The General Discussion Lounge

[coltonwiggum]

Hahaha. All good moments, thanks for that Imp. I agree, to a point, This only works in smaller doses, or else the character becomes irritating.

[Postmaster]

Just watch the first few minutes of the episode and you'll probably see what I mean.

Yeah music cues seem slightly absent from newer episodes as well, I remember after having gone through a phase of watching lots newer episodes, being completly thrown by the music cue at the beginning of burns baby burns, even that particular music cue, instantly brought about a feeling that I was watching a classic era episode.
Even the music cues Scully used have a slightly goofy comedy feel to them.

[General Jack D. Ripper]

Only on NHC do we get nitpicky enough to criticize the music cues of the non-classic era... I wish I could say I pay that much attention to them.

[Postmaster]

It's not like I really pay any attention to them though, it's just something I'd subliminally noticed at first and then suddenly I noticed it um... liminally.

[Imperciph]

Only in NHC do we nitpick about boarding conventions and provide cynical meta-commentary as well.

[General Jack D. Ripper]

^Very true.

I've noticed several formerly avid GD members are posting less, and it disgusts me. I guess what I'm trying to say is...come back Stevie V. Scrivello and Kiyosuki!

[LisaFan17]

I made a quiz. It's pretty easy--recommended for slightly above average fans
http://www03.quizyourfriends.com/tak...7134655-432012

[Nebuchanezzar]

Damn. I guess that Malibu Stacy said "My spidey sense is tingling" on that doll that didn't work. Oh well, I'm an idiot.

By the way, you usually don't use the word 'period' to end a question, seeing as the use of the word denotes a (.), not a (.?).

[gonzo]

^i hear ya' jimmy C, that malibu stacey question is what made me end up getting 90% of the questions, a good quiz though with some good, hardcore fan questions. i have'nt seen a fan-made quiz like that in a while.

[Nebuchanezzar]

I was watching Break My Wife Please earlier today for what could have very well been the first time. I was pleasantly surprised, it was a really, really good episode. Particularly funny too. What are everyone elses thoughts on this one?

[Charlie]

Watch it a few more times. I loved it at first, but seriously, now I find it average. Incredibly disjointed...it changes from Bart being in hospital, to Homer buying gadgets for his car, to losing his license and relying on Marge, to Marge suddenly hating Homer in yet ANOTHER 'marriage on the rocks' plot; pointless guest stars...even the song doesn't match up to anything made beforehand. There's also a really big post-classic era trait: fucked up ending. Really, Homer saying "get off my property" and turning the sprinklers on to those who just honored his wife at a dinner...rough. One of Long's better episodes, but I really think it isn't that great, although I will admit there were a select few jokes that I thought were good (Homer, Bart, and Lisa switching positions as they walked back and forth past the house; Homer trying to fit a dollar bill into his ass which he believes is a fanny pack, before giving up and actually throwing the money away; and Homer being proud of walking a few metres up the street to Moe's).

[Imperciph]

It suffers from Tim Long syndrome : after two decent acts it veers off to a completely unrelated tangent in the third act, creating a contrived conflict which ends on a weird and rushed note. Humour is decent, but I personally found the musical number a little uninspired and Steve Buscemi's potential as a guest star unutilised.

What really hurts the episodes quality is that it introduces "Marge is upset at Homer because he doesn't care" all of a sudden and the way it does so is not justifiable at all : it's quite hard to sympathise with Marge and think how much of a selfish jerk Homer has been when Marge's reaction to Homer's insensitivity is attempting to kill him. Thus, this whole angle comes off as forced and artificial, making the whole "Homer does something nice for Marge to make up" (an already overused plot device even by then) completely unengaging (probably not a word, but this best expresses what I'm trying to express).

Two decent acts and one bad one with decent humour but contrived storytelling adds up to a middling episode. C+

[General Jack D. Ripper]

I used to like it but on the second viewing I noticed alot of its flaws. I don't think its too valid of a complaint to complain about the unrelated parts in the first act as they were quick set ups and time eaters. Steve Buscemi was definitely wasted, but I liked the song even if it wasn't great. Homer discovering walking was nice, and they could've made it into something worthwhile, but nope they dropped the idea that he now liked walking, and went for a marriage conflict episode. Marge is mad at Homer because he's not supportive when he gets his driver's license revoked and she has to do all the driving? Um, okay... what is he supposed to do. And there's the fact that Marge is AGAIN supposed to be the victim even though she's the one being stupid and actually trying to kill Homer. Then there's the quick fix inwhich Marge forgives Homer, with some song he sang to her. Must've solved all their marital problems ever. Homer never even got his license back. However, I don't mind the end line like Ivan did. Some good jokes are the only thing this episode has going for it with maybe the song. B-

[Imperciph]

Is it just me or threads asking for help with academic projects related to the Simpsons are becoming more frequent day by day ? We might as well make an official "academic q & a thread" and sticky it.

