Simpsons update

While there's two more months to wait for the big screen version of the Simpsons, and an even longer wait for an animated Jerry Seinfeld, I must say that I've been pleasantly surprised lately by my favourite TV show. As one of my co-workers once quipped, the Halloween episode is usually the best one of the year. And that's generally true, I conceded. But this season has been above average, like they're getting back to the fundamentals of some of the earlier seasons. Season 4 was a pretty hilarious season, for example: lots of stuff catching on fire and exploding randomly. There's brighter minds out there than mine who have this all figured out, like at Harper's Bazaar or, well, in the Simpsons' own writing room more likely, but I hope they do another TV first and have new episodes all the way up to the movie's release date. SNL's already over for the year! Can you believe that?

I probably shouldn't point any of this out, but a lot of jabs at the Iraq War this year, and they still have no caricature of Dubya yet! They got a Clinton caricature much sooner, even a Bush 41. Some memorable lines too: Kent Brockman asks a guy in a burning house, "Sir, how does it feel knowing that no one's coming to save you?" and the guy says "Not as bad as knowing that somewhere gays are marrying each other. That's the real emergency, Kent!" Also, more jabs at Fox News. The Simpsons poses the following brain-teaser: why is it that Fox has crappy programs like strippers running an airline, while Fox News acts as the Thought Police of the Right? Holy doublethink, Batman! And the ancient rivalry between Kent Brockman and Arnie Pye continues. Also, even though the Simpsons movie is in 2-D, it does look like it relied a bit on computer animation, as has the show recently, in a couple of bravura 3-d sequences, one in an electrified corn maze, another where Marge is running through a dog park. Sigh. The days of painted cels is over; now people will buy external hard drives at animation auctions.