Planet Simpson: How a Cartoon Masterpiece Defined a Generation

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Synopsis: D'oh-it's "The Simpsons." And here's the book with the behind-the-scenes story of how America's favorite nuclear family first arrived at a TV near you, how the series grew into a worldwide icon, and who brings it to life so brilliantly week after week, year after year. Since first airing in 1987 as a cartoon interlude on the short-lived "Tracey Ullman Show," "The Simpsons" has deliciously skewered the foibles of American life, evolving into a cultural institution that reaches across the generations. As satire, it's sharp and funny. As a pop phenom, it's in a league of its own. And with Planet Simpson, it finally gets the sprawling, multidimensional critical look it so richly deserves. "Smart and funny, Turner writes with fitting enthusiasm for his subject while working in seemly references to cultural theory and TV-insider politics. His book is just the thing for fellow fans, and for anyone interested in how pop phenomena came to be." -Hollywood Reporter This book was not prepared, licensed, approved, or endorsed by any entity involved in creating or producing the television series "The Simpsons."

From the Inside Flap: A smart, accessible and funny cultural analysis of The Simpsons, its inside stories and the world it reflects.

From Bart Simpson to Monty Burns, the Internet boom to the slow drowning of Tuvalu, Planet Simpson explores how one of the most popular shows in television history has changed the way we look at our bewildering times. Award-winning journalist Chris Turner delves into the most esoteric of Simpsons fansites and on-line subcultures, the show's inside jokes, its sharpest parodies and its ongoing love-hate relationship with celebrity to reveal a rarity of literary accomplishment and pop-cultural import — something never before achieved by a cartoon.

Complementing its satirical brilliance, The Simpsons boasts a beloved cast of characters, examined here in playful and scrupulous detail: Homer, selfish, tyrannical and not too bright, but always contentedly beholden to his family; Bart, pre-teen nihilist and punk icon; Lisa, junior feminist crusader; and Marge, archetypical middle-American mother, perpetually dragging her family kicking and screaming to higher moral ground. And while the voice actors behind the regular cast have eschewed celebrity, Turner considers why a stunning host of guests — Hollywood icons and has-beens, politicians, professional athletes, poets and pop stars — have submitted themselves to the parodic whims of the Simpsons' writers.

Intelligent and rambunctious, absorbing and comic, Planet Simpson mines this modern cultural institution for its imaginative, hilarious, but always dead-on, reflections on our world.

Excerpt from Planet Simpson

Three Fun Facts About "D'oh!"
1. The Oxford English Dictionary defines "d'oh" as "Expressing frustration at the realization that things have turned out badly or not as planned, or that one has just said or done something foolish."

2. The origins of "D'oh!" A Tracey Ullman–era Simpsons script called for Homer to respond to an unfortunate turn of events thus: "[annoyed grunt]." Dan Castellaneta, the voice-actor who plays Homer, improvised the exclamation, "D'oh!" It stuck.

3. The godfather of "D'oh!" Dan Castellaneta freely admits that he lifted Homer's famous yelp from James Finlayson, a Scottish actor who played a bald, cross-eyed villain in a number of Laurel & Hardy films in the 1930s. Finlayson's annoyed grunt was a more drawn-out groan — Doooohhh! Castellaneta sped it up to create Homer's trademark.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Planet Simpson: How a Cartoon Masterpiece ...
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Publication Date: 2005
Binding: Soft cover
Condition: Good
Book Type: book