Season Eight Revisited (Part Four)

20. The Canine Mutiny

• How little do Homer and Marge care about where Bart got an entire room full of new expensive items? They also have absolutely no questions about his story about getting Laddie at a truth-telling contest at a church two towns over. Like, yeah, that’s the joke, but it makes Marge (and to a lesser extent, Homer) out to be an incredibly gullible idiot in the process.
• When Bart returns to find the repo men taking back all his stuff, he asks Lisa if their parents are home. Lisa replies, “They went for a walk with the Flanderses.” Say what now? Can you believe for even a microsecond that Homer would not only agree to go on a walk, but go on a walk with Ned Flanders? I get they needed Homer and Marge out of the scene, but any other excuse they could have written would have been more believable.
• Last time around, I remember having an issue with this episode being about Bart and Santa’s Little Helper, but Bart never really regarding the dog or having any kind of connection with him to set it up. It’s not even about how he realizes he ignored this dog he loved and needs to work overtime to get him back. Bart actively ignores Santa’s Little Helper for most of the first act; watching this episode for the first time as a dog owner, those scenes of SLH being shut out made my heart hurt, and I found myself rooting against Bart even more through the episode. It also doesn’t even make sense he would pick Laddie; we don’t see much of a personal bond between the new dog and Bart either, but also, Bart loves SLH because they’re both disobedient screw-ups. The “perfect dog” shouldn’t have much appeal to a little hellion like Bart.
• “Why did I have the bowl, Bart? Why did I have the bowl?!”
• On the Simpsons Archive, the madam in Bart’s dog-furnace fantasy is credited to Tress MacNeille, but it really sounds like Yeardley Smith to me, which is an absolute rarity. She’s voiced, what, a dozen characters over thirty years?
• Baby Gerald blinks one eye at a time, that’s how you know he’s evil.
• Moe’s repossessed floor is easily the best joke of the episode. It’s stupid by itself, but made even funnier that we just saw Bart walk into the building, and it was clearly much, much too small for the huge floor to fit inside of.
  
• Bart prepares himself to beg for SLH back by wetting his hands to streak tears onto his face. Again, not making it easy on me to want him to succeed.
• Bart sneaking into Mr. Mitchell’s house to take the dog is basically a joke-free action set piece, something we would see a lot more of going into the Mike Scully years. It sucks.
• This really is the first giant dud of the series. I’m not a fan of “Secrets of a Successful Marriage,” but it definitely has its share of funny lines. This episode is just such a vacuum leading up to an overly dramatic ending that I couldn’t care less about. Though we did get Chief Wiggum feebly attempting to sing along to “Jammin’.”
• Simpsons Archive retro review: “Finally, a solid Season 8 episode! As an utterly forgettable season nears its close, it’s good to have at least one episode that qualifies as an instant classic. Groundskeeper Willie was hilarious, as was the Comic Book Guy. And for a change, the ending was a) hysterical, and b) a complete surprise. Let’s just hope that ‘Canine Mutiny’ is not a fluke in a deteriorating series, but a sign that the Simpsons are back on track for good.”

21. The Old Man and the Lisa

• We get two great gags within the first twenty seconds: Marge’s beehive smushed against the pillow before popping back into place, and the snippet of Colonel Dracula Joins the Navy (“Uh, Colonel?” “BLEHH!!”) The episode just started and it’s already better than “The Canine Mutiny.” 
• “What a load of garbage. I’m ecstatic!”
• I like that Burns’ internal dictionary for “redskin” is labeled as “usually taken to be offensive,” which seems impressively progressive for him. I also love “running dog: one who does someone else’s bidding: LACKEY (ie: SMITHERS)”
• Burns’ incredibly sycophantic underlings (and Smithers) being responsible for bankrupting him is a good enough excuse to get this plot started, with good enough material as well (Burns reacting in horror at the 1929 stock market crash is a great moment), but it does seem a bit silly. I feel like either Burns would be smart enough to listen to his advisors (as we’d seen in other episodes like “Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?” and “Homer Goes to College”) or his lawyers would know how to best placate their feeble old man of a client while still investing correctly to keep them all stinking rich.
• I love how violently Skinner smashes into the tree and knocks it down, complete with the screaming and crying children inside, just completely undercutting the wholesomeness of everything that came before it.
• Something I never noticed before on the bottom of Burns’ bankruptcy chart: “Prepared for You by ChartCo,” complete with little smiley faces.
• Burns’ shopping trip feels like an extended, more exaggerated reprise of him trying to be self-sufficient in “Homer the Smithers.” While these moments would creak open the door to many, many pathetic, neutered Burns moments in the future, I can still appreciate them in the context of these episodes for what they are. Him getting trapped in the freezer is a bit much, but goddamn do I love me some ketchup-catsup confusion (“I’m in way over my head!”)
• It’s a little on the nose with the one leaf waiting to fall, but I like Burns standing by the window, lamenting at this being the end of his life, his legacy. It’s actually kind of affecting, and a much-needed “real” moment following his more enfeebled behavior after losing his fortune.
  
