Rate and Review: "The Ten-Per-Cent Solution" (PABF02)

[Cartoonnetwork]

First half of the episode was ok. Highlights were Maggie doing the nazi salute, spoof of the social network ending, Marge calling Homer "Ralph", "Fred" and "King Of Queens" , "What about mimes?" "I'm not made of stone", and young springfieldians in the flashback.

Then it got really dull and boring, and Joan Rivers character got annoying and finally it ends without a decent conclusion. I did like "I love everything about the past except the way it leads to the present" and the coach gag was really, really clever and funny for once (and short).

I also liked Krusty's best review ever, though they maybe make him a little too much of a loser in the recent days. They used to make him more succesful, even though he's kind of a terrible person since Bart The Fink or even earlier, but I guess that if he got some famous he should have got good reviews sometimes. Or maybe it's just the audience who likes him and not the critics.

Anyway, it started ok but it was dull for the most part and it lacked a good ending. A very mediocre episode. 3/5, being generous.

[Redem]

I'd give it a 3 out 5, while the plot is a bit "meh" I think it has a lot of clever joke laced in it, I quite like the "the thing I love adult, hated as a teenagers and love as an adult"

Just how many time was Krusty was taken off his show?

There was that time he was cancelled because of gabbo
The time he was frame by sideshow bob
He had a 5 minute retirement during the stand-up episode
The time Bart Simpsons brainswashed by Sideshow bob
He was kind of shoved in the background when Anne Hateway became the host
The time he faked his death
Both bart and Lisa overtake the show (didn't do it boy and the all about Eve parody)

[Gatorgod]

Cool Krusty episode.. left me with a life time of positive memories! 5/5

[thewalkindude]

"One of the old TV relics is the bill from the Schoolhouse Rock song "I'm Just a Bill."


Is it the bill or is it the "Ammendment to Be?" I'm hoping it's the ammendment, simply for another callback.

[Diversity Pumpkin]

Just a reference to the thing it was parodying.

[moneychair2003]

Great episode. 5/5. Dan Castellaneta is the best actor and writer in the history of animation. Great plot progression. Best Krusty episode ever. Loved Hans Moleman in the 1960s flashback. "WHY IS MY SHOW JUST CARTOONS" and "Kids today are less sensitive than an army condom" were epic quotes. Joan Rivers character was great: they really portrayed her perfectly.

[Captain_Smiley]

I love Krusty explaining why the references in "Itchy and Scratchy" are dated. I loved this episode and wish I could watch it again but I don't want to wait for the rerun and the very distant release of it on dvd.

[Redem]

Is that me or you can see the transformation of the krusty show through out the seasons

-Start up as sucessful show
-Krusty personal demon start popping up as his dark personal life
-Krusty become this outdated comic no ones likes
-Krusty been outdated for so long he can work as a nostalgia property

[THUG LIFE]

I didn't like this episode very much .. BTW the rating are great !! 4.0 that's amazing !
--
Did anyone saw family guy episode ? There was a really funny scene with The Simpsons :P

[Diversity Pumpkin]

Haha, was the joke them admitting that they know guys at The Simpsons hate them? I only saw that one clip so it could have been taken out of context.

[THUG LIFE]

Yes I think so :P

[lovebug]

MEH. 1.5/5

[cloneasaurus]

This episode felt extremely short, and for the most part boring. Honestly, when we reached the "climax" with Krusty and... er... his agent who's name I forget live on air, I thought there was still a good 5 minutes left. Instead it just ended which caught me off guard. Made me realise how unengaging this episode was; it wasn't terrible but it certainly didn't hold my interest. That said it made me chuckle couple of times (I liked the whole "today's kids are uncomfortable with a clown who's every reference they have to look up on Wikipedia", mainly because I've found myself in that situation with The Simpsons a lot), though there were still lame parts at the beginning. All the TV references felt over the top and lame. And Krusty pointing out that the films I&S were referencing being a year old was good, but then it crossed a fine line and became overly obvious. Better than last week's because I found the plot slightly more interesting, but still on the whole a dull affair. C-/D+ 2/5.

