After failing to come up with any new ideas for Simpsons episodes, the writers decided to call it quits and throw in the towel... then, as they gazed upon the towel they threw, suddenly became struck with inspiration and wrote a whole episode around it. At least, that's how I imagine this rag episode came about.

I didn't see it, but I read the Wikisimpsons article about it, which is chock full of insane plot details like "Moe is part yeti," "Moe has a magical talking bar rag from the Middle Ages voiced by Jeremy Irons," "Milhouse's mom chokes on a rock and refuses the Heimlich maneuver," and "Moe is part yeti."

Judging from the feedback on the internet, "the rag episode" represents yet another low point for the series, like jockey gnomes, "the Israel episode," and whatever that Ke$ha thing was.

Simpson creator Matt Groening went to Egypt to check out the pyramid and he foolishly ignored all the hieroglyphic warnings and trespassed into the forbidden zone when all of a sudden The Mummy appeared and cast a big curse on him. As karmic retribution for all his brazen merchandising and capitalist crimes, Mr. Groening was turned into a piece of merchandise himself, how ironic. Now he is no longer human, he is just a doll and can't do human things anymore, rip.

OK but seriously now, for just fifty American dollars you can buy a toy version of the guy whose signature appears on all your other Simpsons toys. Here's what the solicitation says:

Created by legendary "Life is Hell" cartoonist Matt Groening, THE SIMPSONS is celebrating its 500th episode in February 2012, and Kidrobot is honoring the father of primetime animation in the only way we know how - making him into a 6-inch vinyl toy! Complete with goatee and glasses, director's jacket, and pad and pencil accessories, it is the first EVER Simpsons Matt Groening toy.

Essentially, if you cut out the middlemen, you can pay a guy money and he will give you a doll version of himself. This is so weird and messed up that I needed to lie down to fully contemplate the many levels of Meta this object encapsulates.

Fox hired a guy from Adult Swim to find out how to better compete with Adult Swim and his solution was for Fox to make their own Adult Swim. Brilliant! The two hour programming block will air on Saturdays at 11pm starting next year.

Basically, they're grabbing up all the "edgy" cartoons they don't have room for on Sunday nights (which I will henceforth refer to as "Animation Domination Prime") and dumping them on Saturday nights, formerly the home of MADtv, Wanda Sykes's late-night talk show, and the remaining episodes of Sit Down, Shut Up they were contractually obligated to air. Nobody knows what's on there now. The audience for this thing will primarily consist of Adult Swim viewers who forgot Saturdays are when Adult Swim airs The Animes.

Fox is always looking for new ways to encourage people to kill themselves. With their plans for an all-Simpsons channel having failed to materialize, it looked like their attempts to integrate The Simpsons into their master plan were dead on arrival.

Luckily, the Guinness Book of World Records stepped up to the plate and came up with a brilliant scheme that protects Fox from any liability: locking a bunch of people in a room and forcing them to watch all 500 episodes of The Simpsons, including the 300 or so that comprise The Bad Seasons. Whoever is still alive at the end of this charade will obtain 10,500 US dollars in hush money.

The National, an English-language newspaper in the United Arab Emirates, called Simpsons creator Matt Groening "one weird creature" for no apparent reason.

THE BASICS, PART ONE The Simpsons is the longest-running scripted show in television history - and a cultural phenomenon that is recognised the world over. Its creator, the cartoonist Matt Groening, is one weird creature.

What a baffling little statement. There's no elaboration or explanation whatsoever. "Weird," okay, I can buy that. But "creature?" Like he's a jolly little gnome-person or something? And this is supposed one of the basic facts one should know about The Simpsons?

Perhaps The National should change its name to "The Irrational."

[The National]

Well here we are at the end of yet another year, and The Simpsons is still on the air, and will remain so for the forseeable future. Here are the top twenty Simpsons-related stories of the year, as reported by IN THE NEWS, considered by some to be the very best, most intrepid Simpsons news source in the known universe....

Twenty-two years ago today, America got its first taste of The Simpsons stretched out to 22 minutes with the premiere of the show's Christmas special, "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire."

I was going to post some reviews from the time, but the only one I could find (that wasn't behind a paywall) was this one from Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

A mighty Simpsons Day to you all.

Holy crap, Lois! Remember the time when Family Guy writer Patrick Meighan got sent to the slammer for the heinous crime of occupying Los Angeles? What the deuce??? He set up a blog to share his ordeal.

I unlinked my arms voluntarily and informed the LAPD officers that I would go peacefully and cooperatively. I stood as instructed, and then I had my arms wrenched behind my back, and an officer hyperextended my wrists into my inner arms. It was super violent, it hurt really really bad, and he was doing it on purpose. When I involuntarily recoiled from the pain, the LAPD officer threw me face-first to the pavement. He had my hands behind my back, so I landed right on my face. The officer dropped with his knee on my back and ground my face into the pavement. It really, really hurt and my face started bleeding and I was very scared. I begged for mercy and I promised that I was honestly not resisting and would not resist.

With us Occupy LA protestors, however, they set bail at $5,000 and booked us into jail. Almost none of the protesters could afford to bail themselves out. I'm lucky and I could afford it, except the LAPD spent all day refusing to actually *accept* the bail they set. If you were an accused murderer or a rapist in LAPD custody that day, you could bail yourself right out and be back on the street, no problem. But if you were a nonviolent Occupy LA protestor with bail money in hand, you were held long into the following morning, with absolutely no access to a lawyer.

