Simpsons Characters: 58 out of 63. I’m embarrassed about a few of the ones I missed. Via Reddit.

US, Los Angeles, Kwik-E-Mart 7-Eleven (2007)

In my continuing quest to bore every reader of this webpage by featuring clips from long canceled television shows, here’s the first of a series of clips I’ll be posting from the short-lived Mission Hill. Mission Hill was created by two former Simpsons writers (Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein) who realized that there were almost no characters on that show between the ages of 15 and 30, and that there might be a market for a show that catered to that audience. They were apparently dead wrong, as the show was canceled after only half a season, but it’s worth a nostalgic look back. Mission Hill tells the story of a collection of mid-twenties quasi-slackers living in a hip urban neighborhood with one of the slacker’s (Andy French’s) younger, high school-aged brother (Kevin French).

In this clip, from the first episode, Kevin French discusses girlfriends with his nerdy, soon-to-be best friends:

HomerNews.com isn’t about what I wanted it to be about.

Two quick notes about the aforementioned Planet X:

1. The book, frustratingly, keeps referring to some incident in which all the characters met in the past.  Planet X is apparently a sequel to Star Trek/X-Men: Second Contact (a comic book also featuring the X-Men and the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation) which was itself a sequel of sorts to Star TreX (another comic book featuring the X-Men and the cast of Star Trek: The Original Series).  Who knew?
2. The book is infuriating.  It’s just wrong.  I can’t really flush out why, but having Star Trek characters have full conversations with X-Men characters in an official piece of Star Trek fiction is irritating.  It’s not like it’s some blogger’s fan fiction or something.  Each time they interact I want to close the book and walk away.  These groups were never designed to talk to each other and efforts to make them do so feel forced and strange.  It would be like throwing the Simpsons into an episode of NYPD Blue and expecting all the characters to continue to behave in their traditional manner.  It just wouldn’t work.

Writing this makes me feel extremely dorky.  Also, reading the book makes me feel extremely dorky.

I’m currently watching my way through the commentary tracks on season eight of the Simpsons. This season’s commentaries are the first to feature outsiders: one episode featured a producer’s children (annoying) and one features Jim Denton (confusing).

Episode 12, Mountain of Madness, features commentary by "Jim Denton ‘Contest Winner’ (Portrayed by Dave Thomas)." Since Dave Thomas is a fairly well-known comic actor, I assumed there would be some schtick. But there’s no schtick. It just sounds like some guy from Tallahassee won a contest and is now sitting in the recording room. He doesn’t say anything funny or interesting. During his introduction he gets chided by Matt Groening for getting out of his assigned seat and Groening sounds genuinely annoyed about it. They don’t sound like they want him in the room. Listen to Jim Denton’s introduction and him being chided:

 

 

I don’t get it. What’s the joke here? Why have Dave Thomas come in and pretend to be a boring contest winner when you could just have an authentic boring contest winner do it? He talks about the founding of the national parks system!  Why not have Dave Thomas come in and be funny?  What am I missing?

Here’s an .mp3 of the above embedded sound file.

Here’s a short audio clip of Matt Groening whining about people watching the Simpsons at incorrect aspect ratios.

Hey can I complain about something? You at home, you’d be better be watching this in the right aspect ratio. I don’t want to see this thing being stretched, ok? It’s 4:3 aspect ratio, this is not a widescreen show. So if you want to, you know, I know you think you’re getting your money’s worth from your widescreen TV, but forget it. Watch it in the right aspect ratio. Thank you.

In the commentary track for a season eight episode of the Simpsons, Matt Groening mentions that he at one point was positioned to pitch Rodney Dangerfield some ideas for future projects. As he was about to enter the room, he was told by Dangerfield’s staff that he couldn’t pitch any “fish out of water” stories.

What else would you pitch Rodney Dangerfield?

If I were Crazymonk (or New York Anthony, or Troeltsch, or jbg, or really anyone else who reads this blog), I would say that’s like telling [some-pretentious-director] not to do [whatever-pretentious-director-thing-they're-known-for]. Sadly I’m not good at knowing what people known for, so I’ll have to leave it to your imagination.

A few months ago CrazyMonk wrote about Dennis Kucinich’s odd speech at an early Democratic forum in which he twirled around chanting “no strings attached.” It was weird.

Anyway, in rewatching an old episode of the Simpsons I noticed that maybe it wasn’t so weird after all. Dennis Kucinich claims that he has “no strings attached,” but as he’s whirling, whirling, whirling toward freedom, is he right? This short video focuses on whether Dennis Kucinich has, in fact, been taking his marching orders from the Simpsons’ writers all along:

Is Kucinich controlling Citizen Kang, or is Citizen Kang controlling Kucinich? Only further investigation can tell us the truth. I expect Lyndon Larouche and his followers to lead any such investigation.

Here’s the .wmv for when YouTube/Fox improperly DMCA me.

The era of the Kwik-E-Mart is over. I dropped by the Los Angeles Kwik-E-Mart today and it was back to its sad former existence as an ordinary convenience store. No lines, no security guards, no fighting for parking, no nerdy gawkers with their cameras… boring. They took off the new facade; the store now looks old, broken and faded.

Click to big-ify

This means that I was never able to purchase Buzz Cola, or Frosted Krusty-O’s in the store, and for that I’m sad. As far as I know, they were never restocked in Los Angeles. I was, however, able to buy a pink donut today, which was good, but there was something missing when I had to buy it from a regular old 7-Eleven. It just wasn’t the same.

Farewell Kwik-E-Mart, you will be missed.

I was thwarted in my previous attempts to buy Simpsons merchandise at the local Kwik-E-Mart, but I figured that since it had been a few days, and since I’m an American, I would try again. I am fortunate enough to live in the only area with two themed Kwik-E-Marts, so I gave them both a shot.

Both had enormous lines, and both were sold out of all the good stuff (just like they were a few days ago). They apparently are totally unable to actually stock the merchandise:

If you’re curious what the line was like, here are the pictures I took at both locations, but since the line in Burbank actually snaked around the building, the best way to get a feel for it is through this short video:

While I guess I can understand the benefit in terms of media attention that having your products constantly sold out and very visible lines around the stores generates, it’s pretty off-putting for someone who just wants to enjoy some Buzz Cola and Kruty-Os. 7-Eleven should use this wave of attention as justification for transforming more stores into Kwik-E-Marts and then use that to gain a second round of buzz… plus then I’ll be able to actually buy some Buzz Cola!

I attempted to visit the Simpsons themed 7-Eleven in Los Angeles a few times yesterday, but there was always a line out the door. I went back early this morning only to find a sign apologizing that they were sold out of the following items:

• Chutnee Squishees
• Buzz Cola
• Frosty Krusty-O’s
• Tofu Dogs
• Some other things

Like I was going to stick around to buy a non-Simpsons themed item? As far as I could tell, the only thing they hadn’t sold out of were the pink donuts… but I’ve had pink donuts before! I wanted Buzz Cola and Krusty-O’s and I’m exceedingly disappointed that I couldn’t buy them. Here’s what they should have had.

Let’s hope they didn’t blow their entire marketing budget for the novelty items on July 4th… I want to find that jagged metal O.

UPDATE: Here’s a picture of the actual sign:

And the actual text:

Dear Customer,

I am very sorry but we are out of (our minds) and: Buzz Cola, Krusty O’s, Radioactive Man, Tofu Dogs, Chutney Squishee.

Please try again
APU

They claim that they’re going to be able to restock the sold out items, but it’s been a few days now and things aren’t looking any better.