In honor of The Simpsons Game being released last week, here’s an old mind dump blog I wrote when The Simpsons Movie came out.

Since The Simpsons is such a mainstay on TV now, it’s hard to believe how long ago it was that they were first on the air, and just how huge it was when it first came out. I was in middle school at the time it first came out, and for back then, it was pretty out there and edgy, even though the first few episodes seem tame by today’s standards. I know the first Simpsons cartoon were shorts on The Tracy Ulman show, which I never watched. But the first time I ever saw the Simpsons was, ironically, at a movie theater. I think it was a Tracy Ulman short, because the Simpsons characters still looked rather crude. They showed the short before the movie started, for some reason. Can’t think of what movie it was that we were seeing. I don’t remember how it ended, but I remember how the short began. Maggie was squeaking a toy Life in Hell bunny, and Lisa pushed her and said, “Stop squeaking that thing.” Then Bart pushed Lisa and said, “Don’t push Maggie, she’s just a baby.” Then Homer pushed Bart and said, “Don’t push your sister, she’s just a girl.” Then Grandpa pushed Homer and said, “Don’t push him, he’s just a kid.” Then they all fought each other.

Of course, the first episode I remember seeing was the first Christmas episode to kind of promote the upcoming first season. You know, the one where they get Santa’s Little Helper. Shortly after, The Simpsons craze began. It was a REALLY big deal to have a cartoon be on prime time TV back then, especially such an edgy cartoon. Then the Bart Simpson T-shirt craze began. EVERYONE had to have a Bart Simpson T-shirt. They got really expensive and hard to get for a while. Keep in mind that I was in middle school at the time, and you know how at that age, what you wear makes you ‘cool.’ It took a few months down the line, but when I finally got a Bart Simpson “Don’t Have a Cow” T-shirt, I probably really did have a cow. Some schools even banned Simpsons T-shirts because they said “Underachiever and proud of it!”

For some reason, when I think of Halloween, the first thing I think about is The Simpsons. Every year they do a Treehouse of Horror show where they make fun of classic horror movies, and they’re especially bloody and gross. Yet still really funny. For a couple of Halloweens a few years back, Burger King did kids meal toys of the Treehouse of Horror stuff, which was really weird since the Halloween Simpsons episodes are definitely NOT for kids. I have a bunch of the Halloween Simpsons BK toys, and on Halloween if I feel like dragging out the Halloween decorations, I’ll put all the toys on top of the TV. They make for cool Halloween decorations.

You know, if they ever made a Simpsons movie sequel, I hope it’s one big Treehouse of Horror. That would be cool. Speaking of The Simpsons Movie and Burger King toys, they had Simpsons movie toys when the movie was out. They’re figures of the characters and they say a quote when you push a button on the back of them. I have a Barney one, a Apu one (which is cool because he’s holding a box of Mr. Sparkle), and a Maggie one that doesn’t sound ANYTHING like her pacifier sucking sound.

So how was the movie? Well, I saw it last summer. I hated having to pay 7 bucks to go see it (movies are so expensive nowadays). But it had some good laughs and it was nice to see 2-D animation on the big screen again after the glut of crappy 3-D CG stuff. But my favorite thing about the movie wasn’t the movie itself, it was the crazy promotionals they did to advertise the movie. Really creative stuff. I’m talking about the deal with 7-11. A few select 7-11’s got a makeover and turned into Kwik-E-Marts! They decorated the outside and changed the signs and everything. And even the 7-11’s that aren’t changed into Kwik-E-Marts, they still sold Simpsons decorations on the inside, like plastic standups of the characters, a Squishee sign over the Slurpee one, and they still sell the Simspons merchandise. I couldn’t find any Krusty-O’s at the 7-11 near my house, but they did have some Buzz Cola. I tell you what, that’s the most flavorless soda I’ve ever tasted!

