Maude's Death

In light of the good discussion going on regarding "reset button[s]" I was wondering what the Simpsons community thought of the violent and surprisingly permanent death of Maude. Sure, Bleeding Gums Murphy died but that didn't seem so weird. Oh, right, I just remembered the voice of Maude quit the show over money or something..hmmm, well, couldn't she have moved away or something? It just seems out of kilter with the rest of the series for a main character to die. Maude could have went on a missionary trip like when Bart and Lisa thought she got killed. And isn't that weird too, that there was a big fuss over her death, it was resolved....but then she onto to die for real in a later ep? Weird man.....weird.

-Sam-

On Tue, 16 Jul 2002 05:53:17 GMT, Hall wrote:

Bart: Oh.  Well, I guess that explains everything.
Homer: Not everything.  There's still the little matter of the
       whereabouts of your wife.
Maude: Um, I'm right here.
Homer: [sarcastic] Oh, I see.  Then everything is wrapped up in a neat
       little package.
        [everyone looks at him]
       Really, I mean that.  Sorry if it sounded sarcastic.

:o)

"AndrewR" wrote in message news:[email]...

I love this dialogue, and this is one of my favorite episodes. Along with "Kamp Krusty", it would make a good summer double-feature.

Yeah, I always thought that "Bart of Darkness" -- a favorite of mine, though I guess it helps to be a Hitchcock fanatic -- captured summer pretty well, though not as well as "Summer of 4 Ft. 2."

As far as Maude goes, I hadn't seen any of the early 11th season episodes with MMG doing the voice more than once until the other day when I caught a repeat of "Brother's Little Helper." The difference was much less noticable than I remembered (though she had very few lines in that episode). Anyway, with or without Roswell, I think they could have thought of many better ways to phase out the character.

n.

Maude's death was a really bone-headed move on the part of the writers. The thing that made the Flanders funny was that they were the perfect family, which always annoyed Homer. Killing Maude off also killed the rivalry between the families.

I would have much preferred them to keep Maude around, even with a new actor (Marcia Mitzman Gaven did Maude's voice for a few months before the character was killed). It's not like she was on so often that a new voice would have been jarring.

One thing is that they killed not because the voice of her wanted to leave the show its just that the creators wanted to take some of the characters in new directions and try new things. "Uniblab" wrote in message news:3d343bbb$[email]...

The

actor

----- Hall (Tue, 16 Jul 2002 05:53:17 GMT) -----

I always figured that she and Ned could have just separated for some reason. That would leave the door open for guest appearances as possible. Or as another poster -- Uniblab -- mention, someone else (you know, the OTHER lady) could've have taken over, being that Maude is (was) a minor character.

Death? That was just overkill, methinks. Too rash.

On 16 Jul 2002 18:06:22 -0500, "JD44.3UJO9T" <jd44.3ujo9t> wrote:

On top of all that the episode was CRAP.

I'm guessing that the producers tried to make the voice-over lady to stay on the show for ($) per year. She wanted ($)+ al lot more. So the producers stood their ground, saying "This is our offer. If you don't accept it right now, you are off the show, and we will kill off 'Maude' . Then it will be final, you'll never be able to come back to the show at any (low) price." "Oh, yeah...you other bit=players out there, take this as a warning."

Plus, it has been mentioned that the producers might've been wanting to pare down the payroll. They were probably happy to see the voice-over lady go.

FWIW, I don't miss Maude at all. If I did, I'd be at Praiseland each and every day.

73, Keith

*TASKMASTER EXTRAORDINAIRE* --Revolutions halted--Tigers tamed--Computers verified--Time warped-- --Uprisings quelled--Creationism disproven--Dictators overthrown-- --'Pi' calculated completely--Female minds understood--

"KGename" wrote in message news:[email]...

stay on

stood

you

you'll

pare

What's strange is that Maggie Roswell is returning to voice the ghost of Maude in this year's Halloween episode.