[General Jack D. Ripper]

May as well. Speaking of academic projects with the Simpsons, in my English class we were assigned an essay where we're supposed to compare two similar things from entertainment (movies, theaters, roller coasters, tv shows) and I considered doing Simpsons vs. Family Guy (that wouldn't have been biased at all), but I went with Idiocracy vs. Office Space.

[coltonwiggum]

And which did you choose as the better of the two?

[General Jack D. Ripper]

Idiocracy. Just found it alot more funny. Probably because I never worked in an office, but I feel like I got a lot of the references to office life.

[coltonwiggum]

I see... said the blind man... to his deaf wife.

[Chief Simpson]

Dammit. Got 80 on that quiz.

[Postmaster]

I think people are being way too generous, pretty much none of break my wife please worked, it's one of the most fractured non-sensical plots ever, plot developments come out of nowhere, with virtually no logic or reason for them to happen, Then it's resolved with a forced hokey ending. if it was consistently funny, I'd cut it some slack but I don't really remember laughing much, though I remember cringing quite often so D+.

[Nebuchanezzar]

Oh please. Fractured makes no sense for this episode. If an episode were to be labelled as fractured then it implies that there's absolutely no relevance from scene to scene, and that the episode is bouncing around nonsensically from one plot beat to another. That was hardly the case in this episode. The plot was a bit over the place, too much was put into the episode, but everything was tied neatly into everything else and the plot retained a sense of direction the whole way through. Had the Marge driving and Homer walking things not come together, then these bombastic complaints would be justified. They did come together, each was resolved by the episodes end, there's nary a complain to be made in this regard.

Don't get me wrong, I certainly note the flaws of the episode. Far too much was in there, it didn't have as much of a direction as I would have wanted, the fear thing was severely underplayed (as a result of the plot developed prior) which leads a few people to force a critique of the episode making use of a "maritial crisis" formula. Never the less, these aren't enough to bring the episode down for me. Plot was interest, jokes were consistently funny, characters were justified in their use of dialogue, actions and had a fair amount of interest behind them. It was an extremely competent episode. I'd grade it around a B-, relative to Jean era. If I were doing it as a whole, I too would probably go C+.

This brings me to a few more points, that I shall now bitch about quote for quote.

to Marge suddenly hating Homer in yet ANOTHER 'marriage on the rocks' plot

The crisis was certainly underplayed, (once more) as a result of the packed nature of the episode. Want I wanted to mention though, was that it's grossly unfair to criticise an episode for its hackneyed plots, if those plots became overused after the episode aired. It's no fault of the episode that it seems less fresh on repeat viewings, because writers subsequently went into hyper-marriage breakdown mode. The crisis was underdeveloped, a bit shallow, but you can hardly say that the episode was at fault because it made use of ANOTHER marriage crisis plot, when these things hadn't really become all that much of a pain by then. Same applies with Homer gets a job plots, or guest stars. They're a nice novelty at first, but after a repeated overuse they get old. "Retrospective criticisms", as I shall call them, carry no weight.

even the song doesn't match up to anything made beforehand.

Um...the song was about Homer walking, and it linked the two story arcs together forming act 3. What is there to not understand about its place within the story?

Might I also add that for a song, it does serve quite a few purposes. Other songs in episode, say, the Stonecutters song or something of that nature, prove no purpose other than being an entertaining time waster. This song did that, but it also tied in the Marge story to Homer's story, and also had a bit of an odd joke in there (the fact that a song so extravagant ended in the way it did). Quite a good song.

Really, Homer saying "get off my property" and turning the sprinklers on to those who just honored his wife at a dinner...rough

creating a contrived conflict which ends on a weird and rushed note.

It was a joke, gentlemen. Take it a bit less seriously.

