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I don't quite know how this was possible, but somehow the 14th episode of the Simpsons (now in it's 20th season) got leaked. The show set to air in 5 days titled In the Name of the Grandfather - the episode features the Simpsons clan going to Ireland, after Grandpa Abe Simpson wishes to make up for lost time by going back to an Irish pub he had frequented (does that make the Simpsons Irish?). The Simpsons nonsensically visit the Emerald Isle to go to a quaint town, where Homer and Abe end up reviving an old pub in a modern Ireland - while Lisa, Bart and Marge tour Ireland (with Bart posing his butt as the blarney stone to get people to kiss it, with an odd and unusual turn). There's a great QBert joke in there too!

So far there's been no real buzz about this, leading me to believe that either Fox is officially releasing episodes perhaps through it's own site earlier than it airs it. Or judging by the video, it appears that British channel Sky 1 may have goofed and aired the episode days earlier than expected.

Either way here's peak at the episode:



next week's episode: Wedding for Disaster, details how Marge and Homer realize they're not actually married and end up re-pledging their vows of marriage to make it official. The episode starts with the Simpsons family going to a field and gardening expo having being duped by Marge.

Update: ok it turns out it wasn't leaked, but rather Sky 1 Ireland had the rights from Fox to broadcast it several days early (world premier exclusive) on St. Patricks Day (Tuesday March 18th)

Labels: episodes, gardening, homer, leaked episodes, march, simpsons, st patricks day

Posted by James at 7:14 PM | Permalink | Comments

There's a lot of things that have changed since my last post, like broadcasters realizing that they really can monetize on piracy. So now major broadcasters are pouring oodles of money into on-line sale systems, while others are sub-licensing sites to put up full episodes of your favourite shows inter spliced with ads so that they can take home increased profits from the increasing demand for on-line recaps and episodes on demand. With an invite to Hulu (currently in closed private beta), I set off to take a look at the not so far future.

Here's just a sampling of a few full Simpsons episodes, these are completely legal to watch and they're not going to be deleted so don't worry about having to watch it just now. The only caveat is that you need to have a US or International (ie: no country associated) IP Address - if you don't have one you can use a US Proxy or Streaming Web Proxy to try and access it.

Labels: hulu, private beta invites, simpsons, simpsons episodes

Posted by James at 7:43 AM | Permalink | Comments

In anticipation of the Simpsons Movie, 14 Springfields across America were nominated to take part in an Official content which would dub one of the lucky towns to be dubbed the real "Springfield" - a crowning glory that would render the town the official headquarters of everything Simpsons. Not only that but it would bring much tourism and attraction to the town, and so all 14 towns which had been previously unknown to the drones of Simpsons fans battled it out via city-created videos that were posted on the USAToday and Simpsons webpage.

The winner with an astounding 15,367 votes was Springfield in Vermont, followed closely by the Springfield in Illinois (14, 634) and Oregon (13,894). What is upsetting is that many (if not all) of these cities could not care less for the show, but rather see it as a cheap way to increase tourism and so each city created a video that showcased why they should be the real Springfield - and to be honest not one video showed the sincerity of the Springfieldians. If I were in charge of one of these campaigns, I would probably have just rounded up a few teenagers and just held some sort of trivia competition - a real test to show how cult like the city really was or perhaps re-enact an entire episode with the locals. But instead most chose to do a very poor satirical attempt in showing the similarities between the cartoon show and their own respective town.
Jokes fell flat, half-assed attempts were clear, and ultimately out of the many - the best was chosen. Vermont did the best job in my opinion, although it wasn't perfect or to my liking, I did end up voting for it.

So what does this all mean? The winning city (Springfield, Vermont) gets a pre-screening of the movie (July 21st) before the International screening on July 27th. Tickets are already up for pre-ordering by the way.

Labels: 27th, bart, competiton, homer, international, july, movie, online, screening, simpson, simpsons, springfield, television show, the simpsons, tv, tv show

Posted by James at 11:46 PM | Permalink | Comments