Project Ludovico
- Thread starter Athene
- Start date
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- Tags
- athenemas film media movie review
CompassJimbo
Where’s Your North?
- Location
- The former Rubber Capital of the World
Remember, The Simpsons will continue to Predict Everything.
Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
That's racist!
I call them "Night's African American Agents", thank you very much.
Jace911
Spider-Dork
- Location
- The Gold-Bricking State
Athene
Rise for the Shadow Queen
- Location
- Dream of The 90s
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I love Ronin but I never got into Bourne because I was a huge fan of the books and I was like "wat".
Jace911
Spider-Dork
- Location
- The Gold-Bricking State
Fun fact, Kenneth Hite's universal pitch he throws to interviews and play groups is "it's like Bourne if Treadstone were vampires". Take that as you will.
Got any film recommendations?
DocSpooky
Humblest in the World
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I don't know why, but I think I laughed harder at this scene than I did any other joke in Invader Zim.
Athene
Rise for the Shadow Queen
- Location
- Dream of The 90s
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Also aw jeez, I had a post but it got eaten after I thought I had posted it. >.>
If you mean in spy stuff, Three Days of the Condor.
Jace911
Spider-Dork
- Location
- The Gold-Bricking State
I'll check it out!
Athene
Rise for the Shadow Queen
- Location
- Dream of The 90s
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The third season of The Simpsons is the link between its roots and its prime. The animation was getting better and the writers weren't afraid to use it. It moved from a smart show with wordy jokes to a well oiled comedy machine. The quality range is so dramatic, you could mistake it for two seasons. It wasn't the 4th season yet, which is the start of my most beloved period of the show, but it was firing on all cylinders by the end.
If Season 3 had a theme, it was familial failure. Three episodes in a row dealt with subpar fathering out of a total of 9 episodes dealing with the subject. A further three were devoted to people being shitty friends. The writers didn't even realize they were doing it at the time and looking back were shocked by how often they went to this well. Regardless, there are a great many classic episodes in this season. Frankly, as it moves forward every episode is a classic. To choose the most indicative ones is no easy feat and even now I'm not sure I managed it. I'm going to devote later articles to episodes that run along themes such as Flashbacks, Sideshow Bob, etc. in order to make it easier, but its still a tough decision. Here are what I hope are the best examples of this season.
The tests say that Bart should go into law enforcement and that Lisa needs to stay in the kitchen. Lisa is crushed and every attempt to cheer her up results in people telling her she's never going to achieve anything in life. Bart meanwhile goes on a ride along with the police. Responding to a robbery by Snake, the cops have Bart cover them when their backup doesn't arrive. Thanks to a conveniently narrow alley, Bart isn't killed and Snake Jailbird is arrested. Bart has had a taste of power and he likes it.
Lisa becomes a delinquent and a rebel, helping the bad girls at school trash the schools puma. Skinner's saw an awful lot in Nam, but who would deface a harmless puma?!
Its at this point I veer off to talk about Seymore Skinner, Vietnam Veteran. Now, we're not going to talk about the rank betrayal of his character from Season 9 yet, that's coming, believe me. But this is the season that Skinner came into his own as a character. Him being a Vietnam Vet came about because George Meyer found the idea of a cartoon character having been to Vietnam intrinsically hilarious . The Simpsons were hitting jokes that were previously taboo. The poor treatment of vets, the effects of war, and the pointlessness of the Vietnam War making none of it worth it. Skinner was a combat veteran and POW, and it quickly became a core part of his character. Its always with him and he's probably one of the highest profile fictional Vietnam vets. I'll be coming back to that, but I wanted to take a moment to recognize it.
Skinner proposes that Bart become a hall monitor after he gets Groundskeeper Willie arrested. Fantasizing getting stabbed to death on the witness stand by a mob boss, he accepts. In no time at all he establishes authoritarian rule in the name of the faculty. All the energy he normally spends on malevolence goes towards keeping a stranglehold on the students, quickly and efficiently punishing anyone that steps out of line.
