#swartzwelder

[captainfreelance1]

The Simpsons S10 E13 Homer to the Max

All in The Family 1999 walked so that The New Norm could stumble.

[megamindfandombookclub]

[macla539ac]

People of Mars, you say we are brutes and savages. But let me tell you one thing: if I could get loose from this cage you have me in, I would tear you guys a new Martian asshole.

You say we are violent and barbaric, but has any one of you come up to my cage and extended his hand? Because, if he did, I would jerk it off and eat it right in front of him. "Mmm, that's good Martian," I would say.

You say your civilization is more advanced than ours. But who is really the more "civilized" one: you, standing there watching this cage, or me, with my pants down, trying to urinate on you?

You criticize our earth religions, saying they have no relevance to the way we actually live. But think about this: if I could get my hands on that god of yours, I would grab his skinny neck and choke him until his big green head exploded.

[trashyhermit]

i think about this passage from double wonderful too much.

[vegaspliffs]

[waderockett]

One of my favorite Simpsons bits ever.

[ducktracy]

sharing a very sage bit of advice from The Simpsons' own John Swartzwelder that i've been trying to hamper down in my writing and drawing alike. let your inner crappy little elf do his worst

[vintagegeekculture]

RIP Tracy Tormé, Creator of the "Holodeck Malfunction Episode" and Sliders

Tracy Tormé’s most enduring legacy in popular culture is that, while a writer on TNG’s tempestuous first and second seasons, he created the entire concept of the Holodeck Malfunction Episode.

Yes, even people who suggest you skip TNG’s first couple seasons say that “The Big Goodbye” is one you don’t want to miss. And there was a very nice tribute to Tracy Torme in an episode of Picard, which had him as the author and creator of Dixon Hill… which he is, and deserves credit for this.

I suppose I should mention I had a personal encounter with Tracy Tormé at a convention. The main thing I remember was that he looked absolutely terrified when someone asked him about what happened with “The Royale,” far and away TNG’s worst episode except the clip show, about the crew getting trapped on a hotel they can’t leave from a badly written book. To his great credit, he took responsibility for the episode not working and did not pass on the problems to the production crew.

The most extraordinary thing about Tracy Torme is that he had a Forrest Gump like ability to appear in the background of scifi culture’s greatest moments.

Not only was he inside the TNG writers’ room in 1987-88, he was around during the production of Terminator with James Cameron. Tormé was the one who, hearing about the production of the film, squealed on it to Harlan Ellison, telling Ellison that it was based on his old Outer Limits episodes, with a visual based on his script for “Demon With a Glass Hand.” In other words, he was the Gavrilo Princip who got that entire conflict started, where two of the most proud personalities in scifi butted heads, James Cameron vs. Ellison. Cameron, to this day, insists that the film company gave Ellison money and a credit because it was easier to pay him off than to go through litigation (which rings true, frankly, for risk averse production companies), and to this day Cameron insists, with his absolutely expected big dick swagger, that Ellison is a “parasite” who received money for nothing, and if it had been up to him, he wouldn’t have given him a dime.

It’s also worth mentioning that Torme also created the TV series Sliders.

Has anyone else noticed that Sliders is an incredibly right wing show? Seriously, watch it again if you haven’t seen it in years. If you haven’t watched this show since the 90s and you were a kid and all that went over your head, it’s kind of amazing how Limbaugh/Newt Gingrich era right-wing Sliders actually was. It made 24 look like Doonesbury. The targets of Sliders were 90s New Right satire: health care systems, infuriating hippies, the nanny state disallowing the public smoking of cigars, California weirdness, the drug culture, the USSR. Torme’s right wing views were less John Millius-style “blood alone moves the wheel of history” stuff, but more like that of a slobby regular joe in the 90s, Dennis Leary’s character in Demolition Man for instance, who mostly just wants to smoke cigars, ogle girls, and eat hamburgers without getting scolded by his wife. He was less “Passion of the Christ” and more “Animal House.”

I am not saying this as a negative, but merely a description. Contrary to popular belief, right wingers driven by bizarre sexual pathology and weird grudges produce amazing art, as Millius and John Swartzwelder show. A lot of Steven Universe fans love to say things like “all good art is about empathy and kindness” and I reject that notion. Good art can also be about reflecting things in the human experience like fear, trauma, cruelty, and paranoia.

