Simpsons in HD, finally.

“It was bound to happen sooner or later” but I kept saying that and after all these years, the once really very popular show and still good (in my opinion) has finally converted their video to high definition. Yea I know that The Simpsons has been on the high definition broadcast of Fox but until March 1st, 2009, it wasn’t in full HD and what do I mean by that? 1360 pixels wide and 720 pixels tall. Essentially in widescreen mode as that is the industry accepted standard of what it means to be in HD. Seeing that nobody else has written about it to my knowledge, here’s my way of saying FIRST!

So what’s new? The intro has been altered (or was simply modified for the 1st episode in high def) and in the picture above, you can see gramps snoring in the car alongside Maggie and Marge. Previously gramps wasn’t in the car. He was standing on the roadside waving his walking stick and cursing at Bart.

Then the intro screen flew through some time periods like during the early 1900s and then into a Brady Bunch style run-about-the-house jig. Then a Cheers variation with the family seated at a bar and the “Where Everybody Knows Your Name” song playing in the background. I was half expecting something with NBC’s FRIENDS but I guess NBC must’ve put their foot down to ruin the moment for us all.

The episode itself was standard fare. Homer forgets to mail in his insurance and goes into a series of adventures trying to prevent himself from being liable for any damages. In the meantime, Bart gets sent out on a fake vacation to allow the school to get a good average score to make it to the “No Child Left Behind” act. It’s alright but definitely watchable. And it’s in high def so you’re not going to see the black vertical bars on the sides of your tv. Finally.

So keep your eyes peeled out on HULU to see if they’ve included the new episode. It’s already there. CLICK HERE!!!

PS: I’m so sorry for not putting up anything since early February.

EDIT: I just noticed that Grampa Simpson isn’t in the car initially with Marge and Maggie but pops up when they zoom in the inside of the car.

Free Music from Cloud Cult

Well whadya know. If you haven’t already heard, the folksy/blue-grass/Irish song playing in the latest Esurance animated ads is actually by a band named Sugar Cloud Cult, based right here in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Their Wiki entry shows them as an “experimental indie rock band” but sounds more folk to me. If you’re into that stuff, feel free to go to Esurance’s music download page. This page appears to be seasonal so don’t expect the tunes to hang around forever.

Tracks available for FREE download from the above listed page:

1. Lucky Today
2. Journey of the Featherless
3. Everybody Here is a Cloud

The animation is pretty whacky and weird but here you go:

All Seasons “South Park” FREE ONLINE

Comedy Central’s show about paper cut-out kids in Colorado, Southpark, is finally available for viewing online and it’s free! With sagging viewers within the United States, the folks out at South Park Studios finally did one thing right and that is by letting everybody re-watch Seasons 1-10 for free. It’s flash-based and there are usually 2-3 commercials in between. I got some dumb ad with a googley-eyed dood in all the episodes I saw.

Not bad at all and click on the link below to get to the online episodes.

http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes

Go Speed Racer Go!!!

Wachowski Brothers of “The Matrix” fame are hard at work on completing the upcoming “Speed Racer” movie which is expected to debut on May 9th, 2008. They’re already into 6 months of shooting in Germany with an actual physical MACH 5″ fictional race car. This is the movie version of the classic Japanese animated show “Mach Go Go Go” which was later exported to the rest of the world as the one and only “Speed Racer.” If you’ve seen the show, you’ll know what to expect or hope to expect. I mean how much different can it get?

Looking at the trailer and stills, we’re going to see Speed Racer (Emile Hirsch – The Girl Next Door) hook up with Trixie (Christina Ricci – Casper, Adams Family). Also, the mysterious “Racer X” (Speed Racer’s older brother who ran away from home) is cast and there’s a pic of him blocking a punch from Taejo Togokhan played by South Korean sensation (I’ve never heard of him), Rain (real name – Jung Ji-hoon) while Speed Racer looks on.