Also, what was up with the Hulu thing? Didn't like that, way too "what the fuck" and once again overly obvious meta referencing. Felt more at home on Family Guy in all honesty.

[Mr. Krikt]

Couch gag wasn't bad but the execution just felt awkward. Par for Zombie Simpsons then.
Secondly, straight into the episode, I'm forced to reminisce about when Itchy and Scratchy was just an abstract cartoon, not just constant parodies. One can feel like padding but three just feels like a middle finger to the audience. Lampshading it didn't make the previous minutes funny, by the way.

The Hulu cut-away seemed a bit funny, especially how it featured Bart from the Simpsons instead of Peter. Oh right, it's not Family Guy nor funny. What are they doing?

One thing that did make me laugh was the line "He always comes back really religious" as Homer was depriving himself of oxygen. I'm surprised they included that.

I feel like the Well of Krusty is plumbed dry. What made it worse was the appearance of the "guest star". Her, I cannot stand and it feels like they perverted Krusty's backstory to make the catalyst of him becoming a clown. I know people tend to forgive continuity wobbles but this one really annoyed me. Trying to explain it that Krusty was using it to "get revenge" on his father doesn't patch it over.

I ran out of things to say for the rest of the episode. It was just so mundane and uninteresting. What I must say, though, is that I'm surprised at how unlikable and unremitting they made their main guest star. There's no relief, apart from when she tries running over the intern because she stayed quiet for a bit longer. Whenever she appears I expected more boring nagging; you can write an interesting but unlikable character you know.
Also what happened to Princess Penelope? Oh well.

[D DEBBS]

WORST...KRUSTY EPISODE...EVER!!!

[D'ohmer]

It didn't do much for me. There was nothing I especially didn't like about it, but there was nothing that I really liked about it. It was just a middle-of-the-road type of episode. The plot was uninteresting and thgere weren't too many laughs. I'll give it a 3/5 to be generous

[Tubbb!]

Could've sworn that the spelling was "McGarnagle".

I think you're right!

Also what happened to Princess Penelope? Oh well.

I was thinking the same thing. I guess he left her ass in France....

[NoOneFamous]

Great episode. 5/5. Dan Castellaneta is the best actor and writer in the history of animation. Great plot progression. Best Krusty episode ever. Loved Hans Moleman in the 1960s flashback. "WHY IS MY SHOW JUST CARTOONS" and "Kids today are less sensitive than an army condom" were epic quotes. Joan Rivers character was great: they really portrayed her perfectly.

You have very, VERY low standards for quality television.

[Diversity Pumpkin]

He was joshin'.

[Jims]

I really can't stand Joan Rivers, so her being in the episode really biases me against it. To be fair, she didn't really give a bad performance or anything... In fact, hers was a more spirited performance than most of the vocal performances on the show lately. But, still, Joan Rivers really gets on my nerves. Argh, that voice!

Don't really have much to say that others haven't pointed out. It was another Hollywood affair with typical insider-y kinds of jokes littered throughout. They did keep me guessing to some degree with the plot, as it looked REALLY REALLY OBVIOUS that Krusty was going to dump her again for another agent (leading to the 4th act showdown), but instead it turned into her being super-controlling on set. Her personality turn seemed a little too random to me, especially considering how extreme she got... But at least the plot kept me guessing to some degree. So there's always that.

Meh, 2/5.

[Zombies Rise from the Sea]

The Ten-Per-Cent Solution

2002: The amount of animated shows start to decrease in quality and increase in pandering, simplicity and unneeded wackiness.
2003: New animated shows appear with the same thing I mentioned above.
2005: South Park begins to change it's formula to include more conspiracy-action current events episodes and loses some of it's charm.
2005: The Simpsons too also decides to update itself to new expectations.
2007-ish: Long running children's show Arthur decides to incorporate something involving babies talking, dogs talking, imaginary friends and dolls talking into the shows fabric. Also scumbs to newer expectations.
2010: Some folks up in Canada decide to remake Babar in three-dimensional animation format, adding an 8 year old kid and completely changing the formula for the worse.
December 4th, 2011: This episode airs, Dan Castellaneta (the episodes writer) ruins what was once good.

