The GHZ Forum

What in the fuck!? O_O;

HA! I KNEW I wasn't the only guy here who saw that!

Unless you are the only person alive who watches The Simpsons and knows Sonic, no you probably aren't.

The first one was funnier... the show was funnier... the show wasn't a tired exercise of stupid non-gags repeated in fast succession.

Link to the "first one", please?

Supposedly, this episode solves the plothole of Bart not aging by retconning Homer's and Marge's early life together taking place in the 90's instead of the 70's/80's. I haven't seen the episode myself, but really hope that concept is all part of an elaborate joke on retcons, because it sort of ruins the really great Simpsons flashback episodes that aired during the highpoint of the series.

It's more like an excuse to do a show that makes fun of everything in the 1990s than to tell a story.

So...like Family Guy?

I was pondering this concept just last week. When a series with unaging characters goes on for more than a generation, how do you handle their past? I was thinking specifically of the newspaper comic Zits and one of its usual cliches about the parents not understanding new technology. If the strip were to drag on for another 20 years, would the parents be sighing about their childhood ipods as their son walks by with whatever cyber-neural music interface we'll have by then? That particular comic relies so heavily on such generational differences that it would really have no choice but to keep bumping the characters ahead every decade to keep it current. While the Simpsons only references Homer and Marge's earlier years once in a blue moon, it'll have to keep moving it forward if the show is going to continue to satirize current events.

Comic books do the same thing to an extent. In his teenage years, Peter Parker liked swing music and using the phrase pussycat as he went on for malts.

Frieza2000 wrote:I was pondering this concept just last week. When a series with unaging characters goes on for more than a generation.. [etc., etc., for Christ's sake, it's two posts above this one.]

I don't think that'll massively be a problem, the strip revolves around Jeremy and the world of the Gen-Y-ers that all the parents need continue to do is be forty-somethings who don't fully understand what's going on. The risk the strip runs is when the cartoonist loses touch with the youth's culture, what'll happen then? So many other strips in the paper that have gone on 20+ years have just surrendered to the "God, the son sure has such shitty taste in music because he's young!</punchline>" type of humor that can be adapted to anything; just give the son and his friends stereotypical non-conformist looks and have him not know who the Beatles are. He could be listening to Nickelback, Nirvana... hell, Devo. There's absolutely no attempt to get into the world of the teenage character. These cartoonists either don't have kids anymore, or they hate the kids they have. But I have to wonder, were these strips once as generationally in-touch as Zits is currently?

Get into the world of the teenage character? They dont even try it... I bet most of them dont know that videogames consoles dont use Cartridges anymore...

i have watched all these "new shows", and everytime they show a videogame console, it looks like some sort of Nintendo 64 or Super Nintendo...

Get into the world of the teenage character? They dont even try it... I bet most of them dont know that videogames consoles dont use Cartridges anymore...

i have watched all these "new shows", and everytime they show a videogame console, it looks like some sort of Nintendo 64 or Super Nintendo...

Uh oh. Sounds like you gots Pac-Man fever!:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PacManFever

Ngangbius wrote:Supposedly, this episode solves the plothole of Bart not aging by retconning Homer's and Marge's early life together taking place in the 90's instead of the 70's/80's.

You are completely missing what is important here: Sonic is proposing to SA-style Amy Rose, who wouldn't have been seen until 1998. Homer later invents grunge, putting the events of the show before Amy even appeared in Sonic CD!

It really isn't retconning so much as it was adding in information that wasn't there, essentially stretching out the Homer+Marge years and winning Homer a few more grammies. THe show itself even points out the necessity for the time being accounted for, not because they needed to "update" the time frame and keep Bart shiny and youthful, but because the ages of the characters didn't add up in the first place. If Marge and Homer are approaching 40 (or thereabouts) then Bart, who is what, 11?, couldn't have been concieved until they were in their late 20s, and their existing story about Marge getting knocked up right out of high school no longer makes sense. Lisa points out the logical inconsistancies right at the start of the episode, and so the story begins.

