Unless you were living in a cave during the last few weeks, you would know that the Super Bowl was on television yesterday, and the Colts lost to the Saints.
Well, something we always enjoy watching are the Super Bowl ads, after the game, because we live in Canada and aren’t allowed to watch the ads that are shown in America.
Well, after some archiving, here is the Simpsons Coca-Cola commercial we got all excited about. Enjoy!
On Sunday, January 31, 2010, Chris Martin from Coldplay will appear on everyone's favourite cartoon: The Simpsons.
The signer will make a guest voice appearance in a new episode of the show titled "Million Dollar Maybe," which airs on FOX and Global.
After Homer wins the lottery and finds himself with lots of disposable income, he and Bart purchase front-row seats to a Coldplay concert. They're so close in fact, that they find themselves having a conversation with Chris Martin.
The singer joins a long list of famous musicians who have voiced as themselves over the years, including Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, George Harrison, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Elvis Costello, Tom Petty, Bono, Tom Jones, Linda Ronstadt, Little Richard and many, many others.
Coca-Cola today launched a social media campaign on Facebook that teases its upcoming Super Bowl commercials while raising funds for Boys & Girls Club of America.
Through the company's Facebook fan page, located at www.facebook.com/livepositively, members can send friends virtual gifts of Coca-Cola, which is a bottle image that appears on their profile and News Feeds. In return, sends get 20-second previews of the new commercials that the company plans to air during the Super Bowl. Coca-Cola donates $1 to the Boys & Girls Club for each gift sent. At noon on gift day, February 7, gift-givers will receive both full ads before they are revealed to the general public on the CBS broadcast that night.
"By using our Super Bowl ads to invite people to join us in supporting Boys & Girls Clubs, we're going beyond simply airing great commercials on a terrific live television event," said Katie Bayne, CMO of Coca-Cola North America. "We're reminding people that whenever they enjoy a Coca-Cola, they play a role in helping us make a difference in the lives of others. By opening a Coke they create a happiness multiplier."
The two new commercials are part of the year-old global "Open happiness" campaign from independent Wieden + Kennedy in Portland, Oregon.
In one commercial, starring characters from The Simpsons, Mr. Burns has lost his millions and only looks at the bright side of life after convenience store clerk Apu gives him a Coke. In the other spot, a sleepwalker leaves his tent to trek through the African savannah, bypassing a cheetah, a herd of elephants and other dangerous wildlife, to get to a Coke inside a cabin fridge.
Homer Simpson, one of the most interesting role models ever, is set to become the world's most famous curler in a special episode of The Simpsons. Homer is an unlikely torchbearer for a sport that is craving respect at the Winter Olympic Games.
The beer-drinking, donut-eating cartoon character will pursue his Olympic dream in the episode of the popular, long-running series that is being aired days before the February 12th opening ceremony of the Vancouver Games.
Well, since new episodes usually air on Sunday evenings, unless otherwise noted, we can expect the episode to air on February 7, 2010.
Do you like The Simpsons? Well, here, we love it... and we can all say that we have seen all of the episodes. But, we would not be willing to watch all 450 episodes (and the 20th anniversary special) back-to-back while depriving sleep.
But, one person is willing to do so. Glyn Stott is willing to do so, and therefore, is a dedicated fan, once he does watch all episodes back-to-back without sleeping.
Mr. Stott plans to endure more than 150 hours of sleep deprivation to view its entire back catalogue.
If he can stay awake to see every episode shown in Britain since its launch in Britain in 1990, the 34-year-old will earn a place in the Guinness Book of World Records.
His six-day feat will be supervised by officials to ensure that he does not fall asleep.
Mr. Stott will receive a 20-minute break at the end of every three episodes and he must stick to the strict rules laid down by Guinness.
FOX Broadcasting Company, which airs the show, is backing Mr. Stott's world record attempt by sending him every episode on DVD.
Saskatchewan residents will likely still get a chance to vote on whether they want to change their clocks when they go to the polls in the 2011 provincial election, Premier Brad Wall said yesterday.
But the Saskatchewan Party government may back away from a 2007 campaign promise to hold a referendum on daylight time if it is clear provincial residents don't want to change the status quo, he said. Under the Time Act of 1966, Saskatchewan is one of the few jurisdictions in North America not to change its clocks, sharing the same time as Alberta in the summer months and Manitoba during the winter.
"If it's an absolute fait accompli, if it's a decided notion the people of the province just fundamentally aren't interested in change, then do we need to waste the effort and the money that would be part of a referendum?" Wall told reporters, adding the costs would not be that significant since the vote would be held in conjunction with the next provincial election.
Mr. Wall, citing unspecified newspaper polling, suspects there may now be a majority in favour of no change. But he said he wants to consult with the Saskatchewan Party caucus, as well as the NDP, on the referendum issue. The government may also poll on daylight time.
The previous NDP government consistently rejected the notion of a referendum because it said the province was too evenly split for such a vote to settle the issue. Mr. Wall said that he would vote in line with his constituents in Swift Current, where he believes a majority is in favour of not changing the clocks.
The votes are in, and Peggy Black of Orange, Connecticut has been selected by the producers of The Simpsons and its contest to create a new character.
The following is a post on a blog hosted by FOX:
Her character, Ricardo Bomba (nicknamed "La Bomba"), is a smooth-talking ladies' man from South America with a luxurious black mane, a chiseled physique and a voice as smooth as silk. By day, Ricardo works as a safety inspector at the nuclear power plant, and by night, he works Springfield's singles scene – melting women's hearts all over town.
The character will make his small-screen debut in the "Million Dollar Maybe" episode of the show, which airs on Sunday, January 31, 2010. In this all-new episode, Homer blows off a date with Marge to buy a lottery ticket, and wins. Also in this episode, Chris Martin of Coldplay makes a guest voice appearance as himself!