What does this historical chart has to do with something? Well it has to do with this episode, and the result of the combination of Dan Canstalla and her wife's intention to do something "different" with a character he thought of as his own. Episodes like this just furthers the fact that Dan Castellaneta can't write for shit, it's like a known fact. He can do Homer well (even better in the glory days) but he can't seem to do other stuff well, including writing; hence why he is still known as the guy who voices Homer and not as the guy who released a comedy album or written a few episodes. Let me reiterate in bigger bolded underlined font.

Dan Castellaneta Can't Write!

Anyways, the episodes title was a mystery beforehand, some thought it would be a mystery, others just a general night on the town; but no one could predict that it'd involve Krusty, and even further people could predict that it'd involve a guest star. However, the real bombshell dropped when it was revealed through viewing of the episode that they changed Krusty's backstory and even ruined some of the good stuff about the Krusty character.

Yup, this is "The 90's Show 2011 featuring Krusty".

I'm just going to jump in and say that his reinvention as a modest comedian who's form of political comedy seems more modern then mid-60's. I can tell, I studied the 60's for a time (archive.org contains tons of information relevant to the 60's, hell if you look around; you can even find all four days of CBS's coverage of the Kennedy assassination) and that kind of comedy is not 60's. In fact all of the scenes with Krusty felt like they could be mistaken for the 80's or the 90's or even any age in general if it wern't for a few key details; I mean the animators could do a really better job when it comes to defining time eras, a really better job.

Anyways, the first time we see Krusty; he isn't even in Clown makeup... Hell, they even manage to destroy all of the long running jokes involving Krusty. (1. Krusty looked like Homer; 2. The clown makeup and red nose were a permanent part of him (Bart the Fink); 3. He was unfunny, ruthless, a smoker and sometimes desperate.) All in scenes that play way to even worse jokes and things that just don't work out at all; Hell they even managed to retcon Krusty's relationship with his father, well at least they got the birthmark right at all times of the day but still...

It doesn't even fit in to what his past as shown in episodes further on is. I mean Krusty was a talk show host; well that may have been added in on later episodes but I let it slide as I thought it was interesting to see him in his late night show where he was in glory but now he's hosting a show for kids. So how does Krusty's new past fit in now? Does he just keep doing stuff with his new agent until he get the kids show? Who knows???

Let's ignore Krusty's newly changed backstory for a minute here and focus on the actual episode because lord knows I can't focus on his backstory and how Dan Castellaneta ruined it for me. Now the episode's beginning is actually somewhat good with it's Krusty show and the TV museum of Television featuring tons of Zombie Simpsons TV shows from recent episodes (or "Homer the Father" to be specific") which is mostly better then most beginning destinations but not by much. Somewhat because as usual there is a lot of misses though Dan manages to get some good jokes in; and it serves as a somewhat unnatural way to introduce our guest star "Joan Rivers" who will obviously be playing a bigger part in the episode; actually it seems like the entire story is designed so that there is a mechanic between Joan and Krusty, a really unnatural mechanic but a mechanic nonetheless.

Let me expand... See Krusty and Joan Rivers (who we have never heard about before and looks a lot like herself in real life) are supposed to have a connection that appears to be they're in love with each other but both seem to be completely different; that connection may work in theory but in practice it seems awkward as both people don't seem like they're a match for each other and the Joan Rivers character doesn't have anything on her to make the connection work. Take for instance the way she acts; she's not giving it her all and it shows. For those of you unaware, Joan Rivers is capable of more, much more; instead she's playing a role that she doesn't even feel comfortable in, and it shows when it's shown that Joan is being strict to people who try to upstage Krusty; well it seemed natural but it felt forced and I just couldn't get into it... I mean a hint or something would of been nice (maybe the scene where Joan Rivers appears to be pissed off about Krusty and that rant but I don't know.) It'd also be nicer if it was directly related to Krusty but it just turns out that she's very picky and rebellious and that doesn't mean much nor does it make it stand out from the number of Simpsons episodes that do the same thing. ("Replaceable You" being an example) It does create conflict but at what cost?

