPDATE: Here's another article on Disney's plans for California Adventure.

Baby Einstein or Baby Homer Simpson?

The current parenting trend of having your little ones watch tapes like Baby Einstein may not be working out as planned:

Parents hoping to raise baby Einsteins by using infant educational videos are actually creating baby Homer Simpsons, scientists said today.

For every hour a day that babies 8 to 16 months old watched such popular video series as Brainy Baby or Baby Einstein, they knew six to eight fewer words than other children. ...

The videos, which are designed to engage a baby's attention, hop from scene to scene with minimal dialogue and include mesmerizing images, like a lava lamp.

Christakis said children whose parents read to them or told them stories had bigger vocabularies.

"I would rather babies watch American Idol than these videos," Christakis said, explaining that there is at least a chance their parents would watch with them - which does have developmental benefits.

I will admit that when my kids were little there were times we plopped them down in front of the TV. It wasn't Baby Einstein, but Disney Sing-a-Long Songs or Hap Palmer's Baby Songs. The kids loved them and it gave mom a much needed break. They were never meant to do anything but provide a little wholesome entertainment so mom could get some things done.

Given the musicial proclivities of both my kids, those tapes were probably time well spent. In fact, we still have them because someday there may once again be little feet running around and a grandma and grampa that need a break.

The Simpsons Movie Review

Last night I took the kids to see The Simpsons Movie at a large theater complex in Irvine. Whenever a hot new movie comes out this theater is usually packed with long lines for each showing. To my surprise, we arrived at 6:40 and bought tickets for the 7:30 show, and although there was a line designated for that show, there wasn't anybody in it. They still made us wait there, and when the theater toady came to get us there were only about 10 people in line.

We were in one of the largest theaters in the complex, and though people kept coming in until showtime, the room was probably only 60% full when the previews started. The boxoffice numbers have been pretty big, but they weren't busting down the doors in Irvine.

The movie started out very promising. The first 15 minutes or so were pretty funny - typical Simpsons stuff jabbing at everyone's sacred cows. However, after that it markedly slowed down and frankly by the end, was a little boring. The Simpsons as a concept works pretty well in a 22 minute TV show, but ran out of ideas in a 2 hour movie. The reviews have been remarkably high for this movie (as I pointed out here), but if I were to rate it on the same 100 point scale, I probably would have been down in the 60's somewhere.

It was okay - a pleasant diversion for awhile, but whereas I don't mind seeing episodes of TV version over and over again, I don't have any desire to see this movie again.

The Simpsons Movie Debuts Today

I was a latecomer to Simpsons viewing. For years I had heard that the show was sacrilegious, anti-conservative et al, and purposely avoided it. It was frequently cited by conservative political and religious leaders as a sign of a declining moral society. Then one day while talking to a very dedicated Christian friend, he told me that his one vice was watching The Simpsons with his 7 year old son. I figured if he loved the show so much it couldn't be all that bad. You know what, he was right.

Is it sacrilegious and anti-conservative? You bet. It's also anti-every other sacred cow on both sides of the political and religious aisles and for a number of years now it has been required viewing in our household. I'm actually kind of glad I missed those early Simpsons years since the animation has come a long way from the early, more crudely drawn work. The show has gotten more liberal in the past couple of years. I wrote a piece awhile back critical of the sudden influx of anti-war messages, but they still take enough shots at liberal icons to be funny.

The long-awaited Simpsons movie debuts today, and the Moviephone reviews are very strong - an average of 81 our of 100. The Washington Post gave it 100 while the Boston Globe only came in with a 63. As evidenced by the 2004 presidential election, people from Boston don't have much of a sense of humor. You can see an assortment of reviews here.

We'll probably try and see it this weekend and I'll let you know what I think.

UPDATE: My review.

Homer Simpson Offends the Pagans

The Simpsons' Movie comes out in a week or two and the producers have a full court publicity press going on, including this:

A 180 foot image of Homer Simpson has been painted into the hillside, next to the famous fertility symbol - the Cerne Abbas giant - in Dorset. Pagans are not happy with the new addition to the hillside, and plan some 'rain magic' to get it washed away.

Apparently, the pagans are upset that Homer is wearing his tighty-whities as opposed to the extremely anatomically correct giant next door.

At least the pagans have not demonstrated a propensity to cut off people's heads who offend their beliefs. They've got that going for them.

Theme Park News

For those of you who are theme park fans as I am, Nikki Finke has some news about movies that will soon become theme park attractions. You can read them here:

-Harry Potter Theme Park at Universal Studios Florida. I'm assuming Harry will have all his clothes on in the theme park (unlike his stage appearance in Equus).

-The Simpsons Ride, also at Universal Studios in Florida. This one will apparently replace the Back to the Future ride which has grown dated since the movie's original 1985 release. Most kids today have no idea what a Delorean is (or was).

