(originally aired March 4, 2007)
A musical episode… maybe? This one seems to be cut from similar cloth as “The President Wore Pearls,” in that it’s about self-righteous li’l Lisa fighting for an education related cause, and Skinner and Chalmers are inexplicably made villains who want to dissuade the hopes of the only student keeping their school accredited. The catalysts of the plot are Cletus’s children, who have been kept out of Springfield Elementary to prevent their grade point average from sinking to dire levels. Lisa is outraged, natch, and to get her off his back, Skinner suggests that she tutor them. I hesitate calling this show a musical because there’s not many songs, and half-way through, the format’s fourth wall is shattered. Lisa shows the kids the wondrous culture scene Springfield apparently has through song, a big music number that apparently happened in-universe, as it wows Krusty enough to get them on his show. So these kids have musical talent, apparently, and Krusty exploits them as Cletus reaps in all the cash. Then Lisa gets Brandine back from Iraq and the episode’s over. I don’t get two shits about Cletus’s kids, so what’s to care about?
There’s an egregious B-story here too, where Bart ends up at a psychologist after another of his outlandish pranks. However, Dr. Swanson is surprisingly effective, getting Bart to lower his guard through video games and foul Mad Libs to get him to admit his problems. And of course they all involve what a shitty father Homer is. After the school-mandated sessions are up, he finds himself crest-fallen, completely miserable and depressed about not being in therapy anymore. It’s really kind of disturbing. Marge agrees to pays for one more session, where Bart finally expresses his true feelings: his parents fight all the time because they had him at such a young age, so he causes mischief and gets in trouble so they can yell at him instead of each other. There’s this truly sour air that hangs over a lot of these new episodes, caused by a multitude of reasons, but one big one is the current dysfunctional nature of the Simpson family. At one time they were a relatively close, loving family who had their squabbles, but always looked out for each other. Now, Homer and Marge’s marriage is held together by a thread due to his asshole nature, and Bart and Lisa are walking basket cases because of it. It makes for a fun viewing experience when you’re deeply concerned and worried for your characters’ well-beings, and the show treats it in as callous a manner as possible. Once more, another garbage episode to chuck on the pile…
Tidbits and Quotes
– We start the show with Marge dreaming about James Patterson, who I guess got to the recording studio too late to get into “Moe’N’a Lisa,” so they threw him in here. It’s so lame, and only reminds me of the days of old with her dreams of Lee Majors and Jack Nicklaus.
– I actually enjoyed the first part of the episode with Bart’s prank. It felt very in-character, and I like the art shift with the Dark Stanley story, all monochromatic and cross-hatched, as well as Alf Clausen’s string theme for it.
– Cletus’s kids’s names: Whitney, Jitney, Dubya, Incest, Crystal Meth, International Harvester, and Birthday. I guess, this is funny? Why do they think this is funny?
– The show’s Grand Theft Auto surrogate, Death Kill City, is on-the-nose, but nowhere near Mapple or Funtendo Zii levels. The end of the game footage was slightly amusing (“You have destroyed all human life on Earth. Level one complete!”)
– More “great” gags: on every bill in his wallet, Homer’s given the President’s heads eyelashes and lipstick, with a word balloon reading, “I am Gay.” Hey, another gay slander! What’s the tally at now, nine?
– Here’s what aggravates me the most about this episode. Krusty exploits the kids on his show, making them perform a music number where they’re depicted as brainless hicks. So it’s meant to be that Krusty is caricaturing and denigrating them for being yokels… except everything in their song feels like a joke the show would normally make involving Cletus and Brandine. We see Lisa watching on TV, outraged (“This show just perpetuates the stereotype that all yokels are hicks!”) Yeah, the line itself is sort of a gag, but the thrust of the episode is still about Lisa getting Krusty to stop mocking the kids. Meanwhile the episode ends with Cletus believing his wife was in Iraq stopping 9/11, and that she sold his make-shift body armor for cigarettes. And naturally, future episodes will depict the two as ignorant as ever, making the “message” of this show, if I can even call it that, completely invalid.
– Lots of disposable celebrities appearances in this one. Meg Ryan is Dr. Swanson, in a basically nothing role that Pamela Hayden could have done just fine. Stephen Sondheim appears to have his name said out-loud and his ass kissed (“Complex harmonies… intricate lyrics… pithy observations on modern life…”), and Andy Dick and Peter Bogdanovich (who?!) appear to say one line. Way to give your guest stars meaningful parts, guys!