And what's the point of even having them together if you're not going to keep them together. I mean "Once Upon a Time in Springfield" did the same thing and it was a basic screwover; why do the thing you did in that episode again if you're not going to mean it. (and from what we've been shown, it's definately true you don't mean it.)

Krusty here would work if his actions is natural but as a consequence of the newer episodes; his personality is nothing like himself; having been degraded to that of a clown with a show who is trying hard to be unfunny and desperate instead of letting it come to him naturally, he even does some weird stuff like go into ball pits which I thought was nice but wore thin when they kept doing it again... The way he reacts when he's around Joan Rivers is barely anything like two people who have a history; I mean instead of reacting out as loudly as he could of (or even feel some regret in the flashbacks) he just stand around as he does some stuff and regain his agent. Of course there are some rements of his performer desperate stuff just laying around and he even manages to drop some good lines but after his Pee-Wee Herman routine it just goes downhill as his show gets on on Hbowtime (a title which I can't decide as clever or just plain lazy.) and the focus shifts to the whole "Joan Rivers" is crazy aspect. I was expecting it to go the route less traveled (not involving a parody of a channel) but hey, what are you going to do?

I also wondered why they thought Joan Rivers would be a good fit in this but again, what do I know?

The Hbowtime parody I'm disappointed for because well, they could of done better; HBO and Showtime being networks that could work well for a parody if combined. They do get in some shots but those shots feel pale and uninspired, as if they came up with these ideas now but felt like they could of used it tons of episodes before (if they were any other animated show of course.) That includes the TLC reference (they started airing reality shows long before this episode aired, way to be relevant Simpsons!) I did notice that "The Ricky Gervais Show" seems like one that's taken from an episode and not one that The Simpsons have done, I'm guessing The Simpsons loves Ricky Gervais so much; like Pixar before them.

At this point, you'll notice that I haven't talked much about the Simpsons; well that's because they don't appear as much in the episode. This is how I imagined an episode without The Simpsons would be like; except they still appear in some form. And while the episode itself is unlike a representation of what an episode like that would be in the golden age, it's still the best we'll get. All characters here manage to play their part even though Lisa seems the most out of character, naming network names as if it was her life. Granted they do manage to do one of their trademarks well but the others they just seem like they're there, just because they're there. What I don't understand is their instance of having people from Springfield nearly everywhere they go, I mean we have characters from Springfield in the past (some youthisized, some the same), some characters in the audience and even some in the Hbowtime audience, so why have them in the audience for everything they do? It just doesn't make much sense... (Well it did back then but now, come on?)

Anyways; they almost appear to be window dressings, being there to compliment the character Dan Castellaneta is showcasing, which in this case appears to be Krusty... I mean it's nice when something actually compliments something but you can't have something be there just so it can be there, it's like filling up space when you realize that something needs to be place there I mean come on!

So anyway... Aside from a comeback story that fails to distinguish itself in a major way, a combination that doesn't really work out and some blasmephy that people will either ignore or be enraged by, this episode doesn't really work out. I mean there are some good parts in it but the bad outnumber the good and Dan and his wife seem to be focused on trying stuff with the Krusty character that just doesn't seem like good ideas; similar to the stuff he did with his Barney character in "Days of Wine and D'oh'ses". I mean sure, it's interesting but does it really work out and more importantly is it even worth it. The answer in both of these cases is no.

There is a competent episode if you look past the whole Krusty backstory thing but even without that, it's not worth watching.

4.5/10

I have to note that the town of Springfield seem to become more and more modern; just seeing the Channel 6 facilities modernized made me somewhat shudder I mean what happened to the Springfield we know. Changing stuff to accommodate new expectations or to make things relevant or for some other reason does not work; I mean if things aren't broke, why fix it? The town provides lots of opportunities, lots of stories and tons of possibilities. The things in the show compliment those possibilities and the characters help drive the show; a change can be good if it's needed and if it's done successfully but in this case, a change is usually a bad idea, everything that the show's established just makes it work and if you start to tinker with things then it starts to become broken... I mean S-Mobile. Really... I mean come on!

