New this week
This week, The A.V. Club was new to The Simpsons, an actual dream come true for many, many people in our office. You can watch the clip here, and you can read how it happened here.
We also bid an extremely fond farewell to our editor, Keith Phipps. He would probably discourage the use of extremely there, as it’s just the sort of phrasing he dislikes, but we mean it.
Don’t miss
- Our best-of-the-year content began in earnest with the best comedy albums of 2012, plus an honorable mention.
- Our favorite songs of 2012 celebrated the tracks that helped us make it through this year.
- The least essential albums of 2012 didn’t exactly help us get through the year, although they did help us laugh at it.
- Scott Tobias shared his checklist of the best films of 2012 so far, so our readers will have time to catch up before the year-end list. Hurry!
- Loud chimed in with the best heavy music of 2012, from metal, to punk, to hardcore.
- The year in band names enjoyed the likes of Fartbarf and Neon Piss, even if it’s not exactly lauding them.
- Our celebrity friends also continued to celebrate their favorite things, with Patton Oswalt, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Yvette Nicole Brown, and many others chiming in this week.
- The Gameological Society also recounted their favorite videogames of the year.
- Mel Brooks allowed us to talk to him, an honor in itself. That he rewarded us with such wonderful stories about his entire career is an even greater honor.
- We rounded up more than 20 unexpectedly badass performances from the likes of Jon Lovitz and Bryan Cranston…
- …And collected 26 genuinely effective movie taglines.
- Todd VanDerWerff explained how Buffy The Vampire Slayer exploded genre television in 10 Episodes.
- Comedy Bang! Bang!’s Scott Aukerman picked his favorite episodes of the podcast, so newcomers know where to start.
- It’s a good thing too, since our list of the best podcasts of 2012 will probably leave you wanting to look into Comedy Bang! Bang! and others.
- We sent Nathan Rabin to a Tyler Perry academic conference, because we’ll do anything to get sentences like this: “Part of what makes Perry’s work so fascinatingly messy is that it uses a weed-smoking, ex-con smartass to reinforce retrograde notions of conventional morality and gender roles.”
- Genevieve Koski took up arms in the war against cheer with an article about American Dad’s Christmas specials, a much-needed antidote to Hallmark season.
- And Nathan Rabin followed it up with a look at the Christmas special that brought no one joy, The Star Wars Holiday Special.
- Corey Feldman explained to us how his career was like child slavery. Literally.
- What does it mean to grow up with a band? Jason Heller mused on what his relationship with Jawbreaker signifies about our relationships with music.
- We returned to The Princess Bride in our week of films about swordplay, honoring The Hobbit.
What are we arguing about this week
We continued our year-end love train with our best-of-music list, including our individual best-of-music ballots. Our readers responded with, so far, 1200 comments and change. We’ll assume they’re all celebrating the things everyone loves and noting how wonderful it is that we can all have different favorite artists.
This weekend
See: We will not recommend The Hobbit to you, but we understand that you’re likely to see it anyway. Save The Date, is, however, pretty solid.
Read: Jeopardy expert Ken Jennings wrote up a pretty engaging book about the received wisdom of parenting. It’s more fun than that sounds.
Listen to: Big Boi released another solid, post-Outkast record. And Green Day released the last album of their trilogy, which at least means their trilogy is over.
Watch: The TV comedy with the most exciting 2012, New Girl received an excellent capper with its holiday episode. And if you’re free tonight, Eugene Mirman will drop some laughs on you.
The A.V. Club in your town
It’s your last chance to party with The A.V. Club this year, so come watch inappropriate movies and drink Mike’s Hard Lemonade with us on the New Cult Canon tour. Minneapolis, Boston, and San Francisco, you’re all on notice. Bad Santa is coming to Minneapolis and Boston, and Black Christmas will entertain San Francisco, along with its delightful star, Margot Kidder. To find more information and buy tickets, check out our website.