“This will be the art event of the century! The greatest masterpiece of Italian Renaissance, Michelangelo’s David, on a coast-to-coast tour, United States.” – Italian Art Guy
“Sir, which cities will be included in your itinerary?” – Reporter
“Ah, New York, Springfield, and if we have time, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles.” – Italian Art Guy
This week we have four(!) outstanding pieces of serious Simpsons art from a bunch of foreigners. There’s a Canadian, a Frenchman, Brits, and one that I think is Brazilian, but I couldn’t tell for sure, and all of them are excellent and click worthy. There’s also a couple of people marking Groening’s birthday last week, several others who agree with us, two mentions of “Bart’s Comet” since deadly rocks became all the rage last week, and a bunch more links about “The Longest Daycare”.
Enjoy.
Smooth Charlie’s four part Click of the Week presented in no particular order:
- The Simpsons – Fractured Language – Art constructed out of frozen Simpsons DVD images, sign language, and wood blocks. Excellent.
- The Airtight Tavern: Moebius vs The Simpsons – An artist named Quibe has made a worthy addition to those Simpsons-characters-in-famous-art images created by that limpfish guy. Also excellent.
- The Longest Daycare – Black and white badass image of Maggie, plus there’s Marge, Lisa, Bart and Homer at the guy’s DeviantART page.
- Simpsons Drawing Club – This is a (relatively) new Tumblr account that is nothing but fan made Simpsons drawings. See here and here for some of the standouts.
Happy Birthday Matt Groening: A look back at the legacy of the animation legend – A quick tour of some of what made the show so great that also agrees with us directly and indirectly. For the indirectly, all of the examples it cites for why the show was great (with one tiny exception) come from The Simpsons, not Zombie Simpsons. For the directly, there’s this:
Celebrity Cameos
Although this later became a hindrance due to including celebrities just for the sake of it, there is a plethora of worthwhile cameos from the illustrious kind.
Worth a read, and there’s an awesome, thirteen minute YouTube video that’s nothing but songs (none from Zombie Simpsons).
Sketchbook Feb 18, 2013 – This is just a sketch, but check out Kirk wearing a Gudger sweatshirt.
15th February 2013 – Matt Groening’s Birthday – Celebrating Groening’s birthday by watching Duffless, which itself just turned 20 on Monday.
Three (Day 47) – A woman took a picture of her son’s “Simpsons magazine” and, tsk-tsk, someone didn’t do the proof reading.
‘The Simpsons’ Oscar-Nominated Short, Starring Maggie And Baby Gerald – Warming Glow, a television blog named after a Simpsons reference, handles the delicate issue of being critical of Zombie Simpsons well here:
The short, titled The Longest Daycare, features Marge dropping Maggie off at daycare, and the butterfly-related adventure she goes on while she’s there. In four dialogue-free minutes, it manages to be both funny and charming, which [fill in complaint about newer seasons of The Simpsons versus the golden years].
Yes, Apatow’s Simpsons Script Will Be Rewritten – Confirmation from Mike Reiss that yes, they are going to make Judd Apatow’s script:
"We never got around to it, and decades went by," Reiss said. At one point, ten years or so after receiving Apatow’s idea — a hypnotist regresses Homer to childhood, enabling him to pal around with Bart — The Simpsons did an episode with a hypnotist, 2001′s "The Blunder Years," where Homer was hypnotized and discovered repressed memories, "so we had to wait another ten years," Reiss said.
Meh.
Your Top 20: Television Cartoons of All Time – This is from the same site that had the shown down at #10 for all time best shows, but it’s #1 here for cartoons.
Festival of Animation welcomes ‘Simpsons’ Producer David Silverman to La Jolla – The possibly-soon-to-be-Oscar-winner Silverman stopped by a San Diego animation festival and earned this nice writeup. Not much news, but Silverman does appear to be wearing a Homer T-shirt where he’s wearing 3-D glasses.
Dress up or dress down with a classic bow tie – Excellent reference:
Sporting a bow tie in broad daylight – or really anywhere other than a horse race — may seem the sole domain of uppity pricks. Donald Duck and the Cat in the Hat gave bow ties a comedic reputation, and Krusty the Clown didn’t exactly help the professionalism of bow ties either.
