Homer Simpson Takes a Picture of Himself Every Day for 39 Years

By Dec. 17, 2007, 11:07am PT 92 Comments

The Simpsons playfully reinterpreted the seminal web video Noah takes a photo of himself every day for 6 years in this Sunday’s episode.

Here’s Homer Simpson, reimagined for the last 39 years:

And here’s the original from photographer Noah Kalina (a YouTube favorite, with over 7 million views, also viewed heavily on its original location on Vimeo):

While the cries of “Death to Poochie” seem inevitable, who didn’t see YouTube looming on the list of referenced cultural memes, a list that has already included everything from Mel Brooks to German expressionist cinema?

The Boondocks also appropriated visual cues from “the street” (of Timid Deer Lane, mind you) when Grandpa Freeman lashed out at new neighbor Thugnificent in his self-produced dis rhyme video. That South Park hasn’t attacked YouTube probably has something to do with the producers’ laissez-faire attitude toward wide web distribution and success on that very service.

The scales of visual language moving towards a balance by way of a photographer’s simple-yet-genius idea making it into the lexicon? I call that progress. After all, if we’re allowed to mash up The Simpsons, they should be allowed to borrow back from time to time.

The thing is, The Simpsons writers apparently didn’t handle the parody appropriately, if you go by what Kalina wrote on his site today. While the show visually alluded to Kalina’s video, it straight-up used the soundtrack, an original song called Everyday that was written by Carly Comando. Kalina wrote,

A few months back a producer from the Simpsons contacted Carly about using her song ‘everyday’ for an upcoming episode in which they were going to parody my video. She was negotiating a rate for the song, until they never got back to her. No fee was agreed on, no contracts signed. She and I both assumed that they were no longer interested in using her song for the show. Last night the episode aired and sure enough her song is part of the show.

What’s up with that?!

I am thrilled that the Simpsons parodied me, but Carly should have been compensated.

Regardless of how much things change, it seems they stay the same.

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