Upcoming Episodes, NFL Fox Doubleheader Days, plus STUFF for "The Squirt and the Whale" (MABF14)

5/2 - DOUBLE FEATURE --------------------- 7:30 - Once Upon a Time in Springfield (LABF20) Krusty falls in love with the new female sidekick his network demanded that he add to his show; Homer, Lenny, and Carl hire a headhunter to look for another job after Mr. Burns takes away their free donuts

8:00 - To Surveil with Love (MABF12) Civil rights in Springfield are restricted after a radiation leak (out of Homer's gym bag) affects the city; Lisa is dying...er, DYEING her hair a darker color

5/9 - DOUBLE FEATURE -------------------- 7:30 - Postcards from the Wedge (MABF04) When Homer and Marge take different approaches to handling Bart, he discovers he can play his parents off against each other, but when they decide to "let Bart be Bart," he goes one step too far when he discovers that running trains in the abandoned subway system is making the school collapse

8:00 - Moe Letter Blues (MABF13) While on vacation together with their kids, Homer, Apu, and Reverend Lovejoy get a letter from Moe...who says he's running off with one of their wives

5/16 - DOUBLE FEATURE --------------------- 7:30 - Pranks and Greens (LABF18) Bart seeks out the man Principal Skinner considers the best prankster in Springfield Elementary's history, but when it turns out that he hasn't exactly outgrown his youth, Bart tries to get him out into the real world by setting him up with a job working for Krusty

8:00 - The Bob Next Door Bart is so convinced that the new next-door neighbor is Sideshow Bob that Marge takes him to the prison to show him that Bob is still there

5/23 - DOUBLE FEATURE --------------------- 7:30 - Treehouse of Horror XX (LABF14) Bart kills Miss Hoover and expects Lisa to kill Mrs. Krabappel; Krusty's new sandwich turns people into Zombi-er, "Munchers"; in a play within the show, Moe kills Homer and then discovers that beer mixed with Homer's blood makes Marge more attracted to him

8:00 ** SEASON FINALE ** Judge Me Tender Moe's ability to judge things gets him a job as a judge on "American Idol", leaving Homer more time to spend at home with Marge...much to her dismay

5/30 - PRE-EMPTED for the Coca-Cola 600 NASCAR race (local programming will air after the race in the west)

2010 FOX NFL DOUBLEHEADER DAYS Numbers in parentheses indicate the number of 4:15 Eastern games on Fox that day - when a game ends, Fox will switch to a game in progress until all of its games are done, so the more games that are on, the larger the chance that one of them will run past 8:00 Eastern * indicates that more games may be moved to 4:15 (or, for that matter, a 4:15 game may be moved to NBC) because of the "flexible scheduling" policy

9/12 (3) 10/3 (2) 10/17 (1) 10/31 (3) - this should be the night of World Series Game 4 as well 11/14 (3) 11/28 (1*) 12/5 (3*) 12/26 (1*) 1/2 (2*)

STUFF for "The Squirt and the Whale" (MABF14) --------------------------------------------- Written by Matt Warburton Directed by Mark Kirkland Billboard: Text me your lunch money / eBully.com (Jimbo) Blackboard: South Park - we'd stand beside you if we weren't so scared Couch: The couch goes through various sections of the newspaper, with everybody following it, before reuniting in the classified section Also Starring: Pamela Hayden, Tress MacNeille, Russi Taylor, Karl Wiedergott Overseas Animation: Akom TV Rating: TV-PG-LV

REFERENCES 8F11 (Homer mentions being at the bottom of a well) 3F06 ("Leaves of Grass" is mentioned) MABF03 (somebody has a Zii) "Romeo & Juliet" (Rome-O and Julie-X) "House, M.D." (Lisa is watching it) "101 Dalmatians" (Lisa names the whale Bluella de Whale) National Geographic (Springfield Geographic) also, the part about blowing up the whale with dynamite and having chunks of it fall on people is based on a true story

DYN ...in the opening, the couch is on sale for $449? ...apparently, Frank Welker didn't do any of the animal noises? ...Bart says "Ay Carumba"? ...in Lisa's dream, the T-shirts say, "We Helped Airlift Lisa's Enormous Soulmate" (W.H.A.L.E.S.)?

GOOFS / FREEZE FRAME / WHATNOT When power is interrupted to an automatic garage door, it stops; it doesn't go back down.

Even if the film in the movie projector broke, which would explain why there was film on both reels, there is no way that all of the film could have fit onto either reel.

Homer's cut in the water healed incredibly quickly - and he didn't feel any added pain from the fact that salt water was involved. (Then again, his head obviously healed quickly from being cut by that table saw.)

-- Don S1.1 MAG+++ LIS++ BAR+ SKI+ MrsK+ MissH+ P&S# FLA- (heresy!) f+++ n+++ Ilps(w) $+++ M48 I don't know about a Wind episode, but the South Park blackboard opening makes it a Win episode

On Sun, 25 Apr 2010, Don Del Grande wrote:

But no pre-emption for a Memorial Day movie, say "Independence Day" or maybe "Spiderman"?

Michael

On Mon, 26 Apr 2010 09:58:53 -0400, Michael Black wrote:

Why would they pre-empt it for a movie when it's already pre-empted for the race?

Don Del Grande wrote:

In case you haven't heard, some cities got a different blackboard quote:

Je ne suis pas Fran�ais

(not to be confused with "Je ne parle pas Fran�ais" from HABF14)

It's not clear yet which cities got the alternate quote.

