A: Earlier this year, BET Animation and performer Bomani "D'Mite" Armah teamed up to produce this very entertaining mock PSA.
It's way popular (875,000+ views), but I hadn't seen it until Brian Romero posted it to his cartooning blog over the weekend.
The controversy surrounding its racial overtones made it all the way to CNN, according to a YouTube commenter. It's not racist, so much as it is just an effective satire of la vie de crunk — but I'd imagine CNN saw it differently.
Producer James L. Brooks discovered Matt Groening when the production designer on Terms of Endearment bought Brooks one of Groening's Life in Hell cartoons she thought he'd appreciate. That cartoon was called "Success and Failure in Hollywood" (not available on the Interwebs, sadly), and the gist of it was that in Hollywood, success and failure both end badly. It's funny to think that if Groening hadn't drawn that cartoon — or if the designer hadn't come across it in an L.A. alt-weekly, or if Groening had already sold the original to someone else, or etc etc etc — one of the greatest works in TV history wouldn't even exist.
Groening and original show-runner Sam Simon hated one another. Simon comes off as a kind of unbearably mad genius, but is credited with "taking Groening's crude characters from The Tracey Ullman Show and making them into the Simpsons that the world knows and loves," including literally redrawing them (he's a cartoonist himself, which I didn't know).
Animator Gabor Csupo says Brooks originally conceived the Simpsons' segments on The Tracy Ullman Show to be black-and-white, as Groening had drawn them. So the characters' yellow skin and Marge's blue hair were added by the animators, not by Groening himself.
Art Spiegelman, Maus author and current New Yorker toon editor, originally "pleaded" with Groening not to work with FOX. "'They're gangsters! They're gonna take your rights away!"' Spiegelman recalls telling him. "He's never let me forget it."
Spiegelman's advice is particularly funny given the creative freedom the show has famously enjoyed — but it seems like the network wasn't always completely hands off. According to production supervisor Colin Lewis, "David Mirkin was the first [show-runner] who said, 'Why do we have to change it? We're The Simpsons. We're in control because they want their hit show, and I will get to Saturday night and I won't deliver them a show, and then they will have to air what I give them.'"
But elsewhere in the article, Mirkin and the show-runners who followed him are indirectly cited as partly responsible for the show's post-season-eight decline (before Al Jean returned in '01). So maybe the occasional network input wasn't as harmful as one might assume. [CORRECTION / CLARIFICATION: Mirkin ran the show's fifth and sixth seasons. The show may have been in decline by then, considering how strong the third and fourth seasons were, but it wasn't a huge dropoff.] Incidentally, Rupert Murdoch comes off as an okay dude (I don't really blame Murdoch for Fox News' existence, but that's fodder for a different post).
As to who provided the real brains behind the show, you could go a lot of different directions — Simon or the voice talent would both be solid picks there — but I was particularly struck by the degree to which former Harvard University nerds shaped the show.
I knew a lot of the more prominent early writers, like Conan O'Brien, were Harvard Lampoon vets, but I didn't realize the degree to which they dominated the writing room. Says writer/exec. producer Bill Oakley, "From Season 2 to Season 8, there was never a time that there were less than 80 percent Harvard Lampoon graduates on the staff."
Given that Seasons 2 through 8 is the show's golden age, maybe Hahhhvahd deserves more of the credit that I ever realized.
BONUS: From Season 9's "All Singing, All Dancing," here's the "We Put the Spring in Springfield" sequence.
Even the "down" years have their share of great bits.
DISCUSS: Is Harvard still pumping out funny people these days? I suspect it's a different type crowd there than it was 20 or 30 years ago.
(Oh, and Dear Lampoon staff: Maybe you should give a call to your peers over at MIT and ask them to build you a Web site that doesn't blow. Just a thought. Love, t.a.m.s.y.)
A: Scientists estimate that 71% of the world's blog posts are apologies for not having blogged lately. I refuse to become another statistic.
I REGRET NOTHING.
Yes, I've neglected my duties as my generation's surprisingerst answerer. No, I have not taken to the bottle.
My blogging time will probably still be limited over the next few weeks, while I complete my perpetually imminent move to California. So in lieu of whatever I usually do here, I'm just going to be posting circa three noteworthy links a day, every day. Except for on days where I post fewer than three links, or none, which will be most days.