So Rain plays the role of a Japanese race driver looking to avenge the death of his father in a race involving the dorky “Speed Racer” and is rumored to have 50 minutes of acting time. Seems like all the Korean actors are playing Japanese these days with the sole exception of Masi Oka (Heroes – Hiro Nakamura) but then his side kick Ando Masahashi (James Kyson Lee) is Korean. Remember “Fast and the Furious Tokyo Drift”? The Asian dude, Han, who befriends the main character. Yea he’s Korean as well. Real name – Sung Kang.

So back to Speed Racer. Yea it looks cool and will obviously have cheesy lines at a premium but something tells me it’s going to stink. Oh well definitely would be worth watching it on DVD but they did find the right actor to play Speed Racer. Oh and Chim-Chim (the monkey) and Speed Racer’s comical younger bro Spirtle are poised to get back hiding in the trunk. Where’s Chim-Chim’s hat??? And don’t forget to watch the trailer!

 

[Official Website] [Pictures – Jalopnik]

1hr Family Guy Star Wars Episode

I’m not going to break it out to you how it starts off but the Family Guy universe transforms into the Start Wars universe and follows a somewhat condensed story-line from the Episode IV – A New Hope (the original first Star Wars) movie. The ONE HOUR long episode was great but NOT quite right up there. You can tell that they did a lot of work to make this one and kudos to the FG show design team along with the artists and script-writers. Brilliant job. Super clear on my Fox HD channel. Too bad FG wasn’t in widescreen so it only showed up in the 4:3 rendering 1/5 of my HD television useless. FOX. MAKE MORE OF YOUR SHOWS WIDESCREEN as all High def tvs are now available only in widescreen.

Family Guy was on at 8PM (Central time) today on Sunday and it was preceded by the King of the Hill at 7:30PM and a brand new somewhat depressing “the Simpsons” episode (7PM) where Mr Burns gives Homer a lap of luxury by flying him in his personal jet to Chicago for a sports comedy show and back. Homer is unable to deal with his real life and opts for some change.

Back to Family Guy Star Wars. Yea it was funny with Quagmire and Cleveland playing the roles of C3p0 and R2D2 respectively, Brian the dog as the hairy Chewbacca (and his outfit was hilarious), Chris Griffin as Luke Skywalker, Lois as Princess Leia, and our very own Peter Griffin … the dashing Han Solo, and of course Stewie playing the evil Darth Vader and others.

In the end, it somehow felt incomplete just like George Lucas’ Episode IV movie so no biggee. The girlfriend didn’t quite like it which I guess shouldn’t matter but hope they’re planning on making the whole 6 episodic Star Wars movie mini-series cuz that would be kick ass.

Iron Man movie plot revealed?

This is what I got from the trailers and hopefully when the movie gets released, it will prove me wrong.

Tony Stark (Robert Downey Junior) is a big defense contractor/inventor whatever. He works for the US Govt’s defense systems and because of his super-intelligence, he gets to be a celebrity and compared to the likes of Leonardo DaVici.

During one of his tours in Iraq or Afganistan or somewhere-in-the-mid-east, his convoy gets ambushed by “terrorists” and everybody but his assistant (Pepper Potts) and himself are spared. His orders were to build an ICBM or some sort of missile that could reach the US … the Whitehouse … and I guess it’s expected to be strong enough to be a bunker buster as well.

While building a missle, Tony Stark secretly starts building a body armor and turns himself into “Iron Man”. This suit is super strong. Has got a lot of crazy stuff in it (adamantium?) and he’s able to free himself off of the clutches of his captors.

Rescued.

Back in the States at home, he turns into an overnight celebrity (maybe he wasnt a celebrity to begin with?).

But big brother’s afraid. SHIELD (Strategic Hazard Intervention, Espionage and Logistics Directorate) sends out Nick Fury (Sam L “Mothafuckin” Jackson) to track his movements and report his activities back to HQ.