Me Blog Write Good 
So this episode is supposed to be a parody of The Sound of Music, I guess? If it is, they didn’t try very hard.
The annoying thing is, we’ve already met Cletus’s children, and the likes of Crystal Meth and Birthday were not among them. What happened to Tiffany, Heather, Cody, Dylan, Dermot, Jordan, Taylor, Brittany, Wesley, Rumor, Scout, Cassidy, Zoe, Chloe, Max, Hunter, Kendall, Caitlin, Noah, Sasha, Morgan, Kyra, Ian, Lauren, Cubert, and Phil?
It’s telling that Classic Simpsons gave realistic names to characters that appeared on screen for a short joke, while Zombie Simpsons gave stupid over the top gag names to characters that are supposed to be the focus of a whole episode.
And the idea that Homer and Marge fight because they had Bart too young is just sad. They may not have been very prepared, but neither are most first-time parents. They were 24-year-olds in a committed long-term relationship. It’s not like Marge got pregnant in the week after prom. The reason Homer and Marge fight is that Homer is a selfish, arrogant, reckless, inconsiderate and borderline insane jerk. It’s that simple.
[QUOTE]What happened to Tiffany, Heather, Cody, Dylan, Dermot, Jordan, Taylor, Brittany, Wesley, Rumor, Scout, Cassidy, Zoe, Chloe, Max, Hunter, Kendall, Caitlin, Noah, Sasha, Morgan, Kyra, Ian, Lauren, Cubert, and Phil?[/QUOTE]
Knowing Cletus’ family, they’re either dead or taken away by Child Welfare.
Much like “My Fair Laddy”, the songs were the best part. But much like that episode, it’s better to just listen to the tracks on “The Simpsons: Testify” than waste 20 minutes on the episode itself.
When this episode premiered I noticed that the animation seemed more lively than the usual Zombie SImpsons fare. Then I noticed they brought back Susie Dietter (of seasons 5-9) to direct this one. Too bad they can’t pull in the old writers and directors more often.
Yeah it’s a real tragedy. 😦
I like this episode only because of the Bart subplot. I really like the animation styled they used for the cannibal cook’s story and music. Plus, I thought Bart’s plot was far more interesting than Lisa’s, which was meh.
I’ve been watching a TON of Moral Orel in preparation for the special that aired earlier this week and I am honestly seeing parallels of Homer and Marge with Clay and Bloberta and it’s incredibly sad of me to think the same of these two marriages especially since I watched The Way We Was no less than a week ago, but I can’t help it. That said, I’m looking forward to the eventual episode where Homer shoots Bart in the leg and blames him for it.
Peter Bogdanovich is a great director– The Last Picture Show, Targets, Paper Moon, Runnin’ Down a Dream, What’s Up Doc, etc.
James Patterson is a hack. Fuck that guy.
And fuck Cletus and his family, the whole concept is just annoying and I roll my eyes every time he’s on.
Loved the art direction for the Dark Stanley segment.
For some reason, almost any time Willy’s on screen now, I find myself laughing at him. “I’ll bring those kids back dead or alive!” hahaha. He’s just the right amount of over-the-top.
Peter Bogdanovich is the director of The Last Picture Show and Texasville.
Yeah, other than that, this episode was lame.
Whoops. Nevermind. Someone else already pointed that out.
See, Cletus and Brandine are poor, uneducated rednecks so they have lots of kids and love cigarettes, Crystal meth, and excessive patriotism!!! ZOMG that’s soooooo funny and clever that we don’t even have to think of an actual joke about it. We can just say those things directly because making fun if poor white trash is just brilliantly clever by itself
I’m sorry Mike, but I can’t agree with you very much on this episode. I find this one to be quite funny. The stuff with Bart is outstanding. I love everything that deals with Dark Stanley, especially when it turns out what he thought was made up was a real character. That music that plays during those scenes is so damn awesome. One of the best pieces of music to come out of the show outside of the THoH music.
Now Lisa’s story is kind of hit or miss. I do agree with the names of the kids, but frankly, they’re Cleetus’ kids, so their names are irrelevant. Nevertheless, I do think the jokes are funny and I like how Brandine tears Cleetus a new one.
This is not only one of the best episodes of Season 18, but one of the best Post-Classic era episodes. Okay okay, to be fair, it would only make an honorable mention and not on the actual list.
“You have destroyed all human life on Earth. Level one complete!”
That part made me laugh, and it haven’t happened in a while watching ZS.
Otherwise, atrocious episode.