Notes for LABF13 (Homer the Whopper)

Uh, OK. Not surprisingly, it's fairly reminiscent of 2F17 (Radioactive Man); the plot was actually fairly straightforward and simple like those episodes of old, though I wasn't particularly blown away. The particular manner of Homer's fatness making different takes/angles of the same scene didn't seem right for a shooting schedule, though, and I wonder if there would have been a better way to mess the movie up. Some amusing parts from Seth Rogen, and some interesting highlight on CBG. Anyway, season 21 is on! I'm excited.

DYN: ...the title, though appearing to be a non-reference, is? (Burger King tagline "Home of the Whopper") ...Fallout Boy has his own comic book (and the name is spelled right)? ...still no one calls CBG by his real name? ...CBG seems to write in Comic Sans? ...in the "extension cords! mixed nuts! car keys!" run, the middle one is actually the name of a movie?

Previous episode references BABF11: Couch gag basically a repeat CABF04: Big deal about the price of an early Spider-Man (twice as much now) BABF01: Plastic Man's powers granted to Everyman are, naturally, much like Stretch Dude's FABF12: Matt Groening makes another voice appearance DABF09: CBG cracking his ponytail reminiscent of Jasper's broken beard 2F17: duh 4F12: Homer cast in blah blah blah AABF21, BABF19: a bleeped line (you don't always have time to fuck somebody) - did I miss any? CABF07: "badbye" AABF23: Test screening

Meta-reference corner? "That's the problem when you have 17 writers" - presumably better managed on a show like this, so maybe it's not a meta-reference.

Goofs? -In DABF04, CBG stated that he liked Jar-Jar; here he seems to suggest he doesn't, unless he just acknowledges that it *was* an embarrassment. -Also, the test screening tagline ("tell us how to do our job") isn't quite accurate. -I know it was just a joke, but when Seth Rogen's character calls Homer "Homer Sapien" he should have said "Sapiens" - "sapien" is meaningless.

Random note When Lyle tells Homer to say goodbye to "fat you" and Homer says "goodbye, fat me" into the (of course) Homerless room, there's a vaaaaaaaaguely Asian-looking woman next to the one exec. I could have sworn the joke would be that her name was "Fat Mi" or something, but nothing came of it. Later, "I smell Oscar" did refer to an actual smelly guy named Oscar. Hmm.

And don't forget An unexpected consequence of the analog shutoff dealy is that the Fox network (and other broadcast networks) are not sending out pre- formatted 4:3 SD feeds anymore, and the affiliates generally aren't either. So while it was up to the network before to letterbox things appropriately, now (for cable subscribers etc.) it's in the hands of the cable (etc.) companies... and that's not good. They generally haven't installed equipment to read the AFD (active format description) to letterbox or center-cut appropriately, so they're center-cutting everything. If you don't have digital service (I don't!) then you're probably not getting the new widescreen episodes in widescreen. You can try, futilely, to get them to install that... until I get on board the digital/HD wagon, I went and bought a digital converter box. First time my TV reception is dependent on the weather. We'll see how it goes.

Matt Garvey wrote in news:83f169eb-d917-489c-acc6- [email]:

It starts off in widescreen then about half way through the opening credits they (station? cable?) switch to full screen to the end with a close-up Gracie and 20th logos.

I thought it was pretty dull and mediocre. Most of the laughs that I got were from small, throwaway bits, such as the "Swatchman" poster and Nelson's painting (which, for the record, was a reference to Picasso's Guernica). The lack of realism and the somewhat incoherent plot (the studio can create actual monsters, but they can't either get Homer another trainer or find some way to mask his fatness; and, anyway, what happened to the fact that CBG *wanted* the hero to be fat in the first place) didn't help.

I believe the actual bleeped bit was "masturbate".

Perhaps someone remembered the "Young Me" joke in A Hunka Hunka Burns In Love?