On January 10, 2010, FOX will air the 450th episode of our favourite show, The Simpsons. The episode is titled "Once Upon a Time in Springfield," and will be followed by an hour-long documentary, hosted by Morgan Spurlock (that guy from Super Size Me), titled The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special in 3-D on Ice.
And, with some kick-ass optimism, creator Matt Groening believes he could do the show for another 20 years. Now that's momentum and commitment!
Simon Cowell is coming back to The Simpsons! If you remember his first appearance correctly, he was working at a snobby school for smart, but freaky kids.
The X Factor and American Idol judge said that it was vanity that made him return to the show, despite hating his previous experience on the show.
"It's the best thing to get the call - you last forever and are young forever on the show, so I love it - the only reason for doing it is to look good and stay young forever," he explained. "I criticized Maggie, rightly, and then Homer punches me in the face and I criticise the punch because it wasn't a very good punch."
In an article published on Tuesday in L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper had some nice things to say about America's longest-running prime time TV series, and had criticism for those who would simply discount its often-irreverent take on modern family life. Here's how Catholic News Service translated a portion of L'Osservatore Romano's article:
"Rigid censors turn off the television," when the Fox program comes on, "but the more serious analysts praise the realism and intelligence of its scripts, even if they often attack -- and rightly so -- the crude language and violence of some episodes.
According to Catholic News Service, the Vatican paper went on to describe The Simpsons as "tender and irreverent, scandalous and ironic, boisterous and profound, philosophical -- and sometimes even theological -- nutty synthesis of pop culture and of the lukewarm and nihilistic American middle class."
Clearly, somebody in the Catholic Church has been paying attention to the series. In fact, the paper goes on to discuss the show in terms of its theological viewpoint, too:
Simultaneously reflecting modern people's indifference toward and great need for the sacred, Homer... finds his ultimate refuge in God.
The idea of the Vatican newspaper taking the time to comment on a cartoon television show is pretty unusual. In fact, it has all the makings of a pretty good "Simpsons" episode.
Excellent! Fictional cartoon millionaire Charles Montgomery Burns scored the most write-in votes; collecting 25, according to Board of Elections data.
But obviously that wasn't enough for victory!
The Springfield millionaire was just one of the silly write-ins New Yorkers proposed for mayor. City residents cast the late Rodney Dangerfield, radio host Howard Stern, Mickey Mouse and even Sleeping Beauty.
"In an electorate of millions of people, there will be a few who will use it as a form of personal expression," a Hunter College political science professor, Andrew Polsky, told the Daily News.
Close to 300 votes cast in last month's election were write-ins, just a small fraction of the 1.1 million votes cast. Derek Jeter was the only athlete on the list, but he declined to comment when asked whether he will have a political future or whether he write in his name.
Former presidents won some votes. Honest Abe received a write-in from another Queens resident, and three others selected former President Bill Clinton.
Some votes gave formers mayors a second chance. Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani collected 10 votes while David Dinkins and Ed Koch each received one vote.
"I was a good mayor and some people remember that," Koch told the paper, insisting he wasn't the person who wrote his name.
City Councilman Dan Gardonick (D-Manhattan) also swears that he and his mother did not write in his name. Four people did despite his obscurity.
"We don't know where these votes came from," said Garodnick's spokesman Dan Pasquini. He also said the city councilman was also "flattered" yet "soundly beaten by a fictional cartoon billionaire."
Forty years to the day after it first revolutionized television and preschool education, Sesame Street will kick off a "star-studded" landmark season on November 10 with an updated look and premiere featuring U.S. first lady Michelle Obama planting a vegetable garden with Elmo and Big Bird. Now airing in 140 countries, the iconic status of the longest-running children's show in history has nearly eclipsed its beginnings as a groundbreaking social experiment.
And after four decades of knocking down social boundaries and winning over children, parents and educators alike, the show's biggest challenge now is competing with the universe of slick children's programs that owe it their very existence.
"They actually changed the character of television," says Louise Gikow, author of Sesame Street: A Celebration: 40 Years of Life on the Street and former writer on the Israeli-Palestinian-Jordanian joint production of the show. "We wouldn't have people who were willing to risk trying to create really good stuff that grown-ups could watch along with their kids without Sesame Street."
Sesame Street debuted on November 10, 1969 with a "magazine" format inspired by the adult sketch-comedy show Laugh-In, mixing various short segments with "commercials" aimed at teaching letters and numbers.
"We were accused of being fast-paced and creating short attention spans in kids, (but) when you go back 40 years later to watch those early episodes, they're so slow!" laughs Carol-Lynn Parente, the show's current executive producer and the first to grow up with Sesame Street and work her way up from "shlepping tapes in the edit room."
"It's just a sign of the times."
As in any neighbourhood, some things have changed on Sesame Street over the years, while others remain comfortably familiar. Big Bird's favourite treat at Hooper's Store, a birdseed milkshake, cost 20 cents in 1969 and now rings in at $2.99, while Oscar the Grouch was a burnt orange colour in the first season before taking on his familiar green hue. Elmo, on the other hand, has been three years old for 25 years and 75-year-old puppeteer Carroll Spinney has been playing both 8'2" Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch, whose voice was inspired by a gruff New York cabbie, since the first day.
"I think people recognize that Sesame Street is something bigger than creating a cute children's television program, that it really has the power to transform the way children think about themselves, the way they think about others, the way they enter school," says Shari Rosenfeld, vice-president international for Sesame Workshop, the non-profit entity that produces the show and its international spinoffs.
"Sesame Street really introduced the whole notion that you could use media towards educational impact, and that was a very revolutionary concept in 1969," says Rosenfeld.
Jim Henson, already an established puppeteer, was signed at the start to create a cast of furry characters. The show's child psychology experts at first insisted the Muppets should never appear in scenes with the human characters, to avoid confusing children about what was real. But early test screenings revealed that preschoolers were mesmerized by the Muppets, but tuned out when the humans appeared alone. From that point on, Sesame Street was fully "integrated with humans and monsters and Grouches and Snuffleupaguses and eight-foot birds," as Parente puts it.
