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My thoughts on the Transformers parody from last year's Treehouse of Horror Special
I've noticed that, in recent years, the show's yearly Halloween Specials (aka the "Treehouse of Horror" specials) have been declining in quality greatly. Last year's special, however, I thought was the worst yet for one big reason: the opening sketch parodying Transformers.
This part of the episode was what I have a major beef with and was REALLY expecting a lot out of it. Instead, I was let down badly and was furious how they handled that segment. Now, according to one of the the writers (or one of the producers, I'm not sure), they said before the episode's release that it would be a parody of the 2007 MICHAEL BAY Transformers film.
To whoever said that would be the case and the writers of that 10 minutes of blasphemy towards Transformers fans: YOU ARE A BUNCH OF HEARTLESS, LYING BASTARDS WHO DESERVE TO BURN IN HELL FOR YOUR SHAMELESS BUTCHERING OF A POPULAR MOVIE AND THE FRANCHISE IT'S BASED OFF OF.
The "Michael Bay's Transformers" sketch we got was BULLSHIT; it had almost NOTHING TO DO with the movie at all except for the vague concept of "robots fighting each other to the death". If that's all that planned to do, why not make it loosely based off the 80's cartoon, instead? It would've made more sense. Besides, the Autobots and Decepticons looked NOTHING like their movie counterparts (ESPECIALLY Optimus Prime and Megatron), and, aside from the two aforementioned major robots (who mostly do nothing but kill people for no reason, which the Autobot side would NEVER do, and fight each other), all of the other Transformers were horrendously generic (most of whom had REALLY shitty alternative forms that show how the writers did not GIVE A SHIT about the source material at all), and included NONE of the movie characters (not even Bumblebee was featured, for Pete's sake!).
If the people working on the show were going to do a parody of the ACTUAL 2007 Transformers movie, they could've done what Family Guy did with Star Wars: save it for a separate, 1-hour long special so that they COULD parody the Michael Bay film and would be able to have all the key points in it. Hell, I can EASILY think of which characters could play the human or robot characters from the movie:
Human/Side Characters:
Bart Simpson- Sam Whitwicky
Lisa Simpson- Mikella Banes
Homer and Marge Simpson- Sam's Parents
Santa's Little Helper- Mojo (Sam's dog from the movie)
Apu- Bobby Bolivia (The used car salesman played by the late Bernie Mac in the film)
Moe- Agent Simmons
Carl- Sgt. Epps
Josh Dumhamel (guest star)- Lennox
Tyrese Gibson (guest star)- Epps
Principal Skinner- Secretary of Defense Keller
Comic Book Guy- The fat black hacker guy (even though CBG is white)
Will update later! See ya guys!
This part of the episode was what I have a major beef with and was REALLY expecting a lot out of it. Instead, I was let down badly and was furious how they handled that segment. Now, according to one of the the writers (or one of the producers, I'm not sure), they said before the episode's release that it would be a parody of the 2007 MICHAEL BAY Transformers film.
To whoever said that would be the case and the writers of that 10 minutes of blasphemy towards Transformers fans: YOU ARE A BUNCH OF HEARTLESS, LYING BASTARDS WHO DESERVE TO BURN IN HELL FOR YOUR SHAMELESS BUTCHERING OF A POPULAR MOVIE AND THE FRANCHISE IT'S BASED OFF OF.
The "Michael Bay's Transformers" sketch we got was BULLSHIT; it had almost NOTHING TO DO with the movie at all except for the vague concept of "robots fighting each other to the death". If that's all that planned to do, why not make it loosely based off the 80's cartoon, instead? It would've made more sense. Besides, the Autobots and Decepticons looked NOTHING like their movie counterparts (ESPECIALLY Optimus Prime and Megatron), and, aside from the two aforementioned major robots (who mostly do nothing but kill people for no reason, which the Autobot side would NEVER do, and fight each other), all of the other Transformers were horrendously generic (most of whom had REALLY shitty alternative forms that show how the writers did not GIVE A SHIT about the source material at all), and included NONE of the movie characters (not even Bumblebee was featured, for Pete's sake!).
If the people working on the show were going to do a parody of the ACTUAL 2007 Transformers movie, they could've done what Family Guy did with Star Wars: save it for a separate, 1-hour long special so that they COULD parody the Michael Bay film and would be able to have all the key points in it. Hell, I can EASILY think of which characters could play the human or robot characters from the movie:
Human/Side Characters:
Bart Simpson- Sam Whitwicky
Lisa Simpson- Mikella Banes
Homer and Marge Simpson- Sam's Parents
Santa's Little Helper- Mojo (Sam's dog from the movie)
Apu- Bobby Bolivia (The used car salesman played by the late Bernie Mac in the film)
Moe- Agent Simmons
Carl- Sgt. Epps
Josh Dumhamel (guest star)- Lennox
Tyrese Gibson (guest star)- Epps
Principal Skinner- Secretary of Defense Keller
Comic Book Guy- The fat black hacker guy (even though CBG is white)
Will update later! See ya guys!
