“No, no, no, Lisa. If adults don’t like their jobs, they don’t go on strike. They just go in every day and do it really half-assed. That’s the American Way.”
“OK, son. Just remember to have fun out there today, and if you lose, I’LL KILL YOU!”
“You tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try.”
“The code of the schoolyard, Marge! The rules that teach a boy to be a man. Let’s see. Don’t tattle. Always make fun of those different from you. Never say anything, unless you’re sure everyone feels exactly the same way you do. What else…”
“Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try.”
“When I look at the smiles on all the children’s faces, I just know they’re about to jab me with something.”
“I have to work overtime at work instead of spending time with my wife and kids, which is what I want.”
“Kids are great, Apu. You can teach them to hate the things you hate and they practically raise themselves now-a-days, you know, with the internet and all.”
“I think the saddest day of my life was when I realized I could beat my Dad at most things, and Bart experienced that at the age of four.”
“Don’t eat me. I have a wife and kids. Eat them.”
“Marge, don’t discourage the boy! Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It’s what separates us from the animals! Except the weasel.”
“What do we need a psychiatrist for? We know our kid is nuts. “
“It’s not easy to juggle a pregnant wife and a troubled child, but somehow I managed to squeeze in 8 hours of TV a day.”
“Remember as far as anyone knows, we’re a nice normal family.”
“Marriage is like a coffin and each kid is another nail.”
“The key to parenting is don’t overthink it. Because overthinking leads to … what were talking about?”
Supervillains can be effective leaders, provided you can get past the lying, unilateral decision-making, rampant murder, and dismantling of your Constitutional rights. Wait, three out of four of those disadvantages sound awfully familiar...
Advantages of supervillians:
They have a strong vision for the future. Perhaps the most famous supervillain president is none other than Superman's nemesis, Lex Luthor, who was elected with 84% of the popular vote after he apparently saved both Metropolis and Gotham City. Luthor's Tomorrow Party platform was a decidedly optimistic one; it's hard not to get behind the promise of a flying car in every garage.
They'll go to great lengths to rebuild the country. Victor Von Doom was already the political leader of his own country, Latveria, but in the Marvel 2099 universe, Doom manages to become president of the United States. It turns out that the supervillain may be just what the dystopian future America needs.
Granted, he takes the presidency by force, hacking and slashing his way through the White House until he can claim the Oval Office as his own. But he does restore the constitutional powers of the presidency, nationalize the megacorps (a small-government advocate's nightmare, but in this case, highly necessary), and uses their money to rebuild the crumbling United States.
They won't stand for idiotic interview questions. While not actually a villain, the antiheroic Etrigan the Demon would have likely been a less than lawful good choice for president. (Superman called him, "One of the worst candidates for public office I've ever seen.") But his campaign for the Republican nomination certainly was entertaining; when ABC News anchor Sam Donaldson tried to call Etrigan out on his sloppy rhyming, the demon responded with a stream of fiery breath.
They'll eliminate unemployment—albeit through slavery. When alien invaders like Day of the Tentacle's Purple Tentacle and The Simpsons' Kang become President of the US, they tend to reduce humanity to pets or slave labor. Don't like it? You should have voted for Kodos.*
They're already part of the shadowy conspiracy that runs the planet. Do you want an ineffectual puppet president who is helpless against the nation's true rulers? Or do you want a president who is actually pulling the strings? In 1973, Captain America discovered that Richard Nixon was the head of the Secret Empire, a powerful criminal organization which had infiltrated and manipulated corporations, criminal enterprises, and the highest offices of government.
They're surprisingly easy to depose: If you're a rotten president, there are a lot of meetings and a lot of paperwork that have to happen before anyone can oust you from office. But if you're an outright evil, criminal president, things become much easier. Gary Callahan, the insecure, murderous Smiler of Warren Ellis' Transmetropolitan is so insufferable that even the Secret Service abandons him in the end, and he's arrested within moments of delivering his evil monologue to Spider Jerusalem. Robert L. Booth, the last U.S. President of the Judge Dredd Universe and author of the country's nuclear semi-annihilation, raised a mutant army to attempt to take back America. But as a warlord, he was a bit of cheapskate, and when Dredd decided to use Booth as a human shield, Booth's soldiers simply shot him. After all, you can always elect a new evil president.
Chances are you won't notice a difference between them and your non-supervillain presidents. After all, the alien Cryptosporidium 137 managed to play president in the Destroy All Humans! franchise without anyone being the wiser, and we'll have to see how long it takes Americans to notice that the Cobra minion Zartan has replaced the Commander in Chief in theG.I. Joe films. Even Captain America was shocked to discover that Nixon was a supervillain, and he's a trained to spot this sort of thing. How many other supervillains could have held political office, unbeknownst to the American people?