I guess you could say it was the opposite of "freakin' sweet." Giggity giggity goo, damn you vile woman, etc.

[My Occupy LA Arrest, by Patrick Meighan via AMERICAblog]

True Simpsons maniacs know that the show's reclusive creator, Matt Groening, hasn't been a part of the show since 1999, when he retreated to a yurt in central Oregon and cut off all ties with the outside world in a self-imposed exile. Well, apparently the Groenster has returned to the show, and he's been making some MAJOR, DRASTIC CHANGES that will be hitting your TV screens in 2012.

I just received this e-mail from an anonymous Simpsons employee, literally less than 4 seconds ago. This brave insider has put his or her career on the line by breaking the terms of his or her non-disclosure agreement to tell us this EXCLUSIVE tale of behind-the-scenes turbulence and tyranny. I am republishing hir message in its entirety because it has to be seen to be believed...

Artist JK Keller created an intense video manipulation of The Simpsons entitled Realigning My Thoughts on Jasper Johns that will break your browser and possibly your mind if you try to watch the whole piece on his website. Here's the introduction, which gives you a good idea of what the rest is like...

Simpsons executive producer James L. Brooks took to Twitter on Thursday to express his growing concerns about the iPhone search application Siri. Announcing that he was "on the brink of an insight through a troubling plot against us," Brooks spent the next 45 minutes tweeting observations about the app. Mainly, he suspects Siri reflects our emotions, nothing "I believe that when I was hyper the other day she talked faster." How, exactly, this proves Siri is plot against mankind is unclear. Nevertheless, Brooks is optimistic "we have a chance against her diabolical programmers" if he heed his warnings.

The name of Modern Simpsons's devastating Nintendo "parody," Funtendo, has apparently been hijacked for a quasi-legal breakout box (I have no idea what that is) that "lets you hook the NES, N64, and Wii Classic controllers up to your PC" via USB so you gamers can play your little quasi-legal Nintendo ROMs with an actual joystick instead of a stupid keyboard as a controller. Feeling nostalgic for Mario Kart 64? Well you'd better get your soldering iron ready, because you'll have to assemble it yourself with these amazingly simple instructions!

And yet, spending a weekend putting that all together sounds infinitely more entertaining than watching The Simpsons's inexplicable Wii parody from a couple years ago that doesn't actually parody anything, and would definitely be considered product placement had they not cleverly misspelled it.

[The Verge]

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain likes to quote movies. And not just any movies, but movies based on cartoon franchises. As reported by our sister blog, AnimeJihad, Cain quoted a song from Pokémon: The Movie 2000 during a debate last August. As any political analyst could tell you, it was a brazen dog whistle for the highly-coveted otaku crowd (a move popularized by Lee Atwater's so-called "Shounen Strategy"). Which apparently worked, because he soon shot up to frontrunner status.

Well now the Cainster is at it again. During a campaign stop in New Hampshire, Cain wheeled out his new talking point, telling his supporters "We need a leader, not a reader."

Alan Sepinwall is a big-time TV critic whose opinions are highly revered by the industry (TV producers Dan Harmon and Michael Schur both mention him in their respective AV Club walkthroughs, for example). When he talks, people listen.

Well, recently he set his sights on The Simpsons and wrote a DEVASTATING TAKEDOWN of the latest episode. Just peep these biting excerpts...

Famous comedy duo "Eric & Tim" appeared in the sure-to-be-classic "Marge Becomes A Food Blogger" episode of The Simpsons last night and sang a rap song about being a foodie, which you can watch below courtesy of YouTube user "MelZtube80."

In a shocking admission, Kardashian family matriarch Kris Jenner revealed in a new memoir that she could have saved Nicole Brown Simpson, the late wife of former Hertz spokesman OJ Simpson, from her alleged murder had it not been for her meddling kids.

Here, without commentary, is a list of actual subplots from recent episodes of The Simpsons, as summarized by Wikipedia:

Today in life imitating The Simpsons news: some fishermen caught a fish with three eyes near a nuclear power plant in Argentina. Literally, like, for reals, they found a radioactive mutant freak fish with three goddamn eyes, and it happened In Real Life. This should probably be cause for alarm, but since the same scenario happened in a beloved cartoon from over two decades ago, it can be safely relegated to the "lighter news" section of the news, chuckled at, and then instantly forgotten. 2011: not a good year for nuclear power.

[Infobae via Geekologie via Gizmodo]

Mark Zuckerberg and his Facebook goons have apparently deleted Bill Oakley's Facebook account, effectively rendering the former Simpsons showrunner and current Portlandia producer a non-person in this hyper-connected age. The crack team at Facebook determined that Oakley was illegally impersonating former Simpsons showrunner and current Portlandia producer Bill Oakley, who is the same person, and swiftly deleted his account. Despite being informed his account will not be reactivated "for any reason," Oakley has taken to the Twitter to bring the issue to as many Facebook employees as possible, as well as popular tech blogs Mashable and the New York Times' Bits blog. In the eyes of this reporter, it is great to see Facebook allocating its resources on protecting little-known TV producers from impersonation instead of focusing on less important issues, like instituting better privacy safeguards.

Bongo Comics, the comics distribution arm of the vast Matt Groening media empire, is apparently redesigning most of its logos to be blander and textier, for inexplicable reasons. Take a gander: