Planet Simpson: How a Cartoon Masterpiece Documented an Era and Defined a Generation - Softcover

Turner, Chris

Softcover

ISBN 10: 030735704X ISBN 13: 9780307357045

Verlag: Random House of Canada Ltd, 2008

Inhaltsangabe

Book by Turner Chris

Über diesen Titel

Reseña del editor:

A smart, accessible and funny cultural analysis of The Simpsons, its inside stories and the world it reflects.

From Bart Simpson to Monty Burns, the Internet boom to the slow drowning of Tuvalu,Planet Simpson explores how one of the most popular shows in television history has changed the way we look at our bewildering times. Award-winning journalist Chris Turner delves into the most esoteric ofSimpsons fansites and on-line subcultures, the show’s inside jokes, its sharpest parodies and its ongoing love-hate relationship with celebrity to reveal a rarity of literary accomplishment and pop-cultural import — something never before achieved by a cartoon.

Complementing its satirical brilliance, The Simpsons boasts a beloved cast of characters, examined here in playful and scrupulous detail: Homer, selfish, tyrannical and not too bright, but always contentedly beholden to his family; Bart, pre-teen nihilist and punk icon; Lisa, junior feminist crusader; and Marge, archetypical middle-American mother, perpetually dragging her family kicking and screaming to higher moral ground. And while the voice actors behind the regular cast have eschewed celebrity, Turner considers why a stunning host of guests — Hollywood icons and has-beens, politicians, professional athletes, poets and pop stars — have submitted themselves to the parodic whims of theSimpsons’ writers.

Intelligent and rambunctious, absorbing and comic, Planet Simpson mines this modern cultural institution for its imaginative, hilarious, but always dead-on, reflections on our world.
Excerpt from Planet Simpson

Three Fun Facts About “D’oh!”
1. The Oxford English Dictionary defines “d’oh” as “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.”

2. The origins of “D’oh!” A Tracey Ullman–era Simpsons script called for Homer to respond to an unfortunate turn of events thus: “[annoyed grunt].” Dan Castellaneta, the voice-actor who plays Homer, improvised the exclamation, “D’oh!” It stuck.

3. The godfather of “D’oh!” Dan Castellaneta freely admits that he lifted Homer’s famous yelp from James Finlayson, a Scottish actor who played a bald, cross-eyed villain in a number of Laurel & Hardy films in the 1930s. Finlayson’s annoyed grunt was a more drawn-out groan — Doooohhh! Castellaneta sped it up to create Homer’s trademark.

Biografía del autor:

Chris Turner’s pop-culture and technology reporting for Shift earned him six National Magazine Awards in three years, including the President’s Medal for General Excellence in 2001, the highest honour in Canadian magazine writing. His acclaimedShift essay “The Simpsons Generation” was reprinted in newspapers across North America. His writing has also appeared regularly inTime, The Globe and Mail and the National Post Business magazine. Turner lives in Calgary.

Über diese Auflage

• Verlag: Random House of Canada Ltd
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2008
• ISBN 10: 030735704X
• ISBN 13: 9780307357045
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Anzahl der Seiten: 561