[The Governor]

Instead of "S-Mobile" (wtf?) they should've had Sprint parody called "Jog."

[Shaunbadia]

I liked this one, the Itchy and Scratchy cartoons at the start were....well, I didn't care for them, but for those little bits of Krusty complaining inbetween them. They gave Krusty a suprisingly enjoyable story.

Other stuff:
Hitler Maggie!
The King of the Hill gag made me sad
Didn't like Homer's corpse acting
Found the Ricky Gervais show clip a bit odd....but it's always nice to Karl Pilkington
MOE GETS A CELL PHONE!

[Cartoonnetwork]

I don't remember a lot from Once Upon A Time In Springfield, but I remember liking it to some extent. And Princess Penelope was so much nicer than this Joan Rivers character and a better couple for Krusty. I wish Jean could break the status quo and actually keep some continuity once in his life. Or at least he should break these couples to give a resolution. The new trend is including a happy ending between the couples and then forgetting about it in the next episode. It's a little like Lisa and Colin in the movie. I can't decide if they do that cause they like a happy ending (even though it's not real cause we'll never see the new characters again) or just because of pure laziness (meh, they'd break up somehow, I'll let it to the audience imagination so I don't have to think a proper ending), or maybe a combination of both. Actually, the old shows usually ended with the couples breaking up and that was usually predictable cause most of them were voiced by guest stars. But a/it was a more natural way to reverting to status quo and b/it provided bittersweet endings that were usually more realistic and less cliched than happy endings.

When was the last time we saw Lynn? Will Jean even be able to keep the Nedna thing after all the publicity they created around it?

[Financial Panther]

Who's Lynn?

[Cartoonnetwork]

Sorry, I meant Ling or whatever they called Selma's chinese baby. See, we barely see her anymore, so I never remember her name.

[Bert Stanton]

Thoroughly enjoyable, particularly the first act. Enjoyed the museum of television scene and there were a lot of call backs to previous episodes which I always enjoy.

4/5

[jbauer]

Middle of the road episode for me. The first half was really enjoyable. The Museum of Television gags worked for the most part, and it's nice to have Homer in a supporting role every once in a while.

I thought the writers had a real chance to address a long-standing issue regarding generational fandom. Supposedly, Krusty's older fans would like to see his show revamped to suit their tastes. I thought it was a good opportunity to really trash certain fans like the Star Wars and Indiana Jones crowds, who are unable to move on from the fact that those films were ALWAYS designed as children's campy fairy tales, and are therefore unable to enjoy anything of the sort after hitting puberty, and end up blaming the author for "raping their childhood".

Sadly, this issue got overlooked pretty fast in favor of a somewhat dull love story between Krusty and his agent. I hope they bring this topic back in a future show. It deserves a deeper approach than what this episode ended up doing.

And I can see why they've been shortening the opening sequence recently, or cutting it out. These episodes are coming up really short. But I guess Fox is to blame on this one. I miss the days when episodes ran 22 minutes long. I'm going to skip the commercials, regardless.

I'll give it a 3/5, since I really enjoyed the first act, and thought characterization was pretty spot-on for the most part. Krusty as a character never fails to liven up an episode centered around him and network execs, even if it's not always a laugh-fest. Plus, I can never get enough of studio interference jokes.

One last thing: who in the world Kevin Dillon voiced on this episode? I saw Entourage for 7 years, and I sure as hell couldn't recognize his voice anywhere on the show.

[alex_on_ice]

I really didn't like this episode at all. I'm fed up with Krusty centric episodes. Enough is enough. I'll be very thankful if the writers don't give us another Krusty episode for Seasons 24 and 25. The very beginning of the episode is the only part I liked (the three or four Itchy and Scratchy's). The episode really felt like it lasted for 25 minutes. I gave this episode the same grade as Treehouse Of Horror XXII but I find it's a even a little worse.

[Bartesque]