Lisa meanwhile is on a downhill spiral, rebelling against authority and giving no care to her education. If its all pointless, why bother? When pressed for an answer by a teacher on a history question, Lisa mocks her teacher for her ignorance. In response she's given detention but has an idea on how to get back at the teachers.
As someone who only had a few good teachers in her time, I have always loved this joke, because its a great commentary on the poor quality of many American schools and their teachers. Meanwhile, Bart convinces Skinner to do a highly illegal search of every locker on campus to try to find the missing books, because "What has the Supreme Court done for us recently?" Bart is shocked to find them in Lisa's locker because stealing the teachers edition is something even he didn't dare to do in his "pre-fascist days". He sacrifices himself for her though, taking the blame and eating an entire year of detention.
Why? Because he believes that Lisa can go farther than him and he loves her, reinspiring her to do well in school.
Saturdays of Thunder
It was hard picking which of the Fatherhood trilogy to highlight. There is the excellent Jewish humor of Like Father, Like Clown, where it dives into Krusty's shaky Judaism and his estrangement from his Rabbi father. Lisa's Pony has Homer really screw up, but most of the episode is focused on his attempts to keep the horse that he feels makes his daughter love him again.
Saturdays of Thunder is completely about Homer's shaky skills as a parent and attempts to fix it. Bart is building a soapbox derby racer but Homer is oblivious to it. Patty and Selma get Marge to put Homer to a fatherhood test out of a magazine, which he flunks, not knowing the answer to any of the questions. He calls the Fatherhood Institute that put out the study and when they hear his score, they immediately send a wood paneled station wagon to pick him up.
So there is an elephant in the room on this episodes and a few others this season. That elephant is Bill Cosby. The Simpsons was pitted directly against The Cosby Show and this was the height of his popularity in popular culture. There are a lot of sarcastic references to him and his ghost written book Parenthood in this episode, with one joke being "Bill Cosby, you've saved The Simpsons".
Yeah...
The Simpsons is going to be the much better regarded property for a long time to come, but at the time of this episode he was a beloved figure and aside from the general unpleasantness of that situation, it makes for a lot of retroactively uncomfortable moments.
So, they tell him to find a hobby he can do with his son, which in this case is Soapbox derby. They start working on it and bond over building it together. Unfortunately, Homer is an awful builder and their racer is an embarrassing disaster at the qualifying match. Nelsons is well built out of stolen parts with someone in the trunk and Martin's "Honor Roller" is a wind tunnel tested speed machine.
With Martin laid up with a broken arm, he asks Bart to drive his racer for him, and Bart does so to Homer's anger and disappointment. He gives up on supporting his son and is furious with "that homewrecker" Martin for taking his son away from him, refusing to go to the finals match. However in his depressed funk, he sees the test again and is able to pass with a hundred percent after a very quick chat with Flanders to get the last point. He shows up to cheer his son to victory as Nelson tells Bart the better man won ("The driver is essentially ballast" insists Martin) before Bart begins taunting and belittling him with his father's support because he doesn't know if he'll ever win anything again.
This is Homer at his early season meanest as Ned Flanders holds a BBQ to announce he's quitting his job at the Pharmaceutical company to open his own small business. Over a turkey bone wish, Homer wishes for the Leftorium to fail, after deciding wishing for Ned's actual death was a bit too far. Despite having many oppertunities to do so, he doesn't help Ned one bit, going so far as to buy everything Ned owns for $75 as he tries to keep afloat. After seeing Ned crying outside his store, he tries to give him his stuff back only to find Ned evicted from his house. Realizing he's been literally the worst, Homer rallies the left handed members of the town to shop at Ned's store, saving the day.
This is most likely Homer at his most unpleasant by this point, as while he learns his lesson in the end, he was uncomfortably evil to Ned. The episode often still works thanks to good writing but its a grim portent of where the show would go wrong in the Scully days.
Its notable for introducing America to Schadenfreude though. Speaking of Germans...
