I'll listen to old music, but I rarely listen to the same music for years. I thought using songs from 2004 (which I was listening to in 2004) came across as desperate, esp. in an episode that seemed like it was written by old people (with all the deathbed daydreams and all). I can get over characterization and bad…

As of now, the majority of voters on Nohomers.net have given this episode a 5/5. Clearly everyone is seeing something here that I missed because, though the first half was good as everyone is agreeing on, the ending was really really bad. Both hip songs were 5+ years old (desperate) the plot turned to nonsensical very…

I agree with both of you. Early Simpsons, at least conceptually, has a lot in common with 1950s culture. You've got the rabbit-ear TV set, slingshot in Bart's back pocket, clowns hosting TV shows, and clean-cut principals. The early writers were able to flesh out Matt Groening's upbringing (from 1950s through 70s…

Does it involve a monkey and a frog?

oh, the bible says it? so i guess i'll start eating cephalopods now, but *reads further* oops, gotta give up shellfish and pork.

is this the smartest episode of the series? assuming a passing knowledge of Ayn Rand, Alfred Hitchcock, Tennessee Williams, is giving the audience so much more credit than i deserved the first time i saw this (and was about 10). it's so smart and yet doesn't hit you over the head with the point.

Ick.  Why couldn't she be the other kind of mermaid, with the fish part on the top and the lady part on the bottom?

I always remember this line when I think of how Bart's personality has been dumbed down for the modern episodes. Current Bart wouldn't be able to articulate this.

only that one in the first season where Brian runs away from home and gets civil-rightsy about being a dog.

ha. toothless satire on the ivory industry. get it?

Family Guy DID have crazy sci-fi technology tonight (though this has been Stewie's thing from the beginning). But sci-fi on the Simpsons makes me cringe a bit. This is the second episode in a row that reminded me of a cruddy Simpsons comic book for kids. Dream machines, robot workers - what's next, a talking banana?

agreed, except for the part about the jokes working and the characters being the same.

I really hated this one. It reminded me of those sorta crappy Simpsons comics which take the cast and setting from the show but dumb everything down for kids and have license to throw in some impossible sci-fi stuff which wasn't supposed to happen in cannon episodes.

You may remember this stock formula for introducing celebrities from such film parodies as The Boatjacking of Supership '79 and Gladys the Groovy Mule.

I thought it was a good use of him too — much better than how the Simpsons used him.  Making him a dolphin plays to his talent [sic] very well and also is less awkward than coming up with some other reason for a british guy to visit Peter.

I really wasn't trying to say it was a great joke. I just meant that it beats throwing away a line on "Oh my god, an animal that talks!" or else trying to explain it in even greater depth via an alternative plot where they all boggle at a talking animal and then go home and discuss whether it's strange that animals…

I  don't even think the writers or producers have any idea that the show sucks now. To hear their behind the scenes commentaries and interviews, they seem to honestly believe that their fans are just nerds who get off on talking smack about their favorite show. In some Futurama commentary I remember somebody…

Mostly agreed. I actually think the joke worked MUCH better without somebody saying "Wtf? a talking dolphin." It surprises me that the reviewer harps on this so much. Talking dogs, giant chickens, babies, objects, etc., have never been explained in Family Guy and to start doing it now would be to spoil the whole joke…

I can think of at least two things wrong with that title…

loved at the ending when jeff accuses britta of having "britta'd a britta," leading abed to say "yeah, way to pull an abed." — it took me a second of parsing to realize that "pulling an abed" must mean something along the lines of using something to refer to itself, i.e. being meta, which is pretty perfect.