
The Making Of “Homer At The Bat,” The Episode That Conquered Prime Time (2012) - brudgers
http://deadspin.com/5886723/the-making-of-homer-at-the-bat-the-episode-that-conquered-prime-time-20-years-ago-tonight
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acomjean
So strange.. I just watched this yesterday (Making sure my DVD's are ripped ok
before they decay).

How does it hold up 25 years later? Mr. Burns wants the best player (his
childhood baseball stars), but smithers notes, they might not be the best
choice now.. the "modern" players that are assembled aren't so modern anymore.
Its a fun episode and holds up ok. Wade Boggs arguing with Barney cracks me
up.

The baseball players voice acting is decent, with some standouts.

The credits have a custom song, thats pretty good too.

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cholantesh
> The baseball players voice acting is decent, with some standouts.

I will always remember how badly good Ken Griffey, Jr's voice acting was.
There was a blooper reel that made the rounds on the tubes but Fox seems to
have nerfed it.

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jsd1982
Every time I'm at the barber's and they ask if I want my sideburns trimmed I
can't not think of and laugh at that bit in this episode. As far as I know, I
don't ever have any significant sideburns to speak of and that episode really
called into question my understanding of what exactly a sideburn is.

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phusion
I love these old write ups on classic Simpsons episodes. The first 7-8 seasons
or so are pure magic and we'll miss John Swartzwelder always.

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larrik
It's funny, I think 7-11 are the peak. Everyone has a different range.

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jpfed
( _Jonathan Frink voice_ ) If there are more than 784 people assigning ranges,
then your argument is contradicted by the pigeonhole principle.

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aanm1988
How do you figure?

Assuming ranges are A-B, where A <= B (you could like one season) and A, B are
in [1, 28] then there should be just 406 ranges (28 that start at season 1, 27
at 2, etc...).

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jpfed
D'oh! I just squared 28 instead of getting the 28th triangle number.

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bostonpete
I have trouble believing that the Mattingly's problem with sideburns in the
episode wasn't influenced by his hair problem with the Yankees. Maybe he
recorded is lines before that happened, but I have to believe they at least
re-arranged the lines to emphasize the issue more after that happened (like
maybe it was originally more of a throwaway line and they decided to make it
the reason he couldn't play)...

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vmarshall23
Baseball and the Simpsons. Thank you kind person for the perfect combination
of topics to drive away the world-is-on-fire news a little bit today. :-)

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6stringmerc
Whether or not keeping them is financially worthwhile I'm still holding on to
my baseball card collection for sentimental purposes. Got cards for every one
mentioned in that episode.

The closing song is fantastic too by the way.

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ullarah
It's amazing how long I've heard this song, and I still remember what it
sounds like and sing along to the lyrics!

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navs
It's scary how often this happens to me. Including mentally mocking "daaarryl
daaarryl" whenever I meet someone with the name.

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bruceb
except the promos at the time for the episode ruined the ending as they showed
what happened the only time Homer got up to bat.

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untog
Do people really watch the Simpsons for the plot?

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barneygumble742
We did up until it all went downhill. Circa 2001, they went from hand-drawn to
digital animation so the quality of the writing took a back seat to getting
quick jokes on the air in a few weeks instead of months. Hand-drawn required
more money and time for the animators in Asia (maybe South Korea?). And why
waste all that money on bad writing? Same goes for using the old punch-card
systems.

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billiam
True enough: everything went to hell when they started putting the original
Homer's writing down on animal skins.

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hbcondo714
I think things went downhill when they introduced Seymour Skinner as an
imposter[1]

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Principal_and_the_Pauper](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Principal_and_the_Pauper)