The name of the show was inspired by Ali Baba's magic phrase "open sesame," Gikow writes in the book, and won out over other options like The Video Classroom and 1-2-3 Avenue B.
Most children's shows at the time took place in stylized imaginary realms, so setting Sesame Street in a gritty, inner-city neighbourhood was a groundbreaking choice that reflected the show's mission to provide preschoolers from inner-city and low-income households with the same educational leg-up as their middle-class peers. Young audiences saw their own world reflected in the brownstone buildings, concrete stoops and battered garbage cans of Sesame Street, and in the unprecedented racial diversity of its human cast. That diversity also got the show banished from the airwaves in Mississippi in 1970. What the hell?
Not to interrupt here, but didn't the Simpson family from The Simpsons make an appearance on the show at one point? Anyway, within a year of the premiere, Big Bird appeared on the cover of Time magazine in an issue christening Sesame Street "TV's gift to children." The show garnered a Peabody Award, a Grammy for its first cast album -- eight more would follow over the years -- and three Emmy Awards in its first season. Sesame Street now holds the Guinness Record for most Emmy wins by a TV series, with 122.
Together, the residents of Sesame Street have celebrated marriages, births and adoptions, hosted four first ladies and more than 400 other celebrity visitors and spawned more than two-dozen international spinoffs.
The Sesame Street gang has grappled with death and helped each other through a hurricane. They comforted a frightened Elmo after he witnessed a fire, while at the same time, his young fans were trying to understand the horrific terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In September, a prime-time special for parents and children entitled Families Stand Together: Feeling Secure in Tough Times marked the first time the show directly addressed economic worries.
Now, the show is reinventing itself in a bid to stay fresh and retain a media-savvy young audience in what has become a crowded children's TV landscape. Season 40 features a science and environment theme, 3-D computer-generated animation segments and a flashy new title and credit sequence -- but Parente says in many ways, the preschool curriculum of ABCs and 123s will be exactly the same on Tuesday as it was four decades ago.
"We just couldn't be happier and prouder with the way it's all come together. From the minute you turn on that first day of Season 40, you will see a brand-new show, but all the heart and essence of Sesame Street is still intact," she says. "That's part of the beauty of Sesame Street, that it's evolved over those 40 years. I think that's why it's still around."
Remember that episode of The Simpsons when Homer Simpson found his long-lost brother and went to Detroit, and ruined him in the process? Well, remember when he returned to visit the Simpson family in the episode titled "Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?" Well, if you remember the episode correctly, Homer Simpson was awarded with the hastily-and-newly-created C. Montgomery Burns Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence in exchange for Homer Simpson not suing the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant (without Homer's knowledge). Later, Homer Simpson's long-lost brother Herb Powell travels to Springfield after reading about the award, and convinces the Simpson family to give him money to develop something. In the end, he developed a baby translator and made a whole lot of money. This meant that Homer got his new vibrating chair; Marge got a new washer/dryer combo and got $50.00 for her old washer/dryer combo, which was sold to Moe Szyslak, who then held races between the washer and dryer at his bar.
Well, seventeen years later, there's an app for that. Cry Translator promises to identify the "five distinct cries" made by babies.
In other words, you no longer have to wonder if your baby is tired, hungry, angry, stressed or just bored. It's now like Stanza for crybabies.
With the boring baseball World Series screwing around with TV schedules before Halloween, the annual Halloween special of The Simpsons will be airing this evening on your favourite FOX or Global TV station. And tonight, Homer, Marge and the gang scare up three new tales of the strange, spooky and intermittently funny kind.
If you really want the spoilers, you can click on the "source" below.
If you don't want to be spoiled, don't click on the link below. In fact, just tune in!
Ah yes, it appears that the writers of The Simpsons are finally getting lazy enough to not want to do their own jobs.
The producers are holding a contest to see who can create a new character for the cartoon. Producers announced the contest this week, under the kick-ass slogan "Unleash Your Yellow."
To enter the contest, and to submit your idea, head on over to the show's official website, www.thesimpsons.com.
Sadly, this contest is only open to residents of the United States, and not Canada.
Are you a long-time subscriber to Playboy? Yeah, we all know that you are. Admit it. If you're a guy that has a girlfriend, you probably have one too. Well, on next month's edition of the magazine, you are going to find someone interesting on it: Marge Simpson.
Simpson, who is tastefully concealing her assets behind a signature Playboy Bunny chair, is the first cartoon character ever to be featured on the front of the glossy adult magazine, joing the ranks of sex symbols like Marilyn Monroe and Cindy Crawford.
Playboy said that the cover and a three-page picture spread inside was a celebration of the 20th anniversary of The Impsons and part of a plan to appeal to a younger generation of readers.
That's pretty funny.
Playboy also promises a story inside called "The Devil in Marge Simpson," and the issue will arrive on newsstands on October 16, 2009.
Executive producer of The Simpsons, Al Jean told Entertainment Weekly that Baron Cohen would appear on the show and would voice a "pretty angry but funny" Israeli tour guide.
The character would meet the Simpsons when they visited the Holy Land while on a church group trip, he said. Baron Cohen follows in the footsteps of stars including Bono and Johnny Cash.
Jean said the episode would be called "The Greatest Story Ever D'ohed" and would likely to be shown in the US and Canada in March 2010.
In July, Baron Cohen, 37, known for characters including Ali G and Borat, topped the US box office playing an outrageous fashion reporter from Austria in Bruno.
Somewhere far, far away, in the land of videogames, people are supposedly enjoying a Simpsons game that is patterned after The Sims at this very moment.
John Bridge, level designer of Dead Rising 2, has dropped a bunch of details on the long-dead project on his blog. He posts:
Another game that went through lots of hoops before finally tanking was a Sims inspired version of The Simpsons that focused on Homer. You played the role of Jeebus, getting him to do your bidding.
