Master Fob vs. Technology

I have discovered a wonderful teaching resource that I plan to use every day for the rest of the semester and likely for the rest of my teaching career: my collection of Simpsons DVDs. There's a slight problem, though. The technology at the college I teach at is less than top-of-the-line.

Today I decided to show an episode called "Itchy and Scratchy and Marge" (in which Marge fights to censor the cartoon Itchy and Scratchy but later fights to stop censorship of Michelangelo's David) to my classes in order for them to "read" the episode rhetorically--to analyze the authors, the audience, the genre, and the angle of vision presented in the episode.

I even brought my own DVD player because I wasn't sure if each of the three classrooms had one. As it turns out, all three rooms have a DVD player, but none has a remote. (And I forgot to bring my own.) Which means that you can't select the episode you want to watch from the menu--you can watch the first episode and that's it. "Itchy and Scratchy and Marge" is the third or fourth episode on Disc Two, which means I was pretty much screwed. Being the quick thinker I am, though, I looked at the other discs to see if I could use any of the first episodes, and found that "Homer vs. Lisa and the Eighth Commandment" is the first episode on Disc Three.

This episode, though not quite as ingenious as the one on censorship, worked quite well for my purposes--the students could talk about what angle of vision the creators of the show were taking on stealing cable.

So despite my initial panic it all worked out. Then I got to my second class, realized that the DVD player is bolted into place such that the plug doesn't reach the outlet, and was glad I'd brought my own. Next time I'll bring an extension cord and a remote.