"All the latest from Channel 4 News at 7 tonight, after Homer discovers an outlet for the sound of his own voice. Add Bart, and it's an algorithm for a viral sensation. Season 31 of The Simpsons starts now on Channel 4!"
-- Continuity announcement into "The Winter of Our Monetized Content"
* * *
The start of November seems to be the established time for Channel 4 to run their new-to-terrestrial season of The Simpsons, give or take a week, and Season 31 kicked off on Monday 6th November; avoiding all of that starting-on-Tuesday nonsense from last year, and also becoming the first season the station has debuted in Our Favourite Family's new timeslot of 6:30pm (and I have to say, I do find something preferable to the show leading into the news rather than Hollyoaks; between that and no longer clashing with House of Games, it just seems a nicer bit of scheduling, somehow). So, with the run having wrapped up earlier this week, just how much of it escaped C4's scissors, and how does that match up to my predictions from back in September?
Note that no episodes were shown from Thursday 16th to Tuesday 21st November, on account of live coverage of England's Euro 2024 qualifiers, and episodes of Four in a Bed displaced by said coverage. I might take less issue with the latter were it not for the fact they were repeats but, as we'll see, this is not the last time C4 managed to annoy me before they even started airing the episodes.
Other general notices: all episode dedications (as listed in my previous piece) are missing on C4's copies, and C4's approach to end credits was unfortunately significantly more hit-and-miss this year; on several occasions where there were alternate stills and audio, it was not only talked over (in one case specifically to note the week's break in transmission, in fairness) but an unsightly advert banner actually covered up part of the screen -- the banner in question appears to be a very new one, as I also noticed it cutting off crew members' names during the credits of the last episode of Taskmaster. All of this was not helped by the fact that on more than one occasion C4 seemed to be having some technical issues with playout -- on "Screenless", for example, the continuity announcement muted the programme audio entirely instead of just fading it down! Alternate video was always left alone for the duration of the scene, but other than that, zero marks.
YABF19 The Winter of Our Monetized Content
Here's a good start -- I didn't catch the first of the two cuts to this episode when it went out and only noticed it whilst proofreading this piece, by which point the censored version was long gone from catch-up. Fortunately, commentator Rick -- whose name will be coming up at several other points in this article, and for whose help I am tremendously grateful -- had a recording. When Homer and Bart are making their first viral video with the advice of branding expert Warburton Parker:
WARBURTON PARKER: Now, this fight, you're gonna get kickback from...
HOMER: Duff Beer?
WARBURTON: Look at your shirt. [Which has the Buzz Cola logo on it.]
HOMER: Oh.
[WARBURTON starts filming them. BART opens a shaken-up can of Buzz in HOMER'S face.]
WARBURTON: Label to camera, label to camera!
[HOMER responds in kind, knocking BART to the ground. BART reaches for two glass bottles of Buzz and smashes them over HOMER'S head, leaving a visible and bloody head wound.]
WARBURTON: They're gonna love this publicity!
Later, when they make their video at the restaurant:
[BART squirts HOMER'S shirt with ketchup.]
HOMER: Why you little...!
[He takes his soda and pours it into BART'S pants.]
WARBURTON: And escalate, and escalate, views, views, views!
[BART throws a deep-fryer of chip grease in HOMER'S face.]
WARBURTON: Yes! Feel the burn! Literally sit in it!
BART: Would you like some onion rings?
HOMER: I don't see why not.
[BART gets a tray of still-frying onion rings and throws them over HOMER.]
WARBURTON: Ah! Beautiful.
[Later, BART and HOMER are cleaning themselves up outside.]
Both of these were cut over concerns about imitable content, one presumes (especially given the context). Note that in the case of the first edit, the next scene has a thumbnail for the video showing Homer lying on the ground after being hit (but without any blood visible), and in the second one, Bart and Homer are visibly clearing the grease and onion rings off themselves after the cut.