• I don’t know one damn thing about “That Girl,” but the sequence of Burns pursuing Lisa still works as a silly little montage. But I absolutely love how the song ends with the doorbell ring in time with the music. Such a small attention to detail that’s just fantastic.
• “People, if we meet this week’s quota, I’ll take you to the most duck-filled pond you ever sat by!” “Hot-diggity! That’s how they got me to vote for Lyndon LaRouche!”
• The reveal of the new recycling plant’s operations is so incredibly well done. It was set up with Lisa explaining the hazards of soda can rings to the sealife, and of course, Burns’ mind interprets this in a completely different way than her. It’s not like Burns was doing an act in seemingly reforming himself, this is just environmentalism through his own prism, that of a brutal, heartless capitalist.
• Smithers walking into the Simpson living room at the end, asking Homer, “Why aren’t you at work?” definitely feels like a harbinger of things to come. The seat at sector 7G is about to get colder and colder as we enter the Scully years…
• If you want, you can watch the episodes out of order and put this one last, so the series finale is Homer suffering a heart attack and dying. I can’t imagine the actual series finale, if we even live to see it, could be a more satisfying end than that.
• Simpsons Archive retro review: “Pretty much your Ho-hum 8th season Simpsons episode. A few good gags thrown on top of an unrealistic plot followed by an abrupt ending. Anyone notice that the writers’ things to be killing a lot of things on the show this season? Dogs, sea life, soldiers, James Bond… Some of it is funny because it is well done, but a lot of it seems to be done for shock value (like tonight’s episode), which isn’t especially funny (at least that’s what it seems like to me).”

22. In Marge We Trust

• Snowball II scratching under the floorboards between the first and second floors feels like a grim joke, but I guess if the cat got there in the first place, it can find a way out too.
• I love how painful Homer smacking his head on the backside of the pew feels, making his incredibly loud “DAMMIT!” even funnier.
• Homer and the kids giddily scrounging around in the dump has shades of Scully-era antics, but it kind of fits in line with them being a not-so-well-off family trying to score some free stuff the more fortunate have discarded. Similarly, Homer getting attacked by the raccoon feels like a moment that would go on for twice as long and be incredibly annoying just a few years later, but here, it happens quickly, you get your laugh and you get out.
• Reverend Lovejoy gets just the right amount of backstory: he was once an idealistic man of God ready to lead his new flock (“The sixties were long over and people were once again ready to feel bad about themselves,”) until he found himself getting pestered relentlessly by a neurotic Ned Flanders (“I think I may be coveting my own wife!”) until his spirit finally broke (“Finally, I just stopped caring.  Luckily, by then it was the eighties, and no one noticed.”) I wouldn’t be opposed to other episodes about Lovejoy, but this section is so satisfyingly succinct, I don’t really need anything else. We just got that terrible “Warrin’ Priests” two-parter last season that ostensibly was about Lovejoy, but didn’t tell us a goddamn thing about him, so I’ll pass on any further attempts, thanks.
• “Mother’s gone too far. She’s put cardboard over her half of the television. We rented Man Without a Face,’ I didn’t even know we had a problem!”
• “I’ve lost the will to live.” “Aww, that’s ridiculous, Moe. You’ve got lots to live for.” “Really? That’s not what Reverend Lovejoy’s been telling me.”
• I absolutely love Homer dialing the phone at the library. I feel with these scenes that go on for so long, they can hit or miss with some people, but I think it’s great. The librarian shooting him a look before leaving, Homer not being able to remember more than one number at a time… fantastic.
• In certain situations of meeting up with people, I feel like I would say “Let’s talk, why not?” a bunch, like the English-speaking Mr. Sparkle employee.
• I assume the writers looked up a bunch of saints’ names and picked the most obscure one with the longest name they could (“St. Eleutherius of Nicomedia!” “That’s my name, don’t wear it out!”) His Wikipedia page is literally one line. Also included is an “In popular culture” section citing this episode, which is as long as the “article” itself, which is pretty amazing.
• What more could I say about the Mr. Sparkle commercial? The entirety of that scene, complete with the intro and outro dialogue, was on one of the soundtrack CDs, despite it not being a song. The commercial section is certainly weird to hear only audio. Also, I really hope whoever designed the two logos merging into the Mr. Sparkle head got a raise.
  
