The Deconstructionist: All Kinds of Television Dinosaurs
On Time and Weak As Sauce
On February 17th, the Discovery Channel will run a show all about cloning dinosaurs. I think this is a bunch of hooey, because if you were going to clone an extinct animal, wouldn’t it be simpler to cook up a mammoth, or a smilidon, or something else that’s really just a slight change from a thing that already exiists? In fact, why not put your cloning to a more practical test and have a doberman give birth to a litter of poodles. I mean, that’s what they think is going to happen- put T-Rex DNA in a ostrich egg, and a T-Rex comes out, which would be insane because scientists would want to dissect the thing instantly, because they know so little about them. So despite my enthusiasm for someone making living dinosaurs (I would, weep, I think, at my first glimpse of an actual living dinosaur), I think it’s a bunch of hooey.
I’ll still watch the show. Damn you, Discovery Channel!
The writer’s strike continues, which is a danger to all of us unsuccessful writers. Let me explain: the writers on strike are those who make their living by writing. This means that they are gainfully employed in writing, leaving the not-writing jobs to those of us who cannot yet make a living by writing. If the strike goes on too long, the striking writers will need another way to make a living, and will flood the workplace with their unskilled, unenthusiastic labor- taking jobs that belong to us. Face it, there’s only so many paying gigs that people who spend all their time trying to write screenplays and fiction are suitable for, and those job markets- waiting tables, dog walking, video store or used CD clerk, etc- cannot support a deluge of out-of-work former writers. So to the writers, I say, we don’t want you applying for the barista job any more than you want to, so please, work it out, guys!
Today’s Million Dollar Idea: Often I’ll have ideas that are wonderful but far beyond my scope to enact, so I offer today’s to you, the internet, to make something out of. The idea? Bootleg Simpsons. If you saw the Simpsons this past Sunday, you know that it was a ‘flashback’ to the 90’s, when Marge and Homer weren’t married yet. Now, the Simpson’s were well established in the 90’s and episodes that aired then placed Homer and Marge’s courtship on the tail end of the 70’s. This means that the current writers of the Simpsons are invalidating and cannibalizing older (superior) episodes in their quest to fill that 23 minutes every week, to the hate-filled fury of long-time Simpson’s fans everywhere. (Some of their backlash can be seen on The Onion’s FOX Sunday night blog). I myself can’t wait for the 2009 episode when the city of Springfield invests in a monorail, and hilarity ensues.
The trouble is, the Simpsons are no longer being made for the people who grew up with the show - it’s now made for a new generation who haven’t memorized the classic episodes. Yes, that’s right: the show you helped build with your fanatical devotion doesn’t need you anymore.
How to fight back? Bootleg Simpsons. Someone should start a website where Simpson’s fans can submit their own episode outlines for others to view and vote on. These treatments show follow these few basic rules: Rule #1. Do not invalidate the Simpson’s timeline established in other, classic episodes. This basically means not referencing time at all- we most simply overlook that Marge and Homer would be in their 50’s now, their children long since grown. We can do that- we do it all the time with comic books and comic strips- but the illusion must be preserved by not calling attention to the inconsistency. Rule #2: Standards and practices must be appeased. Any treatment submitted must be suitable for broadcast. If our bootleg writers are going to show the new writers how it’s done, they have to play by the same rules. Rule #3: No rehash. So if the Simpson’s have done it once, they cannot do it again. Apu cannot move in with the Simpsons, Mr. Burns cannot be shot, Lisa cannot build a grammar robot (groan), Bart cannot steal a video game, and the Simpsons cannot adopt a horse for the third time.
Treatments would be graded on adherence to the above rules as well as Simpsons traditions as understood by the community, and of course, humor. Characterizations must be in keeping with established tropes. Also, major changes will not be permitted- so no outing Lenny and Carl. The script agreed by all Simpsons fans to be the best (like that will happen) will be performed as a podcast by other fans impersonating the cast.
So there’s my idea that I have neither the time nor the web-based acuity to realize. Also, written down, it seems kind of stupid.
Oh, extra credit: take all 400+ episodes of the Simpsons and detail how they could have happened in a single year (excepting Halloween and other fantasy episodes). So start with Bart’s 10th birthday and end with his 11th, and make everything that had ever happened to The Simpsons-trips to a dozen nations, Homer’s 75 careers, the half-dozen makeovers of Moe’s, etc, all happen within 365 days to preserve that Bart enters the show at 10 years old, and exits at 10 years old.
Oh, and find a website that would post this stuff, because BBT cares about sci-fi, fantasy and horror- not cartoons.
The Deconstructionist with Gordon Weir admits they can't all be good.