Sidebar: Before start this post, I wanted to say “thank you” to everyone who has stopped by to read the blog in the past week or so. I have gotten quite a bump in page views since posting about the “Homer Shake” couch gag and my small tribute to Sam Simon. These two recent posts seem to have touched a nerve – a good nerve apparently – with my audience. Also I’d like to point you toward Scott Clausen’s blog post about working on the “Homer Shake” phenomenon (a hair under 26 million views as of this writing). At the bottom of his post, he points you back here. You can just keep clicking these two links forever and stay in our endless loop of Simpsons fun! OK, back to our regularly scheduled programming.
It’s been a very busy couple of weeks in Simpsons Music Land.
On March 1, 2013 we music-spotted RABF10 “Dark Knight Court”, written by Billy Kimball and Ian Maxtone-Graham. The title is like a “before and after” puzzle on “Wheel of Fortune”. The “Dark Knight” part referring to our parody of “The Dark Knight” movie series; the “Knight Court” part referring to the TV show “Night Court” and the B-story this week where Bart goes on trial with a jury of his student-peers while being represented by Lisa, and the trial being adjudicated by former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno in a guest-voice appearance. Bart is accused of yet another prank on the townsfolk of Springfield, but this time he swears he didn’t do it.
I’m very excited for everyone to hear the score for this episode. At spotting it was clear that Ian & Al Jean wanted the score to evoke the same emotion and drama as the scores for the “Dark Knight” movies. This would mean a lot of music and a big orchestral sound. I think we pulled it off in every way possible. In a nice bit of serendipity, the scheduling worked out in such a way that we scored this episode on the Warner Bros. scoring stage (Warner Bros. produced the “Dark Knight” movies) and we were able to take advantage of one of the best sounding stages in the music business.
Long-time readers of this blog know that I’m very careful not to give away secrets or surprises ahead of the air date, but recently FOX created their own YouTube channel where you can see classic clips and sneek-peeks of upcoming episodes across their entire Sunday Animation Domination lineup. So, since it’s not a secret anymore, here are a couple of clips from this Sunday’s episode that feature our fabulous score. Turn up the speakers as loud as your boss will allow, or on Sunday night, especially if you are lucky enough to have a 5.1 surround-sound home theater setup, crank it up and enjoy. (RABF10 “Dark Knight Court” airs on Sunday, March 17, 2013 on FOX)
SIDEBAR: Apparently, FOX doesn’t plan to leave their video clips up on their YouTube channel indefinitely, so watch ’em while they’re fresh!
Simpsons Music 500 