We first developed it in 2D and reached a first playable with Homer in the living room. You could get him to react to things that you interacted with in the room (turn off the TV and he got mad and turned it back on/turn off the lights and he would get scared).
The game was in development at Propaganda Games, but was never approved.
That's a shame.
As big of a fan of the show as I am, I can see why they didn't release this game. Sure, it would have been fun for a couple of hours, but that would be it. But right now, I'm more curious about what the "hole" rating on the screenshot is all about.
This would insider-developer stuff is pretty cool. You should head on over to the blog, as a whole section has been devoted to dead games, including (inexplicably) a Scary Movie game that sounds just as terrible as their shitty movies.
As part of a new documentary marking the 20th anniversary of The Simpsons, movie make Morgan Spurlock is looking into the origins of Groundskeeper Willie, which is somewhere in Scotland.
Two places are currently set on the map suggesting to his birthplace, but no guarantee can be set. Glasgow was mentioned in an episode back in 1997 when Willie, with his broad accent, calls himself the ugliest man in Glasgow.
In another episode when Mr. Burns and Homer go to Scotland to find the Loch Ness Monster, he is in Aberdeen and says that Aberdeen could be his natural home.
Some other places, due to the nature of his accent and kilt, could be Inverness, Wick, Rothes, Elgin or anywhere within 200 miles of those places.
The documentary will include interviews with the cast and fans as well as the cultural phenomenon of the show.
You know you love them... they're the Simpson family! Well, the family has received an African makeover so that they can be aired in Africa. That's pretty cool.
To make them appear more like a typical Angolan family, Marge has also been given a black afro hairstyle instead of her usual blue hair, which will be shown on Africa's digital satellite television service DStv.
The makeover comes after it was announced that the British band Coldplay will be featured in an upcoming episode of the The Simpsons.
Matt Groening, the guy who created The Simpsons, which was called the best television show of the 20th century by TIME Magazine, once said that the best of all of the international dubbed versions was the French one produced in Montreal uniquely for the Canadian market.
"I've always considered that a very high compliment," says Hubert Gagnon, the veteran Montreal voice actor who has been the Québécois dub for Homer Simpson over the past 20 years.
The Simpsons is one of the very few U.S. television shows that does separate dubbing in Québécois French, which is distinct from the mainstream French dubbing that is done in Paris.
Films are currently different. But, a steadily-rising number of French-dubbed Hollywood films are being diverted every year to Montreal for local dubbing.
However, in the version of The Simpsons shown in France, all of the main characters speak international French. In Quebec, however, only established types like Principal Skinner and Reverend Lovejoy do.
For those who love King of the Hill as much as I do and said "That ain't right" when the show seemed to have come to an end when FOX decided to cancel the show back in October, or when the show seemed to have come to an end when that family from Guelph, Ontario moved in across the alley and feuded with the Hills.
Well, according to a blog featured on the New York Times website, which references an article from The Wrap, the show will be returning to FOX's prime-time schedule for a two-part conclusion on September 13, 2009, airing in the 8:00 PM timeslot that is usually reserved for The Simpsons. In a news release that FOX gave, the following synopsis for the final episodes, which are titled "The Boy Can't Help It" and "The Honeymooners:"
Bobby becomes quite the ladies' man when several girls in his class consider him a potential date for the Homecoming dance. When he realizes the girls are just playing with his emotions and are not really that interested, he asks his pal Connie to the dance. Also in the episode, Hank is shocked when his mother announces she is marrying a man she has only known for a few weeks. Soon after, the newlyweds celebrate by purchasing an RV and heading to Hank's. When Hank's mom and new stepfather have a heated argument, she takes off with the RV and Hank is left to rescue his mother once again.
How exciting!
To check out the blog entry, click on the link below.
During its panel at the TCA summer press tour yesterday, FOX announced that Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, Anne Hathaway, Neve Campbell and the late Eartha Kitt are among the guest voices featured on the upcoming 21st season of The Simpsons.
In the September 27 season premiere, Rogen will voice Lyle McCarthy, a celebrity trainer hired to get Homer into shape. In future episodes; Hill will guest-voice Andy, a former Springfield Elementary School student hailed as the best prankster ever; Campbell will portray Cassandra, a Wiccan accused of blinding the town with a spell; and Jackie Mason will return as Rabbi Krustofsky, Krusty's father, in an episode that featured Krusty falling in love with an actress voiced by Hathaway and a cameo from Kitt.
Other guest stars next season include Coldplay's Chris Martin, Sarah Silverman, football stars Eli and Peyton Manning, sportscaster Bob Costas, UFC champion Chuck Liddell, and Angela Bassett.
In an episode of The Simpsons that will air this upcoming February, Homer and Marge will be crashing the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver with hopes of winning a medal in curling.
One of the show's writers, Rob LaZebnik, has revealed that the storyline will revolve around the formation of a mixed-coubles team including Principal Skinner and his mother (mixed doubles isn't an actual Olympic discipline, but it is being considered).
Marge Simpson, as it turns out, is a natural at the sport, having swept a broom around the house for years on end, but Homer threatens to bring the team down. Meanwhile, Lisa spends her time trying to collect a series of Olympic pins.
This will not be the first time the Simpson family has come to Canada. Remember when they visited Toronto in 2002 and Bart thought that it was in Spain? The episode was titled "The Bart Wants What It Wants."
There was a bit of a surprise on Saturday at Comic-Con for The Simpsons. Unknown to Matt Groening, a representative from the Guinness Book of World Records appeared on stage for a big reveal: The Simpsons is now the longest running sitcom in the world, displacing The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, which had 435 episodes.
Sweet deal. The show also received the most Emmy award for a single show.
You know what show kicks ass? The Simpsons. Yeah, you know you love it.
Well, a band that isn't so bad is Coldplay. Well, the band is about to make an appearance on that show. The band will reportedly be hired by Homer Simpson to play a private concert for him and Bart after he wins the lottery.
"When Bart goes to the bathroom, Coldplay has to stop," executive producer Al Jean told US website Entertainment Weekly.