YABF21 Go Big or Go Homer
Thanks to Rick for pointing out the following. First, when Homer's new protégé Mike goes mental at the rest of the interns:
MIKE: And Benjamin, no-one ever got trampled at a Michael Bublé concert. Drop the frigging lawsuit!
There's a slight jump, but it looks OK. Second, when Mike comes round for dinner and meets Marge:
MIKE: Oh, Homer, she is a beaut. Now I know why you're always napping at work. Mr. Plow indeed!
Technically it's pretty much seamless, but the line now sounds a bit odd with no punchline, and why does "Mr. Plow" cross the line but "napping at work" doesn't? Finally, right at the end when Mike has set up his pizza van with the aid of Fat Tony:
MIKE: Yo, Tony! We're raking it in on the sportsbook. And it was a great idea to sell weed out of this thing also.
YABF22 The Fat Blue Line
Regards to Rick again -- right after Fat Tony shows Chief Wiggum the video of him singing:
CHIEF WIGGUM: Okay, that's enough. [Pan out to show Fat Tony's cellmate, the vicar, has hung himself.] Definitely enough.
It's right at the end of an act, so it's a totally invisible cut. (The opening sequence wasn't cut; it's a rare outing for what Matt Garvey refers to as the Couch & TV Opening, with no clouds. Other weird openings in this season include the supermarket checkout-to-driveway one from "Marge the Lumberjill", and the "Screenless" variant which consists of a couch gag and absolutely nothing else, not even the creator credits on the TV.)
YABF18 Treehouse of Horror XXX
When the schedules for the first week of C4's run of this season were announced, it looked like business as usual, and the annual Halloween frightfest would be skipped over. However, when the listings were updated a week later there had been a change of heart, as the Treehouse was now nestled in the 6:30pm slot, in the correct position in the running order. I can only guess the THOHs are automatically excluded, or the violence in the opening sequence got it flagged as unsuitable, but someone took a closer look and decided it would be OK if it was cut. Because it was cut... but, well, read on and see. It's truly a Halloween miracle!
In the opening sequence:
[At MAGGIE's birthday party, GERALD THE BABY WITH ONE EYEBROW comes up to her and sticks his tongue out at her; she glares at him, and his monobrow burns off. The two babies look up to an upstairs window, where KEARNEY, SHAUNA and JIMBO have put nooses around their necks.]
SHAUNA: The baby is making us kill ourselves.
JIMBO: I thought this suicide was just gonna be the two of us.
KEARNEY: We'll figure it out in hell!
[They jump out of the window; SHAUNA kisses both of them in mid-air. FLANDERS watches this.]
FLANDERS: Oh, I must stop this spawn of Satan. But can I really find it in my heart to kill a child?
The producer credits appear during this sequence (instead of in act 1 like usual) -- the missing ones on C4's edit read as follows:
Supervising Director DESTROY ALL MONSTERS B. ANDERSON
Produced by XRAY-NIS
Produced by DENISE+ [written in the style of the Disney+ logo; Alanis Morissette may wish to note this particular credit getting cut from C4's airing just because something objectionable was onscreen at the same time]
Brace yourself for a shock: This was the only cut to the entire episode, with the impalings forming the "XXX" in the title card, Milhouse's leg getting bitten off with visible blood in "Danger Things", sexytimes in the second and third stories, Smithers getting decapitated and Selma getting shot with visible blood all staying in. By far the most leniently C4 have treated the Treehouse since at least Season 25 -- perhaps moving the show back even just half an hour helped it?
(The end credits were squeezed, but all the Halloween names were still perfectly legible and it was short enough that it ended before we got to the screens with loads of names on them. Half marks there.)
ZABF02 Marge the Lumberjill
From when the family arrive in Portland:
LISA: I mean, I can't believe we've never been here before. Indigenous artworks, craft breweries, independent movie theaters... and that's just in one coffee shop.
