From:
mxg77@po.cwru.edu
The concept was good, including the way the Simpsons were barely present in the episode (except a few lines from Bart and Lisa and the coda) to focus on Skinner and Chalmers, but the plot points, obstacles, and gags were just... not. Even the reversal "
Chalmers!" didn't come out well. A misfire from Mr. Selman. I actually found the end credits to be the most stimulating and fun part. Speaking of:
Cast credits fun
Joining 7F17 and the movie, the only similar instances I can think of, we had some clear actor/role credits this time, as part of a weird set of end credits (with a different font, music I don't know, and an apparent homage I don't get) with every single
actor shown with a clip of one of his or her characters. But it was the most relevant character for the *episode*, and in a show largely not focused on the Simpson family, that was a fun wrinkle. As well, apart from Jason Bateman and a few Also Starrings,
I did identify the special roles for the regular cast as soon as I heard them, believe it or not, including/especially Julie and Yeardley, since they don't do a lot of voices. It's an odd thing to hear a turkey gobble and think "was that Julie Kavner?",
but I did, and this was before I even noticed the family wasn't showing up. For what it's worth, here's the full list:
Dan C. as Fenimore the cop
Julie K. as the emotional support turkey
Nancy C. as Bart
Yeardley S. as first hitchhiker
Hank A. and Harry S. As Chalmers and Skinner, naturally
Jason Bateman as himself
Hannibal Buress as Principal Finch
Pamela Hayden as second hitchhiker
Tress MacNeille as judge
Chris Edgerly as paralympic vet (could easily have been Agnes, but this works too)
Grey Griffin as Sherri and Terri (I guess she took over more than just Martin) Kevin Michael Richardson as angry bicyclist with heart-monitor watch (a white character, minus the end of the world)
DYN:
...hitchhiker 3 performs a classic MISquote of Hamlet (there's no "well" after "I knew him")?
ZABF04 repeat
The 7:00 airing of season 31's Todd/Forsaken Me was run into by a football game, as expected. The game ended at 7:16, and with an alacrity I wish I saw more often on new-episode-delay nights, the usual 33-second abridged NABF21 opening ran at 7:23,
followed immediately by about 2 minutes of act 3 and then the coda/credits. I'm not sure why they didn't just round out the half hour. On the other hand, it gave me the chance to observe that this airing was ALSO compressed (likely to a 21-minute runtime)
like several other recent reruns. Bah.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: www.darkrealms.ca (1:229/2)