The Simpsons - "Elementary School Musical" - Talkback [9/26]

I liked it, though I probably would have liked the episode more if I saw an episode of Glee to get the full effect of where they were coming from.

I didn't like the forced singing from the kids which, thankfully, happened to be short (a huge comparison to this forced episode of The Cleveland Show airing as I type this; When will this show end?) But I did like the two adult counselors. Are the actors voicing them from Glee as well because I thought they were fantastic. Their singing and randomness reminded me of The Smothers Brothers :thumbs up: . I loved their interactions with Lisa and their end sequence as "sandwich artists" at Subway.

The Krusty side story wasn't that good, but I did get some big laughs from it like Maggie's reaction in front of the TV and the voovoozela (sp) playoff. Hearing Roofi again was a surprise. The song wasn't as good as Roofi's "counting song" from his last appearance, but the point came across so "haw haw" to those who hated it.

Summary: B-
 
I liked last season a bit, but so far I'm not liking this one. Lisa is my least favorite character, though they can write her ok some times but here was not one of those times. I'm finding Glee overated too, so to see my two least favorite things put together..


D-
 
Really? Why don't they just call it by it's actual name like South Park does? How stupid.

I swear they've used the names of real corporations in the past so the fact that they're not doing it now doesn't make any sense at all.
 
Ugh. I sat through the entire episode and felt nothing. That never happens! Excited, overjoyed, bored, sleeping through it... but I felt nothing the entire show!

So... yeah...
 
They did in the old seasons quite a lot and featured the one-off parody now and then but now it's getting ridiculous:sweat:


And IMO South Park is much weirder with this whole 'independent product placement' thing.

And also the simpsons still use the term Xbox and the logo and they have used the term 'Wii' but now they've changed it to 'Zii":confused::confused:

In the episode E. plaragus Ralpum (or whatever is was) they had the rush limbagh parody in the same room as someone else mentioning Rush Limbagh:confused:

In one episode of south park where butters is on the today show they use the today logo but call 'NBC' 'HBC' and change the 'HBC turtle' to 'HBC duck' but they used the 'E!' logo later on for the Kardashians bit near the end

In the episode Guitar queer-o the game shop shows an Xbox parody called 'O-box' but then stan says 'Xbox' later in the ep.

Lastly in one Ep. of american dad roger uses the term 'playstation' then just after that you can see him and steve playing on a console that says 'GS' on it which stands Gamestation:confused::confused:

And for some strange reason the simpsons have started an Oprah parody called 'Opal' (despite the fact that oprah guest starred in a simpsons clip on the Oprah show in 1993)

Man, TV producers can be quite weird:confused::sweat::p
 
Stream of thought:

Opening the season with a LIsa / travel episode... yipes. That said, the jab at This American Life was perfect, and the pacifier as cigar was classic.

It's bad when the first musical number hits, and the first thing I think is "Ladies and Gentlemen, Conway Twitty" in as much as the segue into this musical number is about as abrupt.

Hey, it's some Flight of the Concords, which I guess is a little more with it than option 2 (Jack Black,) but still just as awkwardly referential.

Really, Krusty at the Hague? The Nobel Peace prize wasn't absurd enough. I guess it's a jab at the whole Roman Polanski ruckus, but the joke/satire is so muted and buried that the humor is lost.

Another little song, and while I like Flight of the Concords, you pretty much have to to enjoy the song. As not everyone has seen or even heard of the show, I have to wonder who they are going for here by having them guest so prominently.

The MC Hawking bit is cute, though 10 years late. I guess consequentially though, I can expect MC Frontalot and/or MC Chris to turn up in a Simpsons episode around 2012-2017.

The wonderful reference to the opening sequence was schmaltzy, but executed so perfectly that I'm shocked we hadn't seen a trick like this in the series sooner.

"You will never be able to walk up stairs like an 8-year-old girl" - Sad Grandpa.

A Simpson running away? Has any member of that family not just booked it at some point?

The Brontasaurus sisters... sounds about right?