[Cut to reveal they are indeed approaching a coffee shop that incorporates all of these things. COMIC BOOK GUY is seated at the second of those things.]
LISA: Comic Book Guy?
CBG: Yes, I often come here to recharge. In Portland I'm quirky, rather than objectionable.
BART: You sell comic books here?
CBG: No, marijuana. And artisanal salami, laced with marijuana.
And right at the end, from Homer's conversation with Marge's Timbersports partner Paula (regards to Rick for pointing this one out):
HOMER: So, you're not breaking us up?
PAULA: No. I mean, I'll miss her on the other end of the bucksaw, and I'll really miss that eighty dollar grand prize money, but she's welcome to come up here and train any time.
HOMER: I am so grateful. I want to do something for you. If you'd like another kid, I am more than happy to offer up my sperm.
PAULA: That's very kind, but--
HOMER: No, really, I've always wanted to have a kid with no responsibilities.
PAULA: Alright. You're in the top three. It's you, the track star, or the Harvard professor.
HOMER: Oh, I get it. Instead of sperm, would you like semen?
PAULA: They're the same thing.
HOMER: They are? Uh-oh. [He looks back at MARGE.] Oh, it still feels weird.
I would guess, or perhaps hope, the 'semen' part was what they objected to and there was no way to only cut the last three lines without it looking too obvious, because I don't think discussion of sperm donors should be off-limits for the early evening slot. It's got to have come up on Hollyoaks at some point. Unfortunately the s-word was later left intact in "Screenless" (despite me flagging that use up as a probable cut!), so only double standards or just plain ineptitude can explain that surviving but this getting removed.
YABF17 Thanksgiving of Horror
In a bizarre inversion of what happened to the Treehouse, this episode was initially scheduled for the 6:30pm slot on Wednesday 15th, but one update later it had slid back almost exactly six hours in the schedule to air at 12:20am (with the next episode in the running order, "Todd, Todd, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?", moving forward to fill the early evening slot). I suppose that's a pretty good way to treat an episode deemed unsuitable to air pre-watershed -- and I admit I'd forgotten how graphic the first and third segments are, so only showing this episode late-night seems fair enough -- but there was that nice 11pm slot available after The Last Leg on Fridays...
ZABF04 Todd, Todd, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?
When Homer has his flashback to his mother leaving:
MONA: You don't come home for dinner 'till ten at night!
GRAMPA: You never cook anything worth eating!
MONA: Well, who wants to cook for a failure?
GRAMPA: Good God, woman, why did you marry me?
MONA: To piss off my mother, and it worked! Tell the kid I love him, but I'm as bad at goodbyes as I am at picking husbands.
At "Good God, woman, why did you marry me?", we cut to an overhead shot of Homer listening to them in bed that slowly closes in on him. It looks like C4 have shortened the start of the shot and retimed the remaining dialogue to avoid there being any obvious edit, since there is no jump in their cut; Homer starts tearing up during it, and he seems to do so slightly earlier in the censored version. Whilst I would prefer it wasn't there, it's technically pretty impressive.
ZABF01 Bobby, It's Cold Outside
This episode was originally down to be skipped from the initial run, presumably with the intention to show it at a more festive time; something C4 last did for Season 28's "The Nightmare After Krustmas", which they moved to debut on Christmas Day itself (they aired 29 & 30's Christmas episodes as normal, although to be fair the former has rather shaky links to the holiday season). Once again, however, the next time the schedules updated C4 had changed their minds, and this episode premiered on the 22nd November as a result.
Anyway, it was cut as well, and until now C4 were doing so well with cuts that actually made sense:
[SIDESHOW BOB is in his lighthouse, painting Christmas tree ornaments, singing a version of "Ding-Dong Merrily On High" that includes the line "Ding-dong, Bart is gonna die, his little neck I'm stringing". A close-up shot of the ornament he's working on reveals it's a little model of Bart hanging from a noose, which he places on his tree with several similar ornaments.]