Well I bet you’re wondering who my favorite Simpsons characters are. You’re not? Well, too bad, you’re going to find out anyway. I guess my favorite Simpsons character would be Mr. Sparkle, the floating head on the box of Japanese dishwashing detergent. I love that commercial. Another reason why I like Mr. Sparkle is that one of my friends on the Internet that I’ve talked to for a REALLY long time, on message boards and things a long time ago his ‘name’ was Mr. Sparkle.. But the Mr. Sparkle character was only in one episode and it was only to make fun of crazy Japanese commercials, so I guess that really doesn’t count as a character.

So I guess for my favorite reoccurring character, I’d have to say my favorite is Ralph Wiggum. He’s the son of the police chief, who is a funny character, too. Ralph is the dumb kid who nearly always has his finger up his nose. Everything that comes out of that kid’s mouth is hilarious. He has the best lines. “I almost died.” “I bent my wookie.” “I’m a gulch.” “When I grow up, I’m going to Bovine University.” He’s awesome.

There’s another character that USED to be my favorite, but not anymore. That character was Lisa Simpson. Now you’re probably thinking, “What the heck, why her?” Well, back when The Simpsons first started out, Lisa was just a smart kid. But she still made mistakes and got into trouble sometimes. She wasn’t perfect. I liked that aspect because when I was a kid, I was considered ‘gifted’ and put in all the smart classes. But if I ever made a mistake or messed up or got in trouble, everyone would make such a big deal out of it, whereas if someone else did the same thing, they’d be punished less. That’s what I liked about Lisa’s character is that she was a smart kid, but wasn’t perfect, and I hoped that would show people that smart kids can make mistakes and not be perfect, too. But I don’t like Lisa anymore. They turned her into a flaming left wing democrat who isn’t really even a kid anymore. I also liked to play as Lisa in the Simpsons arcade game, but we’ll get to that in a bit.

So since this is more of a video game blog, I thought I’d list all the Simpsons video games I can think of and what I remember of them. So let’s get started.

Bart vs. the Space Mutants
The very first game based on The Simpsons was a crappy NES game from Acclaim. The sad thing is I read it was programmed by David Crane, who did awesome games like Pitfall and A Boy and His Blob. Bart vs. the Space Mutants was a 2-D side-scroller with bad controls and goals that made no sense. In the first level, Bart had to stop the Space Mutants by spray painting everything purple to red. Huh? Because the first NES Simpsons game was so bad, I skipped on renting and trying any more of them. I imagine Bart vs. the World was about the same, just Bart sidescolling through famous world landmarks. And I never even heard of Bart Meets Radioactive Man.

Bart Simpson’s Escape from Camp Deadly
Most games on the old black and white Game Boy were worse than their NES counterparts, so I never even bothered with the Game Boy Simpsons games. I think Escape From Camp Deadly was another sidescroller with a summer camp theme. Bart vs. the Juggernauts was a mini-game sports theme title spoofing American Gladiators. I think they ran out of ideas when they made Bart and the Beanstalk. Last one I can think of was a Game Boy Treehouse of Horror game that was probably the same as the others but with a spooky theme.

The Simpsons Arcade Game
Luckily, the arcade Simpsons games fared better than the Nintendo ones. One of my favorites is the first arcade game. It was a Konami beat ’em up just like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles one, but with cartoony graphics and music and voices that really reflected the feel of the show, it was a big hit. The cameos from the Life in Hell bunnies were a nice touch. Since it was made in Japan so early in the show’s run, some things were a little weird, though. Like you fought a giant drunk guy boss (not Barney) in Moe’s Tavern, or a tall and short pair of thugs in the Springfield Discount Graveyard level, or Smithers being a madman bomber. My favorite character to use on The Simpsons arcade game was Lisa, because she fought with a jumprope and her joystick in the arcade game was at the same place as Raphael’s in the TMNT game. All the way to the far right. I didn’t have to squeeze between two smelly arcade guys to play. I hope The Simpsons Arcade game comes to Xbox Live someday.

The Simpsons Bowling
Another Simpsons arcade game is a trackball only bowling game that I bet not too many people have heard of or seen. It has PSOne era 3-D graphics, and was probably made real quick before Konami lost the Simpsons license. But I still had fun playing it. It was a simple, fun, arcade experience. If you got a turkey, the next ball you roll will be either a Maggic ball, or a nuclear ball, etc. I liked how accurate they kept the characters to episodes of the show. Homer and Mr. Burns wear their bowling shirts from that one episode where they form a bowling team.

