Upcoming Episodes plus STUFF for "Bonfire of the Manatees" (GABF18)

9/18 - DOUBLE FEATURE 7:00 - Don't Fear the Roofer (GABF10) When the Simpsons' house roof leaks and Homer is kicked out of Moe's, he makes friends with a roofer (voiced by Ray Romano) at another bar who promises to help him fix the roof, but when nobody else seems to be able to see him, Marge and Dr. Hibbert think Homer is insane * NOTE: Some cities, including Atlanta and St. Louis, may get this episode "already in progress" because of NFL football on Fox 8:00 - The Girl Who Slept Too Little (GABF16) The Simpsons' complaints about building a stamp museum next door cause it to be built on a graveyard instead - but the new graveyard is put next door, and Lisa hasn't been sleeping much ever since

9/25 - DOUBLE FEATURE 7:00 - Future-Drama (GABF12) Thanks to Professor Frink's astrology-based future-predicting machine, Bart and Lisa get a look at themselves eight years from now, where they are both graduating from high school together, but when Bart saves Mr. Burns from a robber, Bart gets the scholarship to Yale that was meant for Lisa * NOTE: Some cities, including Dallas and New York, may get this episode "already in progress" because of NFL football on Fox 8:00 - Milhouse of Sand and Fog (GABF19) When Maggie gets chicken pox, Homer comes up with a brilliant idea: throw a party for the town's parents so their children can get the disease now as well

STUFF for "Bonfire of the Manatees" (GABF18)
--------------------------------------------
Written by Dan Greaney
Directed by Mark Kirkland
Special Guest Voice: Alec Baldwin, Joe Mantegna
Also Starring: Pamela Hayden, Tress MacNeille, Karl Wiedergott
Blackboard: DOES ANY KID STILL DO THIS ANYMORE?
Couch: The family walks through a metal detector; after three
       attempts, Homer (stripped down to his briefs) is scanned by
       a security agent
Overseas Animation: Akom
Rating: TV-14-DV

REVIEW: B - this one went all over the "meh" scale.  It dropped down
        to a B-minus with "yet another Homer has to be saved" scene,
        but the ending with Burns and Smithers salvaged it somewhat.

REFERENCES "The Bonfire of the Vanities" (title) "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events" ("Lemony Lickit: A Series of Horny Events") "Fahrenheit 911" ("Fahrenheit 9 On 1") 2F20 (Building mistaken for outhouse)

DYNs ...Marge's hair didn't fit through the metal detector? ...Carl is wearing a "Marge" robe? (Does Marge have any robes with her name on them?) ...Moe's phone number is 355-1337?

GOOFS / FREEZE FRAME / WHATNOT The field at Mile High Stadium should have had a line all the way across the field at the 45-yard line.

The TV announced said the Raiders were missing 37 starters; in fact, there are only 24 starting positions - 11 on offense, 11 on defense, the punter and the placekicker.

When Marge leaves the kitchen, she slams the door, but in the next scene, the door is no longer there.

The phone next to Homer only has buttons for 1-9.

-- Don S1.1 MAG+++ LIS++ BAR+ SKI+ MrsK+ MissH+ P&S# FLA- (heresy!) f+++ n+++ Ilps(w) $+++ M43 I know one kid who still does lines on chalkboards: Jason Fox (of the comic strip "FoxTrot")

In alt.tv.simpsons, on the "Upcoming Episodes plus STUFF for "Bonfire of the Manatees" (GABF18)" thread, Don Del Grande wrote:

Even if the games in "some cities" ends early, Fox will switch to the last few minutes of whatever game is still going on. The football coverage won't end until *every* game in the NFC ends. (Unless there's a game on the West Coast that starts at 4:15 PDT.) The upshot is that viewers on the East can count on a pre-emption whenever there's a football double-header.

Even 7:30 if an iffy bet. In Tampa, for instance, the game was over before 7:30. That means we get to see "King of the Hill," right? Wrong. First, we get the end of the Green Bay-Detroit game. Then San Fransisco-and, um, whoever San Fransisco was playing against. By then, we were a little past 7:30, so Fox decided to run out the clock with post-game wrapup by Howie and the gang. So, football coverage ran right up to 7:58.

Leading to today's naive question: What does that line signify? You make it sound like it's unique to Denver's field, so I'm guessing it's not required by the rules.

Yeah, but it may not count if you write a program to do it for you, as Jason did.

FOX has abandoned any pretext of scheduling the 7:30 "Futurama must die" timeslot. If you get football past 7 PM, expect football related stuff all the way to 8 PM. (Fox is already calling the football stretching "The OT").

