Notes for JABF07 (Springfield Up)

I knew vaguely what this episode was going to be about from the online descriptions and the TV spots, but it wasn't until Declan Desmond started describing it in the introduction that I realized it was going to be a longitudinal documentary along the lines of the British series "Seven Up!" (see below), and that seemed pretty interesting. Except for (primarily) the implication that almost all Springfield adults are the same age, it integrated well enough with what we know already, keeping in mind the rather large handicap that the characters don't really age but have been on TV for almost 20 years. Anyhow, for the most part I enjoyed the angle it took with the characters it focused on, although when the millionaire Homer twist came along, I was expecting it to be more an invention of Declan (to spice it up) and not of the Simpson family. The happy ending was so-so for me; except for a few silly jokes in the final act, it was overall pretty good. I must admit that while I saw the cat lady thing coming as soon as her name showed up, I was actually faked out by the Sea Captain/Disco Stu thing. Till next time...

Previous episode references 2F14: Homer gets rich from an invention, sort of DABF19: Frink invents a time machine GABF21: Crazy cat lady was named Eleanor in this episode (and if you knew that, you were ahead of the joke!) EABF11: Declan Desmond films in Springfield AABF23, BABF19: Homer in an editing room

Goofs -Krusty's skin is white below the neck when he appears near the end -The Gracie Films and Fox logos didn't appear at all! (The credits got cut off and immediately went to the bottom.)

Notes on the title/theme I think the title is a reference to the British TV documentary "Seven Up!" from 1964, which was the first installment of a series of documentaries. As the title indicates, the subjects were all seven years old at the time (it looks like it was filmed in 1963, actually), and ensuing followups came about every seven years thereafter (according to IMDb, 1970+7x), entitled "7 Plus Seven", "21", "28 Up", "35 Up", "42: Forty Two Up", and "49 Up" (the last of which was in 2005). I haven't seen them, but I think the idea is similar, except that they weren't all compiled together like Declan's film. The in-episode title, "Growing Up Springfield," might be a reference to a similar type of production - any ideas?

New movie trailer The only thing I have to say is that it looks very, very detailed visually.

Finally While I guess it's important news that there was some sort of plane incident in Cleveland today, no one was even injured, so I wish Fox 8 didn't cover up the exact portion of the screen where all the subtitles were appearing! But they did, and as a result, I couldn't read any of them for the first three minutes of act 2. I know there was at least one joke, since something was two lines high... can someone fill me in?

On Feb 18, 8:56 pm, Matt Garvey wrote:

The thing that kept bugging me was that Declan was supposed to be a young filmmaker in the past. I think they should have at least made the "video" looked dated; i.e. lines across screens/black and white. This way Declan could have claimed to obtain the footage. (But, then again, the scenes from the past had him talking behind camera anyway.)

How was he a filmmaker when the cat lady was a kid, a woman in present time who is at least in her 70's? The artwork suggests Declan is in his 40's, or '50's at most.

On the upside; it's one of those episodes that had a lot of good little jokes/detail that will stand up to repeat viewings.

This second trailer looked great.

"888eight888" wrote in message news:[email]...

Alcoholic, burned-out, insane cat-ladies don't always put on their make-up in the morning.

-- R Flowers

Hmmm....that takes a heck of a makeup job, there...

The cat lady was much older than the children. She appeared to be a Middle School or High School student.

Mr. Museum

Matt Garvey wrote:

Hmm... it looks like while it ended up being a series of films about these people, it didn't actually begin that way; it was meant to be just a one-shot deal, and was intended to show various seven-year-olds' views on social and political issues and such. Only later did the idea of revisiting them every seven years come about. (But hey, it looks like the first installment was in B&W, with the rest in color, like tonight's episode!)

I didn't. Hardest laugh I've had watching a new Simpsons ep in quite a while.

Matt Garvey wrote:

When Desmond says that he can't embarrass Homer any further, the caption reads, "BARELY LITERATE, SMELLS LIKE FEET".

The only other joke was when Homer was in the Mexican restaurant: one singer says (in Spanish), "We pay him in limes," and Homer responds (also in Spanish), "That's right, limes."

-- Don

"Matt Garvey" wrote in message news:[email]...

Don't you just hate it when the network squishes everything to stick their promos in?

Did you notice that when they were going through all the characters, they mentioned Itchy but not Scratchy?

So, "Die Kinder von Golzow" was copied by "Seven Up" and was spoofed by OFF. Not unlike http://www.snpp.com/episodes/9F19.html, where "Worker vs. Parasite" was spoofed by OFF.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!?!?!"

Mr. Museum

What is the "real" name of this episode? All the links say it's "Springfield Up" but the episode itself says that its name is "Growing Up Springfield".

Why the discrepancy?

Opinicus wrote:

"Growing Up Springfield" is the name of the movie the documentarian is making. "Springfield Up" (a reference to the "7 Up", "14 Up", "21 Up", etc. series of movies) is the episode's title.

-- Don