"Didn't you used to be Eddie Valiant? Or did you change your name to Jack Daniels?" is one of my favorite lines from one of my favorite movies. A couple weeks ago, I came across a draft of the screenplay. It's way different than the final film in a ton of ways, and it includes the deleted "pig-headed" scene that appears on the DVD, excerpted here:
Also, the original "Didn't you used to be..." line doesn't include the part about Jack Daniels. This sort of thing is very exciting, if you're as deeply into Who Framed Roger Rabbit? as I am. Which I'm guessing you're not, so let's move on.
Scientists estimate that 71% of the all-time greatest American films involve corruption and delusion in Los Angeles. (In their plots, I mean. If you include the real-life corruption and delusion, the number jumps to around infinity%.)
A: Hey, good question. Before I answer, a few things to consider.
Transformers is a movie based on a cartoon based on Hasbro's desire to sell more toys. It seemed like a really awesome idea when I was five years old.
Its heroes, the Autobots, are robots who transform into vehicles; its antagonists, the evil Decepticons, are also robots who transform into vehicles. Everyone saves a lot of money on parking.
constant shout-outs to "freedom," "evil" (actual mottos: "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings," and "We will put out the fires of evil," which together comprise 85% of statements issued by the Bush White House);
PHONE MESSAGE LEFT ON JON VOIGHT'S ANSWERING MACHINE: "Hey, Jon, this is your agent. Seeing as how you're an Oscar-winner and one of the great actors of our time, I have four great scripts I want to run by you. Okay: One is the eagerly anticipated sequel to Baby Geniuses; the second is an adaptation of one of the finest books ever written by Mitch Albom; the third is a made-for-CBS biopic where you'll be playing Pope John Paul II; and the fourth one is this thing about toy robots with the power to turn into common automobiles. Don't worry about the contract details, I already forged your signature. Okay, I should get going — I got 'til 5PM to pay off these gambling debts or they're gonna take my other thumb."
A: During a very dark period of my life, I tried to kill myself. I took every pill in the bottle.
Unfortunately, the only bottle in the medicine cabinet was Flintstones Vitamins.
I shouldn't say "unfortunately." It really was a fortunate turn of events. Not only because I didn't die, but also because it turned out that the only reason I had been so depressed was my undiagnosed scurvy.
But taking an entire bottle of children's vitamins will do strange things to a man-child. I had a strange series of visions — some of which I videotaped, and then posted on YouTube.
Clearwater resident Steven Stein thinks he has Walt Disney's original drawing of the famous character.
Stein says he paid a NYC thrift store $3 for the drawing in 1984, and he says he's spent many years and many dollars authenticating the artwork. "I've had the ink test-dated. I've had the paper test-dated. The ink tests to the mid 1920's," he said.
Stein claims the Disney Corporation has refused to even look at his drawing since he approached them in 1989.
Now he's taking Disney to court. "I'm suing them for $50-million, the copyright on Mickey Mouse, and the right to tell the Walt Disney story," said Stein.
Seems reasonable.
RELATED: I remain skeptical of the document-authentication field, ever since reading The Mormon Murders last spring. I read it immediately after The Smartest Guys in the Room, and the two non-fictions combined to leave me with the sense that all experts in all fields are frauds.
Both are really, really good, and weirdly complement each other, sort of. I may have already mentioned all this, but whatever. According to the above links, you can get used copies of both for under $3 total from Amazon. Highly recommended.
The above first aired (holy crap -- 16 years ago!) February 1st, 1991, as part of the "Music Television" episode of Tiny Toon Adventures -- one of two They Might Be Giants songs chosen for the episode, along with "Particle Man."
I don't know how TMBG came to get involved with Tiny Toons. Presumably, the show's writers were fans. Keep in mind, though, synergy between alt-rockers and cartoon characters was unheard of back in those days (unlike now, where it's standardoperatingprocedure). And it predated by more than a decade the Brooklyn duo's first official foray into kids music.
Regardless, the musical cameo had to have been a fantastic long-term marketing maneuver. At the very least, it's produced a steady revenue stream from my brother and I, and in fact prompted us to buy our first rock cassette: the 1990 classic Flood, from which both "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" and "Particle Man" were culled. If you're looking to get a geeky 11-year-old into modern music, it's a good place to start.
