Media in The Simpsons
The town features a vast array of media channels—from kids' television programming to local news, which enables the producers to make jokes about themselves and the entertainment industry.
The town has a vast array of media channels—from children's television series to local news, which enables the producers to make jokes about themselves and the entertainment industry.
McClure has become the apotheosis of the stereotype, a gut-achingly funny reinterpretation whose trademark introduction...has become a shorthand way to describe any grossly artificial media figure.
The host, Betty White, tells the viewers "So if you don't want to see crude, lowbrow programming disappear from the airwaves ... please call now".
The episode ends with a self-referential scene in which several characters say their catchphrases, including the Simpsons, Ned Flanders, Nelson Muntz, Mr. Burns and Barney Gumble.
The parody was done by celebrating a completely random milestone and by making exaggerated use of the conventions of traditional highlight shows, such as a grand introduction and relentlessly showbizzy host.
[44][45] Considered a spoof of television clip shows, the episode is seen drawing attention to prevailing televisual conventions and reminds viewers that The Simpsons itself participates actively in that same cultural legacy.
[48] The result was the character of Grimes, a man who had to work hard all his life with nothing to show for it, and is dismayed and embittered by Homer's success and comfort in spite of his inherent laziness and ignorance.
[48][50] By the close of the episode, Grimes, a hard working and persevering "real American hero,"[50] is relegated to the role of antagonist; it is intended that the viewer be pleased that Homer has emerged victorious.
Before production of season eight began, Fox executives suggested the staff to add a new character to the show, who would live with the Simpsons on a permanent basis.
[58] The sequence is a parody of a commercial for a sport utility vehicle, and Hank Williams Jr. sings a song about the fictional "Canyonero" accompanied by country guitar music and whip cracks.
[61] In an article in the San Francisco Chronicle about SUV owners, Vicki Haddock wrote "SUV owners have become something of a punch line, succinctly captured in a "Simpsons" parody touting the apocryphal Canyonero [...]"[62] In his book Watching with The Simpsons: Television, Parody, and Intertextuality, Jonathan Gray analyses a scene from the episode "Girly Edition" in which it is announced that Kidz News has been replaced by the children's cartoon The Mattel and Mars Bar Quick Energy Chocobot Hour (a reference to the Mattel toys and the Mars chocolate bar).
"[63] Steven Keslowitz writes in his book The World According to the Simpsons that the episode showcases the fact that "the viewing of attractive newscasters and the use of persuasive tones of voice often do have an impact on the minds of many intelligent members of American society.
"[89] In response, the producers added a brief scene at the beginning of the opening sequence of the following episode with a helicopter that bears the slogan "Fox News: Unsuitable for Viewers Under 75."
[63] Lisa sees this title and criticizes the newspaper as a "flimsy hodge-podge of high-brass factoids and Larry King", to which Homer responds that it is "the only paper in America that's not afraid to tell the truth: that everything is just fine.
"[63][97] In the book, Gray says this scene is used by the show's producers to criticize "how often the news is wholly toothless, sacrificing journalism for sales, and leaving us not with important public information, but with America's Favorite Pencil".
[102] Showrunner Bill Oakley used to respond to select Simpsons fans through e-mail in a friendly manner,[103] but by 1996 claimed "[t]here are people who take it seriously to the point of absurdity".
[107] In the chapter "Who Wants Candy" in the book Leaving Springfield, Robert Sloane finds alt.tv.simpsons an example of an "active audience ... who struggle to make their own meaning out of the show".
I mean, if anything, you owe them!Comic Book Guy: Worst episode ever.In 2011, the producers let the users of the Internet vote over what direction The Simpsons should take.
A sobering soul-searching settled in their place, which The Simpsons captured in this episode about Bart creating a popular Internet cartoon called Angry Dad.
"[112] The episode was also partly based on some of The Simpsons staff members' experience with making internet cartoons, such as Queer Duck and Hard Drinkin' Lincoln, both of which were created by former showrunner Mike Reiss.
Hoenig based this theory on the fact that shortly after "I Am Furious (Yellow)", which satirizes the dot-com bubble, aired, the dotcom stocks "began a massive rebound from bear-market lows".
[78] In his review of The Simpsons: The Complete Twelfth Season, DVD Movie Guide's Colin Jacobson wrote that he enjoyed the episode's take on "Internet idiocy".
He wrote, "Some parts of it feel dated, but the web features even more ill-informed opinions today than it did nine years ago, so much of it remains timeless and on target.
[117] In the episode "The Boy Who Knew Too Much", Bart Simpson tells Wolfcastle that his "last movie really sucked" with Chief Wiggum adding "Magic Ticket, my ass, McBain!
[122] In the later episode "Homer the Whopper", writers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg wanted to show how Hollywood generally ruins superhero films.
[126] The Buzz Cola advertisement shown before The Poke of Zorro is a parody of the opening Normandy invasion sequence from the film Saving Private Ryan (1998).
[126][127] Gray writes that it "scorns the proclivity of ads to use any gimmick to grab attention, regardless of the ethics: as an indignant Lisa asks incredulously, 'Do they really think cheapening the memory of our veterans will sell soda?
"[128] Of the episode itself, Dunne wrote that "..the parodies contained in the show demonstrate that its creators are familiar enough with various forms of musical performance to echo them and confident enough that their viewers will catch the references.
[129] Koenigsberger comments: "The joke in this opening scene involves a confusion of high and popular artistic production: Marge treats the Springfield Pops as 'culture' and expects that the usually boorish Homer will need to be drawn into the spectacle.