Big Brother’s fears were correct. Stark is building another suit. This one’s better and stronger and allows him to fly. They send out a crack team to take him out but Nick Fury helps out Stark and thas basically how the movie unravels. 2 dudes (and 1 assistant) against the big bad US Government aka SHIELD.

The movie ends with the corrupt Govt Officials sent to prison and a full pardon to Tony Stark. Nick Fury disappears as usual. Stark is offered his old job back but he rejects the deal saying “I’m Iron Man”.

… in short, this will be a bad movie. (But I’ll still watch it)

EDIT: I forgot the part about Iron Monger. Well he’ll be the gigantor-like baddie but will have limited appearances in the movie. Most of this 120 minute flick will devote on how Tony Stark became Iron Man.

New Ironman trailer

… is out on Gizmodo and the Apple Trailers page or a direct link to a medium sized trailer. It’s mostly the same trailer from my earlier post, only this time, it’s not a boot-leg. But the boot-leg had a few more secs of footage than this one.

What Transformer are you?

Just a simple (or stupid) quiz to quickly decide if you’re either the useless Bumblebee, leader of the Autobots – Optimus Prime, the deadly Starscream, or the leader of the Decepticons – Megatron.

There aren’t too many questions. Possibly takes 30-60 secs at the most.

Here’s what I got:
75%
MEGATRON

Take the Transformers Quiz

Best Simpsons and Family Guy show

Simpsons (400th Episode – Season 18 Episode 22)

Haven’t seen the movie but the Simpsons show tonight (Aug 19 – originally aired May 20) definitely hit all the right notes. I wonder what’s going on in the minds of the Fox execs. The whole show basically revolves around the current trend of reporters and news agencies afraid to report the truth because of the fear that they might get branded as the “liberal media” by the ugly powerful right-wing fascists. Kent Brockman, the local Springfield newscaster gets canned for slipping out a swear-word and even with nobody watching, the ever-righteous Ned Flanders stumbles upon it in a recorded tape and sends it out to the FCC. Brockman along with the help of Lisa Simpson comes to the conclusion that the media is always succumbing to the money from the big dogs like Fox. Then the truth comes out – Fox does not hesitate to flaunt itself as the “Fair and Balanced” source of news and then also go out to make all conservative viewers happy by siding that it’s also “biased”. Then again, the raunchiest tv shows are almost always on Fox. How can they pull that off? Watch the episode (below) if you’re able to! I loved the ending.

American Dad

Nothing. The show stinks.

Family Guy

Hilarity is almost always ensured in Family Guy as Brian and Peter Griffin use the services of Death to go back in time and enjoy life as a teen. Unfortunately for Peter, ignoring a young Lois leads to a different future. Quagmire ends up marrying Lois. The best part was when the news in the future/present headlines with Dick Cheney shooting Karl Rove and Tucker Carlson (from MSNBC) in a hunting accident. The future/present also had Al Gore as President and who kills Bin Laden with his bare-hands. Poor Brian is left in a dilemma. I would be too but it’s one of the best Family Guy shows. It’s based on Ray Bradbury’s “Sound of Thunder” short story on the accidental killing of a butterfly. This may be a rerun but I’d never seen it. Go watch it!

The Return of FUTURAMA and a new season trailer

We all cried in anguish when our hilariously lovable characters on Futurama stopped coming up on tv with new episodes back in late 2003. Fortunately for us, Bender, Fry and the rest of the gang are back and will air on Comedy Central sometime early 2008. Supposedly, it’s the 4 unreleased Futurama movies which will be broken into 4 episodes for each movie.

I sure hope it’s not what I wrote above and an actual season with real episodes instead of 12 “to be continued” endings if you do the math. This is putting me in the mood for some serious online “Bender” shopping mode.

Do note that the video isn’t the best of quality. It’s shot from a handheld video recorder but you can still laugh, can’t you?