Results tagged “simpsons”

For most city students, this week marks the start of another year of hitting the textbooks or reasonable facsimiles of. Back in 1929, local department stores such as Simpson's did their part to further the education of their future customer base by offering texts alongside the normal range of school supplies. Of the subjects listed, note that it was slightly cheaper for students to study British history than Canada’s past, which demonstrates the societal ties that remained between Ontario and “the mother country” (unless the publisher simply charged less). Also note how perilously the texts float above each student’s head—we hope this wasn’t a hint that knowledge should literally be fed to student brains.

As Halloween nears, costume hunters are descending on the city's vintage, resale, and thrift clothing stores looking for the right ensemble to dazzle their friends—we suspect that traffic reports will be required for Kensington Market, Goodwill, and Value Village locations this weekend. Someone may be lucky enough to find this gem from a quarter-century ago and channel its wit and vitality in any number of directions, including high-class fashion model, drag diva extraordinaire, or, with liberal application of muck and stage blood, a horrifying apparition.

Every Saturday morning, Historicist looks back at the events, places, and characters—good and bad—that have shaped Toronto into the city we know today.

While Torontoist usually shows how the city has been used by movie producers, home-grown small-screen productions have also made ample use of our city's streets since CBLT came on the air in 1952. Back in 1971, comedians Johnny Wayne and Frank Shuster used downtown as a backdrop for an exciting new sport, city golf. Over the course of 18 holes, cameramen preserved pieces of the city that development has changed significantly in the ensuing years, from landmarks in their infancy to retail icons that have moved along.

Each week, Torontoist examines the upcoming TV listings and makes note of programs that are entertaining, informative and of quality. Or, alternately, none of those. The result: Televisualist.

Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains of 2007––the people, places, and things that we've either fallen head over heels in love with or developed uncontrollable rage towards over the past twelve months. Get your dose, starting Boxing Day and running into the new year, three times a day––sunrise, noon, and sunset.

The holiday shopping season has descended upon the city, along with an early blast of winter. This combination may lead shoppers to unconsciously purchase items to cure their winter blues, even if the calendar shows that fall has a few more weeks to go. Today's ad offers a prescription from Simpsons and Esprit to keep free-spirited souls in an ecstatic mood come February. A trip down to the historic Queen Street department store promised...

We don’t think we’ve ever lead with the same film two weeks in a row, but there’s a first time for everything. Did you get a chance to see Blade Runner: The Final Cut this week? We did. It was amazing. We really can’t think of a film we’d rather lead with (and there’s some good stuff this week). If you didn’t get a chance to see it, consider yourself massively lucky, because it’s still on at the Regent. Basically, you have to see it. It’s a cinema experience that you’ll regret missing for the rest of your life, probably.

Our Simpsons contest is over, and while fifteen of our readers came up with valiant attempts to invent new words, we can only give three of them the prizes that we've been graciously allocated by Cornerstone Promotion. We at Torontoist are pleased to be part of the unending promotional machine that is this film. So, winners!

This week Torontoist decided to work out for itself exactly when The Simpsons was good. Because it’s just been so long, so depressingly long, since we’ve seen a episode that didn’t make us want to open a vein. Seriously. Using the powers of science (well, Wikipedia) we’ve decided it was good between seasons three and ten, peaking in (roughly) season seven.

So apparently there's this film coming out tomorrow about some family called "The Sampsons" or "The Simpsons" or something. You probably haven't heard much about it, as the company producing the film (they're named after an animal, it's like WOLF or FOX) doesn't have very much money for promotion, certainly not enough to renovate entire convenience stores across the United States to look like convenience stores in the film or to renovate a downtown bar in Toronto to look like the bar in the film.

When a dozen U.S. 7-11s were converted into Kwik-e-Marts earlier this month, Torontoist wondered when we were going to get our share of The Simpsons' Movie hype.

Hey fan boys and girls! Are you still gushing over comic book legend Stan Lee’s cameo on last Monday's episode of Heroes (pictured left)? Well get ready to get giddy again. Lee will be appearing at an autograph session this afternoon at HMV (5:30 – 6:30 at 272 Queen St. W.).

When searching for a new place to live, what is the first thing you look for? Location? Lifestyle compatibility? Enticements? A blank slate to shape in your unique style? Groovy wallpaper?

Depressed by the current deep freeze? Here’s something to make you feel warmer – next week, the boys of summer (or at least the pitchers and catchers) report for spring training for the Blue Jays’ 30th anniversary season.

Those of you putting off watching Mean Girls until those exorbitant movie rental prices come down ($4?! Ridiculous!!) can breathe a sigh of relief. A hot, fire-haired, pre-bulimic sigh of relief.

One of Toronto's larger theatres will soon be dominated by singing, dancing knights, killer Rabbits and farting Frenchmen. Yep, Spamalot will be making a quick jaunt up to Toronto sometime next year as part of Mirvish's 2006-07 season.

There's no secret about it. Torontoist loves the CBC, so this strike is hurting us. A lot. We miss Promo Girl, we miss Peter Mansbridge, Ian Handsomemansing, we even miss how Randy Bachman prattles on about CanCon. Sure we've been getting our CBC fix from sites like this but we want this lockout to end soon. So in the spirit of the Simpsons, we're sending our love down the errr picket line.

An American network television show paid lip service to Canada again yesterday, and this country's media were shouting the news from every rooftop.