That Borgnine Guy

I just realized that it has been a little over a year since classic Hollywood actor Ernest Borgnine passed away. For me it was one of the sadder celebrity deaths of the past decade. Sure, he was 95 but it weirdly felt like he left too soon. From all appearances he was still pretty sharp and he was still working regularly (perhaps there was some validity to his personal "secret" to staying young). I just assumed that he would always be around, just popping up in random roles on TV, usually playing a lovable, smiling, old guy.

In addition to being one of my all time favorite actors, Borgnine's guest cameo on the Simpsons' 5th season classic, "Boy-Scoutz 'n the Hood" is in my top tier of Simpsons guest cameos. In fact, his first appearance in the episode is my all time favorite introductory scene of any guest star on the show.

The mere 20 seconds from when Ned addresses poor Warren to when the children cheer the arrival Mr. Borgnine contains at least six points of humor:

• First there's the initial reveal that Warren's father can't make it to the father/son Junior Campers rafting trip because he's in prison. 
• At the announcement of a special celebrity dad being assigned, Warren tries to offer his older brother as a substitute; which Flanders promptly writes off. 
• It's revealed that the "celebrity" is Ernest Borgnine; a choice that's equal parts random and brilliant. 
• Borgnine then makes his big entrance out of the adjacent bathroom, indicating that he's been in there the whole time. I also love the additional detail of him still wiping his hands and then just balling up the paper towel and casually tossing it aside. 
• Borgnine then mentions how he assumes this room full of 8 year olds would know him best for his early role as Sgt. "Fatso" Judson from the 1953 Best Picture winner "From Here to Eternity" (in reality a contemporary room full of 8 year old would probably know him best from his voice work as Mermaid Man on "SpongeBob SquarePants"). On a personal note, for years I could have sworn he said "the lovable Sgt. 'Fatso' Judson" which would have been extra ridiculous considering the character is a sadistic villain in the film.
• After Borgnine makes his introduction, the scene ends with all the kids (with the notable exception of Bart and Warren who wonderfully maintain their respective expressions of bewilderment and unhappiness throughout the whole scene) inexplicably bursting into cheers.

The whole brief sequence is a fantastic example of the amazing attention to detail and density of jokes that made the "classic era" of the show so acclaimed and memorable. Killer stretches like this were just routinely being throw out by the show week after week for most of that first decade and it was all the more sweeter that the great Ernest Borgnine got to be a small part of it.

I Miss My Old Glasses

I was going to write this entry when I got my new glasses but things got held up for about 8 months or so. Fortunately I'd like to think that one of the endearing quirks of this blog is its tendency towards putting out terminally outdated and overdue posts. Perhaps somewhere further down the line I'll write my thoughts on the Gary Condit murder investigation or my pick for Super Bowl XXXIX.

So as I was saying I got a new pair of glasses in February and every time I find myself getting new frames I think of that scene from the 6th season Simpsons episode "Bart's Girlfriend" where Marge asks  Homer if he noticed any new changes in Bart and he randomly suspects new glasses and then grimly misinterprets Marge's concerns about "smothering" Bart. Although it has little to do with the episode and isn't one of those all time famous Simpsons scenes like Kent Brockman's welcoming of out new insect overlords or parking in the Itchy lot (which I will almost always reference when parking in a large complicated parking lot with friends), this scene always sticks with me as one of my personal all time favorite scenes.

One for the reasons I find it so memorable is that for me it encapsulates in one scene what made the Simpsons the greatest show of all time. It has that wonderful mix of the classic and the absurd that the show uniquely captured so well in its prime. The Simpsons have always been about subverting the trope of the American family television sitcom and at its best the television comedy genre as a whole. Here you have the most common of settings for a sitcom set up, a son having personal problems and the parents being concerned, but then when one parent discusses the matter with the other it quickly veers into the silly randomness of a discussion about non-existent glasses and contemplated acts of filicide. There's heart but there's also the unexpected weirdness as portrayed respectively by Marge and Homer. Essentially every sitcom since the dawn of the medium to this episode when placed in that similar scenario went the standard route of the parents reacting logically to the situation. The show was just routinely doing amazing things like this week in and week out in its hey day.

That's just my incredibly unfunny take on an incredibly funny scene.

Oh and for anyone out there who now feels a little guilty that they didn't notice my new glasses, they were essentially the same color and design as the old ones so you're off the hook.

You know what I like about you English? "Octopussy". Man I must have seen that movie...twice!