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Zombie Messiah on -
I figured from the title of the episode 'transforming' into different titles it was a quick giveaway to the fact that they had to 'kinda' make a parody of it. They couldn't give a title to the section that was really close to 'Transformers'. So the changing title was a joke at that.
In my opinion, they made the robots 'disguise' ordinary or lame as a visual gag. The normal thing would be to have Optimus Prime be the big rig etc. A big rig turning into Optimus Prime isn't a parody it's a reenactment of the actual thing from the cartoon/movie. I liked the part when Homer and Flanders end up stuck in the transformed robots sticking out of their butts, because I always thought "What if someone is in the cars when the cars turned into robots?". I do agree in that it could have been better. In earlier season the people inside the transforming car might have been crushed or something with lots of blood and gore.
I think, they made a parody of the movie and not the cartoon because the cartoon wasn't making the news the movie was.
They might have not made direct parody of the 1st Transformer's movie because they might have not seen it yet because it wasn't out when the episode was being made. I did read that they saw Goodfellas before the first episode featuring Fat Tony and the Mafia (where Bart falls into the Mafia's headquarters). I read that on Wikipedia, so it's up to and individual to believe whatever Wikipedia says. Maybe Wiki stands for Why Is Knowing Important? It could also be a legal thing that kept them from making a direct or very similar parody of the movie. Most times it helps if the material being parodied belongs or is associated with Fox. The Simpsons writers make little tweaks to the name of some things or people that they for some legal or financial reason can't out right reference. For example in the episode "MyPods and Boomsticks", Lisa buys a MyPod (iPod parody) and has to visit Mapple (Aplle Inc. parody) CEO Steve Mobbs (Steve Jobs parody). But, in the episode "The Burns and the Bees" billionaires Mark Cuban and Jeff Bezos and sportscaster Marv Albert guest star as themselves.
My dream 1 hour long The Simpsons parody episode would be on my all time favorite movie: Taxi Driver. The major characters of The Simpson would play the major parts of Taxi Driver. This would create Simpsons characters that would have to act way out of what is expected of them, but in a way that would be comparable to their personality on the TV show. Most roles would be social inappropriate for The Simpson characters, but that's what the movie Taxi Driver is about: not fitting into society.
This would be the Taxi Driver cast as portrayed by The Simpsons characters (many are small parts that would be expanded):
Homer Simpson - Travis Bickle
Lisa Simpson - Iris a.k.a. Easy.
Bart Simpson - Sport a.k.a. Iris' pimp.
Marge Simpson - Betsy
Moe - Wizard
Kirk Van Houten - Tom
Mayor Joe Quimby - Senator Charles Palantine who is running for United States President.
Charlie - The person who hires Travis Bickle to be a Taxi Driver.
Waylon Smithers - As the Secret Service agent protecting Senator Charles Pelantine.
Rainier Wolfcastle - The C.I.A. agent Travis talks before a Senator Palantine rally.
Lois Pennycandy - Tom's assistant.
Dr. Julius Hibbert - Angry Black Man. This would be funny if Dr. Hibbert said angry things but in a happy manner and chuckled afterward.
Squeaky-Voiced Teen- Concession Girl (in drag) at what I think was the Adult Movie theater to where Travis takes Betsy on a date.
Herman - Easy Andy who illegally sales guns to Travis.
Apu Nahasapeemapetilon - Grocery store owner who beats the stick up man (Snake) with cane after Travis Bickle shoots him dead.
Snake Jailbird - Stick Up Man
Carl Carlson - The African American taxi driver that hangs out with Travis and Wizard. His name might be Charlie T.
Abraham Simpson - The street drummer.
Eddie and Lou - The cops that show up after Travis does his thing at the end of the film.
Ned Flanders - passenger in Travis' taxi who tells Travis to stop and wait in front of the man the apartment where the passenger's wife is having an affair with.The passenger alludes to Travis that he is going to kill her using a .44 magnum pistol. He suggests that he is going to shoot her face and her pussy with the .44 magnum pistol. I pick Ned because he has facial hair like the passenger (played by the director Martin Scorsese) and it would be hilarious if Ned said "That you should see, what a .44 magnum can do to a woman's pussy, that you should see." Add the 'oodilies' and you get: That you shoodily see, what a .44 magna-lum-noo-la-di can doo-da-li-do to a woman's pussy-li-di-doo-da, that you should see-loo-da-li-doo.
Reverend Timothy Lovejoy and his wife Helen Lovejoy - Iris parents. Reverend Lovejoy's voice will the one used as narrator of the letter Iris' parent's send to Travis after he rescues Iris.
Fat Tony - As the man inside of the Motel where Sport has his prostitutes take the Johns to. He might be the Hotel owner.
Mr. Bergstrom - the john in the room with Iris the night Travis Bickle shows up to rescue her. He was Lisa's substitute in the episode 'Lisa's Substitute'. This would be a TSW (That's So Wrong) role. For some reason, TSW is not a text abbreviation used my texters.
I might make some fan fiction out of the best scenes from the Taxi Driver movie with The Simpsons characters playing the Taxi Driver characters.
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