Simpsons – opening night

We went to the opening night of The Simpsons Movie. THE opening night. The midnight showing at select theaters. First of all—movie = awesome. But it was the crowd that made it exceptionally fun. Laugh Out Loud Funny. One of the treats of the episodes is that there is no laugh track, so they can squeeze in many more jokes that you would normally miss because of the laughing. In the theater, many jokes flew by because of the laughing… but the catharsis of laughing with your peers was a hell of a good time.

The movie was supposed to begin at midnight, and as you can imagine, MANY people were there early to save dozens of seats for their friends. Now, get this—at 12:15, there was still no movie. Grumblings about something maybe referring to issues with the curtain. I get up to grab some water and hear a manager say to an employee, “Get theaters 15 and 16 cleaned now!”

It flies right by me.

12:20 and she asks what’s up.

I say, “Now that you mention it…” and I told her about the manager.

She says, “I’m gonna stake out a seat! I’ll call you.”

She leaves and the manager indeed makes a speech.

“Let’s make this as easy as possible. We’re having issues with the screen. We’ve opened up theaters 15 and 16…”

Unable to finish. Mass exodus!

I call my wife… she has seats for us.

Now, in the new theater.

More issues.

12:30 and nothing.

People heckle—but as Simpsons fans—it’s Simpsons heckles.

“Worst theater, ever!”

And then a “Ha…Ha…”

And Grandpa Simpson said something.

The previews start… and then they stop.

And more heckles.

And they start again and stop several times.

And through it all, the crowd laughed, never getting too excited.

And when the movie started—it was laugh out loud funny!