Coldplay will follow in the footsteps of artists that include U2, Sting, Sir Paul McCartney, Johnny Cash, Elton John and The Moody Blues.
The voices of celebrities including comedy actor Seth Rogen and actress Neve Campbell will reportedly be featured in the 21st season of the show, which will be shown in the United States and Canada beginning on September 27, 2009.
When the Fry, Leela, Bender, Professor Farnsworth, Hermes, Amy and many more characters return for new episodes of Futurama in mid-2010, they may sound different. Well, that's because 20th TV is auditioning new actors the roles after failing to reach an agreement with the original voice cast: John DiMaggio, Maurice LaMarche, Billy West, Tress MacNeille and Katey Segal.
"We love the 'Futurama' voice performers and absolutely wanted to use them, but unfortunately, we could not meet their salary demands," the studio said in a statement Friday. "While replacing these talented actors will be difficult, the show must go on."
Back in June when the company and Comedy Central announced a deal to produce 26 new episodes of Futurama, the producers noted that no deals with the show's original voice cast had been closed but expressed confidence that all of them would return.
While it looks like the new actors will replace the original cast, there is still hope that the two sides will come to sort of agreement. Hopefully, they will come to sort of an agreement.
If you watch The Simpsons as much as we do, you should know that Yeardley Smith is the voice behind Lisa Simpson and that Nancy Cartwright is the woman behind the voice of Bart Simpson.
But, did you ever stop to think that Nancy Cartwright may have been assigned a different role before? Maybe she was assigned the role of Lisa Simpson?
According to the source (link below), that was who she was originally hired for. If you actually want to listen to the audio, as the page will give you an audio excerpt as well, you can listen below:
The cliché of the couch potato has been confirmed by an interesting study that establishes a link between mind-numbing television and the elimination of satiation cues in children. A group of boys who watched The Simpsons while eating a pizza lunch consumed 228 more calories (that's a piece and a half more of three-cheese pizza) than the youngsters who did not.
"The television distracts kids from recognizing satiety and satiation signals," said Nick Bellissimo, a scholar in clinical nutrition. "It's a no-brainer, but this is the first study to demonstrate the effect of television on overeating, and we had to prove the obvious."
Professor Bellissimo, an assistant professor at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, has spent the past decade studying the underlying roots of the obesity epidemic in children, with his former professor Harvey Anderson, director of the food safety, nutrition and regulatory affairs program at the University of Toronto's faculty of medicine. They want to determine how children can stay at a healthy weight by looking at how appetite, satiety signals and food regulation interact with physiology and environment. "We want to understand these factors so we can prevent kids from getting fat," Prof. Bellissimo said.
For the TV and gluttony experiment, 14 boys participated on four different consecutive Saturdays. Some of the boys, aged 9 to 14, ate the pizza lunch while watching two episodes of The Simpsons, while others ate without the TV on. Some were given a sweet snack (water with glucose) before the pizza lunch. The researchers found that those who watched TV kept eating past their satiation point, including those who had had the snack before-hand.
Those who didn't watch TV ate less. And those who didn't watch TV and who received a pre-lunch snack ate the least of all. This finding shows that snacks between meals help control a child's appetite (but only if the TV is off) so that they can feel the effect of the snack. Canadian and American children spend between 14 and 20 hours a week watching television, which is a habit that has been associated with the rise in obesity among children. However, researchers wanted to measure the direct link.
"It's important to note that this isn't mindless eating, like munching on popcorn at a movie," Prof. Anderson said. "This was eating a full meal in front of the TV and not feeling full. So it supports the notion that a family dinner with the television off helps children have healthier body weights."
Results of the study, which were highlighted in a recent University of Toronto newsletter, were first published in 2007 in Pediatric Research. The study's findings resonate with the experience of Adrianna Borkowski, a Toronto mother and educator. She admits to turning on the television set in her living room so her two children, aged 7 and 4, can take in their favourite program, The Fairly OddParents, while she cooks. Sometimes it stays on during dinner. Her husband, who is a consultant, travels during the week, and she is often on her own and explains that: "The TV is my helping hand."
"I do prioritize and really want my kids to eat a good quantity of nutritious food, so I use the TV to help me get in a spoonful or two of broccoli."
Ms. Borkowski notices that her son does eat more when the television is on... but he is not overweight, so it's not a problem. "As my kids get older, the TV may not be the best tool if it desensitizes them to the trigger of feeling full," she says.
Another Toronto mother says that her three children eat less, not more, if the TV set is on during supper. Some preschoolers will consume less food in this setting because they become distracted, the researchers say. As well, older children may control their food intake because their parents have taught them to restrict calories. Still, the experts' advice is: don't install a television in your kitchen, and if you do, turn it off during meals.
Remember that overweight guy named Morgan Spurlock who ate McDonald's food for 30 days straight? You know... that crazy bastard in the movie called Super Size Me?!
Well, FX has announced that he will produce and direct next year's The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special in 3-D on Ice, which will air on FOX on January 14, 2010. According to FX, the documentary will focus on the cultural phenomenon of the kick-ass television show.
As for Spurlock, here was his reaction to the news: "When they first called me about this, I thought it was a prank and I hung up... and then my agent called back and said, 'No, no, this is for real,' at which point I fainted. Then when I woke up, I called everyone I knew because it was the coolest thing I could ever get to do in my career."
Hit US cartoon series The Simpsons will no longer be shown during prime-time in Ecuador while its retarded government ponders its impact on children, a broadcaster said. Teleamazonas said that it would no longer be allowed to broadcast the "often satirical exploits" of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie, between 6:00 am and 9:00 pm, pending a government investigation.
A government-backed regulator will assess the program's impact on "boys, girls and teenagers," and wants to restrict its broadcast "to assure the protection" of younger audiences.
"It is not going to go off the air, but we had to change its slot to 5:30 am," Pablo Ortiz, Teleamazonas' lawyer told AFP.