Lets get it out of the way:
Mr Burns is depressed at running the power plant ("controlled nuclear fission is a harsh mistress Snappy") and how he feels its prohibited him from doing all the things he wants to accomplish. Thanks to Homer, some visiting German businessmen buy it from him for $100M and begin trying to turn the plant around. They're nice, benevolent bosses who nonetheless desire efficiency and reliability. After interviewing everyone at the plant, they announce the following layoffs: Homer Simpson. That is all.
Homer sinks into a depressed rut of his own as Burns finds out that he misses the power that being a wealthy autocrat that owns a utility brings him, as Homer insulting him in a bar ("Lets go slumming Smithers!") makes him realize people don't fear him anymore. Meanwhile the Germans are discovering that the Power Plant is a complete disaster ("Ach du liber, raccoons!") and are so desperate to sell that they take half of what they offered Burns to get it off their hands. He hires Homer to keep him close so that he might crush him later.
The writers wanted to do a typical "Foreign company buys out American company" story but decided the Japanese were too stereotypical, so went with the Germans instead. Its a great episode, with a lot of high points like Smithers learning "Sycophantic German", Homer's near death stock broker and how bad Homer is as safety inspector. His attempts to save it don't help matters as he yells at people to "Safen up". This is a great high concept episode and a great sign of things to come.
Homer Alone
I'm not going to talk about Homer in this episode. He's a side character really, because its all about Marge. This is an episode about how being the domestic partner sucks. A lot. Marge puts extreme amounts of effort into her family but the stress starts to get to her here. She has to take care of a man child husband, two school age children and a baby. Everything goes wrong for her as she struggles to keep up in the face of being completely taken for granted. Every second of her day is taken up by a series of chores and she is a slow burning fuse after years without a break. Finally, she snaps, her car spinning out of control as she locks herself in her car in traffic and has to be talked out by Homer and the police. After getting pardoned because Quimby needs "The chick vote" in November, she tells Homer that she needs a vacation by herself at a spa resort. There we get to see her actually unwind and destress and be her own person. Sometimes what you need is a good movie, a sundae, some tequila and a nice bath.
And man doesn't she deserve it?
There's more than this to talk about though but for brevity I have to knock it down to only a handful of episodes. That's going to be even harder in future seasons as my favorite showrunner is coming up!
Stay tuned!
If Season 3 had a theme, it was familial failure. Three episodes in a row dealt with subpar fathering out of a total of 9 episodes dealing with the subject. A further three were devoted to people being shitty friends. The writers didn't even realize they were doing it at the time and looking back were shocked by how often they went to this well. Regardless, there are a great many classic episodes in this season. Frankly, as it moves forward every episode is a classic. To choose the most indicative ones is no easy feat and even now I'm not sure I managed it. I'm going to devote later articles to episodes that run along themes such as Flashbacks, Sideshow Bob, etc. in order to make it easier, but its still a tough decision. Here are what I hope are the best examples of this season.
Separate Vocations
A running joke on the Simpsons is how Bart's dreams of the future are...off. What he thinks is a cool future is always what most people would consider a bad ending. Rather than dream about being a successful rock star, he dreams about being a drug addled rock star throwing whiskey bottles at his friends. When a guidance counselor tells him that he always imagined Bart would turn into a homeless drifter, Bart is elated. He daydreams about being a veteran kicked out of town by a corrupt sheriff. Lisa on the other hand, dreams big. Thanks to Mr Bergstrom, she feels she can take on the world and do anything. She hasn't decided whether she'll die young yet but she's going to be famous musician, scientist and author. So when a fuck up on the CANT standardized test gives the two of them unexpected results, it turns things upside down.
The tests say that Bart should go into law enforcement and that Lisa needs to stay in the kitchen. Lisa is crushed and every attempt to cheer her up results in people telling her she's never going to achieve anything in life. Bart meanwhile goes on a ride along with the police. Responding to a robbery by Snake, the cops have Bart cover them when their backup doesn't arrive. Thanks to a conveniently narrow alley, Bart isn't killed and Snake Jailbird is arrested. Bart has had a taste of power and he likes it.
