A favorite episodes of the show which I still quote to this day, especially with burning hatred of the executive caste in all professions; they’re slowly killing civilization and I’m sure their ancestors destroyed every ancient empire with their idiocy. It has the great zinger spoken by the illustrated surrogate of writer George Meyer after Krusty, an early Lindsey Nagel (the stand-in for all Consultants and money-grubbing marketing types) and Roger Meyers Jr.
Excuse me, but “proactive” and “paradigm”? Aren’t these just buzzwords that dumb people use to sound important? Not that I’m accusing you of anything like that…I’m fired, aren’t I?
What I had forgotten upon rewatching this was the look on Lindsey’s face when the Bill Oakley surrogate responds to her:
Lindsey: …We’re talking the original dog from Hell!
Oakley: You mean Cerberus?
She gives the standard look of annoyance dumb people in charge make when you’ve exposed their ignorance and/or demonstrated how stupid they are in public.
Today The Hollywood Reporter interviews key people involved in the episode through a verbal history. It was a great read. When I first watched “Poochie,” I thought it was a hilarious take on how numerous hit shows that have exceeded a few years try to rejuvenate their popularity by adding a new character, often through the female lead having a baby, in what is commonly called Cousin Oliver Syndrome. Obviously it happened to The Brady Bunch during its last season which christened the term and still nobody learned as it continued with Family Ties, The Partridge Family, The Cosby Show, Growing Pains, Good Times, Full House, Happy Days and Beverly Hill 90120. Bob Newhart threatened to quit his hit show when the writers pitched Suzanne Pleshette’s Emily getting pregnant as he knew it was poison. Malcolm in the Middle used it to great effect when Jane Kaczmarek did get pregnant in real life since the last thing Lois and Hal needed was a fifth child given the parents’ precarious finances; plus the four existing sons were all hellions. With The Simpsons, they poked fun at how it’s a desperate move to revive the beloved Itchy & Scratchy cartoons while being oblivious to Marge renting a room to this young, hip guy named Roy. What made it funnier was how everything Poochie said in his debut were relevant catchphrases in 1993 or earlier; a nod to how the TV writers of the Sixties and early Seventies were behind the curve.
It took some years to pass before I realized it was also the writers giving the finger to all the toxic people on the Internet bitching about how the show had declined; in 1997, dial-up was the means and Social Media didn’t exist was we know it today. Those people were represented by the beloved Comic Book Guy with his newly minted catchphrase, “Worst. Episode. Ever.” Something the writers encountered frequently on the message boards. Bart and CBG’s interaction summed it up when it came to the toxic fans who are entitled, think they own the show, love to be armchair quarterbacks and are full of shit.
CBG: Last night’s Itchy & Scratchy was, without a doubt, the worst episode ever. Rest assured, I was on the Internet within minutes, registering my disgust throughout the world.
Bart: Hey, I know it wasn’t great, but what right do you have to complain?
CBG: As a loyal viewer, I feel they owe me.
Bart: What? They’ve given you thousands of hours of entertainment for free! What could they possibly owe you? If anything, you owe them!
CBG: Worst episode ever.
Twenty-five years later, it only got worse sadly. Obviously the Internet fueled it further as broadband became the norm. Phones and tablets pushed out computers. Social media successors Twitter, FeceBook and TikTok gave the less-computer literate the means to express their rage. However, there remains one constant. Some asshole saying The Simpsons got crappy after [Insert Season Number Here]. I continue to argue differently since I remember how disappointed I felt after watching the Ninth Season premiere, “The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson.” It was clever but I found very little funny so I thought it was a bit of a bust. A couple years later, I grew to appreciate it and laugh more. Ever since, I have defended the show by saying, some jokes take a little more time to age like good wine and/or our immediate expectations hinder the humor. Plus, the show belongs to someone else, today it’s the evil Disney Corporation. It’s not yours to dictate. All you can do is stop watching and maybe, just maybe they’ll pull the plug or something will happen to bring you back into the fold. Bitching is pointless unless you have pull. Besides, oh wise fanboy, how many imdb.com credits do you have compared to the writing staff? Yeah, I thought that.