The state-run TV watchdog said that it was concerned by the impact of "programs and messages that promote violence, racial and gender discrimination." The body recently pushed Japanese cartoon Dragon Ball Z from its normal slot. The investigation is expected to last 90 days.
In June 2008, Venezuelan private television channel Televen was sanctioned for showing The Simpsons during family viewing times. Like Venezuela, Ecuador's TV and radio schedules are cleared for weekly, and often lengthy, discourses by the country's leftist president.
You know what I love to watch? The Simpsons. It's a great show. Remember that time Fat Tony stole all of those Laramie cigarettes and everyone in Springfield panicked and then the company got another shipment headed towards Springfield and even instructed the driver of the truck to disregard all pedestrians, street signs and basically the safety of everyone else? Yeah, that was pretty funny!
Anyway, according to a new study, kids who watch The Simpsons are more likely to smoke. Researchers Guy Eslick and Marielle Eslick viewed 400 episodes of the show over eighteen (18) seasons and "found" 795 instances of smoking or references to smoking.
Guy Eslick, an epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health, says that most of the smoking instances involved male characters, but 20% involved females, 2% involved in both sexes and 16% involved non-gender characters, such as animals.
"Previous studies have highlighted the influence of on-screen use of tobacco by movie stars on adolescents, and the increased likelihood of these adolescents taking up smoking," the researchers wrote. "Moreover, other research has found that very young children (aged 3-6 years) see, understand and remember cigarette advertising, and the use of cartoon characters like Joe Camel by RJR Nabisco has been reported to be more effective in marketing cigarettes to children than to adults."
The biggest "culprits" in the show are Marge Simpson's chain-smoking sisters that Homer Simpson can never stand, Patty and Selma. As you all know, they have been smoking since they were teenagers. In addition, Krusty the Clown smokes (while burning money), as well as Mrs. Krabappel.
According to the study:
Smoking was shown in a positive way in 2% of the cases.
In 35% of the cases, smoking was depicted in a negative, but funny way.
63% of the scenes were considered "neutral."
The study concludes: "Viewing The Simpsons characters smoking may prompt children to consider smoking at an early age."
Remember when FOX decided to move King of the Hill to a new timeslot before The Simpsons and then replaced King of the Hill with a new show called Sit Down, Shut Up? Besides, that new show sucks... ass.
Well, FOX has decided to change the schedule again. Obviously, the new show is already stinking up the joint. As a result, they have moved the show to a timeslot that is convenient for me and not between my favourite shows.
The new schedule will be as follows:
7:00 PM: Sit Down, Shut Up 7:30 PM: "Encore" episodes of American Dad 8:00 PM: The Simpsons 8:30 PM: King of the Hill
Wow... what a minor inconvenience. First, they move King of the Hill. Now, they move it back. If you take a look at the schedule on the FOX website, King of the Hill now has a "new timeslot," which was their original timeslot.
Oh yeah... the times above are the FOX channel's local time. So, if you live in Saskatoon, the shows will either start at 5:00 PM or 8:00 PM, if you have digital cable from Shaw Communications.
Tonight's episode of The Simpsons is a brand new one, and will feature Anne Hathaway (from Get Smart or Bride Wars). She will be playing Jenny, who is a love interest of Bart Simpson, who later changes his personality.
Anyway, if you are interested in watching previews of the episode, you can watch the videos below...
As for me... I'm going to be a loser and wait until tonight to watch the episode!
This is considered significant because Bart is usually a little hell-raiser. So, to see him change his personality is something we should probably watch...
Just last week, we reported to you that the United States Postal Service, or USPS, would be launching a set of stamps that would commemorate the kick-ass television show known as The Simpsons. Well, my foreign friends... that day has arrived!
Well... sort of. The stamps will not officially become available until May 7, 2009. But as of today, they are available for pre-orders.
So what are you waiting for? Head on over to the USPS website and have a look!
The United States Postal Service, which is known as America's post office, will be launching a stamp that commemorates The Simpsons this year.
The 44¢ stamp first-class mail stamps, which is designed by Simpsons creator Matt Groening, will feature Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie Simpson, which are of course the family that is featured on the show.
The stamps, a sneak peek of which will be unveiled on April 9, 2009, will also help celebrate the longest-running primetime comedy's 20th anniversary this year.
Out of the 50,000 stamp suggestions the United States Postal Service receives each year, only about 20 ideas actually make the cut.
Remember when the people of Saskatchewan finally voted for change after many, many years of having the NDP govern the beautiful province of Saskatchewan? Well, the new Government of Saskatchewan has done a lot to make Saskatchewan kick-ass. One thing they did was to have fixed election dates. Well, we all know now that the next provincial election will be on November 7, 2011.
Well, as you all know, Saskatchewan does not participate when it comes to Daylight Savings Time, which starts earlier now. So, when the rest of the country changes the time on their clocks to be one hour forward, we stay the same. So, during this time, we share the same time with our neighbours in Alberta... and when it ends, we share the same time as Manitoba.
Of course, over the last bunch of decades, there has always been a debate about whether or not Saskatchewan should be participating in Daylight Savings Time. Sure, we might have more daytime hours, but I'm used to the whole time-shifting television programs. But then again... it would be nice to be able to stick to the same television schedule year-round! Hmm? I don't know... what do you think?
Anyway, the people in our beautiful province will be voting on that matter during the next provincial election. "The premier has committed to a referendum (on DST), which would happen at the next general election (set for Nov. 7, 2011)," said Municipal Affairs Minister Bill Hutchinson. "That will provide an opportunity for people to express their opinions on the issue."
At this time, I am undecided, and will not be campaigning in any way (for now), as it will work out for me either way. I encourage you to vote on the matter on November 7, 2011.
The Simpsons, which doesn't appear to be in any threat of cancellation anytime soon, has been renewed, again! That's fucking awesome! FOX Broadcasting Company announced early yesterday that it has ordered two additional seasons of the long-running prime-time classic. Thursday's pick-up will extend the longest-running series in prime time history through its 22nd season.
