My Pop Culture Life or "The Create A Character Phenomena"

Back in the day, me and my bro would stay up late watching the adult humor of the Tracy Ullman show, just to see if they would feature 5 minutes of Simpsons action. The crudely drawn cursing cartoon was the type of Sunday night bedtime story we craved, and if there wasn't one that night, we felt cheated for watching 30 minutes of jokes that flew over our young heads.

Then they got their own show, got bashed as America's badass cartoon, then grew to be one of televisions most beloved shows (that needs a mercy killing) with over 400 episodes. And now, the Movie.

I've been relatively happy with most of the marketing for the picture, from the appearance of all the character actors on Bravo's The Actor's Studio giving interviews in character, and the whole Kwik-E-Mart 7-Eleven switcharoo was genius. However, this whole create a character thing to me seems like nothing new. In fact, people have been doing it for awhile for South Park, M&M's Candies, The Sims, and Second Life.

However, I must admit, as a franchise (or brand even?), The Simpsons do have a unique reason for doing this. We know the Simpsons not only for the main characters, but for the community of Springfield as well (just don't make Springfield a spin-off).

They've also managed to take the whole create a character thing up a notch, by allowing users to upload photos of themselves to be Simpsonized. This site is separate and done in conjunction with Burger King, one of a number of cross promotions for this movie.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy my pop culture dopplegangers.







My life as a chocolate candy




An of course, A derelict of South Park http://images.southparkstudios.com/games/create/

Have fun ya'll, and link me to your clones!