If you haven't already heard the buzz around the internet, today, August 1, 2010 is indeed the foretold wedding date of one Lisa Simpson and Hugh Parkfield from the classic season 6 episode "Lisa's Wedding". I find it all too proper that Lisa's wedding immediately followed the high profile real life wedding of another notably nerdy 90s adolescent. As amusing as it is that today is actually the day noted all those years ago in the episode (the fact that the writers even got the proper day of the week shows the sort of admirable dedication and attention to detail that made those early era Simpson episodes so classic), it's also more than a little horrifying that this once oh so distant future has arrived and that it really has been 15 years since I first caught this episode in middle school.

Obviously while the episode's predictions about 2010 were greatly exaggerated for comic effect, it's still really interesting to note and compare just how completely far off the episode's world of 2010 is from today:

Trees, while endangered and threatened with deforestation all throughout the planet, have not thus far faced Lorax style extinction. In addition, our hologram monument making technology is also way behind expectations.

While gaining some measure of critical acclaim and a few golden globe nominations (and even a win) in the last two decades, Jim Carrey and his films have yet to enter the classic film canon. Also, as of 2010 he's only done about 33 movies.

Celebrities are not plaguing modern society (at least not through violent crimes). Heather Locklear did divorced long time husband Richie Sambora but has yet to marry Elizabeth Taylor's ex-husband number 8, Larry Fortensky.

America is still mired in two military engagements but World War III never occurred, with the British coming to America's aid.

We actually do have video phone technology but it never really caught on, additionally hardly anyone has a home phone line anymore. Maybe the new iPhone's FaceTime feature will really take off?

And despite all the exaggerated visions of the future, the Rolling Stones continue to be active and tour (although they don't seem to be tirelessly working to preserve historic buildings):

Well, I guess we'll have an additional 15 or so more years until the celebration of the not-so-classic "Bart to the Future".

You don't know what it's like...

"The Simpsons" debuted right around the time I was 5 or 6. I think I started really getting into it when I was around 8 and watched it fairly religiously through the greatest run in network history until I set off for college around season 14. By this point it was well past it's Golden Era and was entering the depths of its current period of comfortable mediocrity and infrequent genius. I'm well aware that fans of the show still debate when the show was in its prime or whether it has rebounded as of late, or whether it's still just as good now. For me personally the show lost a step when I stopped regretting missing an episode, but if it's on I'll still watch it.

One of the great lasting legacies of the show that still effects me to this day were the brilliantly placed layers of esoteric references that you finally understood and appreciated years down the line. Before the Simpsons I didn't know who Rory Calhoun was; or could recite selected parts of Gilbert and Sullivan's "H.M.S. Pinafore"; and to this day can't imagine "A Streetcar Named Desire" as anything but a musical. When you're little you don't think these as sly references by a bunch of smart-ass Harvard writers, you just think its something that they made up. That is until you see the Twilight Zone and realize about half the early Tree House of Horror episodes were straight parodies, or you see "Vertigo" and it's the same tower Principal Skinner climbs up in that one episode, or you realize Mr. Burns is essentially Charles Foster Kane whenever the plot called for it.

One of my favorite such scenes was from the classic 5th Season episode "Secrets of a Successful Marriage." I don't need to go too deep into the plot since I'm sure most people have seen and remember this episode. It's the one where Homer tries to teach an adult education class about marriage to prove he isn't slow but tells private stuff about his married life and Marge kicks him out. Correction Marge, two perfectly good jackets? A marriage is a lot like an orange? Give your new mother a kiss? Etc. etc?

The scene begins when Marge confronts Homer about not sharing anymore details about their personal lives with his class. Homer begins to give a rationed response in hopes of getting some understanding and compassion from Marge. When Marge gives an alternate option, Homer's response to that is merely an unexpected, insane, now classic rant. There it is in all it's glory; a brief 20 second absurdist departure from the rest of the story; a departure from which Homer is quickly brought back via Marge. On the surface this is a completely useless throwaway scene that probably shouldn't have even been included, however for me it's actually completely necessary and is definately one of the highlights of the episode. There's something about that exchange that goes to the complex stupidity that is Homer, which is really the main focal point of the episode.

But really, how many people (especially of my generation) knew exactly where all those quotes came from when they first saw it? How long did it take to finally get all the movies?

Let's see I was around ten and I think I only got the Few Good Men quote since the early to mid 90s were the hey days of "You can't handle the truth" quoting (only to be followed by the mid to late 90s hey days of "Show me the money"). About 6 years later in high school, our sophomore year US history teacher for our study on World War II showed us the famous opening clip to Patten. During my senior year I worked at my local Blockbuster video store and one day decided to use one of my weekly free rentals on a interesting looking Al Pachino movie. Finally during my sophomore year at NYU, I lived in the Lafayette dorms in Chinatown so I figured I'd see what the movie was all about. All in all it would be a good ten years later before I was able to finally look back on that scene and understand all the movies noted to fully appreciate it. It was just as funny as when I knew hardly anything at all. That's why "The Simpsons" is so great.