The article is actually in favor of rocking the bowtie, but the truth is, you should never trust a man who wears a bowtie. A cravat’s supposed to point down to accentuate the genitals. Why’d you want to trust somebody whose tie points out to accentuate his ears?
Oscar Shorts: Animated nominees – Comparing and discussing all the nominated movies, goes with “Fresh Guacamole” as the predicted winner.
Maggie Simpson’s Oscar dress – The show put out some drawings of Maggie in snazzy looking Oscar dresses this week. Cute.
David Silverman on Guiding ‘The Simpsons’ to the Oscars via ‘The Longest Daycare’ (Video) – Some fluff background on Silverman’s career and how “The Longest Daycare” got started.
Maggie Simpson Stars in ‘The Longest Daycare’: Where Babies Face Off – Still more praise:
the The Longest Daycare uses Maggie’s silence to reinvent the sort of irreverent comedy and affable charm that has made the series so enduring.
Review: Oscar Nominated Shorts – An animator’s take on the short:
The film is funny but it’s also very touching and it isn’t afraid to mix the two to get the desired effect. This again, is why the Simpsons has been on for so long, because of its ability to have such empathy in its characters. The animation itself is a blend of 2-D animation with 3-D elements, which is quickly becoming the standard today and it was used very effectively. I think the fact that these people have been working with these characters for so long just gives this short a certain level of polish that only comes with time and the 3-D elements are well integrated and don’t feel in any way added unnecessarily. So how have they readapted to their original format: with humorous elegance.
And the Oscar Goes to…D’oh – Seeing “The Longest Daycare” rekindles the Simpsons spark for someone who lost it around Season 10.
HOMER SIMPSON – It doesn’t quite qualify as great art, but here’s Homer as done in snow. They even got the hair, bravo.
Five Best Fictional Meteor/Asteroid/Comet Moments – Bart’s Comet ranks at #2 here. Great list idea.
I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that – Watching 2001: A Space Odyssey for the first time and finally getting all the references. Don’t forget the Dawn of Man thing at the beginning of “Lisa’s Pony”.
Happy Valentines Day Part Deuce! – A (fan made?) choo-choo valentine that reverses the syntax.
I Got the Job! – Celebrating the acquisition of employment with YouTube of Homer doing the same. Congratulations.
Simpsons – Oink (gif) – Animated .gif of Homer meeting Old Zeke. Heh.
A Good Day to Die Hard…In 10 Words – Don’t worry, boy, you don’t have to follow in my footsteps. That’s okay, I don’t even like using the bathroom after you.
That Meteor That Struck Russia…In 10 Words – At least it landed in a lake and not on someone’s bomb shelterini.
Beautiful Creatures…In 10 Words – Must . . . drop . . . pantaloons.
‘The Simpsons’ Perfectly Sums Up U.S. Politics In Less Than A Minute – Shaky-cam YouTube of the epic PTA meeting from “The PTA Disbands”. The finger thing means the taxes.
Mississippi looks like Bart Simpson – I’ve seen this comparison before, but this one does have a nice image to go with it.
The Simpsons Might Win an Oscar! – A brief discussion of “The Longest Daycare” that agrees with us:
I rather enjoyed this little cartoon. The ending is especially fun. And it would be delightful to see The Simpsons win an Oscar. I’m a long-time Simpsons fan, though, of course, I haven’t seen a new episode in years.
Of course.
Area Man Has Opinion On Oscar-Nominated Short – And finally, I get to end the way I like, with someone who agrees with us, rather epically, it turns out:
Maggie Simpson’s animated adventure “The Longest Daycare,” screened before last year’s Ice Age: Continental Drift, has been nominated for an Academy Award. I didn’t see the thing until five minutes ago, and my reactions are thus: Thank Jeebus a cinematic “Simpsons” product of merit has come along to atone for that deflated mess in 2007 they called The Simpsons Movie. Let me also jam in the requisite complaint that “The Simpsons” tv show hasn’t been able to do anything with a fraction of this much soul since Dikembe Mutombo played for Atlanta.
Where is the soul, “Simpsons” brain trust? Where is the love? Must you give us irony in place of balls, balls in place of brains, and brains in place of soul?
Well said.