For that reason, it doesn’t surprise me that Tracy Torme’s best movie script was a horror film about a traumatic experience, Fire in the Sky. An ominous movie about a vanished ranch hand who was the victim of alien abduction, in the earned finale the film’s tension builds toward, our hero remembers the true cause of his missing time: an abduction by aliens, who’s motives are emotionless and incomprehensible, and who subject him to horrific vivisection that we see in excruciating detail. Travis Walton is treated not with sadism or cruelty, but with icy detachment, by alien superintellects that view him as no different than cattle, and are to him as we are to cattle. The most terrifying detail of the film is that the classic “gray alien” look turns out to be spacesuits, revealing a far more frightening appearance underneath.

[mysharona1987]

Re: Frank Grimes. I still think the weirdest thing is that a libertarian wrote a TV episode where the billionaire boss is clearly to blame for everything, but instead of blaming Burns, Frank unfairly turns his rage on fellow worker Homer.

Watch the episode again. Burns is the most inept person on the show. He’s an idiot rich person. Born into wealth…then got wealthier.

He hired Homer despite Homer having no qualifications. Hires Grimes then quickly forgets he hired him in the first place. He even wants a dog as his vice president!

Burns is the problem.

Frank just can’t accept that the system is messed up, hard work might not matter at all, and then takes it out on Homer.

Which makes me think either John Swartzwelder was trolling the writing staff with the whole libertarian thing or he has a far more nuanced take on things that most realize.

[irlsimpsons]

Mt. Swartzwelder Historic Cider Mill Season Pass available as luggage tags on Etsy!

[racefortheironthrone]

There was a classic Simpsons episode where Springfield Elementary teachers went on strike, and the PTA responded by bringing in residents (including Marge Simpson) as replacement teachers. Would this count as union busting or crossing the picket line? If yes, I wonder why it was depicted as largely benevolent considering that Simpsons writers and plots tend to lean liberal.

Let's not mince words, it's 100% scabbing. It's not just crossing a picket line as a customer, it's crossing a picket line in order to work as non-union temporary labor, with the intent to crush the strike.

I don't agree that it's depicted as benevolent behavior - the whole gag of the middle portion of the episode is that the scabs are terrible fucking teachers. Frink is completely wasted in preschool and doesn't let the kids play with toys, Jasper is a physically abusive idiot who gets his beard stuck in a pencil sharpener, and Moe and the like are total pushovers when it comes to Bart's pranks. The only one who can manage a classroom at all is Marge, and even then she's incredibly embarrassing and unprofessional with Bart. (Notable difference compared to how she does in "Whacking Day.")

Also, it's not necessarily the case that Simpsons writers are always left-leaning. John Swartzwelder is notoriously incredibly conservative and his scripts tended to push his libertarian views pretty strongly.

[cliffburton]

of course herman hermann is a character by john swartzwelder of course... why didn't i connect the dots

[popculturebuffet]

James Earl Jones Memorial Halloween Special: Treehouse of Horror I Review! (Comission by WeirdKev27)

Happy Halloween all you happy people! I"m amped not just because I love spooky season: the decoratoins, the candy, the excuse to inject horror into my veins but that we get to talk about one of my faviorite shows. Despite the many, MANY simpsons refrences that grace this fair blog, largely thanks to the site frinkiac for making it easy to meme any simpsons refrence that ops into my dome, I don't cover the show itself often. A lot of it is simple: I just forget to and what retrospectives me or kev have had ideas for have never materialized. Still Kevin, my producer and frequent comissioner, found a perfect episode to cover for the perfect reason: last month legendary actor, voice actor and voice in general James Earl Jones sadly passed and while trying to think of something, Kev brought up how James is present in all three seconds of the first treehouse of horror.

It was a great prospect both to honor james, as he has a sizeable role in the second segment and is essentailly the star of the third as the narrator, and to explore an episode of simpsons I don't really watch. I didn't watch season 2 much to begin wtih as a kid, and don't really now, and didn't like the middle segment. Petty I know, it's the same reason I don't watch Treehouse of Horror IV as much as I should when I can just.. skip the middle segment and enjoy devil flanders and dracula burns. So it was a chance to explore a treehouse I really didnt' know that well and to honor a man who was a part of my childhood and adulthood and general seemed like a kind, resonable person. So in honor of james and to give this episode a fair shake, join me under the cut for some halloween fun with everyone's faviorite family.

We open with Marge warning everybody, a fun idea that works well and would get played with in later specials. The insperation for this one according to writer Al Jean was EC Comics, doing that sort of horror anthology thing tales of the crypt used to do in comics and would again.

