New Main Titles for The Simpsons

After 19 years "The Simpsons" has a new opening title sequence. The opening to the long-running show has only changed slightly since the show first debuted (I was just out of high school then). If memory serves me correctly, the titles were slightly different in the first season, but from the second season on they have pretty much remained the same. The titles even continued to feature Bart ridding his skateboard past Bleeding Gums Murphy, who died in the show's sixth season.

So, in honor of the show going to HD, the new title sequence has been introduced. It's pretty much a new version of the classic titles, but with some fun changes. I especially like the little homages to past episodes you can spot...the box of Mr. Sparkle that Marge is buying at the grocery store is my favorite. However, I do find it a bit depressing that the Simpsons now have a flat panel HDTV and I don't.

Boars, Monsters and Polar Bears

I'm always a couple years behind on whatever the popular TV shows are. For example, I love "24," but for me President Logan just went down. I'm a year behind! I always have to wait for the DVD's. Even with a TiVo now, my effort at watching "Bionic Woman" from the beginning fell apart quickly.

Anyhow, one series I'm catching up on is "Lost." Of course, I'm still back in the first season. One of my favorite moments in the series so far comes in episode 9 - "Solitary." In this episode, Hurley finds a set of golf clubs from the plane's wreckage and decides to build a golf course. The scene where he invites his fellow castaways to join him in a game of golf is a great example of the importance of having fun.

Hurley: Welcome to the first, and hopefully last, Island Open!

Jack: What?

Hurley: It’s two holes, for now, three par, and no waiting.

Jack: Hurley, you built a golf course?

Hurley: Rich idiots fly to tropical islands all the time to whack balls around.

Michael: All the stuff we got to deal with man, this is what you’ve been wasting your time on?

Hurley: Dudes, our lives suck. Everyone’s nerves are stretched to the max. I mean, we’re lost an an island…runnin’ from boars, and monsters…freakin’ polar bears!

Michael: Polar bears?

Charlie: You didn’t hear about the polar bear?

Hurley: Look all I’m saying is, if we’re stuck here then just surviving’s not going to cut it. We need some kind of relief, you know. We need some way that we can…you know, have fun. That’s right have fun, or else we’re just going to go crazy waiting for the next bad thing to happen.

Now let me be perfectly clear about something...having my toenails pulled out with a pair of chopsticks would be more fun to me than a round of golf, but what Hurley's getting at is still true. My life is full of boars, monsters and polar bears. I'll bet yours is too. But do we make a real effort to have fun...to play? I know I don't as much as I should. The boars, monsters and polar bears are at home, at work, at church...many times we let all those environments become so tense. Often we truly are just waiting for the next bad thing to happen. We need to make an effort to have fun!

When I tell people that I'm a puppeteer many respond by saying, "oh that must be so much fun!" Well, it is fun, and exhausting, and stressful, and everything that every other job is. Even when there are plenty of things around me that can bring me fun, I'm the kind of person who spends a lot more time focusing on the boars, monsters, and polar bears.

So here's a challenge: Christmas time is upon us, it's a festive time of the year anyway...but it's also pretty stressful. Try to approach this month with that spirit of fun that came automatically when you were a kid. Have fun! Lick the spoon when you're making Christmas cookies. Go Christmas shopping wearing a pair of antlers and a light-up nose. Hey...it's going to be a challenge for me too, my wife says I've been a real grouch the last few days. Don't try to just survive each day...Have fun!

The Land of Gorch

For almost 32 years, Saturday Night Live has been a staple of late night TV. Every few years NBC will do an anniversary special. They run bits of classic sketches and highlight the various performers and classic characters, but on those specials you will never see even a hint that the Muppets were once regulars on SNL. It's something Lorne Michaels and company tend to sweep under the rug, even more so than the 1985-86 season...remember Anthony Michael Hall folks? During the show's first season "The Land of Gorch" was a recurring series of sketches featuring some Muppet characters that were created with adults in mind. The sketches barely lasted the season, and rarely showed up in sydication in the years that followed. With the release of the complete first season of SNL on DVD, many Muppet fans have their first chance to take a look at this unique chapter in Muppet history.

Even Jim Henson and his crew admitted that the sketches just didn't quite work. However, these segments are certainly worth looking at, especially since the puppets themselves really represent one of Henson's first steps toward the type of puppets that would be created in his Creature Shop years later. There is some very skillful manipulation going on in Jim Henson's portrayal of Ploobis and Jerry Nelson's performance of Scred. Perhaps the finest puppetry displayed is Frank Oz's character, The Mighty Favog. Favog is a stone idol of sorts, so it has limited movement. The mouth opens, there is some slight head movement, and one of the hands can make small gestures. But Oz being Oz hits upon a great character trait, he makes the puppet sneer when it talks. Imagine a stone version of Billy Idol. This simple piece of manipulation partnered with a wonderful voice makes for the most interesting character in the sketches...and he can't even move!

So there was some great puppetry, but where did things go wrong? I think a lot of it has to do with the sketches themselves. The sketches were written by the SNL writers rather than Jerry Juhl and the rest of the Muppet crew. Writing for puppets is not the same as writing for humans. It seems that perhaps the writers got a bit caught up in the notion of seeing puppets, which many people associate as being for kids, doing things that are most definately not appropriate for family viewing. We see the characters getting drunk, doing drugs, having affairs, reading The Joy of Sex, and so on. It seems as if the writers were trying too hard to have the puppets doing adult humor.

The thing is "adult humor" and "humor that appeals to adults" are not necessarily the same thing. A year later, Henson, Juhl and the rest proved this when "The Muppet Show" premiered. Much of the material on "The Muppet Show" appealed to the adults in the audience just as much as it did the kids. In fact, there was a level of humor that ran throughout "The Muppet Show" that was aimed squarely at the adults in the audience. I would even say the same was true of "Sesame Street."

I believe classic Muppet sketches such as "Mahna Mahna" and Marvin Suggs' rendition of "Lady of Spain" would have been right at home with the Samurai, the Bees, and the Coneheads. These pieces are funny, no matter how old you are. But, truth be told, I'm glad the Muppets ended up having the chance to create their own comedy TV classic.