I'm pretty tired, so in short: a nice appearance by Artie/Jon; possibly the best of the Castellaneta/Lacusta writing team so far; the corporate scandal plot perhaps a little dated because of the long lead time but saved (at least for the first run) by the recent Martha Stewart proceedings; plenty of laughs and character-driven humor inside a fairly believable and engaging plot; a fun reaction of Bart and Lisa to the scary movie (even if the Blair Witch sequence was a bit unnerving for the show); somewhat heavy on metahumor, but handled pretty well. All in all, "The Ziff Who Came to Dinner" was fairly enjoyable, with a few slow parts but an ending that made me giggle quite a bit...B+
DYN: ...Kang and Kodos make another non-TOH appearance in the couch gag? ...by my calculations, the couch gag is about 43 seconds longer than the "chorus line" one? (If only they'd padded it out with the full intro...)
...Lenny the gardener has an _un_lucky red hat? ...there's a Buddha in the attic? ...to British viewers, Homer turns a torch into...a torch? ...the patsy-faced lawyer is on Homer's side for a change? ...Rupert Murdoch seems to be in jail with Homer? ...Patty and Selma seem to have very large hair now? (What's with this?)
Previous episode references 7F12, 9F16*, DABF04: Artie Ziff appears (not played by Jon Lovitz in 9F16) DABF20: MC Safety (and the Caution Crew), apparently still with his traffic light pendant, has moved to P.Q. Butterfat's as MC Birfday EABF16, EABF18, FABF01: The writers are apparently seeing how long we can stay amused at Lenny's last name 9F08: Homer rests snacks on Bart's head and incorporates Lisa now (for a slightly different reason) The Lovitzorama: 8F18: Lewellyn Sinclair, 7F18: Prof. Lombardo, 8F04, 8F13*: Ari Amandopolous (*not Jon), and 2F31, 4F07: Jay Sherman make appearances at Moe's (Jon has done other incidental voices, though I'm surprised Sinclair's sister the day care runner wasn't thrown in - and in a kind of obscure reference, I wouldn't have minded his voice piping through a small red radio either) CABF14: Homer seems to have changed his views on the Blue Man Group EABF11: Moe (sort of) involved with a Bouvier twin 7G01: Homer called a "boob" by TV
A selection from the Springfield Googolplex
On the marquee: 1 Return to Ape Valley 2 The Fashion of the Christ* 3 Ghost Frat 4 Eating Nemo 5 From Justin to Kelly 4 6 The Unwatchable Hulk 7 The Pianist Goes Hawaiian 8 Freddy vs. Jason vs. Board of Education *in the establishing shot, #2 is "A Kiss Befo--" on the right side; let's start the guessing...I open with "A Kiss Before Frying"
Also playing: The Wild Dingleberries Movie (at a hearty 47 minutes - hey, "Bambi" was only 69) Diet Coke: The Movie President Air Bud: Tail to the Chief The Redeadening Teenage Sex Wager
Coming soon: A Matrix Christmas (in time for Thanksgiving, maybe?) You're in the Matrix, Charlie Brown
Not a movie, but a tasty treat: My Big Fat Greek Salad
Goofs: -Rod and Todd seemed to go along with Homer more easily in CABF16; maybe they need some sugar to get going... -Not exactly a goof, but worth pointing out that Bart and Lisa did just fine with the Bloodening in AABF07; I wouldn't consider it a total goof since kids of that age are bound to take such things differently day to day. -Artie seemed to be doing pretty well for himself as late as 2002 (DABF04). -Speaking of which, he and Marge did have a second date in DABF04 (the first, of course, being in 7F12)
Meta-reference corner -With a Simpsons movie in the works for "sure" now, Lisa is quick to point out how silly a padded-out, non-free version of a popular TV cartoon might be; with any luck, the long-awaited feature length episode of our favorite family('s very large town) will go against the norm and do things impossible in the shorter version. (With so many people in the town, maybe the polyplotic style of "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" or "22 Short Films about Springfield" would be a good starting point...) In any case, if it doesn't work, we can't say they didn't warn us! -As mentioned above, Jon Lovitz's main Simpsons characters all belly up to Moe's bar tonight; as well, Artie has picked up Jay's trademark "ach'm" sound. -Nelson's laugh, common as it is, is considered front-page material by the Springfield Shopper. -Another trademark Simpsons "gag" (har!) is parodied when Bart strangles himself when Homer is unable to do so. -Where is Springfield? According to the couch gag, it seems to be near the Great Lakes somewhere this week.