Psycho and The Simpsons
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3d2jtlypuBY
Gotta say this is a pretty effective bit.
they also parodied Vertigo
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MovieChat Forums > Psycho (1960) Discussion > Psycho and The Simpsons
The Simpsons has referred to Psycho many many times. the.hitchcock.zone website used to have these things well-catalogued but, checking now, that site has fallen into disrepair, e.g., it isn't loading images.
You can still (currently) access a full copy of the functional site via the internet wayback machine, e.g., here:
https://tinyurl.com/y9flrwfw
Enjoy!
So..the Hitchcock Zone is in disrepair but you can get us to a functional version?
Thank you, swanstep!
Meanwhile, on the Simpsons.
I think I have mentioned this before when Psycho and The Simpsons were put in juxtaposition...The Simpsons is, like, the longest running TV show and yet I never became a regular fan. I've seen an episode here, an episode there, and I certainly like to use the phrase "D'oh!" with friends when something goes wrong. But for the most part, I've been left by the wayside. And I don't know WHY. The animation aspect, possibly.
Anyway, it is nice to know that something as major as the Simpsons has paid homage to Psycho, and to Vertigo.Thus keeping them in the culture decades after they were made.
I certainly like to use the phrase "D'oh!" with friends when something goes wrong. But for the most part, I've been left by the wayside. And I don't know WHY. The animation aspect, possibly.I watched about 80% of The Simpsons episodes in its first decade (until the late '90s). Since then according to most people including me the show's quality has drifted downwards. I now just catch the odd newer episode and it almost always disappoints. It's hard for writers to keep coming up with compelling new story-ideas for (age-unchanging, situation-unchanging) characters after 500+ episodes and you can *feel* the writers' desperation. We've had a million variations on 'Homer goes crazy/has a crazy idea' now, and in desperation the writers have gradually done this with *all* the characters, so, e.g., Marge and Lisa have have had periods of being as crazy and irresponsible as Homer. And broad and (in my view) often manic and obsessive rather than especially funny or clever parodies of cultural items now take up increasing shares of the show's time.
In some ways the show's use of Hitchcock exemplifies the key trends. Having a running gag about Principal Skinner being a Norman Bates-figure was a witty piece of character development from the show's first decade. 10+ years later and the Hitchcock-parody has no character function and is just its own wacky/nerdy thing, now done in incredible detail to fill out a whole episode:
https://tinyurl.com/ydast6je
Bart pushing Hitch off Mt Rushmore did make me laugh tho' (that's *almost* back in recognizable character). share
I think any show that has had 500 episodes has probably...had enough.
I mean, I was ready for favorites like The Sopranos and Mad Men to end after 80 or so....
...nice to know, though, that Hitchcock's greatest hits(Psycho and NBNW above all -- did The Simpsons do The Birds?) live on through The Simpsons.
Hey, here's one: one 80's TV show actually had a salute to -- Frenzy.
A character said to another: "You are positively glutinous with self-approbation." That's Inspector Oxford's over-articulate line to his assistant Sgt. Spearman.
And I caught it the second it was said.
On Thirtysomething.
did The Simpsons do The Birds?Repeatedly. The Birds is among the refs in the last link I posted, and, e.g., in the famous, peak-Simpsons Streetcar Named Desire ep. here:
https://tinyurl.com/ydgw3c83 share
Repeatedly. The Birds is among the refs in the last link I posted, and, e.g., in the famous, peak-Simpsons Streetcar Named Desire ep. here:
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I regret, swanstep, that I don't always get to the links as you post them. Sometimes I CAN'T get to the links -- not that they don't work, but that I am not somewhere where I can play a clip.
So my apologies on missing The Birds references...
...which leads me to "a usual musing"...with a twist.
My "usual musing": from what I've seen in popular culture over, oh, about 50 years now, Psycho and The Birds seem to be the Hitchcock movies that everybody knows. They are "high concept" horror movies(Psycho more than The Birds, though The Birds is enough of one) and that has stuck with the general public over decades. The shower scene, mother, the screech-screech-screech of the murder violins and...killer birds in general. Plus -- for decades now -- I have personally seen local TV anchors do stories on MINOR bird attacks and say "Like a scene out of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds..."
The twist: I dunno, perhaps shows like The Simpsons(but MAINLY the Simpsons) have made sure that a few other Hitchcock titles remain relevant: NXNW(for Rushmore and the crop duster); Vertigo(for what?) Rear Window....
In short, some Hitchcock titles may be more relevant today than they were before the Simpsons.
THAT said, this concern: I'm not sure that too many local TV anchors reference bird attack stories with "Like a scene out of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds" because...
...we're starting to have a lot of generations out there who don't know who Hitchocck is....
PS. In the 80's, both Moonlighting and Thirtysomething did all manner of Hitchcock tributes. An episode of Moonlighting climaxed with a crop duster(unable to get off the ground) chasing Bruce Willis while a full-orchestra version of the NXNW credit theme came on the soundtrack; I think they did Vertigo, too. Thirtysomething snuck in occasional references and then did one episode with a long "Hitchcock scene dream sequence." I also think That Seventies Show did a Hitchcock episode, with a toy crop duster chasing Ashton Kutcher...
...we're starting to have a lot of generations out there who don't know who Hitchcock is....On one level, Hitchcock is safe as houses now. If only a handful of names are going to be remembered down the centuries from 20C film (the way just a handful of names from the 19C, let alone the 18C or 17C novel are preserved) then 'Hitchcock' will be one (and the only director's name). On another level though that's a defeat by time of a popular artist. Hitch will be part of every *educated* 22C and 23C person's toolkit alongside Austen and Dickens and Mozart and Bach and... but like all those other prior greats Hitch will be increasingly a non-event to the struggling, (relatively) uneducated masses. You'll increasingly be seen as an insensitive snob if you mention Hitch in mixed company without first explaining who he was. Everyone alive today born before 1970 knows about Hitch in the first instance by inhalation not education. When that tier of people is gone (by around Psycho's centenary), education will be the sole point of entry.
[Feel free to imagine this post accompanied by the Sia track that concluded the finale of Six Feet Under!]
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