The 44-episode order ensures the show will reach a milestone of sorts: 493 episodes.
Since its series debut in 1990, the show has given viewers a reason to stay home on Sunday nights. The Simpson family has supplanted the Brady bunch and Cosby family as one of television's most iconic families.
Now, if you've been counting, you would know that the show has won 24 Emmy Awards, 23 Annie Awards, four Genesis Awards, nine International Monitor Awards, seven Environmental Media Awards and one lousy Peabody Award.
The show also holds Guinness World Records titles for "longest-running prime time animated television series" and "most guest stars featured in a television series." That's awesome.
Another cool thing is... The Simpsons has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame!
Ricky Hodgkinson unlawfully possessed a Taser when he shocked himself with a Taser.
Well, when he shocked himself, his lawyer said that he was a modern-day Homer Simpson when the incident occurred. Basically, when asked how he shocked himself, his lawyer compared him to Homer Simpson. He also said that it was during a "drinking session."
Cops found the during a search following a disturbance in the Dalaston area, near Walsall over in the United Kingdom. Hodgkinson admits to buying the device for "self defence."
"He told police he bought it for £100 from a friend," Jason Cordon-Bowen, prosecuting, told the court. "He said he was disappointed as he had tried it out on himself and was not in much pain at all."
So, he gets in trouble for having an illegal weapon, but still complains about how crappy the Taser is? He's an idiot. Tasers provide a good form of entertainment, according to Reverend Nathan Dutnall.
Last night's all-new episode of The Simpsons was featured in HD, and also featured a new opening sequence. If you have not seen the new sequence yet, here it is:
When you watch The Simpsons on FOX this Sunday night, you're going to notice two big things. First off, you'll notice that it's in HD (unless you're Esther Neabel). Secondly, you'll notice a new opening title sequence as well. Now that's one hell of a development.
This is going to be a very important event! According to FOX, Sunday's episode, titled "Take My Life, Please," will include the first full, permanent revamp of the show's opening titles since its premiere of 1989.
While the show itself hasn't aired in HD before, Sunday's episode won't be the first time people have seen Homer and his buddies in HD. Remember the movie that was released in 2007? That was in HD.
Seth Rogen, one of the stars from Superbad and Pineapple Express will probably be kick-ass on The Simpsons.
The man has penned an episode of the FOX sitcom and will provide the featured guest voice, which was apparently confirmed by E! News on Friday.
"He wrote an episode we'll be reading soon, where Comic Book Guy creates a superhero comic which then gets made into a feature film," said series creator Matt Groening. "Homer plays the lead and, to slim down, Seth Rogen will play his personal trainer." That actually sounds very exciting.
Seth Rogen's next movie involves being a mall cop in the movie Observe and Report, which might actually kick some ass compared to the movie Kevin James from The King of Queens is in, Paul Blart: Mall Cop, which is released in theatres this Friday.
David Mullen was sentenced to three months in prison for "breaching the peace" when he sang the Spiderpig song that was featured on The Simpsons Movie.
He was then given another eight months in prison for trying to open up a can of whoop-ass on a cop, and breaching a curfew while on bail.
Kick-ass TV show The Simpsons has been criticized by a gay advocacy group after Nelson Muntz used the term "gay" to refer to something "bad."
Usually, the show is very supportive of gays.
But, the most recent Halloween episode apparently offended the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, or GLSEN. GLSEN is just pissed that Nelson Muntz said, "That's so gay."
GLSEN now wants the show's producers not to use the phrase again.
I am very sad today as I report this to you. As if Martin Sargent's podcast Internet Superstar being cancelled weren't enough, FOX of course decided that they would cancel King of the Hill last week as well. However, that has already been reported to you by Joseph Harris. I just couldn't believe it, and kept telling myself that wasn't true.
The show was cancelled last week by FOX.
Now, despite that bad news, Adult Swim has picked up the show. However, Adult Swim has no plans to order new episodes from the show.
However, ABC has indeed expressed interest in renewing the show.
As much as I'd love to cry about this, I am still thankful that shows like The Simpsons and Family Guy are still on the air, though I could care less if Family Guy were cancelled. The show that really needs to be cancelled is American Dad. I don't mind watching it, but it is pretty painful to watch sometimes. Despite that fact, FOX decided to renew that show's running. That pisses me off.
Do you remember that summer when The Simpsons Movie came out and took over theatres, and 7-Eleven stores for that matter? Well, Agency Freshworks has won the Best Overall Pro Award for its "Simpsons Movie Kwik-E-Mart Experience" campaign for its client, 7-Eleven.
The campaign captured the top spot in a whole five categories.
So what we're basically saying is... that whole idea of turning existing 7-Eleven stores into temporary Kwik-E-Mart stores was one hell of a brilliant idea! Chika, chika, yeah!
Tomorrow is Sunday, September 28, 2008. It is an important day in television, as the new seasons for a lot of television shows premiere tomorrow, on FOX!
Tune into FOX tomorrow and watch all-new episodes of the following shows:
The Simpsons
King of the Hill
American Dad
Family Guy
I unfortunately won't be home during the premiere. However, I will sign up for downtime at work, and hopefully catch these episodes on the FOX network affiliate based in Spokane, Washington.
I may have reported this to you a while ago... but, Anne Hathaway, the girl on The Princess Diaries, is going to be on The Simpsons.
Well, we didn't know how she felt about it until today...
And as of today, she's pretty damn excited.
"It's awesome, amazing," says Hathaway. "I play this awesome girl who is so ridiculously angelic that she inspires Bart to become a good Samaritan. I'm so excited about doing it because I'm such a huge fan of the show."
So am I. An episode featuring her will be on FOX in early 2009. And as for those of you who don't know much, the season premiere of the show will be this upcoming Sunday, September 28, 2008.
According to Popular Fidelity, some unknown television network in Venezuela pulled The Simpsons from its programming line-up because some adults deemed that it was unsuitable for children. Yeah, right...
