Category Archives: Miscellaneous

A Year On: Still Working on the Wiki!

It has been over a year now since I took over doing all Tapped Out stuff on the wiki. And whilst it has gone a lot smoother than expected, it’s still a lot of work. I’ve had to learn as I went for a lot of it because I had little knowledge of how the Tapped Out game files worked. But I got there in the end and I’m pretty confident with the files now.

With Tapped Out having super premium purchases that we have to spend money on to get, and me needing to get everything for the wiki, I have been sinking a lot of money into Tapped Out. Like, a LOT of money. And now we have Black Friday/Thanksgiving coming up. That update always has expensive purchases and you need to spend a lot to unlock everything.

So, I hate asking for this, but if people could donate money to me, it’ll be partially going back into Tapped Out and the wiki. Anything given to me will be very much appreciated as doing the wiki is pretty much my only job at the moment. You can donate to me either through Ko-fi or PayPal.me

I love working on Wikisimpsons and wouldn’t ever want to stop. But it can take its toll on me so seeing that people appreciate what I do and want me to keep working on it helps a lot. Thank you for reading.

Two Months Later: An Update to an Update

A couple of months ago, I wrote a post about the state of Wikisimpsons and the workload I had to take on suddenly and unexpectedly. Since then, things have mostly become under control again. Whilst the Tapped Out event pages don’t go into as much detail as they did when LetsPlayNintendoITA did them, I have been able to get the articles up to a decent standard that gets across most of the information.

Aside from the Tapped Out stuff, in the last couple of months I created a new format for Appearances/Credits that should make them easier to add in order. This took a lot of time to set up and I moved all cast and crew credits over to this new format, and have been going through the major characters making sure all their appearances are listed on the pages. This task is on top of all the other things I do on the wiki regularly.

Things seem to be going smoother than I expected them to be going taking over from LPN on the Tapped Out articles and I’ve had a lot of support from the users on the Wikisimpsons Discord server helping out with screenshots and information that I wasn’t able to get myself. Without their feedback, the articles would be a lot worse off (and full of mistakes).

Since the last update, my ko-fi page got a lot of support, enough to allow me to upgrade my PC even, since I use that every day for the wiki. Money I received also went back into the wiki as it allowed me to purchase the Black Friday content in Tapped Out so I could make sure to get that documented properly. I have also bought a few Simpsons books I needed to document stuff for the wiki. So, thank you to everyone who sent me money as it has been a great help.

On top of the ko-fi link, I now have a paypal.me link at PayPal.Me/solardragon94. If you are unable to donate through ko-fi, you can now donate directly via PayPal instead. As usual though, nobody needs to feel like they need to donate, I’ll keep going even if nobody does. But, at least some of the money received will go back towards Wikisimpsons whilst the rest will go towards keeping me sane enough to keep going.

Also, if people like receiving updates on what I’ve been doing on the wiki and how things are going, let me know. I’ll try and keep these updates going if enough people like to read them.

Thank you all for the support.

‘The Simpsons’ renewed for Seasons 33 and 34 by Fox!!

Season 33 & 34
The show has been renewed by Fox for Season 33 and 34! It will bring the show up to 2023 and 757 episodes!!

“Woo Hoo! With any luck the show will soon be older than I am”, said Homer Simpson.

The creator and executive producer of the show, Matt Groening, added, “Everyone at THE SIMPSONS is thrilled to be renewed once more, and we are planning lots of big surprises. Homer will lose a hair, Milhouse will get contact lenses, and Bart will celebrate his tenth birthday for the thirty-third time.”

Currently airing its record-annihilating 32nd season, THE SIMPSONS has won 34 Emmy Awards (including its 11th in 2019 for Outstanding Animated Program), 34 Annie Awards, 9 Environmental Media Awards, 7 People’s Choice Awards and 13 Writers Guild of America Awards including the 2019 and 2020 Outstanding Writing in an Animated Program Award. THE SIMPSONS was the first animated series to win a Peabody Award, and in 2019 received the Institutional Peabody Award. It was nominated for an Academy Award in 2012 for the theatrical short “The Longest Daycare.” The Simpsons Movie was a hit feature film, their mega-attraction The Simpsons Ride at Universal Studios has received historic expansion updates with the addition of ‘Springfield’—winning a Thea Award in both 2009 and 2017. The show was honored with a Star on The Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2000. The Simpsons ongoing Tapped Out mobile game which launched in 2012 was a recipient of a Webby Award in 2018. It has been named the “Best Show of the 20th Century” by Time Magazine, called the “Greatest American Sitcom” by Entertainment Weekly in 2013, and declared “The Best TV Show Ever” in 2016 by vulture.com. The show will hit the 700-episode milestone on March 21, 2021 with the Season 32 episode “Manger Things“.

Sources: Deadline, Fox Press Release.

Comic-Con 2020: Panel highlights!

SDCC19

The 2020 panel has now been released! Here are some of the highlights of the panel:
The video of the panel can be watched here: Comic-Con 2020: ‘The Simpsons’ panel!