Apu Will Be So Proud

It's a great day for Indian convenience store owners everywhere:

It appears as though the world's largest convenience store will get Simpsonized, though 7-Eleven Inc. said the deal isn't done yet.

But at a company event yesterday in Richmond, officials showcased their planned promotional efforts with major upcoming films, including "The Simpsons Movie."

If all goes as planned, the convenience store chain plans to refit 11 stores across the U.S. — Richmond is an unlikely choice — to resemble the front of the Kwik-E-Mart, the convenience store that Homer and other characters frequent in the classic cartoon TV series.

I wonder if they'll have Squishee machines too?

Obama Announces

Barack Obama has made the formal announcement of his candidacy for president, but according to Scott Ott, things did not go as smoothly as planned:

Obama Declares in Springfield, But Simpsons Not Invited
By Scott Ott on U.S. News

(2007-02-10) — In what many consider a backhanded slap at the conservative Fox News Channel, Democrat Sen. Barack Obama plans to officially declare his presidential candidacy today in Springfield, but his campaign has not invited the town’s most famous residents — Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie Simpson — to the speech.

The controversy over the Simpson snubbing threatens to overshadow what should have been the high-point of Mr. Obama’s career, and his greatest accomplishment to date.

The Simpsons, whose fame grew from simple comedy sketches and led to a popular Fox TV show and a feature-length Hollywood movie, have almost single-handedly put Springfield on the map and made it virtually the best-loved town in America.

“Obama is using Springfield to ride Homer’s coattails,” said Mr. Simpson’s agent, “He says he’s running a new kind of political campaign, but by ignoring the Simpsons right in Homer’s backyard, he sends a clear message that it’s politics as usual.”

That will prove to be a costly error.

What's With The Simpsons?

I'm a big fan of The Simpsons, the longest running animated series on TV. I think they're up to 19 years or something now. The show has always been hopelessly politically incorrect, which is one of the things that endears it to its fans.

However, this season something has happened. The show has suddenly taken on a decidedly anti-Iraq war tone with not-too-thinly veiled criticism of the war in the past two episodes. For the first time I'm hearing "preachy" coming from the show rather than humor. It's not an attractive change.

In addition to the anti-war shots, last night's episode was basically a 30 minute anti-Army slam, which makes for pretty curious timing coming just one day after Veteran's Day. It was easily the most unfunny Simpsons episode I've ever seen (and I think I've seen them all).

Perhaps the creators of the show have finally given in to the lefty world in which they live and work and have simply run out of ideas after so many years on the air. If so, it's time to pull the plug before they cheapen the entire franchise. It was political correctness that made the show successful, not political activism. We get enough of that out of Hollywood without seeing it in a cartoon as well.

Fox Finds Faith

I wondered how long it would take until a major movie studio realized that there was a potentially huge market for faith-based movies. Anyone paying attention to the box office numbers for "Passion of the Christ" would have figured that out pretty quickly, but movie execs are not the swiftest on the planet. After all, they still pump out "R" rated movies despite the fact that "G" and "PG" movies regularly outsell "R" movies at the box office.

The first studio to take advantage of the Christian market will be Fox:

The company that brought TV viewers racy and irreverent programs such as "Nip/Tuck," "Temptation Island" and "The Simpsons" has found religion.

In the biggest commitment of its sort by a Hollywood studio, News Corp.'s Fox Filmed Entertainment is expected to unveil plans today to capture the gargantuan Christian audience that made "The Passion of the Christ" a global phenomenon.

The home entertainment division of Rupert Murdoch's movie studio plans to produce as many as a dozen films a year under a banner called FoxFaith. At least six of those films will be released in theaters under an agreement with two of the nation's largest chains, AMC Theatres and Carmike Cinemas.

Of course, it's not enough to put out Christian-themed movies. They have to put out good Christian-themed movies if they want to tap into the huge faith-based market. The Christian market won't support junk just because it has a faith-related theme.

LA Times Reports on Rift Between Chuck Smith and Son

Chuck Smith, the 79-year-old founder of Calvary Chapel, seems to be involved in more disputes as he ages. Earlier this year I reported on his cutting of all ties with Rick Warren and the Purpose Driven Church materials, and Sunday the LA Times had a lengthy piece on the rift between Chuck Sr. and his son and pastor of a South Orange County church, Chuck Jr.

From his pulpit in Santa Ana, Chuck Smith's voice thunders with certainty. He denounces homosexuality as a "perverted lifestyle," finds divine wrath in earthquakes and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and promises imminent Armageddon in a deep, sure voice.

If his message is grim, the founder of the Jesus People and the Calvary Chapel movement bears the ruddy good cheer of a 79-year-old believer who insists he has never known a day's doubt or despair.

