Recently in WHAA...?! Category

In a stunning rebuke to global warming, the Dachstein Ice Palace in Austria is set to unveil its new copyright-infringing ice sculpture of TV's the Simpsons today, or at least that's all I could extrapolate from this article:

Die Eiskünstler Hans Böhmer (Mitarbeiter der Dachsteingletscher-Bahn), Christian Schmid und Sebastian Zörweg haben in den letzten Wochen mehr als 4 Tonnen Kunsteis und 9 Tonnen Gletschereis verarbeitet, um die Simpsons in Lebensgröße so realistisch wie möglich zu schnitzen. Ab Samstag, den 12. Juni können alle Gäste auf der wohl berühmtesten Couch der Fernsehgeschichte gemeinsam mit der Familie Simpson Platz nehmen. Neu ist auch der Fotopoint im Dachstein Eispalast. Besteigen Sie den Eis- Thron und fühlen Sie sich für ein paar Augenblicke wie ein König in dieser frostig - faszinierenden Eiswelt. Dazu Dachstein-Geschäftsführer Ernst Trummer: "Der Eispalast ist seit dem 1. Tag eine Erfolgsgeschichte. Um weiterhin für unsere vielen Besucher attraktiv zu bleiben, haben wir heuer alle Figuren neugeschnitzt und die Eis-Säle neu gestaltet".

You should watch the video, particularly the moment at 1:54. [SimpsonsNews.de]

Due to Film Roman's inability to meet their demands for "faster, better, cheaper" animation, Simpsons producers have switched animation studios for the first time since 1992. Starting next season, The Simpsons will be primarily animated by a small animation studio in post-Soviet Georgia. Here's a preview clip:

[Dead Homer Society]

According to The New York Post, Homer is going to undergo a colonoscopy this season. Actually, it's not going to be part of the long-running FOX show, it's going to be part of the multi-network cancer benefit on September 5 titled Stand Up To Cancer. The Post even quotes a line from the segment that already has me laughing, from Marge: "There's his wedding band! He told me he was having it polished!"

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN

[TV Squad]

Guests aboard one vehicle of The Simpsons Ride at Universal Orlando on Friday were sprayed with a nontoxic oil.

Park officials told Local 6 News that they know where the oil came from but do not what caused the incident.

Well that narrows it down [local6.com]

Your Elected Representatives are using Your Tax Dollars to write Simpsons fanfiction. There is no explanation for this.

Republican Senate hopeful Montgomery Burns today joined with Mayor Joe Quimby, D-Springfield, to support the Senate's gazillion-dollar SCHIP bill.

"If the poor children can get a piece of the action, why can't I?" explained Burns at a MoveOn.org rally in Capital City. "The little darlings are needy? Me, too. I need somebody to pay. Quimby here says he knows a bunch of low-income nobodies who are ripe for the picking. Excellent."

Read the rest, it gets better. [House Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans via Wonkette]

Have you ever wondered what Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), Democratic presidential candidate, would look like if he was a Simpsons character? Yeah, me neither, but here it is anyway. [MySpace via Wonkette]

"Voice acting god" and Simpsons recurring voice actor Frank Welker revealed in an e-mail to Simpsons fan Kenneth White why he hasn't appeared in The Simpsons since Season 13:

A few years back Dan "C" did Santa's Little Helper in a rehearsal and unfortunately for me ... did it a little too good. The producers thought ... "Hmmm, Dan barks pretty good, and we are already paying him and he seems to like doing the dog thing ... why do we need to pay Welker who comes in here, spends less than an hour, eats all the doughnuts, refuses to come to rehearsals ... let's just give the damn dog to Dan!" Bingo ... I'm out. I did do lots of shows that needed sound effects and weird sounds, but Santa is without this little helper.

...

I wanted a raise ... most of what they asked me to do was wild and wacky, but it also almost always hurt my throat. So, I asked for a raise ... that is why you haven't seen me. They are really great people over there, but they have a rule about "top of the show" for guest performers and I fell under that consideration.

Welker has played Santa's Little Helper, Snowball II, She's The Fastest, Fred from Scooby Doo, Megatron, Milhouse's monkey, Burns' canine executive vice president, Africa's wildlife, Lisa's pony, and a dozen zoos' worth of other animals. Life is ruff! [No Homers Club]

It appears one of the pervs who make erotic Simpsons fanart and ruined Google Image Search for everyone was put in charge of designing the logo for the 2012 Summer Olympics, because how else to explain this? Oh sure it's supposed to be "2012," rendered in an abstract style reminiscent of early-80's LA New Wave, but doesn't it look like something... unseemly... that will be impossible to unsee once you've seen it?

Quoth LAist:

Hell, the very first comment on Londonist acknowledged that yep that's Lil Lisa doing something that doesn't seem like something a vegetarian would do unless she's planning on spitting it out.

Writer Brian Mciver rattles off his favorite moments from the series in broken English, including such classic moments as Maggie's escape from the nursery, Homer in space, Homer selling his soul to Devil Flanders, "Mr Plough," and... what the hell?!

Lisa of the future (President)

BART sees his future at a carnival and is shocked to find Lisa becomes President, while he is a struggling musician and Homer has a robotic prostate.

It can be hard to get noticed amid the hustle and bustle of a red carpet -- just ask Minnie Driver. "I'm in 'The Simpsons Movie'!" the Oscar-nominated acress piped up... Reluctant to let plot points slip because, she said, "I could tell you about it, and then I'd literally get shot by ['Simpsons' creator] Matt Groening," Driver nevertheless revealed she'll be playing "a patronizing grievance counselor in one hilarious scene."

Ruh-roh! We'll be keeping a close eye on this one... [MTV]

Ivy Supersonic, who according to Wikipedia is "a New York fashion designer, entertainer, publicist, promoter, event planner, and animated character designer," sent out a press release claiming that former Simpsons producer Sam Simon helped steal her idea for the squirrel thing from the Ice Age movies and tried to blackmail her into starring as his wife in a TV show (????):

"Sam Simon is not a man of his word -- he is a man of many words that do not hold true. He said Howard Stern asked him to be a writer on the show," Supersonic said. "He was considering it but said he would not do it unless I had a starring role as his wife. I was blown away when Ice Age 2 hit the theaters. Simon's partner and writer Matt Groening, was one of the writers on Ice Age 2, released by 20th Century Fox. Sam Simon's Simpson cartoon short premiered in front of Ice Age 2. There is nothing more I hate than someone who is dishonest to land me in the sac. I am more than outraged, I am eternally livid!" Supersonic says angrily.

Once the cast records their lines, the script pages get shredded to preserve secrecy.

Yeah ok ["Watercooler Stories"]