Commentaries on DVD

I've been laid up in bed for a while, so I took the opportunity to watch Season 1&2 in commentary mode.

Wow! It surprised me how most of you just don't get it!

I've always said, and you can quote me on this..."Cartoons don't have any deep meaning. They're just stupid drawings that give you a cheap laugh."

Hope you're feeling better soon.

Dana

"R H Menzel" wrote in message news:[email]...

Dana wrote in message news:1o1T9.493193$[email]...

Ain't nothin' wrong wit' dat!

People need to just stop deifying (for lack of a better word) this show, and just learn to enjoy it.

Of course, maybe these folk have such shallow lives to begin with that the Simpsons is deep by comparison???

I'm getting meaner, so I must be feeling better!

-Bob

and

exactly which part of the DVD commentaries did you think suggested that the Simpsons was intended to be just a cheap laugh?

People who just think the show is good for a cheap laugh tend not to listen to DVD commentaries. They'll just endlessly watch the animated menus. ________________________________________________________________

If love of money is the root of all evil, why do churches want it so badly?

Remove "bination" to reply.

Oh come on now, Homer saves everyone from dying on the monorail and says "donuts. is there anything they can't do?"

Thats deep man, really deep. >I'm getting meaner, so I must be feeling better!

So if i say that technically canadians are americans you'll kill me and then be 100% better?

get what?

It's good to see you around. Although you probably won't see this message since i'm on aol and aol sucks. Hope you're feeling better soon. I just bought season one and have watched only the first episode in commentary mode so no i definitely don't get it (yet)

On Wed, 8 Jan 2003 11:51:15 -0800, "R H Menzel" wrote:

Oh, I get it!

I get commentaries.

Damn, beat me to it!
________________________________________________________________

If love of money is the root of all evil, why do churches want it so badly?

Remove "bination" to reply.

"You might, Rabbit!"

you just might.....

"Would I turn on the gas if Rocky were hiding in this stove?"

Markc65 wrote in message news:[email]...

"What a pal, what a pal, what a pal." (in a voice that sounds sort of like Chief Wiggums!)

"It's curtains for you, Rocky! Understand? Curtains!"

Markc65 wrote in message news:[email]...

like

"Oh!.....they're lovely!"

"R H Menzel" wrote in message news:...

If the audio commentary was in that oven, would I light a match and throw it in?

R H Menzel wrote:

Let me say in advance that I don�t know the audio commentaries (I have S1 and S2 as British VHS box and there are no commentaries) but I�ve heard about them. I guess the commentaries are more fun-oriented and they don�t say much about "weirder" things like episode analysis etc.

So what?

Some remarks to Bob�s short comment and its implications.

You say on your website (which is pretty good) that you do art often just for fun but that people are free to see more in your work, more than you intented. Let�s assume (just assume) OFF episodes are done just for fun - why do you say now people are not free to see more in them, even more than the writers originally intented? Why do you say such people (who see things like depth or symbolism in episodes) have miserable lifes and "just don�t get it" while you also say people are free to see more in your works of art? It�s the same kind of freedom, isn�t it?

I judge episodes by the content and by what I can see in them and not by some audio commentary. I can think about episodes by myself and make my own opinion, I don�t need audio commentaries to tell me "how" episodes are meant to be. An audio commentary can give me interesting information but I don�t have to agree with it.

I heard they say for example in one of the S2 commentaries that "Itchy & Scratchy & Marge" is the first episode where they said one thing and meant a completely different thing - the satire about the utopia of "good children without TV violence" for example (I wrote a review about the episode).

Brilliant media satire and still one of the best, no doubt about that. The different story layers are one of the things I call classic story depth. However, I think "Krusty Gets Busted" from S1 is actually the first episode where the story said something different below its surface e.g. Sideshow Bob wasn�t bad for Krusty�s audience. There are other episodes before "Itchy & Scratchy & Marge" where I have the impression the message is different (or deeper) from what we see on the obvious layer.

Of course, they don�t say that in the audio commentary but does it automatically mean it�s not there? Am I self-important, have a miserable life, and "just don�t get it" just because I try to see something in an episode they don�t mention in the audio commentary, maybe even something the writers never intented to say? It was a strength of classic episodes to be more than the sum of its parts, that�s what I call an open concept and that�s what I call depth.

They were making audio commentaries for an entertaining cartoon show and thus they don�t talk about things like symbolism and story depth and subversion and whatever. Maybe they don�t care about such things either. What does it mean for me? Nothing. If every writer and producer would say something that backs up your point of view, I would still say an episode like "Lisa�s Substitute" is a hundred times better than "Large Marge" and I would use my personal reasons.