From the pulpit of Capo Beach Calvary, 25 miles south of his father's church, Chuck Smith Jr.'s voice trembles with vulnerability and grapples with ambiguity. Without a trace of fire and brimstone, he speaks of Christianity as a "conversation" rather than a dogma, plumbs such TV shows as "The Simpsons" for messages, and aims to reach "generations of the post-modern age" that distrust blind faith and ironclad authority.

There is a tradition among superstar evangelists like Chuck Smith the elder of bequeathing the pulpit to a son. Billy Graham did it, as did Robert H. Schuller.

However, it has been ages since anyone considered the younger Smith a possible successor to his father's 15,000-congregation ministry, the symbolic center of a network of independently run Calvary churches: about 1,000 across the United States, including two of the three largest non-Roman Catholic churches in California, plus radio and TV ministries.

Instead, critics whispered that the son was a dangerous impostor. Last year, those whispers exploded into a full-blown din. Online protests and fliers distributed at the younger Smith's church demanded that he drop the "Calvary" name because of his increasingly liberal drift on such non-debatable issues as the evil of homosexuality and the promise of hell for unbelievers. "What will it take for Chuck Sr. to stop the nepotism?" blogged Calvary congregant Jackie Alnor, one of the critics leading the charge. "Does his son have to burn incense to Isis and Zeus before he is disfellowshipped from a Bible-believing fellowship of churches?"

By last spring, one thing had become clear to Smith Jr.: Sprawling as it was, the church his father had built — the place that once embraced a generation of drug-addled hippies and helped change the way many Americans worshipped — had little room left for him.

I've never attended a Calvary Chapel fellowship, so I guess you could say I don't have a God in this fight, but I do find it interesting that two significant disputes have arisen this year involving Chuck Sr.

Everything Joe Biden Knows About Indians He Learned From the Simpsons

As mentioned here before, Joe Biden's presidential bid is a gift to bloggers. Today, while greeting an Indian-American supporter he mentioned that the fastest growing ethnic group in Delaware is made up of folks moving from India to America. Then he added this (video here):

'You cannot enter a 7-11 or a Dunkin Donuts unless you have an Indian Accent'...

Senator Biden, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon thanks you.

Greatest Cultural Artifact of Our Age

No, it's not the Da Vinci Code, but The Simpsons. A must read for all Simpsons fans.

More Ringtone Troubles

Yesterday I had the story on the removal of a politically incorrect ringtone from Cingular's downloadable catalog, and today there's another ringtone story in the news - this time from Iraq (from Special Report):

The Iraqi parliament shut down briefly in only its second full day of business after a brawl broke out over a cell phone ring. The security detail for the parliament's Sunni speaker attacked Shiite legislator Ghufran al-Saidi's bodyguard on Monday after Saidi's phone repeatedly rang out a Shiite religious chant, interrupting the speaker's television interview nearby.

But when Saidi rose to complain on the parliament floor on Wednesday, the speaker ordered her microphone turned off, shut down all cameras and recessed the session leading some lawmakers to walk out in protest of what they called his brusque behavior.

I have to admit that hearing religious chants on somebody's phone (and I don't care what religion it is) would be more than annoying. I can't really blame them for getting upset.

Maybe they should all go with "The Simpsons" theme like I did.

Politically Correct Ringtones

One of the joys of modern cellphones is the ability to download custom ringtones to add a little enjoyment to the process of receiving calls. For instance, when somebody from my family calls, my phone plays the "Simpsons" theme. If it's a call from the quartet, it plays the old "Tonight Show" theme (from the Jonny Carson days).

Cingular has hundreds of ringtones available, but there's one less today than there was yesterday:

Cingular Wireless LLC pulled a ringtone from its Web site Tuesday after learning that it carried a message the company called "blatantly offensive."

The cell phone company became aware of the ringtone, which uses mixed English and Spanish and threatens deportation, after an inquiry from a reporter for The Brownsville Herald.

The newspaper reported in its online edition Tuesday that the ringtone started with a siren, followed by a male voice saying in a Southern drawl, "This is la Migra," a slang term for the Border Patrol.

"Por favor, put the oranges down and step away from the cell phone. I repeat-o, put the oranges down and step away from the telephone-o. I'm deporting you back home-o," the voice continued.

Hispanic activists called the product racist.

I wonder how many of those they sold? If they hadn't pulled it right away, they would have sold a million of 'em as soon as the word got out. I bet some exec at Cingular is secretly mad that he had to pull it before they could cash in.

UPDATE: More Ringtone Troubles

Just for Fun - Make Your Own Simpsons Character

Let's set aside all the bad news for a moment and have a little fun. For those devoted fans of the The Simpsons (like me), you'll enjoy this - make your own Simpsons character at The Simpsonmaker.