Brian Damage
03-09-2011, 12:03 AM
http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/the_simpsons/?story=/ent/tv/feature/2011/03/08/simpsons_pop_culture
I recently rewatched "Krusty Gets Kancelled" from Season 4 of "The Simpsons" with my 13-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son. Krusty the Klown was on "Springfield Squares," a game show hosted by moonlighting Springfield newsman Kent Brockman and featuring special guest Rainer Wolfcastle, the action film icon. Brockman introduced Wolfcastle as the star of the new movie, "Help, My Son is a Nerd!"
Wolfcastle: "My son returns from a fancy East Coast college, and I'm horrified to find he's a nerd."
Kent Brockman: "Ha, ha, ha! I'm laughing already!"
Rainier Wolfcastle: "It's not a comedy."
I laughed at this. My son laughed, too -- but after a moment he asked, "Dad, why is that funny?"
I told him it was too complicated to explain, because it was.
Wolfcastle was "The Simpsons"' stand-in for Arnold Schwarzenegger, a wildly popular movie star circa 1992-93, when that episode first aired. Schwarzenegger built his fortune on bloody action thrillers, but had recently begun playing against type in such dumb but harmless comedies as "Twins" and "Kindergarten Cop." The movie Wolfcastle was promoting was obviously in that vein, but the plot evoked the 1986 Rodney Dangerfield comedy "Back to School." Wolfcastle's line, "It's not a comedy" was also a joke at the expense of phony '80s macho; the very idea of nerdiness would horrify a gym-muscled dolt like Wolfcastle.
There were a couple of marginal jokes in the scene, too. Brockman's moonlighting on "Hollywood Squares" acknowledged a long tradition of newscasters working as game show hosts and commercial pitchmen on the side (see Wallace, Mike). And "Springfield Squares" is a sendup of 1970s game shows in the vein of "Hollywood Squares" and "Tic Tac Dough." The rest of the episode contained references to the 1929 film "The Great Gabbo," Eastern European animation, Joey Bishop, "Howdy Doody," Ed Sullivan's censoring the lyrics of the Doors' "Light My Fire," the 1968 "Elvis" TV special, the Red Hot Chili Peppers' penchant for nudity, and Bette Midler serenading Johnny Carson during his final week on "The Tonight Show."
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3226/3024975121_b204b912e5.jpg
I recently rewatched "Krusty Gets Kancelled" from Season 4 of "The Simpsons" with my 13-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son. Krusty the Klown was on "Springfield Squares," a game show hosted by moonlighting Springfield newsman Kent Brockman and featuring special guest Rainer Wolfcastle, the action film icon. Brockman introduced Wolfcastle as the star of the new movie, "Help, My Son is a Nerd!"
Wolfcastle: "My son returns from a fancy East Coast college, and I'm horrified to find he's a nerd."
Kent Brockman: "Ha, ha, ha! I'm laughing already!"
Rainier Wolfcastle: "It's not a comedy."
I laughed at this. My son laughed, too -- but after a moment he asked, "Dad, why is that funny?"
I told him it was too complicated to explain, because it was.
Wolfcastle was "The Simpsons"' stand-in for Arnold Schwarzenegger, a wildly popular movie star circa 1992-93, when that episode first aired. Schwarzenegger built his fortune on bloody action thrillers, but had recently begun playing against type in such dumb but harmless comedies as "Twins" and "Kindergarten Cop." The movie Wolfcastle was promoting was obviously in that vein, but the plot evoked the 1986 Rodney Dangerfield comedy "Back to School." Wolfcastle's line, "It's not a comedy" was also a joke at the expense of phony '80s macho; the very idea of nerdiness would horrify a gym-muscled dolt like Wolfcastle.
There were a couple of marginal jokes in the scene, too. Brockman's moonlighting on "Hollywood Squares" acknowledged a long tradition of newscasters working as game show hosts and commercial pitchmen on the side (see Wallace, Mike). And "Springfield Squares" is a sendup of 1970s game shows in the vein of "Hollywood Squares" and "Tic Tac Dough." The rest of the episode contained references to the 1929 film "The Great Gabbo," Eastern European animation, Joey Bishop, "Howdy Doody," Ed Sullivan's censoring the lyrics of the Doors' "Light My Fire," the 1968 "Elvis" TV special, the Red Hot Chili Peppers' penchant for nudity, and Bette Midler serenading Johnny Carson during his final week on "The Tonight Show."
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3226/3024975121_b204b912e5.jpg