A: Because he's the worst curse ever. From the childhood diary of Will Nolan:
The audio was recorded at Mortified, a traveling carnival of adolescent embarrassment that showcases excerpts from the earliest written works of its cast (as featured on This American Life).
The official book, Mortified: Real Words. Real People. Real Pathetic., was released last week. It'd make a fine Christmas gift for anyone still haunted by the demons of their youth. Which is everyone.
Last night, I was complaining about how fast the Google copyright cops were, to have removed the new Simpsons trailer from YouTube so quickly. But I guess it was just a temporary glitch, cuz the link works fine now. Enjoi.
A: Since T.A.M.S.Y.'s had 'toons on the brain lately, I thought you might like to know. Sneak preview:
M.M.'s big moment: good for $65K; not enough crack the top three.
After which maybe you could explain to me how Mulan makes the list, even though it says The Little Mermaid, from nine years earlier, was the last 'toon to use hand-drawn cells. Also, who cares enough about Mulan to drop $43K on a painting of Shan Yu?
X-MAS REMINDER: If anyone happens to fall into great wealth in the near future, I'll happily accept your gift of a cel from Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, my favorite movie evverrrrr.
A: Because he employed the techniques learned in L. Ron Hubbard's "Dianetics" to manage his stress level.
On a related note, Simpsons voice talent Nancy Cartwright is a Scientologist. And like South Park's now-dead Chef, she is rumored not to take too kindly to Scientology jokes in Springfield, says TimesUK blogger Chris Ayres:
"The writers figured they could slip the joke past her," smirked my Simpsons insider. "But they were wrong. Nancy's line was something like, "Mormonism? That's the second freakiest religion in America!'. Nancy caught it, and she wasn't happy. We had to drop it."
Cartwright's publicist denied the story, which means it's probably true.
SO, YEAH: This was supposed to be a post with the newly unveiled trailer for the Simpsons movie... but then it got taken off of YouTube within like five seconds (damn you, Google, and your cripplingly effective copyright police!). So I guess you're just going to have to download it from Apple. Whatevs. T.A.M.S.Y. expects the movie to be the awesomeyest, even though that trailer relies pretty heavily on a stupid sight gag.
Kiwi! is the master's thesis animation of School of Visual Arts '06 grad Dony Permedi. If he didn't have a job lined up before this got dugg, he probably will by tomorrow.
A: Me too. And what's stranger than Northeast Ohio's homegrown freakshow, Brian Warner, on a soundtrack for kids?
Okay, a soundtrack for kids and stoned adults.
Marilyn Manson - This is Halloween The Nightmare Before Christmas {OST | Special Edition}, 2006
Speaking of stoned adults, what are the chances that within a month of me quitting smoking weed, they would release The Nightmare Before Christmasin 3-freaking-D! God, what a travesty. I think it's time for a relapse.
Anyway, the Manson track is really pretty damn good. I apologize, Mr. Warner, for selling you short. The rest of the soundtrack is interesting, too, both in terms of how awesome Danny Elfman's songs still are and also for the remarkable terribleness of Fall Out Boy (who murders "What's This?") and She Wants Revenge ("Kidnap the Sandy Claws"). Honest to God, what the fuck is wrong with you, America's youth?
Fiona Apple - Sally's Song The Nightmare Before Christmas {OST | Special Edition}, 2006
DID YOU KNOW? The character Sally was originally voiced by comedy genius Catherine "Not just the mom from Home Alone" O'Hara! Her impressive vocal talent, you may recall, was also featured in A Mighty Wind, in her swell duets with the surprisingly tuneful Eugene "Not just the dad from American Pie" Levy.
In Nightmare, O'Hara also voices one of the trio of nasties who kidnap the Sandy Claws, along with Paul "Mostly just Pee Wee Herman" Reubens and the talented Mr. Elfman. God, I love this movie!! Does anyone please have any weed???
.
, excerpted here:
. It seemed like a really awesome idea when I was five years old.
last spring. I read it immediately after 
, and the two non-fictions combined to leave me with the sense that all experts in all fields are frauds.
, from which both "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" and "Particle Man" were culled. If you're looking to get a geeky 11-year-old into modern music, it's a good place to start.
The audio was recorded at 