The following guest stars for Season 32 have been announced:

Apart from that, 2 previews of the upcoming annual “Treehouse of Horror” episode have been shown in the panel.

The first preview is from the segment “Into the Homerverse”.

While the second is from a segment called “What happens to the Halloween candy?”.

Stay tuned for more!

SD Comic-Con 2020: ‘The Simpsons’ panel is tomorrow!

Comic-Con 2020The San Diego Comic-Con (@ Home) 2020 started last Thursday. This year, due to the global pandemic, all the panels will be streamed online. And The Simpsons panel will be available to watch on YouTube tomorrow (July 25) at 11am (San Diego time).

This year, since the panel will streamed for free, we won’t do the usual “live report” of the panel. Instead, we’ll make a post in which we’ll share the YouTube link of the panel minutes before it becomes available to watch. Shortly after the panel becomes available, a post with the highlights of the event will be published.

The Panel

They’ll never stop the Simpsons!… from appearing at Comic-con; this time on zoom. Join Al Jean, Matt Selman, David Silverman, Carolyn Omine, Mike B. Anderson, and moderator Yeardley Smith. Find out how the show has surmounted social distancing and turbulent times en route to Season 32!

Remember,
Stay tuned for more!

‘The Simpsons’ wins a 2020 Peabody Award!

homerpeabodyaward

The Simpsons has won a 2020 Peabody Institutional Award. It’s the second time the show wins a Peabody Award, the first time being in 1997.

The show has been awarded a 2020 Peabody Institutional Award for making a “significant impact on programming and the cultural landscape.”

“‘The Simpsons’ is one of television’s sharpest critics—as brilliant a child as the show’s conscience and mastermind Lisa. But it is also one of its medium’s funniest and most delightful offerings. In one episode, Homer thumps his television angrily, demanding that it be funnier. For answering Homer’s call for 30 years, we commend the writers, animators, and cast of ‘The Simpsons’ with a Peabody Institutional Award.”

Because of the COVID19 pandemic, this year’s award ceremony has been canceled, so many recipients filmed acceptance speeches, Homer being among them (as shared by EW.com):

Sources:

Old episodes of ‘The Simpsons’ are now available in 4:3 on Disney+!


The Simpsons have been available to stream on Disney+ since Disney’s streaming service was launched back in November 2019 in the US (and since late March 2020 in Europe and most of the world).

However, all the episodes of Seasons 1 to 19 (plus the first 9 episodes of Season 20) have been available to watch only in a cropped 16:9 aspect ratio instead of their original 4:3 ratio, and that caused some complaints since there are plenty of visual jokes that got cropped. Disney said in late 2019 they were planning to fix the aspect ratio in the near future.

And now, 6 months later, the issue has been fixed and the old episodes of the show can finally be watched in their original 4:3 aspect ratio. To do so, the user has to go into the “details” tab on the program’s page and turn off “remastered aspect ratio”.

33 years laughing with the Simpson family!!

The The Simpsons family

“They’ll Never Stop the Simpsons!”

Today is April 19, 2020. The most famous animated family on the globe made its first TV appearance on April 19, 1987. In other words, The “Simpsons Family” appeared on TV for the first time ever just 33 years ago.

Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and little baby Maggie debuted on television 33 years ago as part of The Tracy Ullman Show with the short “Good Night“.

Then, after 47 more shorts, the yellow family premiered as their own TV show on December 17, 1989. A show that still today is running after 31 seasons and more to come!

The Debut

“Good Night”

It’s April 19, 1987. FOX is airing the third episode of The Tracey Ullman Show. During the episode, an animated short is shown.

Good Night” airs and the Simpson family debutes on TV.

Happy Anniversary to the Simpson family!!

Stay tuned for more!!

Hank Azaria Is No Longer Voicing Apu


Long-time voice actor Hank Azaria will no longer voice Apu in The Simpsons.

Apu has been a mainstay of The Simpsons for decades. However, in 2017, comedian Hari Kondabolu released a documentary called The Problem with Apu which addressed the racist stereotypes about Indian people that Apu has brought in. After this documentary came out, Apu’s role in the show declined. And whilst it was somewhat addressed in the season 29 episode “No Good Read Goes Unpunished“, with Lisa saying “Something that started decades ago and was applauded and inoffensive is now politically incorrect. What can you do?”, before the camera pans to a photo of Apu, Apu no longer had a speaking role, only appearing in background shots. Hank Azaria told SlashFilm in an interview that “All we know there is I won’t be doing the voice anymore, unless there’s someway to transition it or something”

The stereotypes surrounding Apu had previously been addressed in the season 27 episode “Much Apu About Something“, which was released a year before The Problem with Apu. In this episode, Jay (voiced by Utkarsh Ambudkar), Apu’s nephew, calls Apu out on being a stereotype and attempts to change his ways. Ambudkar was also one of the people who spoke out against Apu in The Problem with Apu.

It is currently unknown if Apu will be voiced by a new actor or if the character will be retired from the show in some way. But if Apu does return in a speaking role, it will no longer be Hank Azaria voicing him.