The wraparound is a fun and simple one. I also miss them doing these as while I get why it stopped, to give the segments more times, they were a lot of fun, paticuarlly III's halloween party. This one has Bart telling scary stories to lisa in the treehouse, a fun little premise. Homer is listening in because he just finished trick or treating, none of which is suprising but is still entertaining. We'll come back to this at the end for now let's dive into the meat of this special

Soooo hot take.. this was my faviorite of the three segments. I love the raven and will gush about it later, but this was a very nice suprise, having a more rapid fire pace from the seasons to come compared to the rest of season 2 or even it's fellow segments.

This wasn't a huge shock when I found out who wrote it: John Swartzwelder, a singularly weird simpsons writer who smokes and who did all his writing in a diner booth and continued to even after smoking bands by purchasing one, who tends to shy away from the public, to the point they called him on a commentary track just to prove that yes, he exists.

Swartzwelder has written 59 episodes with heighlights including Bart the General, Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish, Homer at the Bat, Whacking Day, Krusty Gets Kanclled, Homer the Vigilante, Itchy and Scratchyland, Homer the Great, Homer's Enemy, Attack of the 50 Foot Eyesores, Homer Vs the Eighteenth Amendment, and Homer's enemy among many others. While he did loose a bit of his sheen as he went on, it can't be denied his peak stuff is some of the series best and this is no exception.

The premise is simple: the simpsons take on the amityville horror, the film based on the book that used a real tragedy to make money. The Simpsons move into a spooky house, nearly murder each other and escape alive. Which isn't a guarantee with Treehouse of Horror NOW but seemed to be a requirement early on as the simpsons don't impliclity die till Treehouse of Horror V and don't die on screne till Treenhouse of Horror X.

It's mainly an excuse to just pack the things with joke after joke, all hitting: the moving man, played by james earl jones mutters under his breath he's glad the house will kill them. There's a random vortex in the kitchen that theyt hrow an orange into.. that throws back a piece of paper asking them to stop throwing garbage in that dimension. The walls bleeding barely bothers marge and Bart getting choked by a lamp has Homer asking how he'll explain his way out. It's just joke after great joke, with Harry Shearer doing a great job as the house which frequently bellows GET OUT. My second faviorite joke of this segment is when Marge decides indeed to get out, and the house puts the kids coats on them for them. Just a simple hilarous gag. I also like homer being bounced into the celing and trying to act like it's fine.

He does get them to stay overnight which leads to the creepiest part of the specail as a whole and a great bit of horror: the house convinces the rest of the family minus marge to kill each other. The expressions here are truly disturbing, and i'ts unsettling to see the simpsons all in a trance ready to murder each other.

Thankfully the humor right after not only deflates it, but is great: Marge is seen grabbing a knife like the rest of her family.. but is making a sandwitch, easily lectures them out of it then plans to leave spouting the awesome quote I choose to use as the image. I'ts just such a marge thing to brush off something this horrid like it's some new conflict in the family.

The simpsons soon find the old racist trope of the house being built on a native burial ground.. which is a thorny concepts for sure, but this is an old enough episode to get away with it and I like homer angrily calling his realtor only to find out the guy mentioned it 5 or 6 times. The house tries to give a meancing speech.. only for marge to angrily tell it off, a bit I love, from Julie Kavner's delivery to how it works. She demands it either leave them alone or live with them in peace.... it chooses to collapse on itself after shooing them outside instead. Aw well can'jt please everyone. Just several minutes of great jokes with some great horror sprinkled in.

Not a fan of this one. It IS better than I remembered as it packs in some good jokes. That's courtsey of writers Jay Kogan and Wally Woodarsky, who while having a slow start, finished their run on the show with classics Bart's Friend Falls in Love, Treehouse of Horror III and Last Exit to Sprinfield

The premise is a riff on the Twilight Zone Classic , To Serve Man. For those of you who don't know what the Twilight Zone is, you just made me feel very old, but it was a classic Science Fiction anthology series, running the gamut of genres and often falling into horror. The simpsons would go to the twilight zone a LOT for Treehouse of Horror: They'd riff on at least one episode a year for the first four treehouses and would still return to the well on occasions. The simpsons has parodied A Good Life (Bart's Nightmare), Living Doll (Clown Without Pity), Nightmare at 20,000 Feet (Terror at 5 1/2 Feet) , Little Girl Lost (Homer^3), and finally A Kind of Stopwatch (Stop the World I Want to Goof Off). As the show went on they drifted into parodying horror films more as Twilgiht Zone faded, but I miss it and hope they do one again some day or as a special since their now doing Treehouse of Horror Presents.