I doubt they say in the commentaries that the show was supposed to be an almost directionless and simplified row of sketches and slapstick jokes with thin storyline and the only purpose to be funny and nothing else. Matt Groening says a lot of different things (oh yeah) and he said somewhere else that he�s afraid FOX will try to dumb down the show. I�ve heard they don�t say much about things like depth and subversion in the commentaries but they say a lot about the quality of S2 and that�s good.

Can someone who has the DVDs say something about the commentaries and what they say or imply about people who see more in episodes than just fun?

Chris

Bob is either not paying much attention to his DVDs, or just talking out of
his ass.  They do talk about the deeper elements, such as political satire
in 2 Cars In Every Garage, the deeper side of the story in Krusty Gets
Busted, the emotional character complexity of Lisa's Substitute, the
purposefully unclear "meaning" behind I & S & Marge, how you can feel or be
moved by the character's emotions, how Moaning Lisa is important in defining
Lisa as a character.   They don't wax lyrical about these details, they
discuss them when it's important.  For one thing, they'd come across both
boring and like self-important assholes if they spent the entire commentary
giving their own work a glowing in-depth review and carefully laying out all
its complexities.  Nowhere do they even imply that the show is supposed to
be a disposable goofy weekly gag-fest.  They constantly make comments on how
enjoyable the shows are for them to watch now, and they constantly talk
about the invaluable contributions of Jim Brooks on the emotional
character-driven side of things.  If you go to the interview on the season 2
DVD, you'll find Jim Brooks and (a very oddly dressed) Matt Groening talking
about the emotional complexity of the show, how they intended it to be more
than either just a sitcom or just a goofy cartoon, how it's amazing an
animated show can be so multi-layered and have seemingly such a wide-ranging
appeal.   In fact, if you watch or read any interview with Groening, Brooks,
Scully, Jean, Reiss etc, or any of the voice actors, what they will talk
about will probably be the effect of the show's satire, or how both the
family as a unit and the individuals inside it are complex and interesting,
or how the show has great social relevance.  They don't say "hey, once we
did this thing with Jockey Elves, i cant remember how they fitted into the
plot but it was really hilarious.  also once we gave Marge big boobs which
was funny shit"  Quite what Bob thinks we aren't "getting" is beyond me.
But, hey, maybe that's just the shallowness in my life clouding my
judgment...

Jamie wrote:

I�m glad to hear that.

It sounds in Bob�s post as if the commentaries are the ultimative proof that all people who take the show more seriously "just don�t get it". If anything, the episodes on the DVDs show me that I�m right when I complain about the style of new episodes and not that I�m wrong.

I think there are people who "don�t get it" - it�s the kind of people who say things like "the show is so much better now because they have no plot any longer" and I can�t believe Matt Groening would appreciate such an opinion.

I guess I�ll rent the DVDs and listen to the commentaries (I see no reason to buy them, I have the episodes on tape.)

Chris

In alt.tv.simpsons, on the "Re: Commentaries on DVD" thread, Jamie wrote:

There's a telling moment in the commentary for "Lisa's Substitute (7F19)." No, wait, there's two of them.

One of the people doing the commentary -- I think it might have been Jon Vitti -- noted that Fox figured the appeal of this episode would be the "B" story of Bart running for class president. The promotions focused on it almost exclusively. Yet, of all the people who came up and mentioned the show, no one mentioned it. The story that resonated with them was the Lisa-Mr. Bergstrom-Homer plot. People were responding to the emotional parts of "The Simpsons," not just the gags.

On the other hand, near the beginning of the show, Matt Groening and Jon Vitti (I think) were saying how the creative team was worried that there were too many "love stories" this season, and now they were getting set to do the "the biggest one of them all." Clearly, the producers wanted to keep things in balance -- not too much "sappy" stuff, and not to many "gag rows," as Mr. Pfeiler puts it.

People who short-change either the emotional or the funny stuff are only getting half of what the show has to offer.

Benjamin Robinson wrote:

Another remark in the commentary tracks (I think by Al Jean, and regarding the show's former knack for touching stories versus now) went something like: ""But any time there's any sentiment on the show today, it always has to be followed by some kind of kick-in- the-ass gag."

Which expresses nicely why the show has been short-changing itself so much in its later years.

On 16 Jan 2003 04:52:37 GMT, Poster wrote:

I was struck by how many times they said "Oh, we'd never do that now" in reaction to something in an old show. Well, why not? It was great!