Simpsons Did It!: “Last Exit To Springfield”

This episode features a character, the Simpsons’ family dentist, Dr. Wolfe.  Dr. Wolfe was supposed to be a celebrity guest voice.  Both Anthony Hopkins and Clint Eastwood turned down the role.  Tony “Norman Bates” Perkins did take the role, but died before he could record it, so regular cast member Hank Azaria ended up doing it.

They also originally approached O.J. Simpson for the news panel show, but he declined.  People were kinda happy about that.  You know why.  Dr. Joyce Brothers got the line instead.

Non-Geek TV From The Geek Perspective: Hannibal

There’s a lot of TV out there, and some of it is underappreciated by mass audiences and freakin’ awesome.

This week’s column covers Hannibal.

On Our Heroes Dying

1931-2015

The entire geek portion of the Internet was united recently by the death of Leonard Nimoy.  It was enough to get a lot of stupid talk about a dress off my Facebook feed, so even if it wasn’t enough Nimoy was one of the people who led me to science fiction, he has my gratitude for that one final favor.

And while I am a little saddened by the death of a man who I honestly never met, I am also not as shocked as I was by some past deaths.  Nimoy’s health has been rather bad for a while now.  There’s a reason even when he did some acting work, that it was done to keep his actual appearance to a bare minimum.    But there’s something else to consider:  Nimoy was 83 years old.  As timeless as performances captured on camera can be, Spock got old, and he died.  He wasn’t the first, he won’t be the last, and its something we will all do ourselves.  What do we do when people we have never met, but have touched us in some way as we became the adults we are, die?