From: mxg77@po.cwru.edu   
      
   This felt fairly strong and I liked it more or less! I liked the classic   
   mischief-maker Bart story and Lisa's was OK (though the loom was bizarrely   
   ornate in its output and, really, weird IO and instructions in general). A few   
   weird gags like Willie in    
   an impossible disguise, for example...    
      
   DYN:   
   ...a new Souvenir Jaquito jacket (Transformers: the Ride)?   
   ...Homer and Marge could have just removed the title page from the sociopath   
   test?   
      
   Previous episode stuff   
   AABF09: Solar powered car (and shadow) gag seems to recall Ed Begley, Jr.'s   
   CABF11, 2F01: "Your son is dead" fakeout gag (more like CABF11)   
   3F23: Bart's relationship with cursive   
   CABF04: Didn't Bart get a 100% on a test *then*?   
      
   Meta   
   Homer says near the start of act 3 that "we did everything we could for him   
   during the commercials" (though he could also be referring to co   
   mercials/downtime in something he was watching, not the time spanned by the   
   act break)   
      
   Question   
   Did anyone watch the 2-hour Paley Center special on Monday about the list of   
   40 of "TV's Funniest Animated Stars"? I didn't. I wonder if there's a list I   
   can find.   
      
   Sam Simon credit   
   He died much earlier this year, and at the time I wondered where his name   
   would appear in future episodes. As I suspected, he's still listed in the   
   "developed by" names in the opening, but the air and production season in   
   progress when he died kept him    
   listed as Executive Producer. Now that we are in a new production season   
   (VABF), I am not surprised to see that the EPs listed at the end are now just   
   Al Jean (showrunner) on his own, and Matt Groening/James L. Brooks as a pair.   
   And that's the way it    
   goes.   
      
   What about U?   
   The episode season codes since season 10 have been skipping ambiguous-looking   
   letters, specifically I, O, Q, and now U (I suppose it looks too much like V).   
   So we go from TABF to VABF. I and O make sense, but Q and U still strike me as   
   funny omissions,    
   not just because they don't look like any digits or other letters, but because   
   they have been used multiple times in 20th Century Fox TV's current coding   
   scheme in the *show* codes (ABF, ACX, etc.). Also, with those letters skipped   
   it makes me even more    
   curious to see if we'll run out of letters or seasons first. If V is   
   (production and bulk of air) season 27, then assuming WXYZ all get used, Z   
   will be season 31, 2019-2020. If the coding scheme introduced in the late 90s   
   had or added a way to handle the    
   season character beyond Z (as it clearly had one for numbers higher than 9), I   
   have no idea what it could be. Any thoughts?   
      
   Late start (paging Don)   
   In the eastern time zone, football ended on time by 8, but 8 to 8:15 was   
   devoted to Obama's address (and a little bit of intro/exit from Shepard   
   Smith); as Shep promised, the full comedy lineup slated for 8 to 10 ran   
   immediately afterward, so this    
   episode began at 8:15 pretty much on the dot (not 8:20 as currently listed on   
   the episode airdates page). If any affiliates in other cities delayed or   
   preempted it further, I don't know, but Fox 8 Cleveland let the network feed   
   go as it was.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)