A few weeks ago, I dragged my roommates to "The Simpsons: From Early Years to Maturity", a presentation at the Cartoon Art Museum by David Silverman, the director of the show (credit to the Cornell Alumni Networking mailing list for bringing this event to my attention.) He concentrated on his personal beginnings as an animator, and how he pretty much fell into working for The Simpsons, and brought along a cache of videos to show (some of which are on the DVD). The highlights included an in-depth look at the animation of the scene where Homer dances around in a dreamland of chocolate, the uncensored version of the Itchy and Scratchy clip where Itchy nails Scratchy's feet to the mall escalator (Scratchy bends over and chews his own legs off in the original cut), and an outtake of the episode where Homer buys a gun and Marge takes the kids to live in a Motel — when they're checking out of the motel, Marge looks at the bill and says, "Hrm, I don't remember ordering a blowjob!"

I wasn't sure what to expect when I made my reservations. When I called, the person warned me that it was a small space and that there would be "lots of other people around", which led me to believe that there would be freaks crawling out of the woodwork to see the presentation. It wasn't too bad, as the only unusual characters were the two guys in front of me (who cleary had poor giddiness control) that high-fived each other a few times when certain clips were shown. All in all, a good presentation. Photos