I don't know what my cable company did with this episode; last season I got fullscreen on one Fox affiliate and correct letterboxing on the other that I get. But lately they seem to be giving me more fullscreen, which sucks. I suppose they figure that they're going to get people to buy more HD TVs, which will allow them to sell more digital packages. At the moment, though, they're just getting me to watch Hulu or other online sources more.

I went back and looked - yeah, I can see "masturbate" (though the lips could also match what I saw somewhat well). Captions are no help. So, you can't say "masturbate" on TV? On THIS show, yet? Not that I recall it being used before, but still...

I'm not sure that it's intentionally to get people to buy HDTVs and digital service, but it certainly strikes me as not wanting to spend the money (esp. now that it's at the cable companies' end) to show things correctly.

Incidentally, I find it interesting what's going on with some other Fox animation. Simpsons and KOTH went to widescreen (and HD) last year, and KOTH only had one season left. Family Guy and American Dad are sticking with 4:3 (not sure if they're in HD yet, though I know the 2nd FG Star Wars special will be on Blu-Ray), but The Cleveland Show is WS/HD. Presumably it's because that's new, maybe Seth MacFarlane has less to do with it, or maybe he wants aspect-ratio consistency instead. But I do remember a remark on the Blue Harvest commentary about comedy playing best in 4:3 or some nonsense, rationalizing that choice and sort of ragging on The Simpsons Movie's being in 2.35. Just something to ponder.

Perhaps I'm being a little paranoid. B^) At the same time, though, I don't really see why it would cost more to just show it letterboxed.

Last night's couch gag appeared on my TV as "Oarding Is Not A Form Of Torture". Feel the comedy!

Brett A. Pasternack wrote:

It's not that it costs more to show it letterboxed. But Fox, and the affiliates in general as far as I know, are sending out one stream now, and it's 16:9. If the content is 4:3, as will be the case a lot of the time (for older shows, many commercials - some of which are themselves letterboxed in the 4:3 frame), the output signal is pillarboxed with black. Digital TV and HD TV has nothing to do with the aspect, but I guess there's some reason they just keep it at widescreen transmission all the time.

So without a pre-made (SD) 4:3 feed to send out to their subscribers, as previously, it's up to the cable (and maybe satellite?) providers to format for the SD 4:3 channels. There are 4 choices as I see it: letterbox everything, center-cut everything, install AFD equipment to letterbox or crop as appropriate, or get some hapless employee to sit there and toggle a switch instead. #3 is the "cost more" part. Why they don't bother is probably a combination of the (perhaps only perceived?) low number of people still relying on this form of delivery and perhaps the assumption that most of those people would not notice or care missing sides (after all, there is quite a history of exactly that). Letterboxing everything is not the best idea for the opposite reason: many many shows are going to be windowboxed, and both that and content that's only widescreen to fill WS sets (such as news) are going to be unnecessarily smaller.

(I've noticed a number of commercials that are 16:9 within a 4:3 frame, within the 16:9 frame of broadcast, which is then in the 4:3 frame of my TV when I use my DTV box. Size- and proportion-wise it's just like the I&S short in The Simpsons Movie when shown on a 4:3 TV, except just kind of silly instead of widening out to a scope widescreen.)

Looking up at Wiseguy's post, it sounds like maybe his cable company did #4... either that or Fox or the affiliate happened to be windowboxing themselves (or potentially even sending out a 4:3 signal?) for some reason, and then partway through the intro the switch was flipped. If it was #4, it wasn't a wise choice.

And here we see the consequences. As I spent the summer trying to get some answers to this and watching cropovision, I could definitely tell (and you can check this anyway with a widescreen image) it was definitely not using the sides of the widescreen frame as visual filler, the way many shows did a few years ago (and some still do now). Same for The Cleveland Show, same for the Futurama movies (which are presented cropped and occasionally reformatted on Comedy Central). The whole frame is used, and it's all necessary to see what's going on. Just because I don't have an HDTV and digital HD cable service does not mean I should be missing whole sections of the shows I'm paying for cable for. Argh.