All together now: It's right at the start of the episode, so producer credits appear during it, with just the one (consulting producer Dan Greaney) missing on C4's edit. The offending ornament can be plainly seen on Bob's tree not only when he's placing it there, but also a few moments later when he has his fantasy of the ornaments talking to him and spurting blood. A huge amount of blood in general was left in (not only that but also Kearney getting beaten up in the line for Santa and Lenny when his booby-trapped parcel explodes), as was Bob putting Bart in an actual noose made from Christmas tree lights to restrain him (a similar scene was also left in "Warrin' Priests (Part Two)" later on), and the flashback to footage from "The Bob Next Door" which was cut from C4's edit of that episode. Blah.
ZABF08 Bart the Bad Guy
When Glen Tangier, the actor who plays Airshot in the Vindicators franchise, arrives at the hospital to visit Milhouse, an edit that's harder to spot than you might think when you see it written down:
[TANGIER pulls up in a limo outside the hospital; a half-empty decanter lies on the seat next to him.]
TANGIER [clearly on edge]: Okay, mate, you can do this. It's hard, but those little buggers are counting on you. Do it for the buggers. [He produces a hip-flask, takes two large gulps from it, and exits the limo.]
This arguably does a little damage to the narrative, but the visuals, incidental music and Tangier's body language still do most of the work. When Tangier gets to Milhouse's room and finds Bart there instead:
TANGIER: Well, aren't you just Pimm to the brim with Adelaide spunk? [He takes two more slugs from his hip-flask.] Oh, thank Boomerang Jesus you're not one of those brave little buggers that I have to show this to. [He taps a satchel he has slung over his shoulder.]
BART: Wait, what do you got in there?
TANGIER: Oh, it's a laptop with the sequel to the Vindicators: Crystal garbage. [He makes a "ssh"ing motion, then starts drinking again.]
Another pretty good cut; on C4 it looks like Bart notices the satchel without any prompting. (A pedant might say that in the edited version it's not clear why Tangier has the movie with him, but the viewer can fill in the blank pretty easily.) Unfortunately, later in the same scene when Bart manages to access the Vindicators movie, he says "Sweet Boomerang Jebus!", creating a non sequitur with the earlier mention gone. Kind of odd how Tangier comes across less sympathetically in a version censored to remove him repeatedly saying "buggers", too.
Later, when Bart realises threatening to spoil the movie won't work on Homer (thanks to Rick for the dialogue cut, the rest of what C4 did is so fascinating I have to take the credit for noticing it):
HOMER: You can't spoil that movie for me, because I don't care what happens. You see, as a grown-up, I know that muscle jerks in tights with magic powers punching and hugging each other is boring BS for babies. So go ahead, tell me what Captain Doo-Dad does to Zippity-Whoever, because it means nothing.
In the original version, this line stays on Homer for the whole thing, and the shot closes in on him, which is presumably the reason for the following jiggery-pokery: In order to hide the edit, C4's version splices in a bit of Bart's reaction (taken from when Homer's line is over) at the moment the cut happens, staying on him during the words "for babies". It actually works pretty well, but once you know what you're looking out for, the audio on "is for babies" does have a noticeable jump in it.
ZABF10 Highway to Well
In a not unexpected turn of events, C4 deemed this episode unfit for early-evening broadcast (they've definitely lightened up about drugs references this season -- jokes about meth smuggling and cannabis survived in "Gorillas on the Mast" and "The Miseducation of Lisa Simpson" -- but not to the point of showing an entire episode revolving around them, and making references to them once every half a second, in the early-evening slot), and instead showed it at 12:30am on Thursday 30th November (technically the very beginning of Friday 1st December); this meant it kept its correct place in the running order, with "Better Off Ned" gracing the 6:30pm slot earlier on Thursday and "The Incredible Lightness of Being a Baby" airing on the Friday.