Marge is mad at Homer because he's not supportive when he gets his driver's license revoked and she has to do all the driving? Um, okay... what is he supposed to do.

I thought it was reasonable for Marge, who is an overworked housewife to get a bit stressed with the increased workload, and family dependance. No?

And there's the fact that Marge is AGAIN supposed to be the victim even though she's the one being stupid and actually trying to kill Homer. Then there's the quick fix inwhich Marge forgives Homer, with some song he sang to her. Must've solved all their marital problems ever.

The problem was that she was overworked by Homer and her family, who didn't seem to show her much gratitude. They did show some in the end, it did solve their problems. It's reasonable. What is unreasonable, is that the plot was extremely undeveloped, perhaps leading to Imperciphs "disengagement" (I'm probably making that word up too) with the episode. This is a reasonable criticism of the episode, and it's the main thing that led me to my B-/C+ grade. The story was undeveloped, which is the episodes biggest flaw.

-=-=-=-=-=-

Having an academic Q+A thread is an excellent idea, but with the lack of active moderators around here I don't see it happening any time soon. If this lack of forum leadership continues, I'm going to have to go on an official bitching campaign to get someone in charge of GD/Voting Booths who is actually active, and takes more part in GD than simply making R&R threads. I can forgive Mike Scully, who I would expect was a lot more active when he was a more active member and such, and Jake and Tomacco who I think hold their positions as more of an honourary thing than anything else...but yeah.

[clickline]

I made a quiz. It's pretty easy--recommended for slightly above average fans
http://www03.quizyourfriends.com/tak...7134655-432012

Great work nice questions!

[Charlie]

Um...the song was about Homer walking, and it linked the two story arcs together forming act 3. What is there to not understand about its place within the story?

No, no, no you misunderstand. I was comparing the song to other musical numbers made prior, not parts of this episode itself. It was the worst musical number in the show (except the "You're a Bunch of Stuff" one from 'Large Marge') up to that point; there's no way it could 'match up' to numbers like "The Spring in Springfield", "Kids! Adults!" and even "The Garbageman Can".

[Nebuchanezzar]

Fair enough then

I'd also sugges that moderators should split topics out of this thread, if they carry a fair amount of potential discussion...kinda like the one we just had about Break My Wife Please. Having detailed conversations like that in only one thread makes GD look dead, when it really isn't.

[Imperciph]

I disagree. If anything, I've gotten more replies to topics I've introduced here rather making a whole new thread about it. :silly:

[Nebuchanezzar]

Well, once something has received some replies then it could be split or something like that. Searching through the past few threads and such makes this place look more dead than it should be, all because far too much discussion takes place in this thread. How are we to attract quality new members if they think that this place is deceased? A bit of an exaggeration, but you know...

[Imperciph]

Fair enough, but a few more points :

1. The concept of the lounge is to discuss small stuff you think is not big not enough to warrant its own thread to begin with. If one posts about a good topic in here instead of making a new thread to discuss it, that's his own fault of judgement. :silly:

2. The lounge itself loses activity quite frequently until someone suddenly remembers about it and bumps it.

3. NHC offers plenty (info about current seasons, R & R threads, info about movie, Q & A thread) to encourage new posters even with lack of discussion.

4. Abundance of bad topics that deserve locking hurts discussion much more than the lounge does. For some reason, good topics receive much less attention than bad topics do.

[grissom]

I was watching Homer Simpson Vs. The City of New York yesterday and finally got around to looking up what the word "chud" means. Turns out it's a reference to this:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087015/

That's actually a really funny reference now that I get it.

[General Jack D. Ripper]

Thanks for that. I never got that before I always wondered about that.

On the topic of that episode, I don't think I'll ever understand why so many people love it. It's probably in my worst of season nine. There's a couple funny parts like MAD magazine, the musical, and flushing meadows, but there are jokes I hear about being great like the Mountain Dew and crab juice joke that I really don't think is very clever or funny at all. The first scene with Barney actually just makes me pity Barney. Homer's (present) scenes in NY are just annoying because its basically him getting driven to the edge by New York and it has the kind of ending you'd expect in a more cartoony show, like how the car is completely destroyed but fine the next episode. This episode just irks me. C+

[grissom]

It's definitely an over the top episode that doesn't really take itself seriously, but I like it. It's obviously more about the jokes than the plot, but it's really funny so I would consider it pretty successful.