I know I just point out Homestar-esque stuff in my comments here, but MAN did this episode have a lot of it. Even ignoring the Hand Witch's voice, that whole gag of making fingers out of household objects is straight out of an old Strong Bad email.

I realize that—I'm actually an animator myself. It's just that the combination of stilted movement and virtually expressionless eyes is triggering my Simpsons PTSD something fierce.

The vacant animation reminds me of latter-day Simpsons.

Nah, I actually agree with you. I think Mabel gets the short end of the stick when it comes to nuanced character writing, which is why she always seems to come out on top. The writers just have too much fun with her to challenge her in the way they challenge Dipper.

When will Dipper swallow the redpill?

I don't know how heavily the Brothers Chaps were involved in this episode, but did the puppet stuff remind anyone else a lot of Homestar? Not just the live action stuff at the end, but the drawings in the animated portion. It seemed to have their fingerprints all over it.

One of the great things about TOS that I think goes unacknowledged is that each cast member has a great VOICE. This is partly a result of the more old-fashioned acting, but it's really remarkable for a live action show to have a voice cast as varied and iconic as Shatner, Takei, Nimoy, Doohan, etc. (As parodied as he…

I agree reviving Spock cheapened his death in a big way (how could it not?), but I'm willing to excuse it because I love The Voyage Home so much.

T. Rex was definitely the first artist to pop into my mind for this premise. I love Bolan's lyrics, but I gotta admit he's probably the most creatively inbred artist I know… Every song is kind of a retread of every other song, and the lyrics are constantly meaningless.

For ages now I've had this fantasy in my head of The Simpsons as a serialized story. Instead of a floating timeline, imagine that Homer's character shift is actually something that happened in real time—he started out as a humble, well-meaning dad and gradually turned into a maniac, with all the ramifications that…

I thought it was a good change too, in theory, but I wished Palpatine's makeup didn't look so weird. That's more Episode 3's fault, though.

Does anybody else actually like a lot of the changes in the Special Editions? At least the 1997 versions. I much prefer the updated Wampa scene and a lot of the explosion effects, and the victory scene at the end of RotJ feels a lot more momentous with the new score.

Weirdly, you're the second person I've encountered who credits Evangelion with preventing their suicide.

God, this is just about the saddest celebrity death I can imagine. I've always thought he had a subtle sadness that showed in his eyes, corny as that sounds, which made him seem very kind and human in spite of his zany performances.

At first glance I thought this was an article about Richard Simmons, and I anticipated a much more interesting interview.

It's not typically the way these franchises work, but let's be real: Godzilla is the actual star of these movies.

I hope they do like the originals and have a different cast of characters for each movie. Maybe hold onto Ken Watanabe and his assistant, though, and give them a little role each time.

Even Han gets boarded sometimes.

I always really liked "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson." I'm willing to let tonal differences slide a bit for travel episodes—the Australia episode was certainly way more over the top than the average Simpsons episode, and New York is such a crazy location to boot. Anyone ever see "After Hours?"

Well, Bjork's already done a musical with Lars von Trier ("Dancer in the Dark"). Depending on your tolerance for melodrama, you'll either be moved to tears or pissed off at the director. Personally, I found it riveting.