Monthly Archives: January 2015

A summary of news: January 2015

Monthly, Summaries

Each month, we will have a summary of the news from the past month, with all the episode airings, comic releases, Tapped Out updates and anything else you can think of.

Episode news

The Simpsons Movie 2?


January 4th saw “The Man Who Came To Be Dinner” air after a two year wait. It was originally supposed to be the season finale of season 24. No explanation for this was given, until recently. The episode was intended to be the second Simpsons Movie. The producers intended to make it a sequel, but eventually decided to make it an ordinary episode.

Al Jean stated in an interview with Entertainment Weekly:

“Two of the allures were exploring the rules of the new world and the cinematic nature of doing something in space,” says Jean. “But then we were worried that people might think it’s an idea that’s not canonical—it doesn’t really happen, unlike all of other 560 episodes that really ‘happened’—so the ultimate decision was to air it as an episode,” Jean explains. “It just got to the point where if we were unsure about it as a movie, then it would be good to air the episode. And then if we do a movie, we’d just think of something else…. So if you want to know what was thought of a possible Simpsons Movie 2, we just aired it—for free. You can see it for free!”

The episode saw the Simpsons heading to the homeworld of Kang and Kodos where they were to become their next meal.

A 25 year old script finally becomes an episode!


Back in season one of the show, a fairly new comedy writer wrote a script for The Simpsons which was filed away and lost. 25 years later, that episode, written by the now famous Judd Apatow, finally aired. “Bart’s New Friend” sees Homer get hypnotized into thinking he’s a 10 year old kid, who then becomes friends with Bart.

Elon Musk comes to Springfield


January 25th saw inventor Elon Musk come to Springfield. He and Homer become fast friends and together attempt to revolutionize the Nuclear Power Plant. However, when Musk goes too far, Homer has to break off his friendship with Musk.

See also: “The Musk Who Fell To Earth” promo images released and Two New Promotional Images for “The Musk Who Fell To Earth”

Tapped Out news

Queen Helvetica of Equalia!


Christmas was taken down on January 14th and the snow had all melted away. The next day, Gil came along with a limited time offer for a castle and a new costume for Lisa, for the low, low price of 175 donuts. Read all about what happened here.

See also: A Royal Welcome

Willie Becomes a Slave


A tie-in update for the upcoming episode “The Musk Who Fell To Earth” was released on January 21st. This saw a new costume for Willie come with a new questline tying into the upcoming episode. It’s too late to get any content from it now, but read about it in our article.

See also: Willie’s slave laboring – technically – in a new tie-in!

The Mafia Returns


On January 28th, Level 49 hit. This update came with two new characters, three new buildings, three new decorations and… a new strip of land! Read all about the update in our article.

See also: The Springfield Mafia returns and Land, Glorious Land!

Comic news

New comic releases



Simpsons Comics #217 was released on January 21st. Bart Simpson #94 was released on January 28th.

Comic stories for these issues will be added before this is published.

See also: Simpsons Comics #217 now for sale! and Bart Simpson #94 now available!

Miscellaneous news

MythBusters


January 10th saw a special The Simpsons special episode of MythBusters air. This special sees the presenters attempt to find out whether a cherry bomb dropped in a school toilet make others act like geysers, in reference to a prank Bart pulled in “The Crepes of Wrath”, and whether placing someone between a wrecking ball and a building protect the building, in reference to the scene from “Sideshow Bob Roberts”. Read about what happens here.

Sources

Albert Brooks to return in an upcoming episode

Guest stars


Commonly recurring guest star Albert Brooks will voice a character in an upcoming episode set to air on May 10th, according to Al Jean on Twitter.

It is unknown if Brooks will play a new character or return as an old character. Brooks has voiced a handful of characters, including Russ Cargill in The Simpsons Movie and the hugely popular Hank Scorpio in “You Only Move Twice“, and again in the title screen for “500 Keys“.

More information will come when we get it!

Source:

Land, Glorious Land!