The upside to all this is that all Sunday shows should now start at their correct times (no football delays for the entire lineup that night).

No - the only Sunday game that starts after 4:15 PM Eastern is the ESPN game.

That's been true for years. In fact, a few years ago, Fox asked the NFL to move the start times of second games on the doubleheader network to 4:15 Eastern, and ever since then, Fox has not even scheduled anything in the Eastern and Central time zones (including cities where, because of the blackout rules, there is no 4:15 game) at 7:00 on its doubleheader days. (Fox scheduled Futurama (later King of the Hill and Malcolm in the Middle) reruns in the Mountain and Pacific time zones on those days.)

However, September 19 and 26 are CBS doubleheader days. Most cities will get just a 1:00 (Eastern) game on Fox, and those cities will get the 7:00 Simpsons episode on time and in full. I singled out Atlanta and St. Louis on the 19th because those are the only two cities that will definitely have a 4:05 game on Fox (and note that the "late" games on Fox start at 4:05, not 4:15, when it's a CBS doubleheader day), because these are the only cities in the Eastern and Central time zones playing an away game (so it can't be blacked out) on Fox at 4:05. In addition to Atlanta and St. Louis, cities that have football teams playing home games that are not blacked out and are either 1:00 CBS games or 4:05 Fox games will get a Fox game at 4:05, and will probably get the Simpsons episode "joined in progress". The 9/18 cities are: Charlotte, Houston, Indianapolis, Nashville, and Tampa The 9/25 cities (in addition to "definitely in progress" cities Dallas and New York) are: Chicago, Indianapolis, Philadelphia, and St. Louis.

(By the way, on the 10/2 Fox doubleheader day, the west will get a Malcolm rerun at 7 and a King of the Hill rerun at 7:30.)

Don't expect this to change any time soon - the overnight ratings for 9/11 show Fox's 7-8 PM NFL coverage with a 9.5, The Simpsons with 6.7, Family Guy with 5.4, The War at Home with 5.2, and American Dad with 4.8.

-- Don

Benjamin Robinson wrote:

Actually, it's "until every game where the visiting team is an NFC team ends" - those are the ones Fox airs.

St. Louis

I have a feeling this is going to be Fox's permament policy for doubleheader days. During the 49ers game, there was no mention whatsoever of a 7:30 "King of the Hill" episode; in the past, while they didn't mention the 7:00 show, the 7:30 show was always mentioned. I guess Fox finally figured out that (a) football runs longer than 3 hours 15 minutes, and (b) it gets higher ratings. (As I posted in another article, the NFL "overrun" ratings were almost three points higher than anything else Fox ran on Sunday night.)

However, you are talking about Fox doubleheader days, and September 19 and 26 are CBS doubleheader days. See my other response to this thread for information about Fox programming on CBS doubleheader days, and why I listed those two particular cities.

The line is required by the rules; there are lines running the width of the field every five yards. (Only the 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 need to be numbered, however.) I think they're there mainly so the players have a point of reference while they are running plays, but they're helpful to the fans as well. This isn't the first time the animators have done this; they did it in "Homer Loves Flanders" as well.

Actually, on two different occasions, Jason had to write on the chalkboard. (After the first time, when he did it on the computer, his teacher got wise.) If you've ever seen my list of blackboard quotes and noticed one that never appeared on The Simpsons, "I Will Not Lie In Front Of The School Bus With Ketchup On My Face", this is one of the ones Jason actually wrote (by hand) in the "FoxTrot" strip that ran on the day of the episode in which it is listed as appearing.

-- Don

Don Del Grande wrote:

The last time I recall Jason doing a blackboard punishment was 10/3/2003 (I know this because it had to be "patched" later by Bill Amend) - if there haven't been any more since then, that's still almost 2 years. Maybe Miss O'Malley has tired of it also?

Matt Garvey wrote:

I forgot about that one. I thought you were talking about his first one, where he wrote a program (in Pascal, as I recall) which printed "I will not shoot rubber bands in class" 100 times, ran it, and taped the hardcopy output to the board. The last time he did it "for real" was 3/9/2001, where he wrote, "I will not say EILEEN JACOBSON IS A SPACE SPORE" over and over.

-- Don

Once Upon A Time Don Del Grande wrote:

Why are all the Simpsons' doors arched at the top?

** Captain Infinity

Corners are expensive to draw. Or the animators were big fans of "Three's Company.

So Marge's hair can fit through OK. Either that, or they are supplied by the "Clock in the Kitchen Always Says 9 o'Clock Fixture Company".

Aaron Space Museum

Wht not?