DackAttac wrote:I don't think that'll massively be a problem, the strip revolves around Jeremy and the world of the Gen-Y-ers that all the parents need continue to do is be forty-somethings who don't fully understand what's going on. The risk the strip runs is when the cartoonist loses touch with the youth's culture, what'll happen then? So many other strips in the paper that have gone on 20+ years have just surrendered to the "God, the son sure has such shitty taste in music because he's young!</punchline>" type of humor that can be adapted to anything; just give the son and his friends stereotypical non-conformist looks and have him not know who the Beatles are. He could be listening to Nickelback, Nirvana... hell, Devo. There's absolutely no attempt to get into the world of the teenage character. These cartoonists either don't have kids anymore, or they hate the kids they have. But I have to wonder, were these strips once as generationally in-touch as Zits is currently?

I never really felt like Zits was that generationally in-touch to begin with. Reading it as a teenager, it always seemed to me like that one friend's parent who always tried to fit in with you by commenting on the latest gadget or making a remark about some video game or upcoming social event. I think the writers of the strip could keep the jokes going for decades to come, as long as they keep up the strips with the parents getting confused over [insert latest groundbreaking technology here] and the occasional strips about the ups and downs of high school life (which never really change all that much). Then again, very few stories have managed to successfully portray teenage culture, in my opinion.

I must be more tolerant to retcons than most people. I always just assume the characters live in a magical world different from our own where age is meaningless and everything lasts forever.

Zits sucks. TEENAGERS. THEY EAT. SO MUCH.

RocketPunch wrote: I must be more tolerant to retcons than most people. I always just assume the characters live in a magical world different from our own where age is meaningless and everything lasts forever.

Yeah, age-constant characters don't bug me (especially when there are kids involved, where the alternative rarely goes smoothly), especially since when we're dealing with around 11 or 12 hours' of content total, per season. I don't feel that should have to constitute a year in the world of the characters (hence little things like Elizabeth Banks being pregnant for slightly longer than a season on Scrubs not really bugging me too much), but once you pass your fifth season, I realize that some token of reality has been whittled away to make it possible. Even if the Simpsons never flashed back, ever; it'd be a little much to say that everything that Bart has ever done could be accomplished by someone in the short timespan between their tenth and eleventh birthdays.

Also, I feel no need to push the flashback all the way to SA1's release, as you know this is how it went down behind the scenes: "Who the fuck is Amy Rose?" "Just Google image search it, you lazy prick." Done. Just like all the other half-ass jokes they crank out now. Also seeing as how Sonic stopped being a "celebrity character" in 1995...

Oh for god sake people, if your'e gonna start complaining about how Amy has her post-SA look in a Simpson episode set in pre-SA times, then you might as well grow an ponytail and start calling yourself Comic Book Guy...

I for one am actually quite amazed at the Sonic-knowledge the writers of the episode evidently possesses (or were willing to find out about in order to do the joke). The sheer fact that they bothered to make a caricature an actuall Sonic-character other than Sonic himself is cool enough, when they could as well just have used some generic "cartoon-hedgehog-girl" in order for the joke to work (and really, how many percent of the people who watch the Simpsons has any bloody idea who Amy Rose is? 0,01% perhapes?). And the very phrase "Sonic the Hedgehog Says" is obviusly meant to reference the Sonic Sez bits from AoStH, a fairly minor 90's kids show which i would certainly not have expected the aged 45+ Simpson writers to have any knowledge of whatsoever.

And also, you gotta admit that the idea of Sonic using a "ring" to propose is kinda witty.

I have a feeling most of the Sonic knowlege from that episode came from the writers' children. Also, I'm willing to bet that they are part of the same age demo that makes up a substantial viewship of the current incarnation of the Simpsons. I like to think that many folks who grew up watching the Simpsons during seasons 1-8 have probably moved on by now.

I could be wrong though, but I wonder why would folks who stuck to the Simpsons from the Early to Golden years would want to stick around now? The characters are sad parodies of themselves, and it's not like it is still one of the few good shows on TV.

I missed the link from the get go and now I'm lost. Can anyone post a working link or tell me specifically what it was so I can google it myself?

Meh, you weren't missing much...

Oh for god sake people, if your'e gonna start complaining about how Amy has her post-SA look in a Simpson episode

Way to recognize irony, Dr. Watson.

I tend to make jokes about Tetris or Pong when the characters play videogames, because those two games are still played a lot, and have like 12576767 diferent versions.

Maybe we could make fun of that "Retro" style videogames have in TV, quick someone must do a comic where the videogame looks better than the main chracters, then make fun of that!.

Too late, it has already been done!