Tapped Out

Image credit BatusiMan on TSTOforum

The level 49 update for The Simpsons: Tapped Out also brought us another new thing… another strip of land! Many players have filled up their land and have been complaining about the lack of new land for a while now. The last land addition was back in the Clash of Clones event.

The new land pricing is expensive, totaling almost 10 million cash. Here is the pricing:

New land prices

What will you do with your new land?

Throwback Thursday: “Bart the Hero”

Throwback Thursday

January 29, 1989 was the date Mr. Chupo and his candy store first appeared on the Tracy Ullman screen, and were to be never seen in any Simpsons media ever again. And it was him and his candy store who were in trouble, as a bandit was robbing the store, when Bart walked in wanting something to treat himself with, and tripped the bandit up when he tried to walk out with the stereotypical bag of swag. Bart was then offered a reward of $10,000, but decided it would be better to be paid in candy bars as a reward.

The robbery in action, although Bart seems to have put a stop to things in “Bart the Hero”.

Some more Simpsons media also came about on this date, with January 29, 2006 playing host to the episode “We’re on the Road to D’oh-where”, where Homer’s trip to Vegas is called off due to him having to take Bart to a behavioral modification camp, although things grow a little bond-shaped, as Marge becomes a prescription drug seller. And 2012 saw “Moe Goes from Rags to Riches” as the story of his bar rag is told, and how it survived many eras, once as part of a tapestry.

P.S. The Candy Store bandit was to later appear again in the couch gag for “Flaming Moe’s“.

Also on this date, Louie Pérez, who played the closing credits of “Thank God It’s Doomsday”, was born in 1953; Steve Sax, who voiced himself in the episode “Homer at the Bat”, was born in 1960; Colin Cooper, who has served as a voiceover recordist for every episode since “Bart the Genius”, was born in 1973; and finally, Sara Gilbert who voiced Laura Powers for two episodes (“New Kid on the Block” and “Marge on the Lam”), was born on this date in 1975.

That’s it for now! Until next Throwback Thursday…

The Springfield Mafia returns

Tapped Out


The Simpsons: Tapped Out Level 49 is now out, with two new characters added to the “Wise Guys” character collection, the original Fat Tony’s son and the current Fat Tony’s nephew, Michael D’Amico, and the don boss of the Springfield Mafia, Don Vittorio DiMaggio.

The quest line starts with Agnes Skinner complaining to Mayor Quimby about the amount of crime in the town. So, to sort this out, the mayor organizes the building of a summer house for the mafia to meet in so they can make a deal to sort out the crime with the mayor. Michael D’Amico is unlocked with the summer house and surprise, he just wants to be a chef rather than be in organized crime.


Meanwhile, Don Vittorio is unlocked with Rancho Relaxo. Which is certainly strange, as Don Vittorio has no known ties to Rancho Relaxo at all in the show. Don Vittorio’s quests involve him helping out the people of Springfield with their semi-illegal tasks.

Other new items include the Old Abandoned Warehouse which unlocks during “Baking Bread Pt. 6″. Two Chalk Outlines are also available for 5 donuts each, and the Suspicious Dirt Pile is also made available during the main quest, “Baking Bread Pt.10″.

For more information, including prices and the entire questline, see our article on Wikisimpsons!

Elon Musk Taps 3.3m

Episodes

3.3m saw Elon Musk display a hacked game of Tapped Out on his computer.
A disappointing night for The Simpsons last night, with “The Musk Who Fell to Earth” only receiving 3.29 million viewers at 8pm, a 1.4/4 18-49 rating/share, the least-watched show in its timeslot, clearly suffering the brunt from the last episode, “Bart’s New Friend”‘s clash with the Golden Globes 2 weeks ago, which only got 4.28m and was down over 6m from its previous episode of 10.6m of “The Man Who Came to Be Dinner”.

This is now the lowest rated episode of this season, bumping “Covercraft”, with 3.45m, to second place.

Official ratings on Tuesday adjusted the overnight rating down from 3.40m to 3.29m.

That’s it for now! (Source: TV By the Numbers)