Context of Practice: Studio Brief 2

5 Quotes

-'One of the main messages in The Simpsons is that your leaders dont always have your best interests in mind. Theyre flawed.' Matt Groening -America's Favourite Family (BBC Documentary)

- David Silverman "I think [Gyorgi Peluci, color stylist] made the Simpsons yellow because Bart, Lisa and Maggie don't have a hairline, so they had to be yellow, otherwise Bart would look like he had a serated forehead if it was flesh-colored. And if they're yellow, you kind of get used to the fact that it's their hair and their skin colour, once the shock wears off."

- "The Simsons makes intertextual jokes about the codes of other animated cartoons, horror films, television news and science fiction, among many other television and film forms. The viewer is always being shifted around from one code and relationship to the text to another code and relationship." Jonathan Bignell - Media Semiotics

- Yellow wasn't my choice. You initially work in black and white, and one of the animators suggested that we colour them yellow, and it looked right. Then again, she also made the trees purple, which we didn't go for. It means the Simpsons look like no other cartoon characters, though. I don't like that skin colour they use in cartoons. I loved Mickey Mouse when he had a white face, not the strange pink Caucasian colour he is now.' Matt Groening

- Chris Suellentrop of Slate "under Mike Scully's tenure, The Simpsons became, well, a cartoon. [...] Episodes that once would have ended with Homer and Marge bicycling into the sunset [...] now end with Homer blowing a tranquilizer dart into Marge's neck."Fans have dubbed this incarnation of the character "Jerkass Homer"."

5 Statistics
- http://www.statisticbrain.com/the-simpsons-total-franchise-revenue/ business stats

- £1.5m- Amount Tracey Ullman tried to sue Fox for a share of the profits

-The have been (at least) 544 special guest appearances

- There have been over 300 different couch gags

- Lisa has celebrated two 8th birthdays

5 Significant moments in (Simpsons) history

- April 19, 1987 First animated short aired as a bumper piece on The Tracy Ullman Show

- December 17th 1989 - first full length episode 'Simpsons Roasting On An Open Fire' is aired

- May 28, 1998 - Death of Phil Hartman, leading to the retirement of reccuring characters Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure in season 9

- In 2001, the word "d'oh" was added to the Oxford English Dictionary; The definition given is:

Expressing frustration at the realization that things have turned out badly or not as planned, or that one has just said or done something foolish. Also (usu. mildly derogatory):implying that another person has said or done something foolish

- July 27th 2007 - release of The Simpsons movie, box office success, receiving critical acclaim
5 People
- James L Brooks, Matt Groening and Sam Simon credited Executive Producers in the title sequence of each episode despite Sam Simon leaving in 1993 (also he has ternimal cancer and will die this year, which sucks)

- Dan Castalleneta, Harry Shearer and Hank Azaria - main voice actors on the show providing voices for almost every male character of the cast between them

- Gyorgyi Peluce - colourist who made The Simpsons yellow

- John Swartzwelder - credited with having written the most episodes, notoriously reclusive, left in 2004 but returned for the movie, my personal favourite based on his creidted episodes

- Michael Jackon and Dustin Hoffman - both gueststars on the show credited under pseudonyms John Jay Smith and Sam Etic (pun based on Jewish heritage), called back to in a reference by Lisa in Itchy and Scratchy: The Movie

5 Images

screencap of Simpsons animatics on DVD Special Features, large image is storyboard, left corner animatic, right corner finished episode

Accurate floor plan of the Simpson house

A comparison of the development of the character designs and their roles over time

A comparison of Marges head turn in the intro sequence, top is new into, bottom is old. Showing the animators have become lazy

5 Inventions/Objects/Garments

Garment- Burns' gorilla chest vest in the song See My Vest, episode Two Dozen And One Greyhounds

Invention - Homer's six-legged chair, which he later discovers was invented secretly by Edison first

Objects - There has been, and still is, an awful lot of Simpsons merchandise on sale, spanning good and terrible.

Objects- Original run merchandise sells for a decent amount of money. Mugs, tshirts, action figures, mostly ones from 1990 with the naive, pre-style change aesthetic.