Ben & Jerry's is jumping into the marketing mania surrounding the upcoming The Simpsons Movie by making a special ice cream flavor just for the premiere. It's called "Duff and D'oh-Nuts" and it's a combination of the two best flavors in the world-- at least, according to Homer Simpson. The ice cream is a combination of chocolate and cream stout with chunks of glazed chocolate donuts. As I typed up that sentence, my brain said "gross" while my stomach said "yummmm".

Now here's the bad news. It's only for the kind folks of Springfield, Vermont because they won the nationwide contest to host The Simpsons Movie premiere in their town next week. Ben & Jerry's is calling the new flavor "extremely limited, one-time and one-day-only flavor."

[Via TV Tattle]

The little town of Springfield, VT (pop. 9,300) won the nationwide contest to host the premiere of The Simpsons Movie. It beat out 13 other Springfield, USAs for the honor based on voting on the USA Today website.

Springfield, VT was a last-minute entry into the contest. City leaders said they didn't even hear about the contest until the videos were almost due, so they hurried up and slapped something together. That video is pretty darn good, actually. It begins with a live action re-creation of The Simpsons opening credits, which comes to an abrupt stop when a man impersonating Homer Simpson sees a giant, pink doughnut. He chases it around town-- showing off Springfield, VT in the meantime and introducing characters, such as a post-pubescent Bart. Whoever wrote the script definitely has knowledge of The Simpsons. You can see the winning video (and the other contenders) here.

Springfield, VT will get to premiere The Simpsons Movie on July 26th. It opens nationwide on July 27th.

(S18E06)

You'll never take me alive, Grim Reaper! --Grandpa Simpson

Damn, this episode had a lot of guest stars: Tom Wolfe, Michael Chabon, Jonathan Franzen and Gore Vidal*. Oh yeah, and John Updike and Thomas Pynchon both make cameos on a writer's panel, sans dialogue. Pynchon, whose book Gravity's Rainbow I actually heaved to the ground and did victory laps around because I finally made it through the damn thing, was decked out in his usual paper bag mask. The best guest appearance of all goes to J.K. Simmons, who reprised his role as the fast-talking editor from the Spider-Man movies, this time as the editor of a poetry publication. The man should do more voiceover work. Hell, bring him back for more episodes of The Simpsons, give him a reoccurring character like Fat Tony or Sideshow Bob.

WCAX, a television station in Vermont which held on to footage it had shot of a celebration which took place after the Red Sox's World Series win and soon escalated into a riot, has finally chosen to acquiesce and hand the tape over to the authorities. Of course, when I say "chosen to" I should have said "was forced to." It seems bosses at WCAX claimed there was no legal reason to hand over the tape, but the Vermont Supreme Court stepped in and said otherwise. The tape will be used as evidence.