• The Sea Captain lamenting his lost Game Boy is one of those scenes that’s so dumb, but that’s why I love it. Losing your Tetris high score is no laughing matter.
• Act three is where the episode starts to derail. The bullies are hassling Ned at the Leftorium, fair enough, but then they proceed to chase him out of town literally all night? It doesn’t really make much sense. The culmination also doesn’t really represent any character change. Marge’s “bad” advice didn’t really create Ned’s situation, and there’s nothing specifically that Lovejoy did to save the day, besides actually give a shit to try and save Ned at all. I’m not expecting a deep, thoughtful re-examination of Lovejoy’s faith, but something a bit more grounded and character-based would have been preferable to him attacking a bunch of wild baboons. At least they utilized his love of trains in some fashion, it at least added a character touch to the action sequence, which is more that can be said for similar scenes in the future.
• “You’ve got to get him out of there!” “Jeez, I’d like to, but if they don’t kill the intruder, it’s really bad for their society.”
• Simpsons Archive retro review: “Yuck! What a stretch for a story-line (Both ‘Mr. Sparkle’ AND ‘In Marge We Trust’). This episode was as flat as a five-year-old can of Coors Light. Could the ending be any less believable? Sheesh! At least we know Ned still runs the Leftorium and Rev. Lovejoy’s first name is ‘Tim.’ After ‘Canine Mutiny,’ I guess the writers were bound for a DUD! During Act 3 I was not ROTFL, as hoped. Instead I was RFRC (Reaching For The Remote Control).”

23. Homer’s Enemy

• Frank Grimes’ sad backstory is still great of course (clashing wonderfully with Kent Brockman’s enthusiastic narration.) I still love the implication of seeing the footage from inside the car as little kid is being abandoned, implying not only did his parents film this devastating moment, but later made the video public in some form, or provided Channel 6 with the tape after the fact.
• I feel like Burns hiring the dog as his executive vice president is a little too silly, but I really like when he’s chewing out Grimes later and you hear him growling.
• Just like Julie Andrews almost voicing Shary Bobbins, I can’t imagine anyone else bringing Frank Grimes to life than Hank Azaria. I knew he had based the voice on William H. Macy, who I had thought was actually considered for the role, but apparently according to Wikipedia, producers were thinking of Nic freaking Cage for the part. While that would have been its own kind of amazing, it certainly wouldn’t have been the same character, and much less appropriate than Azaria’s take.
• Frank Grimes perfectly rides the line of being just a regular guy we have some sympathy for, but also being kind of a pompous ass. Wiping his hand before he shakes anyone else’s, his special dietetic lunch, his manner of speaking with others, like his humorless response to Homer first calling him “Grimey” (“I took the trouble to learn your name, so the least you could do is learn mine.”) It brilliantly sets up the grand finale; if he was too likable, his tragic death would hit a little too hard, but giving him these foibles, as well as his continued obsession with Homer through the episode being his own undoing, almost softens the blow a bit.
  