At any rate it's a pretty basic parody: Kang and Kodos in their first apperance kidnap the simpsons along with Sorak the Preparer, played by JEJ, and have them eat a lot, making vauge hints they'll eat the simpsons and droolling a lot. There's a gag or two I love: the ufo they abduct the simpsons in having to put out an extra beam to pick up homer, tilting to the side otherwise, the aliens admitting to having thousands of channels except hbo "That costs extra", and the aliens defensifiness when how primitive pong is is brought upop "Raise your hand if your capable of intergalactic travel". I love bart sticking up his hand and homer slapping it down. Good stuff.

Most of it though.. is eh. The twist is that. .they aren't trying ot eat them and are hurt Lisa assumes it with the book being how to cook FOR humans. Then how to cook FORTY humans, then how to cook for FORTY humans. I love Sorek's hurt feelings and what not, but it's a pretty bland parody compared to Bad Dream House, which nailed it. It feels like a bland middle to two pretty dope piece sof bread. It has some good jokes nad gave us Kang and Kodos, so it's not without merit, but it's easily the weakest segment in an otherwise good episode.

For our finale Lisa reads Edgar Allen Poe's classic Poem the Raven. In the second best refrence to it the shows ever done

It's the breakout of the segments and while I prefer Bad Dream House and stand by that, The Raven is very close and a very creative flex. Matt Groening was nervous it'd come off too pretentious, but instead we get a great break from formula. The first two segments, while fun breaks from teh simpsons mostly grounded reality, at this point anyway, do feel lik ea standard episode that just happens to be about a murder house. The Raven.. is something entirley diffrent.

It's a mostly straight adaptation of the poem: James Earl Jones does an impressive and haunting reading of Poe's narrations, while Dan Castlenatea does an awesome job as homer, injecting some humor into it but reading moments like the main character lashing out at the raven and his sorrow with such convection. While we'd see plenty of range from homer as the show went on, this was an early indicatior of just what dan was capable of with the character.

The show also nicely breaks tension in places: Homer is literally reading a book of forgotten lore, Bart chimes in with his commentary, and there's some good physical gags. But the heart of it, a tale of greving, loss and ultimate death, as the narrator gets haunted by a raven (Played by bart naturally, with Lenore played in a painting by marge (with the nice gag of her hair extending into another painting and Lisa and Maggie playing Serapphim), i'ts a wonderful segment that is hilarous.. yet also heartwrenching and haunting. I haven't read the poem, but this segment makes me feel it, a haunting wonderful piece. James Earl Jones kills it with the utmost conviction in his reading, upping the intsnesity was we go and really getting into it. He did a marvelous job and apparently went the extra mile for his performance in the second segment by eating a cookie while recording to get the drool right. What a man

So we end the specail with the kids fine but homer scared and Marge refusin gto help him because.. I dunno she's a dick tonight. A great end to a fantastic start to a wonderful tradition. Thanks for reading.. and james wherever you are up there... thank you.

[ptbf2002]

My Top 10 Favorite 20th Century Fox Movies (2024)

#10 Home Alone

#9 Ice Age

#8 Ice Age 2: The Meltdown

#7 Ice Age 3: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs

#6 Ice Age 4: Continental Drift

#5 The Peanuts Movie

#4 Spies In Disguise

#3 Alvin And The Chipmunks (2007)

#2 Family Guy: Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story

And #1 The Simpsons Movie

Original Template: https://www.deviantart.com/jackskellington416/art/Top-10-20th-Century-Fox-Films-Meme-665656007

Home Alone Belongs To John Hughes, Hughes Entertainment, 20th Century Studios, Inc. The Walt Disney Studios, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Disney Entertainment, And The Walt Disney Company

Ice Age (2002 film) Belongs to Michael Berg, Michael J. Wilson, Peter Ackerman, Blue Sky Studios, Inc. 20th Century Animation, 20th Century Studios, Inc. The Walt Disney Studios, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Disney Entertainment, And The Walt Disney Company

Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs Belongs to Michael Berg, Peter Ackerman, Mike Reiss, Yoni Brenner, Blue Sky Studios, Inc. 20th Century Animation, 20th Century Studios, Inc. The Walt Disney Studios, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Disney Entertainment, And The Walt Disney Company

