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The Country of Iran has taken the unprecedented step of banning the foreign import of Simpsons dolls, thereby throwing a wrench in peace negotiations and putting the entire international community in mortal jeopardy.

Oh, sure, the Iranian Secretary for Policy-making at the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults in Tehran (the Iranian equivalent of the IntelDevChiYA czar) claims they're doing it so as not to corrupt the morals of Iranian youth with Western depravity, but we all know the real reason: to strike back America for the tough economic sanctions we've been putting on them to get them to stop being so nuke-curious and weird. As we all know, the production of Simpsons crap is America's largest industry, and the loss of such a big market could really hamper our economic recovery and prolong the recession. This is Iran's way of letting us know they mean business. Diplomats are working around the clock trying to come up with an agreement, but have been met with resistance. Just yesterday, President Obama told NBC's Matt Lauer that "all options are on the table" with regards to the Simpsons ban; "I will not rest until every Iranian child has a Bart Simpson plush doll," the president vowed.

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.

Simpsons Illustrated was an official Simpsons magazine that went on for 10 issues in the early 1990s. Each issue featured exclusive Simpsons comics, news, and pictures of people who worked on the show (Disclosure: the header and title of IN THE NEWS is an, er, homage to this magazine). It was the forerunner to Bongo Comics Group and the Simpsons Comics series.

In 1992, they did a special 3-D issue featuring a barbecue-themed comic with an interesting moment:

Yes, Lisa requested a vegetarian alternative three years before becoming a vegetarian in the 1995 episode "Lisa the Vegetarian."

Was this quick moment merely an indication of Lisa's multiculturalism and non-conformist personality? Was her character so predictable that it was assumed she'd eventually turn vegetarian? Was it simply to set up the use of a long prop, in this case a shish kebab, in order to take advantage of the 3-D gimmick? Or, more likely, did the writer of the comic have access to Simpsons episodes from the future, thus allowing him or her to retro-plagiarize "Vegetarian" writer David X. Cohen?

You can read the whole issue over at the astoundingly comprehensive Spanish Simpsons Comics blog Tebeos de los Simpsons, including an early comic version of the Hey Arnold! pilot.

Yeardley Smith, voice of Lisa Simpson, is launching a new line of designer shoes called Marchez Vous (that's French for "you walk") YS, with the goal of marrying comfort and style.

That's all nice and good... but can she compete with these kicks???

[Yeardley Smith]

Smartphones! They're all the rage now! The iPhone, the Android platform, and the upcoming Microsoft Windows Live Zune Phone 7 Series are all beautiful mobile operating systems that have dramatically raised the bar for OH GOD WHAT THE HELL IS THIS

AHUJ9BLJ8qwuyr8913h9h31oKjklajsfas;; [AndroidZoom via Sx2]

Fox has released an official press release about the upcoming Season 20 DVD/Blu-ray, detailing the many bonus features that will come included with the $50 set:

• No audio commentaries


• A "sneak preview" for a Simpsons documentary scheduled to air 2 days before the DVD is released


•  

New York Times senior art critic Roberta Smith wrote a blog post describing her fascination with the recently released Simpsons postage stamps:

The Simpson palette has always seemed as radical and subversive as the show's social commentary and close in artifice to that of innovative colorists like Andy Warhol, Bruce Nauman and Matthew Barney. Five amped-up hues suffice: egg-yolk yellow, magenta, Marge-Simpson's-hair blue, darkened chartreuse and lavender, plus important bits of white (mainly eyes and teeth) and touches of red. Subtle distinctions of tonality are made. Homer's yellow head is seen against a slightly darker yellow background. Marge's hair is slightly darker than the blue behind Bart. Red defines only Homer's tongue, Maggie's pacifier, Marge's beads and the smidgeon of Bart's T-shirt.

Third, less is more. The "Simpsons" gestalt is boiled down to its essence and so is stampness. The images are stripped of detail except for the letters USA and the number 44 (cents, the new first class). No fussy engraved textures, no identifying names. This allows color to take over and the faces to pop out. Like a Richard Serra sculpture, only smaller and a whole lot cheaper, the stamps prove the adage that scale has nothing to do with size. They strike David-like blows against the Goliaths of American visual illiteracy.