• I like that the “Bart Simpson” on the abandoned office door almost looks like it’s written in blood.
• “That’s the man who’s in charge of our safety! It boggles the mind.” “It’s best not to think about it.” The first of many great meta lines.
• Grimes’ angry tirade at the Simpson house is an all-time great, and now feels especially more venomous following a recent article about how unattainable the Simpsons’ standard of living is by modern standards. The Simpsons were originally supposed to be an average, but struggling American family, but nowadays? Grimes is right, their place is a palace. A huge house and kids on a single income? It’s like a fantasy for a lot of people I know.
• This episode, of course, is like patient zero for Jerkass Homer… kind of. His irritating behavior driving Grimes to the edge teeters on the edge of being way too annoying, but it’s the whole point of the episode, and it never feels like it goes too far. The problem would come when these characteristics would bleed into the series and normalize, similar to Lisa’s militant liberal pestering from “Lisa the Vegetarian” or pathetic, feeble old Burns from “The Old Man and the Lisa.” Homer is saved in this episode because he still has a sense of shame and self-awareness, genuinely wanting to win Grimes over, as seen in him fretting before the big dinner. The scene where Marge finds him in the driveway is also strangely affecting, almost like he’s a kid afraid to go to school and face his bully. It’s endearing and sweet, two traits that Homer would soon shed in favor of selfish and irritating.
• Syndication cuts the scene of Bart enlisting Milhouse as night watchman (losing the terrific line, “So this is my life. At least I’ve done better than Dad,”) leaving me to always find it weird that we just get the one quick scene in act three wrapping up the B-plot of the destroyed factory.
• I love Smithers’ amused chuckle at Ralph’s converted Malibu Stacy Dream Home model. Burns is not as tickled by it (“It’s supposed to be a power plant, not Aunt Beaulah’s bordello!”)
• Homer getting applauded by everybody, Burns included, definitely gave me chills about how often this dumb oaf would be commended town-wide for his dumbass actions in the future. That’s the thing with this episode, it’s holding a mirror up to the series and how nonsensical it’s become. Homer, once a schlubby everyman, has rubbed elbows with celebrities, nearly caused multiple meltdowns with no risk to his job, and been to outer space. He’s incapable of being the complete lovable loser he once was. So where to go from here? That’s when we get the real chilling harbinger line (“I’m better than okay! I’m Homer Simpson!” “Pfft. You wish!”) With that, we set the doors open for Homer to shed his sweet humbleness and become an egoistic lunatic in the Mike Scully years, engaging in crazy schemes and fucking shit up because why not? Once you open up this Pandora’s Box of exploring who Homer is, he really can’t go back to the way things were. And once again, this is another example, if not the biggest example, of why the show shouldn’t have gone past one more season. Episodes like this, “Poochie,” and big moments and others are fantastic isolated, but are slightly more sour when you remember there’s five hundred fucking more episodes that follow it.
• Simpsons Archive retro review: “I’ve never said this about any episode, because my opinions usually change on them. But this was by far the worst episode in the history of The Simpsons. I don’t think any other program will be able to top this one. Homer’s irresponsibleness is glaring, and the story focuses too much on Homer’s lack of professionalism, making him very unlikable. Frank, on the other hand, had many a good point, and got a raw deal throughout the entire thing. I actually felt sorry for him, instead of Homer. Our hero is sleeping through Frank’s funeral, and cracking an inappropriate joke during it. And everyone LAUGHS at it. This is perhaps the single most tasteless, cruel, cold-blooded moment in OFF’s history. Let’s hope this one is played few times in syndication, and buried as a ‘Lost Episode.’”

24. The Simpsons Spin-off Showcase

• This episode gets a big laugh right away at the quick zoom as Troy turns to camera, proudly shouting, “Spin-off!” Always the professional, doing his damndest to sell this bullshit. This show and “The 138th Episode Spectacular” are two-of-a-kind in this fourth wall breaking format, but this episode particularly feels like the embarrassed forefather of the future trilogy episodes, most of which are terrible. I certainly wouldn’t want them to have done “Spin-off Showcase 2,” but maybe a different kind of trilogy episode, like showing “What If?” scenarios or different moments in side characters’ lives with a shared theme or something. Instead, we got such riveting trilogy episodes like the one where they’re all about famous historical ships. Remember that classic?
• Great exposition dump at the start of “Chief Wiggum, P.I.” explaining the impetus for the premise (“I still don’t understand, Clancy. Why give up your job as a small town police chief to open up a detective shop in New Orleans?” “Oh, lots of reasons, I suppose. Got kicked off the force, for one thing.”)
• “Look, Big Daddy! It’s regular Daddy!”
• Gailard Sartain earned his paycheck for Big Daddy just for the “BLEEAGH” noise he makes throwing Ralph at Wiggum before he tosses himself out the window.
• The canned laughter is used so perfectly in “Love-Matic Grampa.” I can’t believe there are still sitcoms being made with laugh tracks, even ones that aren’t shot in front of a live audience. It feels like such a woefully antiquated format of storytelling. 
• “I’ve suffered so long. Why can’t I die?” The only way this line could be improved is if the laugh track were put right after it.
• “You know what’s great about you, Betty, is you’re letting your looks go gracefully. You’re not all hung up on looking attractive and desirable. It’s just so rare and refreshing.”
• I still love Moe’s quick “He’s haunted!” aside in the laughing outro of “Grampa.”
• Nice touch that the clock behind Kent Brockamn during the “Variety Hour” intro is in “real-time” for its primetime original airing, at around 8:20 pm.
• “And now, a family that doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘cancelled,’ the Simpsons!” A cheeky line when it was written, a dire threat over twenty years later.
• Cutting back to the Sea Captain with his manufactured loud pipe whistle and floating hat for seconds before the finale always makes me laugh.
  