Ice Age 4: Continental Drift Belongs to Michael Berg, Jason Fuchs, Blue Sky Studios, Inc. 20th Century Animation, 20th Century Studios, Inc. The Walt Disney Studios, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Disney Entertainment, And The Walt Disney Company

The Peanuts Movie Belongs To Charles M. Schulz, Craig Schulz, Bryan Schulz, Cornelius Uliano, United Feature Syndicate, Inc. Andrews McMeel Syndication, Blue Sky Studios, Inc. 20th Century Animation, 20th Century Studios, Inc. The Walt Disney Studios, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Disney Entertainment, And The Walt Disney Company

Spies In Disguise Belongs To Lucas Martell, Brad Copeland, Lloyd Taylor, Cindy Davis, Chernin Entertainment, Blue Sky Studios, Inc. 20th Century Animation, 20th Century Studios, Inc. The Walt Disney Studios, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Disney Entertainment, And The Walt Disney Company

Alvin And The Chipmunks (2007) Belongs To Ross Bagdasarian Sr. Jon Vitti, Will McRobb, Chris Viscardi, Bagdasarian Productions, Dune Entertainment, RatPac Entertainment, LLC, Monarchy Enterprises S.Á.R.L. Regency Entertainment (USA), Inc. FOX 2000 Pictures, 20th Century Studios, Inc. The Walt Disney Studios, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Disney Entertainment, And The Walt Disney Company

Family Guy: Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story Belongs To Seth MacFarlane, Gary Janetti, Chris Sheridan, Alex Borstein, Steve Callaghan, Sunwoo & Company Co., Ltd. Fuzzy Door Productions, Inc. 20th Television Animation, 20th Television, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Inc. Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment, Disney Platform Distribution, Inc. Disney Television Studios, Disney General Entertainment Content, Disney Entertainment, FOX Broadcasting Company, FOX Entertainment, FOX Corporation, And The Walt Disney Company

The Simpsons Movie Belongs To James L. Brooks, Matt Groening, Al Jean, Ian Maxtone-Graham, George Meyer, David Mirkin, Mike Reiss, Mike Scully, Matt Selman, John Swartzwelder, Jon Vitti, Film Roman, LLC, Rough Draft Studios, Inc. AKOM Production Ltd. Gracie Films, 20th Century Animation, 20th Century Studios, Inc. The Walt Disney Studios, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Disney Entertainment, And The Walt Disney Company

[ladystormcrow]

16, 17, & 24 for the writer asks?

16. Favorite place to write

If the weather's nice, in a camping chair out on our deck (it has a nice view of the park a block away, and there's not much to distract me). Otherwise, in my favorite spot on the living room couch.

17. Talk about your writing and editing process

I've had a lifelong struggle with perfectionism and "if I can't do this exactly right, I shouldn't do it at all", which can be a serious problem when it comes to writing. Then, @les-gnossiennes-fantomatiques shared one of the most helpful pieces of writing advice I've ever come across, as given by The Simpsons writer John Swartzwelder. To sum up: write the first draft very quick and messy, and mentally distance yourself from it by imagining "it's like a crappy little elf has snuck into my office and badly done all my work for me", leaving you with just the (comparatively easier) job of re-writing and editing.

Other things I've found can be helpful are writing out the first draft longhand in a notebook (this is what I usually do when I'm writing out on the deck, and it's also helpful if I want to avoid getting distracted by doing other stuff on the computer), crossing out stuff and making notations occasionally but mostly just writing whatever flows through my mind, then using transcribing it to the computer later as part of the editing process. I also try to speak/act dialogue scenes out loud to help them sound and feel more natural (always when no one will see me, of course!).

24. How do you recharge when you’re not feeling creative?

Mostly by keeping myself busy with something else that stimulates my brain. Video games are a favorite (I'm a big fan of The Sims and citybuilders like Frostpunk and Farthest Frontier), and traveling and sightseeing when possible (Mr. Stormcrow and I live near Washington DC, so we often take day trips to museums and such).

[dorothydalmati1]

The Simpsons Season 2 Episode 3: Treehouse of Horror

Directing assistance by Jim Reardon

Bad Dream House:

Written by John Swartzwelder

Storyboard by Steven Dean Moore & Wes Archer

Directed by Wes Archer

Hungry Are the Damned:

Written by Jay Kogen & Wallace Wolodarsky

Storyboard by Rich Moore, Steven Dean Moore & Jim Reardon

Directed by Rich Moore

The Raven:

Written by Edgar Allan Poe & Sam Simon

Storyboard by Jeffrey Lynch & David Silverman

Directed by David Silverman