#EverySimpsonsEver -- Day Ten

We are coming to the end. (Stop applauding.)

MUST-SEE!

8/30 12:00 AM ET “Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind” -- A Simpsonic take on "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" as Homer can't recall the events of the previous day.

8/30 12:30 AM ET “E. Pluribus Wiggum” -- Springfield moves up its election date (because Homer destroyed the town's fast-food restaurants) and it's now the first primary in the nation. Here come the presidential candidates and the media! And a new candidate: Ralph Wiggum! Pick a winner!

8/30 4:30 AM ET “Any Given Sundance” -- Lisa's school project is a short film about her family. Aspiring film producers Skinner and Chalmers enter it into the Sundance Film Festival. The Simpsons are going to Utah!

8/30 12:00 PM ET “Gone Maggie Gone” -- Not a bad episode, but to be honest I probably wouldn't include it here except for the brief, unexpected appearance of none other than the Phillie Phanatic.

8/30 1:30 PM ET “Eeny Teeny Maya Moe “ -- Moe hits it off with a woman he meets over the Internet. When they meet in person, he learns she's a little person. Will he screw it up? Well, yes. But it's surprisingly sweet.

8/30 9:00 PM ET “Once Upon a Time in Springfield” -- Krusty is forced by the network to add a female character to his show. Princess Penelope (Anne Hathaway) is a hit, which infuriates Krusty until he learns she's a longtime fan, and they fall in love. Anne Hathaway won an Emmy for this.

8/30 10:00 PM ET “Boy Meets Curl” -- Homer and Marge, along with Agnes and Seymour Skinner, compete in a new demonstration sport, mixed curling, at the Vancouver Winter Olympics. (Not surprisingly, the episode aired during the Olympics.) Lisa becomes addicted to collecting Olympic pins. Wikipedia says it was well-received by curlers and Canadians. Also, there's a sighting of a character from The Simpsons Movie...the movie only, not a character that has previously been in the series. And it's not Spider-Pig.

MEH. M-E-H, MEH.

8/30 2:30 AM ET “Dial “N” for Nerder”

8/30 3:00 AM ET “Smoke on the Daughter”

8/30 4:00 AM ET “Apocalypse Cow”

8/30 5:00 AM ET “Mona Leaves-a”

8/30 6:30 AM ET “Lost Verizon”

8/30 7:00 AM ET “Double, Double, Boy in Trouble”

8/30 9:00 AM ET “Mypods and Boomsticks” (The spoofing of Apple was okay. The Homer-fears-new-Muslim-neighbors-are-terrorists plot, not okay.)

8/30 11:30 AM ET “No Loan Again, Naturally”

8/30 2:00 PM ET “The Good, the Sad and the Drugly “

8/30 4:00 PM ET “Coming to Homerica “

8/30 5:30 PM ET “The Great Wife Hope”

8/30 10:30 PM ET “The Color Yellow”

#EverySimpsonsEver -- Day Nine

This, the ninth day of the FXX marathon, features the end of the 17th season, all of the 18th and the start of the 19th. The 18th was pretty weak. Maybe it was affected by a divided attention span, as there was a little movie of note that came out following that season...

MUST-SEE!

8/29 1:30 AM ET “My Fair Laddy” -- More singing. In this episode Lisa is attempting to turn Groundskeeper Willie into Eliza Doolittle...I mean, into a proper gentleman.

8/29 2:00 AM ET “The Seemingly Never-Ending Story” -- Although it's a bit ludicrous, I liked the clever way the story Lisa is telling turns into Mr. Burns' story, then Moe's story, then Edna Krabappel's, then, for a moment, a bighorn sheep's story. (Yes, really. Just go with it.) And they're all connected.

8/29 3:00 AM ET “Homer Simpson, This Is Your Wife” -- Written by Ricky Gervais. Homer signs the family up to appear on a wife-swap show.

8/29 4:00 AM ET “Kiss Kiss Bang Bangalore” -- Listed here only because the subplot (Patty and Selma kidnap Richard Dean Anderson - MacGyver!) outdoes the main plot (Homer is chosen to be the boss when Burns outsources his plant to India?).

8/29 11:00 AM ET “Kill Gil: Vols. 1 & 2″ -- The latest temporary guest staying with the Simpsons is Gil, the guy who can't keep a job. It actually serves as a holiday episode, spanning an entire year from Christmas season to Christmas season.

8/29 1:00 PM ET “Springfield Up” -- Modeled after the British documentary "Up" Series (starting with "Seven Up," featuring a group of children, and revisiting them every seven years), a director returns to Springfield to update his series of films, done at eight-year intervals.

8/29 5:00 PM ET “24 Minutes” -- I never watched "24" so I don't know exactly how on target this episode was, but I enjoyed it anyway.

