Are there any good books on or analyses of the Simpsons

http://www.offthetelly.co.uk has some good articles on The Simpsons archived - search the site

dunno about actual books - i only have the first episode guide thing which gives you all the usual gumph like what the couch sequence was that episode etc.

here ya go toots http://offthetelly.users.btopenworld.com/comedy/simpsons/index.htm

i disagreed with the writers of those articles on a lot of things tho - they didnt rate the Springfield Film Festival episode with Jay Sherman, i mean what the hell is up with that?

I was more thinking of cultural studies style analysis, though I am reading that stuff now, cheers.

Yeah, their main point with that episode was that Barney's film wasn't very good while all the characters were saying it was brilliant, and thus we were being forced into thinking it was lovely and touching (or something like that anyway, it's been a while since I read the article) - maybe they have a point, but the thing is is that it's really, really funny, so it doesn't matter!

"What crawled down your throat and died?"
"It didn't die..."

gasp....incorrect quote...gasp...

That's how that exchange goes, isn't it? Mind you, I have a very bad memory.

And also IIRC, Matt Groening threw a hissy fit over that episode because it featured a crossover with The Critic - he had his name removed from that episode. Silly really, as the crossover is handled very well and there's no "Flintstones Meet The Jetsons" crapness (which, funnily enough, is directly referred to when Bart meets Jay Sherman).

thing is though, directly referring to things does not make them ok. Like in all the episodes which just repeat loads of old ones where they make a quip about this very fact, funny for a second but also just hammers home the truth.

I think I would rather have a book on Futurama.

Haha Ronan this looks like something you'd be interested in:

Leaving Springfield: The Simpsons and the Possibility of Oppositional Culture

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0814328490/qid=1049725135/sr=1-22/ref=sr_1_2_22/026-5917714-9467623

Not published til June 2003, tho :(

That book looks fanfuckintastic!!!

there's nothing wrong with cross-overs if its done well and with some sense of irony - sure its a cynical tactic but that episode really worked for me. i don't understand Groening's grievance over that...he must be turning in his undug grave at the way the show is handled these days in that respect.

although not qutie the same thing its interesting how The Simpsons has seen fit to dig at rival animated shows over the years - Ren & Stimpy were lampooned a couple of times in separate episodes, and the Hank Hill family were pictured in one episode in the same drawn style as in King Of The Hill - i can only assume they had the full blessing of Mike Judge and the KOTH team for that one - of course its all Fox anyway, but their inclusion was really just for one quite pointless, albeit mildly amusing, self-referencing gag.

(Before you buy that 'Leaving Springfield' book, be wary of the editor's musical taste as illustrated on this page http://www.nku.edu/~alberti/media.html)

He likes (and seems to "get"!) They Might Be Giants = his appreciation of Hole (huh huh) becomes a little more tolerable (although categorizing them as "punk" = wtf?).

www.snpp.com ,*the* simpsons web resource, has some academic articles (some are horrible) and links to others.

Once the Simpsons went downhill, I lost most of my passion for over-analysis of it. That was like, what, 7 years ago?

The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh of Homer
http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=62-0812694333-0

It's more of an philosophy book illustrated with Simpsons examples rather than the other way round, though...

Ahhhhh! Beat me to it, Mookieproof!

There's a book called The Simpsons and Philosophy, which sometimes gets into cultural theory, but which is mostly just a way of teaching basic undergrad philosophy using The Simpsons as examples. (E.g.: You know Nietschze's ubermensch? Well, that's just like Homer in Episode 3F91, when etc. etc.)

Oh, pfft, it's a book about the Simpsons, who cares what his musical taste is like, really. If I ignored books and movies by people whose musical tastes I found suspect, I wouldn't enjoy anything at all from the world of entertainment, I'm guessing.

Depending on how eggheaded that book is, I might just write a book about the Simpsons myself, I've watched so damn many of them. I bought the three episode guides in order to get more of the jokes and secret stuff, but there's precious little good information in some of them, and a lot of the jokes that I thought were side-splittingly funny are left out, even in the later guides where most of the episodes stretch out over two full pages instead of one, like in the first guide.

I mean, seriously, any book that's detailing all of the cultural references that you see in the Simpsons that doesn't bother to mention that Homer's manoeuvreing in a corkscrew fashion to eat the potato chip (in the Deep Space Homer episode) is a reference to the docking scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey is...well, lacking.

I've written a song about how Yoda from Star Wars & Homer Simpson are like unsuspected pop-culture conduits to ancient Taoist principles. But the song is way more fun than that sounds, really.

I'm ready to read Sean Carruthers' The Simpsons & Culture 2: The Search for Curly's Gold already!

but Sean that entire episode was just one big parody of 2001 and also The Right Stuff. granted Homer's chip-munching flotation to the Blue Danube is one of the more obvious and standout scenes tho

not forgetting the numerous minor refs to Star Wars, Ben Hur, Planet Of The Apes etc.

Well, elsewhere in the book they point out things that are glaringly obvious to most people, but in the writeup of that episode it's like you can hear the wind blowing over a cold plain, they miss so many of 'em.

there was a decent one a while back on jesus and the simpsons.

From OFF THE TELLY link:
The eighth series (1996 - 97) was blessed with the arrival of possibly the worst writer to ever work on The Simpsons: Ian Maxtone-Graham.

Totally agree. I've reached the point where I'm disappointed that a certain episode is being aired immediately after seeing his name on the credits.