Krusty’s Super Fun House
There were a few 16-bit home console Simpsons games. I think Krusty’s game was ported to other systems as well, just without the ‘super’ in the title. But I had a SNES and a lot of SNES games had to have “Super” in it somewhere. In the game, Krusty had to guide a group of mindless rodents infesting his fun house to a killing machine manned by another Simpsons character. Yeah, it was an action puzzler piggybacking off the Lemmings craze at the time. I heard it was actually ported from a more generic European PC game called Rat Trap. It was an OK game. I rented it once.

Unfortunately, I missed out on playing the other SNES Simpsons games: Bart’s Nightmare and Virtual Bart. I just never got around to renting them. I heard they weren’t very good, though. I heard there was also an Itchy and Scratchy Game and a Game Boy Itchy and Scratchy in Mini Golf Madness. I’d like to try those just so I could see what they did with the characters!

Virtual Springfield
The one PC Simpsons game I know about. I wanted to get it when it came out, but I was a poor college student at the time and couldn’t afford it. I heard it was just a point and click ‘game’ that let you explore Springfield locales and view gags and show references when you click on stuff. But it sounded neat to try anyway.

The Simpsons Wrestling
This was a PSOne game that I also wanted to try, but I never got to. I wanted to wait until the price went down on it, but that never happened and if it did, I missed out on it. I heard it wasn’t that good, though. I have some friends who like to watch wrestling on TV and play the WWE video games, so I thought I would try one to see what it is they like about them. But I wanted to try a silly one so that’s why I thought I’d start with Simpsons Wrestling. I actually got another wrestling game real cheap to try when I got my Xbox 360, but we’ve already talked about that in a previous blog.

The Simpsons Skateboarding
After trying a couple of the Tony Hawk games and a Disney skateboarding game, I realized “Hey, there’s some parts about these skateboarding games that actually aren’t half bad. I can see why so many people like ’em.” So I decided to try and track down a copy of the Simpsons Skateboarding PS2 game. But no luck. No big deal, it’s not a big priority anyway. And I hear it wasn’t very good anyway.

The Simpsons: Road Rage
This is probably my favorite home console Simpsons game. Sure it’s a complete and blatant total rip off of Crazy Taxi. So much so that I think Sega even sued over it. And Road Rage is also pretty buggy and missing some of the better game play elements of Crazy Taxi. But even so, Road Rage is still just plain fun, and a nice stress reliever to crash cartoon cars and mow down streetlamps after a hard day at work. There were tons of drivers and cars, and lots of funny lines. My favorite character to use was Police Chief Wiggum “Just think how fast this car would go if the siren worked.” Jeff’s favorite character was the criminal Snake. Should I be worried? My favorite thing about Road Rage was all the funny stuff in the background you could read. In fact, there was even a Sunday Driver mode where you could just freely drive around and look at everything. My favorite was at the movie theater, they showed what movies were playing, and one of them was “A Popsicle Now.”

The Simpsons: Hit & Run
Just like Road Rage copied Crazy Taxi, Hit & Run was just a Simpsons take on Grand Theft Auto. In this one, characters could get out of one car and into another and do all sorts of driving missions around Springfield. It was a pretty good game, too, but for some reason, I didn’t get into it as much as I did Road Rage.

The Simpsons Game
I just got this game.  Seems pretty funny so far.  I can’t wait to get to the level where they make fun of quirky Japanese video games because those are my favorite kinds of games to play.  But I’ve been pretty busy lately so I haven’t gotten a chance to play it much more.

And that’s all I can think of to say about The Simpsons. I guess I’m still a fan, but I don’t like much of the new episodes any more and I wouldn’t mind if it got cancelled. There’s plenty of reruns that’ll show for a long time. They still show The Flintstones on TV and The Simpsons has been running WAY longer than that. So no matter what, I think we’ll be seeing The Simpsons for a long time on TV. It really has been a big impact on TV and popular culture.

So what are YOUR favorite Simpsons characters and video games? –Cary

Tags: Misc