*In this Simpsons clip, Homer rips the masks off of the two candidates and exposes the aliens (Kang and Kodos) underneath. As they point out, though, it's a two party system and you have to vote for one of them, even if they are aliens.
Based on an article from 2012 (hence the emphasis on presidential elections) from io9 - excerpts above, but go there and read the whole thing.
ICYMI, Wednesday's links are here, and include the anniversary of the Magna Carta, poisoned underwear, the weird history of Tetris, and an analysis of which species would become dominant if humans died off.
ICYMI, Friday's links are here, and include why is Friday the 13th is considered unlucky, inventing of bikes after a volcano killed all the horses, a supercut of birds in movies, and, circa 1880, the restaurants along the railways in the western U.S.
The world’s favorite yellow-skinned, four-fingered family has had a special place in our hearts ever since it leapt onto our screens in 1987.
But could The Simpsons actually be way ahead of its time? Alltime10s brings you inventions - from smart-watches to sarcasm detectors - that The Simpsons called ahead of everyone.
Simpsons-Inspired Heavy Metal Band “Okilly Dokilly” Consists Of 5 Neds.
ICYMI, Friday's links are here, and include the Japanese surrender that ended World War II, Churchillian insults, sneaky dogs, drunk history, and Yelp reviews of newborn babies.
ICYMI, Friday's links are here, and include putting a man in giant balloon, filling it until it explodes, and filming in slow motion, the story of "Hey Jude", all about radioactive toothpaste, and the Guinness World Record du jour: the guy who kicked himself in the head 134 times in 1 minute.
For Simpsons fans, or to encourage you to become one, a selection of signs just hanging out in the background from various episodes. These are in no particular order, and there are many more available - follow the links at the bottom of the post.
There are, of course, many more of these - these are just some that caught my eye. Lots more are available here, here and here. Previous Simpsons posts and links:
ICYMI, Thursday's links are here, and include the cost of building a Jurassic Park, Disney Princess softball team, the 200th anniversary of Waterloo (with a Lego re-enactment of the battle), and a gallery of lesser-known monsters.
This is their second crossover this season - the first was the Family Guy's season opener:
And because I'm unable to think about Family Guy without remembering this, here's two women re-enacting Peter's classic chicken fight - Epic Chick Fight (original below):
This crossover episode will air as the premiere of Family Guy’s 13th season in September. The Griffins somehow end up in Springfield where The Simpsons live; Peter Griffin and Homer Simpson bond over donuts and beer until they have a falling out and re-create Family Guy's famous chicken fight scene (more on this below). Bart, as you can imagine, makes an excellent mentor for Stewie.
“This Springfield place seems nice. We should visit here again,” Lois Griffin says in the preview. “I don’t know, Lois,” Brian responds. “It kind of feels like a one-shot deal.”
Epic Chick Fight: 2 women reenact Family Guy’s famed chicken fight:
ICYMI, Wednesday's links are here, and include lots of Tesla information, vampire slaying ethical questions, jaywalking origins, and the sad story of Domino's Pizza's "Avoid the Noid" campaign.
The Simpsons said a sad farewell to Bart's teacher Edna Krabappel on Sunday night; Mrs. Krabappel (more recently Mrs. Flanders, since she married Ned) was voiced by Marcia Wallace, who recently lost her battle with cancer.
In a brief scene at the very end, and before the closing credits, Mrs Krabappel and her husband, Ned Flanders, are dancing a passionate tango together and then we see him mourning at home, alone wearing a black armband. Even Nelson Muntz, an altogether unlikely source, remarks on how much he will miss her laugh.
“The Story” is a short film starring Maggie, Lisa, and Matt Groening (wiki), who would go on to create The Simpsons (wiki). The film was shot by their father Homer in 1969. In the film Lisa recounts an adventure that she and Matt have in the woods.
Homer Groening worked in advertising but found time to make cartoons and write stories with his children. Matt talks about “The Story” and how he was influenced by Homer in this 2012 interview with Smithsonian Magazine (see excerpt below the video)
From the interview cited above:
My father was a really sharp cartoonist and filmmaker. He used to tape-record the family surreptitiously, either while we were driving around or at dinner, and in 1963 he and I made up a story about a brother and a sister, Lisa and Matt, having an adventure out in the woods with animals. I told it to my sister Lisa, and she in turn told it to my sister Maggie. My father recorded the telling of the story by Lisa to Maggie, and then he used it as the soundtrack to a movie. So the idea of dramatizing the family—Lisa, Maggie, Matt—I think was the inspiration for doing something kind of autobiographical with “The Simpsons.” There is an aspect of the psychodynamics of my family in which it makes sense that one of us grew up and made a cartoon out of the family and had it shown all over the world.