Lisa becomes a delinquent and a rebel, helping the bad girls at school trash the schools puma. Skinner's saw an awful lot in Nam, but who would deface a harmless puma?!
Its at this point I veer off to talk about Seymore Skinner, Vietnam Veteran. Now, we're not going to talk about the rank betrayal of his character from Season 9 yet, that's coming, believe me. But this is the season that Skinner came into his own as a character. Him being a Vietnam Vet came about because George Meyer found the idea of a cartoon character having been to Vietnam intrinsically hilarious . The Simpsons were hitting jokes that were previously taboo. The poor treatment of vets, the effects of war, and the pointlessness of the Vietnam War making none of it worth it. Skinner was a combat veteran and POW, and it quickly became a core part of his character. Its always with him and he's probably one of the highest profile fictional Vietnam vets. I'll be coming back to that, but I wanted to take a moment to recognize it.
Skinner proposes that Bart become a hall monitor after he gets Groundskeeper Willie arrested. Fantasizing getting stabbed to death on the witness stand by a mob boss, he accepts. In no time at all he establishes authoritarian rule in the name of the faculty. All the energy he normally spends on malevolence goes towards keeping a stranglehold on the students, quickly and efficiently punishing anyone that steps out of line.
As someone who only had a few good teachers in her time, I have always loved this joke, because its a great commentary on the poor quality of many American schools and their teachers. Meanwhile, Bart convinces Skinner to do a highly illegal search of every locker on campus to try to find the missing books, because "What has the Supreme Court done for us recently?" Bart is shocked to find them in Lisa's locker because stealing the teachers edition is something even he didn't dare to do in his "pre-fascist days". He sacrifices himself for her though, taking the blame and eating an entire year of detention.
Why? Because he believes that Lisa can go farther than him and he loves her, reinspiring her to do well in school.
Saturdays of Thunder
It was hard picking which of the Fatherhood trilogy to highlight. There is the excellent Jewish humor of Like Father, Like Clown, where it dives into Krusty's shaky Judaism and his estrangement from his Rabbi father. Lisa's Pony has Homer really screw up, but most of the episode is focused on his attempts to keep the horse that he feels makes his daughter love him again.
Saturdays of Thunder is completely about Homer's shaky skills as a parent and attempts to fix it. Bart is building a soapbox derby racer but Homer is oblivious to it. Patty and Selma get Marge to put Homer to a fatherhood test out of a magazine, which he flunks, not knowing the answer to any of the questions. He calls the Fatherhood Institute that put out the study and when they hear his score, they immediately send a wood paneled station wagon to pick him up.
So there is an elephant in the room on this episodes and a few others this season. That elephant is Bill Cosby. The Simpsons was pitted directly against The Cosby Show and this was the height of his popularity in popular culture. There are a lot of sarcastic references to him and his ghost written book Parenthood in this episode, with one joke being "Bill Cosby, you've saved The Simpsons".
Yeah...
The Simpsons is going to be the much better regarded property for a long time to come, but at the time of this episode he was a beloved figure and aside from the general unpleasantness of that situation, it makes for a lot of retroactively uncomfortable moments.
So, they tell him to find a hobby he can do with his son, which in this case is Soapbox derby. They start working on it and bond over building it together. Unfortunately, Homer is an awful builder and their racer is an embarrassing disaster at the qualifying match. Nelsons is well built out of stolen parts with someone in the trunk and Martin's "Honor Roller" is a wind tunnel tested speed machine.
With Martin laid up with a broken arm, he asks Bart to drive his racer for him, and Bart does so to Homer's anger and disappointment. He gives up on supporting his son and is furious with "that homewrecker" Martin for taking his son away from him, refusing to go to the finals match. However in his depressed funk, he sees the test again and is able to pass with a hundred percent after a very quick chat with Flanders to get the last point. He shows up to cheer his son to victory as Nelson tells Bart the better man won ("The driver is essentially ballast" insists Martin) before Bart begins taunting and belittling him with his father's support because he doesn't know if he'll ever win anything again.
