From: c8923075@mystra.newcastle.edu.au (Chris Baird)
Newsgroups: alt.tv.simpsons
Subject: [*] Weekly discussion summary
Keywords: simpsons discussionette
Date: 10 Jan 93 17:31:58 GMT
Organization: Homer's Heterosexual Dance Hall
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.widener.edu

In a vain attempt to encourage more interesting discussions, and as a service
to those readers who find wading through zillions of articles one of the less
attractive aspects of alt.tv.simpsons, here's a brief recap of the past
week's discussion,,

Articles posted during the week ending 10-Jan-93 were mostly concerned
with a repeat airing of ``Homer the Heretic''.

    + `The Simpsons' and the influential American sitcom family are given
      the treatment in the Summer '92 issue of the (exorbitantly priced)
      Australian Futurist magazine `21{\bullet}C'.
    + Suspicions that a bikini-clad woman on the cover of "Playdude" may
      have been Mrs. Krabappel.
    + "Carl" was decided on as the name of Homer's brown co-worker.
      Conflicting evidence from the half-hour show was considered (Homer
      scanning "Karl" in 7f15; "Carl" signing his name in 8f13), but seeing
      that Homer can hardly be considered as a reliable source, and one
      would expect even employees of sector 7-G to be capable of spelling
      their own name correctly, an agreement was reached.
    + Raymond Chen's capsule for ``Homer the Heretic'' answered all questions
      pertaining to the movie references in that episode, and even included a
      recipe for Homer's patented, Space-age, out-of-this-world Moon waffle.
    + A catalogue of Maggie's vocal repertoire made its debut.
    + Indecision over who the announcer was supposed to be for the American
      football game Homer watched during 9F01.  Keith Jackson and Frank
      Gifford were recognized, but neither are known for calling on a
      Sunday.  The best excuse so far is Homer saw a playoff.
    + Outbreaks of the episode butchering epidemic have been reported in
      remote Canadian provinces.
    + Several lame excuses for Mrs. Krabappel not recognising Bart's
      handwriting in ``Bart the Lover''.
    + Australian Customs officials mistakenly detained a shipment addressed
      to the Aust. editors of "Simpsons Illustrated", believing that the
      package containing the `bromides' for a future issue of the magazine
      might have been a clandestine attempt to import a few of Europe's
      finest R-rated films.  Australians are also unlikely to see the same
      Itchy-n-Scratchy merchandising bonanza planned for North America.
    + The 1984 Olympics -- the thread that would not die.
    + Arguing that the football game didn't begin until after the church
      sermon, and taking the score of the game into account (63--63), the
      reckoning is it took Marge at least two hours to return home.
      The newsgroup's sleuths also concluded that Springfield would've been
      on the West coast for that episode (sermon conclusion=game start).
      The heavy snowfall, the Pacific time-zone, the Polar Bear at the
      start of the show, and the moose from ``Mr. Plow'', was accepted by
      some as indisputable proof that Springfield must be in --- Alaska!
    + An (unintentionally) amusing attempt to convince us that Bart's
      `brush-cut' is, in fact, fashioned on dredlocks.  Several people
      gave their opinions to what this style resembled most.
    + Desperate pleas for a new episode.
    + OFF make a return to German television, with 24 new and 14 repeated
      episodes on the schedule.  But disappointment is high in the ZDF
      network for broadcasting `castrated' episodes, dubbed in German
      without the option of choosing the original English soundtrack on a
      stereo side-band.  Also there were sad reports the show has not been
      terribly successful among german adults, who have hardly been
      encouraged by the 2:30pm timeslot.
    + Seeing that it isn't out of character for Homer to go out of character,
      the Nietschze quotation in ``Homer's Triple Bypass'' will probably have
      to be accepted as a senseless act of random intelligence.
    + Another fifth finger goof was pointed out (ugh) in a bowling scoresheet
      from the ``Uncensored Family Album''.  (The others: ``Five fingered
      discount''[7G07], and a panel from the Radioactive Man comic in 7F21.)
    + Did God spoil some vast eternal plan when he disclosed The Meaning Of
      Life to Homer?  And a alt.tv.simpsons subscriber made a tongue-in-
      cheek accusation towards the writers of the show for `copying' the
      ending of ``Homer the Heretic'' from a short film he was involved
      with 10 years ago.
    + A minor matter involving a 1991 penny.  No substantial comments to
      make as of this moment; attempts continue to read something into it.
    + Neither William Shatner or George Takei cameoed in ``Itchy and
      Scratchy: The Movie''.
    + Two examples were given of Itchy *almost* being on the receiving end
      of Scratchy's fury: Scratchy with a meat cleaver just before Homer
      turns off the TV in 7G04, and in 7F09 the original storyboard for a
      cartoon under production (before Marge got to it) has Itchy being
      dunked into a bucket of acid.  In a twisted sort of way, Marge helped
      preserve the continuity of I&S by suggesting a different ending.
    + Matt Groening's Akbar and Jeff one-up Madonna with a tropical welcome
      to the New Year in the January 5th issue of ``The Village Voice''.
    + The U.S.S Springfield, an improved Los Angeles class submarine, was
      commissioned for service at the Groton, Conn. submarine base on
      Saturday the 9th.


The 7th of January saw the 2nd anniversary of Raymond "It's not cool
to fry in the commercial sector" Chen's disassembly of the 2nd season
title sequence, that now has pride-of-place in the FAQ.

-- 
Chris Baird,,  <c8923075@mystra.newcastle.edu.au>
Newsgroups: alt.tv.simpsons