The Simpsons composer Alf Clausen fired after 27 years

I had the feeling that the Simpsons team never respected Clausen enough. I mean, he wasn't even asked to compose the music for The Simpsons Movie, for fucks sake. Stuff like this is infuriating to read. But that's Hollywood, I guess.

The film was novel at the time, but they really blew it in retrospect. Got most the core writers back, could do anything, had Albert Brooks as the villain...

And it's best described by using Ahnuld as President when they have an existing Ahmuld pastiche in the fucking show already in Wolfcastle.

And they used the same voice actor.

So yeah, I can completely buy they'd be too stupid to get their regular, brilliant, composer to score the film. Then fire him by email. It's reflective of how much joy they take bleeding
The Simpsons dry.
 
Brick Like Me
Halloween of Horror
Steal This Episode
Holidays of Future Passed

I've seen some of these mentioned before and I thought, you know what, maybe I AM missing out on some quality episodes. I don't mean to sound harsh but none of these were 'worth' watching. At best they were inoffensively bland, I didn't laugh a single time. I assume they're usually pointed to as being good simply due to being surrounded by far worse episodes. I don't wish any specific harm on the people still making this shambling corpse of what was once the greatest television show every made, I would just prefer that all this talent, time, and money had been focused on something more worthwhile than whatever this has been for the past twenty years.

On topic: Shameful how they've treated Alf Clausen, he's as much 'The Simpsons' as anybody. Unlike the voice actors I suppose Fox, probably accurately, assume nobody still watching will notice his absence.
 
The film was novel at the time, but they really blew it in retrospect. Got most the core writers back, could do anything, had Albert Brooks as the villain...

And it's best described by using Ahnuld as President when they have an existing Ahmuld pastiche in the fucking show already in Wolfcastle.

And they used the same voice actor.

So yeah, I can completely buy they'd be too stupid to get their regular, brilliant, composer to score the film. Then fire him by email. It's reflective of how much joy they take bleeding
The Simpsons dry.
re:Wolfcastle they didn't trust general audiences enough, apparently forgetting that Simpsons was the most popular show ever and everyone who saw it had probably seen at least a few episodes and were familiar with the characters.

It's similar to when they show Moe's in the movie they put "Moe's Bar" on the sign in case the audience didn't know Moe's was a bar. Like oh my god, everyone knows what Moe's is.

Even if someone didn't know who Wolfcastle was it would take all of two seconds for it to click "oh yeah, this guy is a parody of Schwarzenegger" and it's the exact same joke as any time Wolfcastle appears on the show.
 
re:Wolfcastle they didn't trust general audiences enough, apparently forgetting that Simpsons was the most popular show ever and everyone who saw it had probably seen at least a few episodes and were familiar with the characters.

It's similar to when they show Moe's in the movie they put "Moe's Bar" on the sign in case the audience didn't know Moe's was a bar. Like oh my god, everyone knows what Moe's is.

Even if someone didn't know who Wolfcastle was it would take all of two seconds for it to click "oh yeah, this guy is a parody of Schwarzenegger" and it's the exact same joke as any time Wolfcastle appears on the show.

It's ridiculous the level of pandering that went on in the movie, they were terrified of putting in stuff that audiences wouldn't get. One of the only good jokes in the movie is when the the people in the church run into Moe's and the people in Moe's run into the church, but they were close to cutting it because it wasn't getting big laughs in the test screenings and they thought it was going over people's heads.

They were pandering to the lowest common denominator with the movie and it shows in the finished product.
 
As far as I'm concerned any Season that isn't on Dvd with commentary doesn't exist anyway.
They can fire the voice actor as well while they're at it.
If they lose the composer, the show lose its identity (I mean what's left of it).
 
SNL shows themselves have been mixed bags even during its hay day. But a skit based show will have skits or moments standout more than the show or season as a whole.
The Simpsons still has standout moments as well... although usually that happens when Al Jean steps aside as showrunner for someone who actually gives a damn about more than chasing a silly TV longevity milestone.

As for Alf Clausen, Variety.com has posted a follow-up article which seems to indicate the show reversing course because they didn't realize people would be upset...

‘The Simpsons' Producers Say Fired Composer Alf Clausen Will Have ‘Ongoing Role' in Show

Producers of "The Simpsons" are vowing that composer Alf Clausen will still play a role in the long-running Fox animated series despite having informed Clausen this week that he had been fired after 27 years.

"We tremendously value Alf Clausen's contributions to ‘The Simpsons' and he will continue to have an ongoing role in the show. We remain committed to the finest in music for ‘The Simpsons,' absolutely including orchestral," read a statement issued Thursday that was attributed to "the producers of ‘The Simpsons.' " "This is the part where we would make a joke but neither Alf's work nor the music of ‘The Simpsons' is treated as anything but seriously by us."
 
The Simpsons still has standout moments as well... although usually that happens when Al Jean steps aside as showrunner for someone who actually gives a damn about more than chasing a silly TV longevity milestone.

As for Alf Clausen, Variety.com has posted a follow-up article which seems to indicate the show reversing course because they didn't realize people would be upset...

Sure but people rarely go "that was a good/bad season of SNL", they usually go "that was a good skit". It's mostly eras for SNL like "The Eddie Murphy years were good" despite there being stinker episodes/skits within them.
 
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