1997: The Simpsons introduce Poochie as a poke at toxic fans
A favorite episodes of the show which I still quote to this day, especially with burning hatred of the executive caste in all professions; they’re slowly killing civilization and I’m sure their ancestors destroyed every ancient empire with their idiocy. It has the great zinger spoken by the illustrated surrogate of writer George Meyer after Krusty, an early Lindsey Nagel (the stand-in for all Consultants and money-grubbing marketing types) and Roger Meyers Jr.
Excuse me, but “proactive” and “paradigm”? Aren’t these just buzzwords that dumb people use to sound important? Not that I’m accusing you of anything like that…I’m fired, aren’t I?
What I had forgotten upon rewatching this was the look on Lindsey’s face when the Bill Oakley surrogate responds to her:
Lindsey: …We’re talking the original dog from Hell!
Oakley: You mean Cerberus?
She gives the standard look of annoyance dumb people in charge make when you’ve exposed their ignorance and/or demonstrated how stupid they are in public.
Today The Hollywood Reporter interviews key people involved in the episode through a verbal history. It was a great read. When I first watched “Poochie,” I thought it was a hilarious take on how numerous hit shows that have exceeded a few years try to rejuvenate their popularity by adding a new character, often through the female lead having a baby, in what is commonly called Cousin Oliver Syndrome. Obviously it happened to The Brady Bunch during its last season which christened the term and still nobody learned as it continued with Family Ties, The Partridge Family, The Cosby Show, Growing Pains, Good Times, Full House, Happy Days and Beverly Hill 90120. Bob Newhart threatened to quit his hit show when the writers pitched Suzanne Pleshette’s Emily getting pregnant as he knew it was poison. Malcolm in the Middle used it to great effect when Jane Kaczmarek did get pregnant in real life since the last thing Lois and Hal needed was a fifth child given the parents’ precarious finances; plus the four existing sons were all hellions. With The Simpsons, they poked fun at how it’s a desperate move to revive the beloved Itchy & Scratchy cartoons while being oblivious to Marge renting a room to this young, hip guy named Roy. What made it funnier was how everything Poochie said in his debut were relevant catchphrases in 1993 or earlier; a nod to how the TV writers of the Sixties and early Seventies were behind the curve.
It took some years to pass before I realized it was also the writers giving the finger to all the toxic people on the Internet bitching about how the show had declined; in 1997, dial-up was the means and Social Media didn’t exist was we know it today. Those people were represented by the beloved Comic Book Guy with his newly minted catchphrase, “Worst. Episode. Ever.” Something the writers encountered frequently on the message boards. Bart and CBG’s interaction summed it up when it came to the toxic fans who are entitled, think they own the show, love to be armchair quarterbacks and are full of shit.
CBG: Last night’s Itchy & Scratchy was, without a doubt, the worst episode ever. Rest assured, I was on the Internet within minutes, registering my disgust throughout the world.
Bart: Hey, I know it wasn’t great, but what right do you have to complain?
CBG: As a loyal viewer, I feel they owe me.
Bart: What? They’ve given you thousands of hours of entertainment for free! What could they possibly owe you? If anything, you owe them!
CBG: Worst episode ever.
Twenty-five years later, it only got worse sadly. Obviously the Internet fueled it further as broadband became the norm. Phones and tablets pushed out computers. Social media successors Twitter, FeceBook and TikTok gave the less-computer literate the means to express their rage. However, there remains one constant. Some asshole saying The Simpsons got crappy after [Insert Season Number Here]. I continue to argue differently since I remember how disappointed I felt after watching the Ninth Season premiere, “The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson.” It was clever but I found very little funny so I thought it was a bit of a bust. A couple years later, I grew to appreciate it and laugh more. Ever since, I have defended the show by saying, some jokes take a little more time to age like good wine and/or our immediate expectations hinder the humor. Plus, the show belongs to someone else, today it’s the evil Disney Corporation. It’s not yours to dictate. All you can do is stop watching and maybe, just maybe they’ll pull the plug or something will happen to bring you back into the fold. Bitching is pointless unless you have pull. Besides, oh wise fanboy, how many imdb.com credits do you have compared to the writing staff? Yeah, I thought that.