I don’t know how many of you saw the latest episode of ‘The Simpsons’. It’s the latest in their ‘Treehouse of Horror’ Halloween specials.
In one part of this new episode, Homer is hired to kill celebrities so that a corrupt advertising agency can use the likeness of those celebrities without having to pay them. Of course, given Prince’s recent battles on the Internet to have control over his image, he was a prime candidate to be spoofed.

After a Prince gig, Homer is shown to grab Prince’s symbol-shaped guitar and beat him to death with it. This segment climaxes with the ghosts of celebrities coming down from heaven to exact their revenge.

 

Killing a loved celebrity in the name of a comedy show is always risky business. There are some that will find it tasteless, and others that won’t care and find it funny. Of course, the scale of the reaction depends on the loyalty of the fans, and Prince has some very loyal fans indeed. 

 

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But actually, I’ve found that the more pressing issue here, is that the parody of Prince didn’t really resemble Prince at all. He hasn’t worn trenchcoats and ruffled shirts since 1984 (a long time before the symbol came into play). The hairstyle they gave him seems to resemble Little Richard or Lionel Richie more than Prince, his skin tone is a couple of shades lighter than that, and what was up with the Michael Jackson-esque high pitched soft voice? Whilst P’s falsetto singing may be one of his trademarks, anyone who’s ever spoke to him or even heard him speak can tell you that his speaking voice is actually quite low and deep.

 

I’m not quite sure who the artist is, but at some point, a gifted online artist and Prince fan drew this sketch of how Prince might look if he appeared on The Simpsons. This version resembles him a lot more and quite frankly it’s a bad look for The Simpsons that someone’s fan-art is better than their own caricatures. Check it out:

I gotta admit though, the dialogue was pretty hilarious, especially this part:

 

Ghost of John Wayne: Is that mustache coming or going?
Ghost of Prince: Well your wife likes it.
Ghost of John Wayne: (pauses, then laughs) You’re alright, goofy grape.

 

Peace out y’all.

 

Tags: Prince, The Simpsons

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 at 10:28 am and is filed under Prince, TV Shows. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.