-- Don

South Park did have a ninth season episode called Wing. Is that what you thinking of?

mjsmith wrote:

No (and I don't mean Mr. Hyunh from "Hey Arnold!" either). "Wing" was definitely a Lose episode (not to be confused with "Lost").

-- Don

"Don Del Grande" wrote in message news:[email]...

I thought maybe she was DYING... to go to Itchy & Scratchy Land!

-- R Flowers

On Sun, 25 Apr 2010 at 21:06:49, Don Del Grande wrote in alt.tv.simpsons :

It always amazes me how popular shows like The Simpsons get pre-empted like this in America - surely you have separate channels for sports?

On Tue, 27 Apr 2010 07:42:21 +0100, Paul Hyett wrote:

Yes, we do, but:

First, it would have been a re-run as the season ends the week before.

Second, viewing audiences are historically lower on a holiday weekend (Memorial Day).

Third, NASCAR is HUGE in the US. The Coca-Cola 600 is one of the more popular races.

And finally, Fox thinks they are a sports channel. They'll delay the start of a first run episode of The Simpsons for a football game. They shell out mega-bucks for the rights to air NASCAR and NFL, and they won't let a 30 minute cartoon stand in their way, no matter how popular it is.

the

They

The major reason Fox became a powerhouse network was because it got the NFC broadcast rights from CBS back in 93. Although Fox definitely had some strong shows before then, they simply weren't enough on their own to make Fox a major player. Would Fox have even survived this long if it didn't even attempt to land the most lucrative sports league in the U.S.?

On Tue, 27 Apr 2010 08:59:01 -0400, Brian wrote:

You're asking the wrong person. The only sport I care about is baseball, and I absolutely LOATHE watching a game on Fox, especially if that babbling jackass McCarver is on. I'll mute the TV and listen to the audio on radio instead. Or I won't watch it at all.

On Tue, 27 Apr 2010 at 11:42:10, OFF Fan wrote in alt.tv.simpsons :

At least you get the *chance* to watch MLB.

The one UK channel that did a reasonable job of presenting it, lost the rights to another who promptly went bankrupt. There's been no sign of it here, since. :(

On Wed, 28 Apr 2010, Paul Hyett wrote:

That's not cricket!

Michael

Does that still work? I thought with the processing delays in digital TV, the radio announcer would announce plays before they appeared on the TV screen.

Keith F. Lynch wrote:

The last time I tried it with a local broadcast, the audio was about a second ahead. With XM, on the other hand, you need to run the video through a TiVo that's running about 15 seconds behind the live broadcast in order to get them in sync.

-- Don

On Thu, 27 May 2010 00:29:21 +0000 (UTC), "Keith F. Lynch" wrote:

That's part of the beauty of it. If I'm busy on the computer and hear something happen on the radio, I have a couple of seconds to turn my head to see it happen.

On Tue, 27 Apr 2010, Paul Hyett wrote:

Yes and no. A lot has been shuffled to sports channels, or maybe it's more that more sports is broadcast, on the sports channels. But a lot remains on the "main channels", partly tradition, partly because it's seen as important enough that everyone should be able to see it.

You should come to Canada. The CBC, the "public broadcaster" akin to the BBC, ends the season of their programs in late March or early April, to make room for the hockey playoffs. So in early April, to late May or early June (it goes on endlessly), they have hockey just about every night, the playoffs to the Stanley Cup.

Thus no prime time programming unless a game doesn't get played. Late night movies are either gone, or have to come on whenever the hockey game ends. The late news is shuffled to whenever the hockey game ends.

Until last year or the year before, it meant no daily "Coronation Street", you'd have to watch that in a block on Sunday mornings. But they rearranged the schedule, so "Coronation Street" runs at 6:30pm and is thus out of the way by the time hockey starts for the evening.

On the other hand, after a while it shakes down so scheduled games don't get played, and then suddenly there are movies on in prime time, filler because there's nothing else to put on.

The year there was a hockey strike a few years ago, that was great. Because instead of all that endless hockey, there were loads and loads of movies in prime time.

Michael

It's a rerun that's getting pre-empted.

With last year's digital conversion, each channel got several subchannels. Whether they'll be used to show sports on one and the regularly scheduled program on another remains to be seen.

I'm more concerned with shows starting late, starting partway through, or being canceled, due to a sports event that ran over.

For details on how this began, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidi_Game

Keith F. Lynch wrote:

Other than NBC's "Universal Sports" channel, I don't think any of the networks use the digital subchannels for anything above a local level.

Each of the major networks does seem to have a "partner" network which can show the end of a sporting event that runs long (for example, Fox has switched long-running baseball games to fX, and ABC has switched long-running auto races to ESPN2), but they won't do this for events with large numbers of viewers like the NFL.

(Paul - keep in mind a considerable number of people cannot get non-broadcast stations, mainly because cable and satellite TV companies charge a lot of money for the service.)

That's one of the reasons Fox airs reruns on Sundays between 7 and 8 Eastern during football season - they can be pre-empted without anybody missing anything.

-- Don

And, just keep in mind: sports are popular.

I mean, one could just as easily ask why The Simpsons is on a network, when there is a Comedy Central and a Cartoon Network it could air on. The answer is the same: because the networks strive to put on the most popular programming (with all due consideration to demographics, cost, etc.) regardless of genre.

Paul may not know that Fox and ABC can be watched over the air for free, and fX and ESPN2 are pay channels (i.e. they're only on cable or via satellite).

On Apr 25, 9:06 pm, Don Del Grande wrote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_whale

On Wed, 28 Apr 2010 09:24:00 -0700 (PDT), Armillaria caligata wrote: