The Weekly Simpsons Watch (next up, Venture!)

[SirMustapha]

I'll be skipping tomorrow's watch. Unfortunate, but it's for a noble cause.

[c_nordlander]

Noble causes are good. There'll be more episodes!

[Nidotamer]

On the other hand, *I* can't get this stupid thing to work.
AGAIN.

Swear, I have precisely one thing to look forward to, weekend chat, and I can't even have that anymore...

[gkscotty]

Tonight was a night of extremes - "Some Enchanted Evening," which is in reality early S1 and shows it, written long before S1 hit its stride, and "Bart gets an F," which is easily one of my favourite episodes.

SEE is better than I remembered, but there was hardly any depth to either plotline IMO. Some funny bits but its doesn't hold together as well as most of S1.

BGAF on the other hand? What a great episode, full of funny sequences, character development for Bart and Martin, fantastic scenes with the snow day and Declaration of Independence dream, real emotion from Bart and a great response from Krabappel, and the best damn theological argument Lisa will ever make (at least for a few seasons.) Great ep, and season two is already an improvement over the better-than-expected S1.

[Nidotamer]

And two sketches done! Probably a rather unexpected subject on the first and for the second... I was SO tempted to use the weird-looking Bob from "the Telltale head"...

[gkscotty]

Reminder! Tomorrow we will be watching Simpson and Delilah and Treehouse of Horror!

[c_nordlander]

An awesome combo. "Simpson and Delilah" is my go-to example for how a Simpsons episode should be written, and the original "Treehouse of Horror" is excellent and spawned a great legacy.

[SirMustapha]

Turns out I'll have to skip this one too, so don't wait for me.

[gkscotty]

Fun fact: Tomorrow, it's Two Cars in every Garage, Three Eyes on Every Fish and Dancin' Homer!

Don't miss it!

[Nidotamer]

So done sketches for "Some Enchanted Evening" and "Bart gets an F" I'll try getting the others done before tonight.

1: Mrs Botz... it's a bit hard to get her likeness down properly since the animation was quite awkward she kinda changed a lot in between shots. That said, the episode is a little admirable in the animation department for trying at least, there's some pretty decent angles in there and all, it just needed a LOT of polish. Funny enough, Mrs Botz seems to have a little background arc, she's mentioned in Bart's Dog Gets an F she appears in some wanted posters in the police station afterwards and is later seen in the same asylum Ned went to in Season 8.

2: History lessons with Sherri & Terri! (warning, some lessons may be half-truths, the rest are outright lies). I think I already gushed about this episode plenty enough.

[c_nordlander]

May, you've outdone yourself with these! Ms. Botz looks great (I like her look here better than in the show!), and the second picture is really funny. Love Bart's Puritan clothes, and of course you can be counted on to draw good rats.

Keep it up!

[Stretch_Dude]

That's a pretty good take on Ms. Botz, May!

And you totally need to turn that Bart sketch into a full pic. Maybe stick an arrow-shaped sign in the ground reading "Sunny Acapulco."

[Nidotamer]

Actually, I might do that, Stretch. Either that or remake it as a full pic.

Actually, I've still got one of the next pics in the wings and another in the works. Been trying a different way of sketching and I think it's been turning out well so I've kinda gone a bit further with these than I usually would...

[Nidotamer]

Well most recent (well, till tonight) pics done! Funny thing is, neither of these are just sketches. Actually, second was quite experimental, and took a good hour or so.

1. Well this one ended up looking oddly heroic... might've been down to the fact I was listening to the Adventure Line theme the whole time! Still, probably one of my better sketches!

2. The raven! Outside of a few little visual gags (such as the extra portrait for Lenore's hair) this segment spent a lot of time building up and playing almost totally serious... that is up till "Quoth the Raven: Eat my shorts!" that alone wins the raven my pick of this episode's pic. Tried to do this one all painty and stuff and surprisingly I didn't just give up on it partway though. Sure it's not exactly masterful but hey, first real try at this!

[SirMustapha]

So I finally managed to catch this Saturday's watch. Here are my thoughts.

Three Cars in Every Garage, Three Eyes on Every Fish - amazing episode, this easily qualifies as one of my favourites in this season. This is political satire at its very best, with a plot that's absurd without being zany, an amazing set up for a perfect resolution. This is the kind of humour and mockery that I cherish so much in this show, and having Marge as the ultimate heroine is just so fresh. (also, as an aside, it's interesting how the end of the episode had such a great reference to Citizen Kane, yet we were all making The Room jokes. It's the decay of society, people! )
Dancin' Homer - I loved the set up for this episode, pretty much everything about the ball game at the start ("Bart, Lisa, and Expecting"; "Yeeeah, you throw like me!"; and the Bleedin' Gums segment sent my sides flying into orbit), and Homer's rise as he mascot. If I could make any complaints, is that the ending may have been a bit too rushed (I loved how the whole family warmly welcomed Homer after his failure, and how he remarks that it didn't make any difference; this could have been fleshed out a little bit more, you know), but it worked nonetheless, so I can't bicker about it. I had lots of fun.

By the way, I know I missed several watches, but this was a wonderful idea. I'm glad you took the initiative, Steve.