The UK’s Guardian newspaper today prints an article that pinpoints the exact date The Simpsons went from being “dizzyingly intelligent, daring, exhilarating stuff” to a “stupid shade of what it used to be [with] cheap, idle storytelling” – 1997. This was the year of creative team change at Groening Central, and the piece, available to read online from the Guardian Unlimited website, questions whether the upcoming movie now comes too late to reverse the changes.

Also on the site, a related Unlimited animation story breaks down the recent Mark Ronson promo for his latest single Oh My God, which features an animated Lily Allen in full Jessica Rabbit getup in an Ink & Paint Club setting (and borrows more than a few nods to that famous Who Framed Roger Rabbit scene).

The slyly fun, slightly risqué video itself, created with cel-shaded motion capture, is linked to in the Guardian entry, or can be seen in full via Columbia Records’ official YouTube posting.