• Gotta love Tim Conway booking it the hell out of there the second the show is over. I don’t blame him.
• For the series finale, they might as well go for broke and give Homer magic powers and have Bart’s triplet siblings make an appearance. Fuck it, why not?
• Simpsons Archive retro review: “In answer to the question, ‘How do you keep the Simpsons fresh after 8 long seasons?’, you don’t. Let’s not drag it through the mud here guys. Like many episodes this season, it’s funny for about 2 minutes, then it degrades into absurd, outlandish jokes that are hard to follow and not particularly funny. If they had ended the show with ‘Summer of 4′ 2’’ I would have been pretty upset, but after seeing most of season 8, I’d say it’s time to put OFF to rest.”

25. The Secret War of Lisa Simpson

• Of course Chief Wiggum would leave the police station door key under the mat.
• Wiggum’s hippie mannequins are great. The woman getting ready to chow down on her “California cheeseburger” reminds me of reading through Snopes.com when I was younger in their ‘Horrors’ section, looking at all the different urban myths and legends, including the likes of the babysitter who was high on LSD and put the baby in the oven thinking it was a turkey, that kind of shit. Nowadays, the site seems to be focused on debunking fake news in fact checking all of the stupid phony bullshit we see in the news and on social media every minute of our lives. The nostalgic innocence is all gone…
• “It’s not my nature to complain…” Just give it a few years, Lisa, your character will be ruined soon enough…
• I really love the bit where everyone has to wait until the townwide ringing echo stops. It helps to further emphasize the enormity of Bart’s prank, and having a follow-up scene gives it even more weight.
• A rebuttal to anyone who thought “Diary Queen” was believable characterization for Edna: her and Skinner toasting in celebration when Bart gets shipped off to military school (“You dream about this day for so long, then when it comes, you don’t know what to say!” “Edna, your tears say more than words ever could.”
• The gag about the girliest cadet at Rommelwood certainly hasn’t aged well…
• “Since you attended public school I’m going to assume that you’re already proficient with small arms, so we’ll start you off with something a little more advanced.”
  
• This episode is a bit more of a slog than I remember. There’s not really much critique about military schools, you’d think a prime target for a show like this, it’s completely hyper focused on Lisa’s struggles, which all comes down to the other students giving her and Bart a hard time, the type of bullying and hazing you can get in many other different shows. Also, Lisa specifically wanted an academic challenge, and there never felt like there was any connective tissue of her feeling like she would be up to the actual physical challenges of the school. Why does she care about doing this?
• “Good job, Simpson, although that’s more cursing than I like to hear from a cadet in peacetime.”
• Act three is almost a deadzone between the training and the loooooonnnnggg sequence of Lisa doing the Eliminator. There’s so few jokes, and while Bart ultimately rooting for Lisa is sweet, it doesn’t feel worth the time investment. The greatest emotional moments of the series sometimes caught you by surprise, or were motivated through the story that was almost jam-packed with jokes. Here, the entire back half of the episode is devoted to Bart feeling bad for shutting Lisa out and making it up to her, with not much else to, as Bart himself once said earlier this season, “cut through the treacle.”
• “The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: to build and maintain those robots. Thank you.”
• Simpsons Archive retro review: “VERY, VERY disappointing. It’s amazing how far a show can fall in one season. The episode was so bad, I really must wonder why anyone bothered to make it. Seeing Bart spun on a propeller and Lisa firing a machine gun really made me feel like I was watching a show that just happened to contain characters from the Simpsons. Where’s the realism? The relevancy? Gone.”