President Poochie

That the best way Team Obama could come up with to pay tribute to Neil Armstrong was to post a photo of President Obama looking up at the moon would probably be offensive if it weren’t so downright hilarious. One could premise a halfway-decent drinking-game on the frequency with which Barack Obama inserts his important, weighty self into other peoples’ historical accomplishments. All of which, turns out, are ultimately about Barack Obama in one way or another.

This incident reminded me of a line from the classic Simpsons episode, “The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show”, so indulge me as I reminisce. In this episode, the “Itchy & Scratchy” show, desperate for ratings, has introduced a dumb, spurious, calculatedly-’hip’ character (Poochie the Dog), who turns out to be voiced by Homer. The clueless TV execs cook up this character by committee, out of buzzwords and fads:

MEYERS
Oh, you know, attitude, attitude! Uh… sunglasses!

EXECUTIVE
Can we put him in more of a “hip-hop” context?

KRUSTY
Forget context, he’s gotta be a surfer. Give me a nice shmear of surfer.

EXECUTIVE
I feel we should rastafy him by … ten percent or so.

Silverman redraws Poochie. They’re still not totally satisfied.

MEYERS
Hmm… I think he needs a little more attitude.

Silverman blackens in Poochie’s sunglasses.

EXECUTIVE
Oh yeah, bingo. There it is, right there!

KRUSTY
Yeah, that’s it!

MEYERS
I love it!

But once inserted into the show, he has nothing to do, and destroys the essence of the show – disrupts the ‘dramaturgical dyad’ Itchy and Scratchy comprise, in the words of one of its overeducated writers (and clearly a Simpson-writer stand-in). As a result, everyone hates Poochie when the episode airs.

The line I’m thinking of happens at the beginning of act 3, when – ego bruised due to the hatred for Poochie – Homer comes to the producers with his desperate ideas for fixing the character:

I’ve been doing some thinking, and I’ve got some ideas to improve the show. I got it right here. (pulls out a piece of paper) One, Poochie needs to be louder, angrier, and have access to a time machine. Two, whenever Poochie’s not onscreen, all the other characters should be asking “Where’s Poochie”?

This is clearly what Team Obama wants us to be thinking too, whenever anything happens and President Poochie Obama isn’t onscreen.

This suggests a slight correction to Neil Armstrong’s historic words: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. Where’s Obama?“

UPDATE: In what I’m sure is just a coincidence and has no implications for the Poochie Obama administration, I believe this was also the episode in which Comic-Book Guy introduced his catchphrase, “Worst. Episode. Ever.” Anyway, for completeness, here’s a picture of Poochie. I miss him.

 

President Obama (artist’s rendering)

About these ads