Why don't we all look at some etchings?

[vovat]

One week after a Family Guy episode where the Army tries to recruit Chris, but Stewie and Brian ends up joining instead, we get a Simpsons episode where the Army tries to recruit Bart, but Homer ends up joining instead. No, I'm not accusing either show of ripping off the other, but I do have to wonder why Fox didn't want to leave a longer gap between the two. I actually thought the Simpsons episode was funnier, as far as the recruitment and basic training jokes went. The episode kind of fizzled out towards the end, though. That chase scene with the miniature helicopter went on WAY too long.

CONTINUITY NERD MOMENT: I notice that this episode ignored Homer's having an old army drill sergeant in "Two Dozen and One Greyhounds." Probably a good move, since that joke contradicted Homer's comment in "Separate Vocations" that the Army thought he was too big. The writers said in the commentary for "Greyhounds" that the dinner party scene was supposed to be a parody of lame sitcom jokes, so I suppose you could argue that it doesn't really have to be consistent with anything else.

And, um, the best scene that they could pick to show us in the big Simpsons movie trailer premiere involved Homer getting hurt? They honestly couldn't have done better than that? I guess when you have a built-in audience of nerdy Simpsons fans, you don't have to come up with a decent trailer. Hey, I'm sure I'll be watching it in the theater. Still, I have to say that I'm a LOT more excited about the upcoming direct-to-video Futurama movies.

As for Family Guy, I found the plot about Brian dating a stupid girl to be really funny, and the one with Peter getting Lois to help him out at the office considerably less so. I did like the Buzz Killington bit a lot, though.

Your Vocabulary Score: A-

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Okay, I have to get up early tomorrow, so I'd better get to bed.

Comments

[revme.livejournal.com]

Family Guy was better than last week's, but still not great. The Simpsons Trailer really, um, sucked, though. I really hope that's not an actual clip, but it probably is.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

It wouldn't make that much sense to play a movie trailer with no clips from the actual movie, would it? (Okay, they sometimes show scenes that were filmed and cut out, but still.) I agree that it sucked, but there have been good episodes with worse gags. Hopefully the next preview we see (and I'm sure there will be plenty before the thing hits theaters) will be better, but I'm not holding my breath.

[revme.livejournal.com]

I dunno -- sometimes they'll do that, where they'll do something particularly for the trailer at the same time. The big example of that one was the thing in Robin Hood Prince Of Thieves, where the arrow-splitting was in the trailer but not in the original movie, and everyone was so disappointed, they ended up editing it in.

(unfortunately, I was disappointed with that movie because it sucked, not for any lack of arrows.)

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I dunno -- sometimes they'll do that, where they'll do something particularly for the trailer at the same time.

Fair point. Still, since the trailer included a lot of stuff that pretty much certainly WON'T be in the film (specifically the CGI part), it's likely that the part that actually includes Homer will be. But who knows?

[amyawesome.livejournal.com]

I missed the Family Guy army-recruitment episode so sadly I can't compare the two. I did find the Simpsons episode a bit odd though, it seemed that a lot of the dialogue was kind of awkwardly hanging before or after various punchlines. I think there is a lot of continuity errors with the Simpsons but I overlook them for the sake of the jokes. :) I too was bummed with the trailer though, and I too will still definitely be lured to the theaters. :)

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I didn't really notice the awkward pauses in this particular episode, but I've seen them in others. There was a pretty long opening sequence, which is usually a good indication that the episode ran short. Maybe the pauses were another way of padding it out?

[amyawesome.livejournal.com]

Oh, Good point, you're probably right.

[kristenjarrod.livejournal.com]

I only caught the last ten minutes but I thought last night's American Dad was too much like that ep of South Park a few weeks ago with those computer games, whatever they are called.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I don't really watch South Park, so I couldn't say. As far as what game was being spoofed, well, I've never played EverQuest, but it looked somewhat like I imagine that game to be. (I remember seeing some news story about how people were getting addicted to EverQuest.) There are probably other online role-playing games of the same sort, though. I did like that the AD game actually kind of looked like a modern video game. For some reason, there's a tendency for video games shown on TV shows to be incredibly complex, yet have graphics and sound reminiscent of the Atari 2600.

[kristenjarrod.livejournal.com]

I don't really watch South Park, so I couldn't say.

I don't watch it anymore either (too preacy, too much like a cartoon daily show, I don't understand why every show now has to have a current events "twist" on it now etc), but a friend made me watch that epiosde in question.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've heard that about recent South Park episodes. I think one reason they might want to keep commenting on current events is because they can. It takes several months to make a Simpsons episode, and I would imagine that it's about the same for Family Guy or American Dad. SP episodes can be churned out really quickly, giving them the ability to discuss current events when they're still, you know, current.