8/29 6:00 ET The Simpsons Movie -- Yes, yes, yes. So good from start to finish. But I'm wondering how they'll edit this, since they're showing episodes without the cuts made for syndication. Will they show the full-frontal nudity or add the little "European version only" black box? Will they leave in Marge's full quote to "throw the goddamn bomb!" or cut out the G-word?

I'm sure this won't be cut from the movie. They're coming after you, Homer!

8/29 11:00 PM ET “Husbands and Knives” -- A new comic book store opens (smart casting: Jack Black as the store's owner) and easily takes business away from Comic Book Guy. A fave moment: Milhouse asks Alan Moore to sign a DVD of "Watchmen Babies in 'V for Vacation.'"

8/29 11:30 PM ET “Funeral for a Fiend” -- It's a "Frasier" reunion. Kelsey Grammer as Sideshow Bob, David Hyde Pierce as his brother Cecil...and John Mahoney as their father. Oh, and they all take part in a plan to kill Bart.

MEH. M-E-H, MEH.

8/29 1:00 AM ET “We’re on the Road to D’oh-where”

8/29 3:30 AM ET “Million Dollar Abie”

8/29 6:00 AM ET “The Monkey Suit”

8/29 12:30 PM ET “Little Big Girl”

8/29 2:00 PM ET “Rome-Old and Julie-Eh” -- Grampa and Selma in love. Ew. Ew. Ew.

8/29 3:00 PM ET “Marge Gamer”

8/29 3:30 PM ET “The Boys of Bummer”

8/29 4:00 PM ET “Crook and Ladder”

8/29 4:30 PM ET “Stop or My Dog Will Shoot!”

8/29 9:00 PM ET “Midnight Towboy”

8/29 9:30 PM ET “I Don’t Wanna Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”

#EverySimpsonsEver -- Day One

The greatest twelve days in the history of television is nearly upon us.

Starting tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. Eastern time, FXX begins airing a marathon of every single episode from the first 25 seasons of "The Simpsons," plus "The Simpsons Movie," in order. I desperately wanted someone to sponsor my attempt to stay awake for the entire twelve days and watch the entire marathon. I mean, I would need some support to even attempt that -- people to cheer me on, prepare my food and beverages, someone to slap me awake after a few seconds of dozing -- but it did not happen because no one with money or power apparently follows me on Twitter, and nothing I've said or done online has ever gone viral.

Anyway, I thought that I'd post daily listings of at least five must-see episodes. And, to be fair, at least one that you can skip, if you're going to try and watch as much as possible and want the occasional nap. (The "at least" part is because I couldn't limit this first day to just five. As much as I love the show, I may not have this problem by the end of the marathon.)

MUST-SEE!

8/21 12:30 PM ET “Moaning Lisa” -- I know many people don't care for the Lisa-centric episodes but I identify with her struggles a little, and I loved Marge's response to Lisa's following her advice.

8/21 4:30 PM ET  “Bart Gets an 'F'” -- Bart's going to have to repeat the 4th grade unless he passes a makeup test. As he didn't study, he prays for school to be closed due to a blizzard. God answers his prayer...

8/21 5:00 PM ET “Simpson and Delilah” -- The first episode that touched on the gay thing. Homer commits insurance fraud to obtain Dimoxinil, which cures his baldness and leads to a promotion to an executive job -- and an assistant, played by Harvey Fierstein.

8/21 6:00 PM ET “Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish” -- Commentary on a political system that has only gotten worse since this originally aired. Mr. Burns runs for governor and is doing terribly in the polls, until his handlers execute a comeback. Then he has a televised dinner at the home of a regular family: the Simpsons. Oops.

8/21 7:30 PM ET “Bart vs. Thanksgiving” -- Features one of my early favorite moments, when Homer explains to Bart, who doesn't recognize Bullwinkle or Underdog, that the Macy's Thanksgiving parade shouldn't be flooded with "flash-in-the-pan" balloons...as a Bart Simpson balloon appears on their TV screen. Also: Bart makes Lisa cry. Then they make me cry.

8/21 8:30 PM ET “Itchy & Scratchy & Marge” -- My favorite episode ever, I think. Marge's protest against violence in cartoons leads to the end of Itchy & Scratchy as we know it.

8/21 9:30 PM ET “One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish” -- It may be Homer's last day alive due to eating possibly poisoned fugu at a sushi bar. Meanwhile, Bart and Lisa perform "The Theme from 'Shaft'" in the karaoke bar.

MEH. M-E-H, MEH.

8/21 12:00 PM ET “Bart the General”

8/21 1:30 PM ET “The Telltale Head”

Okay, you probably won't need a nap during the afternoon of the very first day, but these two Season 1 episodes didn't connect with me like the others.