An autographed 2-foot cardboard cutout of Lisa Simpson (she's the girl one) is going to be sold off in a charity auction, hopefully not to some creep with a Lisa fetish, to raise money for Tibetan orphans. It was made an honorary member of a Tibetan center, for reasons that elude me. Godspeed, cardboard Lisa thing! [BBC News]

A set of five Matt Groening-designed Simpsons postage stamps, suitable for sending anthrax or tea bags to elected officials, will be on sale from the U.S. Postal Service starting May 7th. [AV Club]

TVShowsOnDVD.com wrote a bunch of words about the horrible DVD packaging of the equally horrible season 11. Here's an excerpt:

How would you get the discs out of such a tight space then? You have to reach in with two fingers and pinch the edge... making it virtually impossible to not smudge your fingerprints on the "don't touch!" side of the DVD. Also, it's a cinch that the discs will get scratched up sooner or later, inserting them and removing them this way since 100% of the disc makes contact with the cardboard. It's a travesty.

Better invest in News Corp. stock now!

Featuring arguably the most popular sitcom family in history, "The Simpsons" revolutionized not only the TV industry but also the TV licensing biz, with a wealth of quirky characters that have translated into a multibillion-dollar merchandising franchise.

To date, Bart, Homer, Marge, Lisa, Maggie and their Springfield neighbors have appeared on everything from T's to pinball machines, raking in more than $5 billion worldwide. All told, the program involves more than 600 licensees.

If all goes as planned, the convenience store chain plans to refit 11 stores across the U.S. -- Richmond is an unlikely choice -- to resemble the front of the Kwik-E-Mart, the convenience store that Homer and other characters frequent in the classic cartoon TV series.

Customers also will be able to buy products inspired by the nearly two-decades-old show, including KrustyO's cereal, Buzz Cola and iced Squishees (the cup says Squishee, but the contents will be Slurpee).

Here's the best quote:

Spokeswoman Margaret Chabris said contracts on the promotions have not been signed with movie studios. She didn't give any further details, saying the company will release more information in coming weeks.

"We've done research, and research shows us that our customers like . . . movies, so we're getting involved with some major studios on some of their properties this summer," she said.

• Jon Bon Jovi was going to guest star, but he backed out because "the writers had his character covered with melted cheese at one point and insult Richie Sambora at another point in the script."
• The Beatles don't like talking about The Beatles.
• Matt Groening authorized a Bart Simpson asthma inhaler.
• Executive Producer Tim Long: "America doesn't love Gil." So why would you base an entire episode around him?

Some Simpsons Movie-related toys that are coming up are raising more questions than answers.

Not a huge surprise, as McFarlane Toys is best known for coming out with the best-looking action figures out there, so the announcement that they have been tapped to support the release of THE SIMPSONS MOVIE on July 27th, with a line of intricately detailed action figures, was good news all around. The characters will feature incredible character detail (see below), but also a voice-chip technology, which will allow them to "speak" exclusive dialog from the film. Each figure comes mounted to a customized base, and, as an added feature, the "Movie Mayhem" line of figures come with interlocking bases so the figures can be combined to create one large scene. The line will include a 6-inch figure line and three boxed sets.

There's a boxed set entitled "What you lookin' at?! Bart, Ned Flanders and Top-Secret Character (??????)" and two special sets, one featuring Itchy & Scratchy and the other entitled "Doodle Double Dare" (?????????????). Click here for a picture of a pig. [JoBlo]

Matt Groening:

"The scripts evolved incredibly. Characters have come and gone, story twists have changed, huge sequences have been storyboarded and then deleted. One of our favourite new characters is totally out, just to streamline the story. Nothing's sacred. As good as the film is going to be, the DVD, with all our deleted scenes, is going to be a hell of a bonus package."

Not to be outdone by TVs that look like Spongebob, Samsung has made some cell phones with The Simpsons Movie logo plastered on them, which probably also come with some annoying Simpsons ringtones. According to the reporter, "if done right, these have the potential to be the geek phone of the year." He probably should have waited a day before making such a pronouncement. [The Inquirer]

The Simpsons Mobile: Coming soon, Jamba will exclusively offer mobile content from the popular FOX series, The Simpsons, through the industry's first subscription package tied to exclusive content called the "Yellow Plan". Available to consumers for the first time, the "Yellow Plan" will include an array of uniquely designed Simpsons mobile content, such as wallpapers, screensavers, ringtones and video.

SOUNDS EXCITING!!!!!!!!!! [splashphone.com]