The horrible joke about NYC neighborhoods. Meh. However, it is true that in any city, the hipsters (almost of whom grew up in small towns as social outcasts,) inevitability pick the cheapest, skidsiest part of town, and eventually gentrify it. It's not funny because you can pick almost any big city in the US or Canada and find a neighborhood where this very thing is happening.

The artist song is a reminder of why I'm in school for computer science, and not music, even though I have as much talent for the latter as the prior.

WE'RE REGION 1! Classic, and funny.

Hilter: always worth having a joke at his expense.

Oh boy, I've seen that coffee house. I've been tempted to play that coffee house.

Ah, another happy Lisa ending. However, it's been done before and better. Can't say I didn't "daw" at it though.

Final Thought: Ultimately, it's not as powerful as the Bleeding Gums episodes, and it feels more like a Simpsons/Flight crossover than a Simpsons episode. Pretty weak in that sense.
 
Wow, what a disappointing season opener. Lisa episodes have usually been pretty bad in the latest seasons, but this was just awful.

I really only watched for the Glee guest stars, but they barely had any lines. instead, they gave most of the time to those Concords guys who aren't funny in the least.

Krusty's segments saved this episode from being a complete stinker. I wish he had most of the episode's screentime, because the main plot was just plain dull.
 
You compare this to "Who Needs the Kwik-E-Mart" or "See My Vest" and it's just painful. No, it's not the nostalgia talking. Any literary critic would tell you rhyming "Lisa" with "Visa" isn't nearly as clever or smart.


Puns are even worse when you have no idea what the pun is about.

"Tuesday morning, we did mime. Tuesday afternoon, we did Mame."

I may not be able to watch this show much longer. I swore as an animation fan that I had to watch every episode of one of the most important and influential series in animation history, but....it's affecting my judgment of the older episodes now; I can't watch them because the characters annoy me so.
 
The episodes that are great are still great. Nothing will ever take that away from them. It's just a sad thing that the number of stinkers now rival or even outnumber the classics.
 
I'm a big Flight of the Conchords fan, so I mean, I got enjoyment out of seeing them. They were what I was watching for, and at least their part was pretty big. The episode as a whole was pretty lousy though.

I...uh...liked the couch gag I guess? Even though the Fox jokes have worn a hole clean through the floor.
 
Alright so this is gonna sound pretty cynical but i watched the episode again, this time on hulu, and i thought that the first 2:16 were pretty solid.

No, but, I actually liked the "Artists are the people..." song, i found it pretty entertaining despite not knowing who the two guys were. The line by the cow was pretty funny "but they can't bottle your genius" I didn't have a problem with the stephen hawking bit like some of you guys did (it was like 6 words). I also didn't hear a Promiscuous parady like i think someone else said. But i could be wrong...

I don't know, didn't the act after the last commercial break have some pretty solid lines? I love how they make it seem like it would be the end of the world if they don't drop more sandwiches.

I really didn't think that sprubway and sprooklyn were as funny as apparently the writers thought it was. So even though i liked bits and pieces of it, it was a pretty terrible episode.

Didn't really find the "region 1" joke funny and as a result found that entire subplot unfunny (except for the first 2 minutes and 16 seconds, but much of that contains the opening theme) As for the fox joke, i thought it was pretty funny. I don't think the simpsons does that all that much. The last time i remember it was when Rupert Murdoch ended up saying "You've saved my network!" and bart said "wouldn't be the first time". But i gotta think its happened since then.

So i don't know, it had some funny parts, but i don't usually watch anything more than once from the last 10 (maybe? Since scully left, right?) seasons.

So umm...yeah...think about it!
 
Yep, just as I thought... this episode has set a new standard for Simpsons dreck.

I'm one of the few people in the country that hasn't caught onto the Glee craze yet, but even if I was a fan of that show, I still wouldn't haven't appreciated this episode. Most of the jokes ranged from flat, to downright awful. Don't even get me started on the songs, either.

I've given this show about all I can take. It's come to the point now where I actually dread 8:00 PM on Sunday night. I've been watching the past few seasons out of blind loyalty, no matter how bad it's gotten, but I think enough is enough.
 
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