The world's most beloved animated family gets the Tom treatment.. Bif Bam Pow Wow Episode “Simpsons” Tom: Coming up a look of everyone’s favorite yellow skin dysfunctional family. Welcome geeks, nerds, misfits, outcasts, and fellow crazed loners to another exciting installment of Bif Bam Pow Wow, I am Tom your host and I for one would like to welcome our Ant overlord’s. Now if you got that referenced then you need more help than I could possibly provide in these few short minutes. It comes of course from one of the most eminently quotable shows in the history of television, the long running Simpsons. Today I take a quick look at some of my favorite Simpson’s moments and collectables. As we all know the Simpsons debuted as animated shorts on the Tracey Ullman show way back in 1987, and they have been running continuously in half hour format since 1989. By my estimation Bart should be in his early thirties and Homer and Marge despite graduating high school in the seventies are still somehow 35 years old and Maggie is still a baby. Nevertheless the show continues to bring us biting social satire and cutting edge comedy, now sure every year you get all of the haters who are saying oh man this Simpsons have totally lost it every since season eight it is all downhill man. To me it is still one of the bass written shows on television. Probably what is just as amazing is the amount of merchandising that has spawned from the show and its characters, too much to cover in the span of the short, short show. But I do want to mention a few Simpson’s collectables that I think are totally worth seeking out in my picks and pans. Most of the Simpsons action figure’s in toys have been sadly discontinued the and you can watch their values explode on Ebay. There is however a new line of figure’s they came out in conjunction with the release of the Simpsons movie, there by Macfarlane toys and I highly recommend anything by Macfarland. My favorite is Homer and piggy, you know, spider pig, spider pig, does what ever a spider pig does. Now also in conjunction with the movie Fox did a great promotion where they turned a dozen seven elevens across the country into Kwik E Mart’s, among the limited edition merchandise in those stores were actual boxes of Krusty O’s and cans of Buzz cola. These of course became instant collectables so if you can get your hands on some of those do, I have a feeling they will be worth a lot of doh. Now comics wise there are a couple of things worth mentioning, Simpson’S number one comics it is the first Simpson’S comic so for now runs between 10 and $20.00 depending on addition but I don’t think it will really become collectible until further on down the road but I think it is a important part of American history don’t you? Also with the 711 promotion they did a Radioactive Man comic and those were very good as well and of course they’re going to be collectible. Next not necessarily collectible but definitely must haves for Simpson’S fans is the latest music compilation from the series, the Simposn’s Testify. 37 tracks plus four unaired bonus tracks., my favorite the Lady Riff sung by Ricky Gervais to Marge. It is the best soundtrack album ever. Lastly the season by season DVD collection’s, now they’re up to season 10 and they are legendary for their commentary tracks. Very good stuff and who does not want all of the Simpsons on DVD. I digress completely and utterly, I worry about the deeper implications of this cartoon on what goes on around me particularly the youth which is why we recently went to talk to one of those ivory tower types to get their take on the Simpsons in the impact on our culture. Deb: Hi my name is Deb Foote, I am currently teaching a course entitled the Simpsons as satirical authors. The course came about over a period of time because I had noticed that students in the humanity classes that I taught students had to buy big $100 textbooks and talk about things that they did not see any connections to what I wanted to do was create a course where students could come in knowing something about the subject material and then relate the television series as a textbook.. Q: What Simpson’s character do you must identify with? Deb: I think part of me is Mrs. Krabapple, and part of me is a smattering of other characters. My favorite character is Krusty the clown. Q: What is your favorite episode? Deb: The NRA episode where homer gets a gun is fabulous because it presents, I think the best episodes of the Simpsons present both sides and leave a ambiguous ending. Q: Is not the Simpson’s class a “fluff” class? Deb: Definitely not I think that they’re surprised at the amount of work and I think that the responsibility of the class on my end has been to make sure that it is a substantial class. Q: Is the Simpsons more controversial today than when it started? Deb: I think as an instructor, someone who was around before the Simpsons and after the Simpsons I could see the controversy when I was in school regarding the Simpsons and how much these days it seems like nothing. Whether it is actually nothing or we’re just desensitized to it I am not sure but I know that my brother still does not allow his daughter’s to watch it. I know there are a lot of students in the class who say I was not allowed to watch this as a child. Q: What is your favorite simpson’s quote? Deb: There is the one where Moe asks, and the gay episode Moe asks Homer he says, geez you and Marge arent cousins are you because Bart does not want to shoot a deer and Lisa is a vegetarian. Tom: Now that is one cool human being, I have so much to learn I simply must go back to school and get my GED some day. I hope I learnsed you all somethings reals goods today. For now I’m going to leave you with a quote from someone very near and dear to me, the comic book guy. Freaking kids, I do not need this I have a master’s degree in folklore mythology, late.