When Flanders Failed
This is Homer at his early season meanest as Ned Flanders holds a BBQ to announce he's quitting his job at the Pharmaceutical company to open his own small business. Over a turkey bone wish, Homer wishes for the Leftorium to fail, after deciding wishing for Ned's actual death was a bit too far. Despite having many oppertunities to do so, he doesn't help Ned one bit, going so far as to buy everything Ned owns for $75 as he tries to keep afloat. After seeing Ned crying outside his store, he tries to give him his stuff back only to find Ned evicted from his house. Realizing he's been literally the worst, Homer rallies the left handed members of the town to shop at Ned's store, saving the day.
This is most likely Homer at his most unpleasant by this point, as while he learns his lesson in the end, he was uncomfortably evil to Ned. The episode often still works thanks to good writing but its a grim portent of where the show would go wrong in the Scully days.
Its notable for introducing America to Schadenfreude though. Speaking of Germans...
Burns Verkaufen Der Kraftwerk
Lets get it out of the way:
Mr Burns is depressed at running the power plant ("controlled nuclear fission is a harsh mistress Snappy") and how he feels its prohibited him from doing all the things he wants to accomplish. Thanks to Homer, some visiting German businessmen buy it from him for $100M and begin trying to turn the plant around. They're nice, benevolent bosses who nonetheless desire efficiency and reliability. After interviewing everyone at the plant, they announce the following layoffs: Homer Simpson. That is all.
Homer sinks into a depressed rut of his own as Burns finds out that he misses the power that being a wealthy autocrat that owns a utility brings him, as Homer insulting him in a bar ("Lets go slumming Smithers!") makes him realize people don't fear him anymore. Meanwhile the Germans are discovering that the Power Plant is a complete disaster ("Ach du liber, raccoons!") and are so desperate to sell that they take half of what they offered Burns to get it off their hands. He hires Homer to keep him close so that he might crush him later.
The writers wanted to do a typical "Foreign company buys out American company" story but decided the Japanese were too stereotypical, so went with the Germans instead. Its a great episode, with a lot of high points like Smithers learning "Sycophantic German", Homer's near death stock broker and how bad Homer is as safety inspector. His attempts to save it don't help matters as he yells at people to "Safen up". This is a great high concept episode and a great sign of things to come.
Homer Alone
I'm not going to talk about Homer in this episode. He's a side character really, because its all about Marge. This is an episode about how being the domestic partner sucks. A lot. Marge puts extreme amounts of effort into her family but the stress starts to get to her here. She has to take care of a man child husband, two school age children and a baby. Everything goes wrong for her as she struggles to keep up in the face of being completely taken for granted. Every second of her day is taken up by a series of chores and she is a slow burning fuse after years without a break. Finally, she snaps, her car spinning out of control as she locks herself in her car in traffic and has to be talked out by Homer and the police. After getting pardoned because Quimby needs "The chick vote" in November, she tells Homer that she needs a vacation by herself at a spa resort. There we get to see her actually unwind and destress and be her own person. Sometimes what you need is a good movie, a sundae, some tequila and a nice bath.
And man doesn't she deserve it?
There's more than this to talk about though but for brevity I have to knock it down to only a handful of episodes. That's going to be even harder in future seasons as my favorite showrunner is coming up!
Stay tuned!
Last edited:
The Bird
tEM IS GUD...RITER!
- Location
- In that den of villains and scum, OKLAHOMA
Izzit book of henry? Because I hear that that'uns atrocious. Or izzit, like, the room or something older?
Athene
Rise for the Shadow Queen
- Location
- Dream of The 90s
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Something older.
Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The Doctor Doolittle movie?
You ought to do Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song.
May Eddie Murphy strike you down for your insolence!
Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Not that one, the one from '67, killed the family musical genre.
Athene
Rise for the Shadow Queen
- Location
- Dream of The 90s
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Well of course it's hot at your place! You live there!