Do you know crazy bastards know what replaced the show? Baywatch Hawaii.
That's interesting. So far, the station hasn't received any complaints, yet. I'm assuming that the only people who watch that network are horny, old fathers.
On Sunday, January 31, 2010, Chris Martin from Coldplay will appear on everyone's favourite cartoon: The Simpsons.
Coca-Cola today launched a social media campaign on Facebook that teases its upcoming Super Bowl commercials while raising funds for Boys & Girls Club of America.
Saskatchewan residents will likely still get a chance to vote on whether they want to change their clocks when they go to the polls in the 2011 provincial election, Premier Brad Wall said yesterday.
The votes are in, and Peggy Black of Orange, Connecticut has been selected by the producers of The Simpsons and its contest to create a new character.
Simon Cowell is coming back to The Simpsons! If you remember his first appearance correctly, he was working at a snobby school for smart, but freaky kids.
Excellent! Fictional cartoon millionaire Charles Montgomery Burns scored the most write-in votes; collecting 25, according to Board of Elections data.
Forty years to the day after it first revolutionized television and preschool education, Sesame Street will kick off a "star-studded" landmark season on November 10 with an updated look and premiere featuring U.S. first lady Michelle Obama planting a vegetable garden with Elmo and Big Bird. Now airing in 140 countries, the iconic status of the longest-running children's show in history has nearly eclipsed its beginnings as a groundbreaking social experiment.
Remember that episode of The Simpsons when Homer Simpson found his long-lost brother and went to Detroit, and ruined him in the process? Well, remember when he returned to visit the Simpson family in the episode titled "Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?" Well, if you remember the episode correctly, Homer Simpson was awarded with the hastily-and-newly-created C. Montgomery Burns Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence in exchange for Homer Simpson not suing the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant (without Homer's knowledge). Later, Homer Simpson's long-lost brother Herb Powell travels to Springfield after reading about the award, and convinces the Simpson family to give him money to develop something. In the end, he developed a baby translator and made a whole lot of money. This meant that Homer got his new vibrating chair; Marge got a new washer/dryer combo and got $50.00 for her old washer/dryer combo, which was sold to Moe Szyslak, who then held races between the washer and dryer at his bar.
With the boring baseball World Series screwing around with TV schedules before Halloween, the annual Halloween special of The Simpsons will be airing this evening on your favourite FOX or Global TV station. And tonight, Homer, Marge and the gang scare up three new tales of the strange, spooky and intermittently funny kind.
Are you a long-time subscriber to Playboy? Yeah, we all know that you are. Admit it. If you're a guy that has a girlfriend, you probably have one too. Well, on next month's edition of the magazine, you are going to find someone interesting on it: Marge Simpson.
Executive producer of The Simpsons, Al Jean told Entertainment Weekly that Baron Cohen would appear on the show and would voice a "pretty angry but funny" Israeli tour guide.
Matt Groening, the guy who created The Simpsons, which was called the best television show of the 20th century by TIME Magazine, once said that the best of all of the international dubbed versions was the French one produced in Montreal uniquely for the Canadian market.
For those who love King of the Hill as much as I do and said "That ain't right" when the show seemed to have come to an end when FOX decided to cancel the show back in October, or when the show seemed to have come to an end when that family from Guelph, Ontario moved in across the alley and feuded with the Hills.
During its panel at the TCA summer press tour yesterday, FOX announced that Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, Anne Hathaway, Neve Campbell and the late Eartha Kitt are among the guest voices featured on the upcoming 21st season of The Simpsons.
When the Fry, Leela, Bender, Professor Farnsworth, Hermes, Amy and many more characters return for new episodes of Futurama in mid-2010, they may sound different. Well, that's because 20th TV is auditioning new actors the roles after failing to reach an agreement with the original voice cast: John DiMaggio, Maurice LaMarche, Billy West, Tress MacNeille and Katey Segal.
If you watch The Simpsons as much as we do, you should know that Yeardley Smith is the voice behind Lisa Simpson and that Nancy Cartwright is the woman behind the voice of Bart Simpson.
The cliché of the couch potato has been confirmed by an interesting study that establishes a link between mind-numbing television and the elimination of satiation cues in children. A group of boys who watched The Simpsons while eating a pizza lunch consumed 228 more calories (that's a piece and a half more of three-cheese pizza) than the youngsters who did not.
You know what I love to watch? The Simpsons. It's a great show. Remember that time Fat Tony stole all of those Laramie cigarettes and everyone in Springfield panicked and then the company got another shipment headed towards Springfield and even instructed the driver of the truck to disregard all pedestrians, street signs and basically the safety of everyone else? Yeah, that was pretty funny!
Remember when FOX decided to move King of the Hill to a new timeslot before The Simpsons and then replaced King of the Hill with a new show called Sit Down, Shut Up? Besides, that new show sucks... ass.
Tonight's episode of The Simpsons is a brand new one, and will feature Anne Hathaway (from Get Smart or Bride Wars). She will be playing Jenny, who is a love interest of Bart Simpson, who later changes his personality.
Ricky Hodgkinson unlawfully possessed a Taser when he shocked himself with a Taser.
Seth Rogen, one of the stars from Superbad and Pineapple Express will probably be kick-ass on The Simpsons.
David Mullen was sentenced to three months in prison for "breaching the peace" when he sang the Spiderpig song that was featured on The Simpsons Movie.
Do you remember that summer when The Simpsons Movie came out and took over theatres, and 7-Eleven stores for that matter? Well, Agency Freshworks has won the Best Overall Pro Award for its "Simpsons Movie Kwik-E-Mart Experience" campaign for its client, 7-Eleven.
I may have reported this to you a while ago... but, Anne Hathaway, the girl on The Princess Diaries, is going to be on The Simpsons.
According to io9, the next Halloween episode of The Simpsons, otherwise known as "Treehouse of Horrors," will feature a spoof of Transformers.