ZABF13 Warrin' Priests (Part Two)
In the first scene after the recap, where Bode Wright has taken over from the sacked Reverend Lovejoy:
BODE WRIGHT: When you tell people that you believe in God, usually they take that to mean that you're quietly judging their lifestyle or think everybody but you is going to Hell.
JULIO: Way to preach, bitch!
FLANDERS: I'm gonna pretend I heard "amen".
JULIO: Oh, relax, bitch.
[FLANDERS passes out.]
Flanders' line, and his fainting, now no longer make sense, and whilst the only alternative would've been to cut from "going to Hell" to Wright's next line, I can't help feel that might have looked better (Flanders is back at his pew the next time we see him, so this wasn't to avoid a non sequitur, and whilst it's at the start there are no producer credits during the offending part).
This is one of those cases where C4 insert an ad break where there was none originally, adding a quick fade to black and fade up again to stick it in... but the break comes in when Lovejoy finds out why Wright left his previous church and exclaims "I've got him now!", which is perhaps a better place to put it than either of the actual act breaks.
ZABF16 The Way of the Dog
This is an episode set at Christmas that was originally broadcast in May (and unlike, say, "Dude, Where's My Ranch?", the holiday is actually plot-relevant -- it's really far more festive than several Christmas episodes that were actually broadcast at Christmas!), despite the fact this season already had "Bobby, It's Cold Outside", and like that episode, C4 did not move this one around, but it ended up airing close to Christmas (on the 7th December) simply by dint of being the season finale.
Anyway, now that's all sorted out:
[In bed, HOMER is holding his myPad.]
HOMER: I love playing Candy Crush!
[He uses the myPad to crush a pile of festive candy on the sideboard into powder. LISA enters.]
LISA: Dad, I need to tell you something, but I've come to the sad conclusion that you have difficulty hearing the female voice.
HOMER: Aw, I love you too, honey.
[LISA growls; she pulls BART into view during the next line:]
LISA: Therefore, I have deputised Bart to speak for me.
BART: How ya doin'? [He produces a piece of paper and reads from it:] "Father, I believe you're an honourable man." [He cracks up; to LISA:] Really? Okay. "In times of peril you, um, even... event..."
LISA [whispering]: "Eventually".
BART: "...Eventually do the right thing, but Santa's Little Helper is in crisis, and 'eventually' may be too late."
HOMER: Well said, boy. And Lisa, for writing it, you win my highest honor -- a hearty Homer hug. [Which he gives to her.] And now, we party.
[He rolls up a piece of paper and uses it to snort the candy powder.]
LISA: Ew! Why do you eat candy that way?
HOMER: I already brushed my teeth.
LISA: Oh.
It's very obvious what's been taken out here, but I'm struggling to see an alternative -- cutting away after "Well said, boy" or the hug would probably look too sloppy, whereas this is at least a clean edit. A generous interpretation might be that C4 are trying to leave the implication of what he's going to do without actually showing it.
* * *
So, there are two obvious and major positives here. One is that C4's policy on episodes deemed unsuitable to air in the usual timeslot is no longer "just don't show them at all": we saw all 22 episodes of this season aired, and in the case of the two problematic ones (and I can at least see why they were considered problematic this time round) we got them as soon as we possibly could in late-night slots. Those slots could have been better, but C4 seem to have been trying to preserve the correct running order by scheduling them as they did, so it seems churlish to complain too much. There is a level of care here which was lacking in their treatment of Seasons 29 & 30.
The other is that C4 showed far more episodes uncut, with a full 10 episodes airing in their unexpurgated form in the early-evening slot -- more than twice as many as last year. Jokes about sex, violence, nitrous oxide, suicide, priests being a bit dodgy, strip clubs, euthanasia and even drugs which feel like they would definitely have been cut before made it through intact. The screwing around with nonstandard end credits is a minus point, there are still issues with double standards (which can make some of the aforementioned jokes getting through look like an accident), but apart from that I was definitely more impressed with their handling of this season than I was with the previous two.
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