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krpalmerRunning across not just a report the latest “Simpsons Halloween special” would have a segment “in anime style” but a clip of the animation was enough to turn my thoughts in a direction they hadn’t pointed in for quite a while. It’s been almost ten years since a report of “a quick sight gag of anime costumes” in a previous Halloween special reminded me how long it had been since I’d stopped watching The Simpsons and how I wasn’t bothered by that. This latest report, though, did get me thinking it had come in advance of the special. I went so far as to look in the TV guide that comes with my Saturday newspaper, note The Simpsons wasn’t being “simulcast” on a Canadian channel any more, and figure out where to tune into the American airing. (A few unfortunate thoughts about “the commercials being the really scary part” did come to mind along the way.)
My occasional thoughts on this subject sometimes encompass a strange sense of amusement of how long The Simpsons has kept running in the face of absolute disdain from any perspective I’m aware of, but I still had the sense that watching was risky. Even so, the first Halloween segment “in Simpsons style” didn’t seem altogether dismissible, and the segment “in anime style,” as the clip had got me thinking, didn’t look as off-kilter as I recall certain earlier attempts from a variety of artists being. I was a bit conscious that in spoofing Death Note it was taking on an “older” series some hypothetical “audience that had got over anime years ago” might remember, if a series I never got around to watching in those days of “buzz around ‘fansubs’” and follow-up DVD releases. (I did buy and read the manga just to see what the fuss was about.) In some odd way, perhaps open to suspicious interpretations, I might have wondered if the “anime style” looked more “realistic” just compared to the familiar hallmarks of the “Simpsons style” and that was that for me.
The last segment just happened to reference “the show’s past,” but in such a way as to leave me aware just about everything pictured was something I’d seen “way back then.” That I remembered them despite never finding the time to get back to my DVDs was something, and the segment at least got in a gag about “we know you all have your cutoff points.” I don’t suppose this was anything more than one evening’s peculiarly prompted indulgence, but with the way this show has hung around it just might be this could happen again in some unimaginable future year.
My occasional thoughts on this subject sometimes encompass a strange sense of amusement of how long The Simpsons has kept running in the face of absolute disdain from any perspective I’m aware of, but I still had the sense that watching was risky. Even so, the first Halloween segment “in Simpsons style” didn’t seem altogether dismissible, and the segment “in anime style,” as the clip had got me thinking, didn’t look as off-kilter as I recall certain earlier attempts from a variety of artists being. I was a bit conscious that in spoofing Death Note it was taking on an “older” series some hypothetical “audience that had got over anime years ago” might remember, if a series I never got around to watching in those days of “buzz around ‘fansubs’” and follow-up DVD releases. (I did buy and read the manga just to see what the fuss was about.) In some odd way, perhaps open to suspicious interpretations, I might have wondered if the “anime style” looked more “realistic” just compared to the familiar hallmarks of the “Simpsons style” and that was that for me.
The last segment just happened to reference “the show’s past,” but in such a way as to leave me aware just about everything pictured was something I’d seen “way back then.” That I remembered them despite never finding the time to get back to my DVDs was something, and the segment at least got in a gag about “we know you all have your cutoff points.” I don’t suppose this was anything more than one evening’s peculiarly prompted indulgence, but with the way this show has hung around it just might be this could happen again in some unimaginable future year.