Season Nine Revisited (Part One)

1. The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson

• Coming in under the wire at the very end of the eighth production season, Duffman is the last great character to come out of this series (Gil was funny at times, but forever living in the gigantic shadow cast by Lionel Hutz.) It’s like “Oh Yeah” was made for him and his bravado showmanship. I also like his reluctant, but contractually obligated support of the designated driver program when Barney brings the mood down.
• I feel kind of foolish not thinking of this before, but where the hell is Marge’s car? Why is Homer riding around on a scooter and building his own vehicle out of a mattress when the family has always had two cars, as angrily pointed out by Frank Grimes just three episodes ago.
• “If you do not remedy this malparkage within 72 hours, your car will be thrown into the East River at your expense.”
• Homer’s nightmare flashback to his bad New York experience is a wonderful sequence, it’s so expertly timed to the music.
• Obligatory “SIMPSONS DID 9/11” reference.
  
• The second and last (as far as I can remember) appearance of the Very Tall Man is sadly a syndication cut. It’s not the best joke, but to be fair, his first appearance was an all-time great, so to top that would be a tall order (ha ha ha.) Also interesting in that this episode is written by Ian Maxtone-Graham, the physical inspiration for the character.
• Watching Homer in this episode kind of reminded me of “Homer Goes to College;” he acts wildly exaggerated in both shows based upon preconceived notions in his head that cloud everything else. In “College,” he was convinced he was living in a bad college movie, and here, his one bad New York trip (which he’s most likely exaggerated in his head over the years) has created his irrational hatred of the city. He may be crazier here than he was in “College,” but I can accept his behavior in context for the most part. But of course, it’s a slippery slope for Homer from here…
• Homer biting the nuts on the tire really makes me wince. The sounds effects make it even worse, my teeth just recoiled inside my mouth.
• Marge and the kids traveling from NYC landmark to landmark definitely set the template for all future travel shows, where it’s just a matter of showing a handful of tourist locations, make your tepid jokes and call it a day. It’s pretty similar here, but the jokes are definitely stronger, and their wonderful day exploring the city contrasts Homer’s miserable escapades.
• “Chinese fire drill! Serious this time!!”
• “Checkin’ In” is one of the last great songs of the series, it’s very catchy and well-done, feeling very evocative of a Broadway-style tune. It’s also another song off the soundtrack CDs that I never quite understood as a kid. Not many cartoons back in the 90s talked about methadone clinics and Liza Minelli. Also, the lead actor seems to be modeled off Robert Downey, Jr., one of two RDJ jokes in the series about him being a washed-up druggie, which is especially funny in retrospect, since he’s been the highest paid actor in Hollywood for several years now.
• I totally get why some people would find Homer aggravating in this episode, but I love it. I laugh every time that boot just completely destroys the side of his car, and just how blinded with misplaced rage he is in his attempts to get the fuck out of NYC (smashing in the car radio as “Everything is Beautiful” plays is a highlight.) The only bit I don’t really like is when he tells Marge and the kids to jump in the car (“No time for the baby!”)
• Simpsons Archive retro review: “Bland with little to laugh at – even with the contrived plot, there were plenty of opportunities for jokes that were missed. Homer was blazingly out of character, unless you prefer the idiot version of Homer, and the rest of the family, with much potential with NYC jokes, took a backseat to Homer’s antics. The age of the show is definitely showing, and seems to be lacking an overall QA manager.”
  

2. The Principal and the Pauper

• “Superintendent Chalmers!  Can I offer you a cup of coffee-flavored beverine?” “Yes, I take it grey, with creamium.”
• I like Agnes’ poorly-disguised deception in getting Skinner to his surprise party. I feel like up to this point, there have been just enough moments showing that Agnes depends on her son and cares for him to some extent, while past this point, it would just be an endless parade of scathing remarks about how she wish he were dead while Skinner just takes it like a wuss.
• “I’m an imposter. That is the real…” has become a really solid shitpost meme that’s been used for so many different things.
• So yeah, this will mostly just be talking about the controversial story of this episode, and hopefully I won’t just retread what I talked about ten years ago. I can’t imagine what I would have thought watching this when it aired, especially to have a bombshell show like this as the second episode of the season. Even with Skinner’s rewritten history not contradicting much from what we already know, it still recolors him in a less than favorable way. Skinner looking back fondly about the horrors of war, be it his nostalgic satisfaction finding his old POW helmet at a swap meet or his desperate attempts to recreate his beloved rice stew stateside, was incredibly funny irony, but also spoke a lot about Skinner’s character. Here, his Vietnam experiences feel more normalized, where he was a punk kid who learned to be a better man under the wing of his commanding officer. Depicting Skinner as a rebellious youth is an interesting idea, but it’s an episode I’d rather like to see as its own story, not in this overcomplicated misfire of a show.
• I know for sure I mentioned the audio commentary last time around, but I’d highly recommend listening to it, as writer Ken Keeler attempts to explain what he was going for (and admits himself it didn’t quite work out as he hoped.) He talks about how he never expected anyone to care so much about a secondary character like Skinner, a point seemingly represented in the episode with this Marge and Skinner exchange (“How would you feel if you suddenly found out Ned Flanders was an impostor?” “…who’s Ned Flanders?”)
• Exactly how much time goes by between Sgt. Skinner’s arrival and Skinner leaving town? Where was he staying, and what was he doing? Another sizable problem with this episode is just what a black hole of a character Sgt. Skinner is. I get that he’s supposed to be this weird interloper that the rest of the cast doesn’t quite gel with, but we only get that from Agnes getting upset that he was at a bar and he’s borrowing her car. But who is he? What kind of life does he want for himself in Springfield? His lifelong dream was to be principal, and we barely even see that. And why did he come home to change to a turtleneck? Creating a deeper contrast between the two Skinners and emphasizing how weird life is with the “real” Skinner back may have helped this episode, but it’s already juggling so much plot I’m not sure if it would have helped much.
• “Up yours, children!” is great, but why exactly are the kids just hanging by the storage center at night? Maybe the ice cream shop was just down the block.
• Skinner’s new job outside Topless Nudes is definitely one of the highlights of the episode (”They’re not even wearing a smile! Nod suggestively!”)
• Everything really starts to tear apart the more you mentally unravel it. You can say Agnes was an old woman who had forgotten exactly what her son looked like (even though they imply that she always knew, which is a whole greater topic I won’t even go into), but surely lots of other people in Springfield knew the real Skinner and would be confused as to what was going on. But the episode doesn’t really want you to think about any of that; as Homer explains at the end, “Do any of you care?” And the answer is yes, yeah, I kind of do. Ken Keeler is responsible for some of the greatest Futurama episodes (as well as Simpsons gems like “Two Bad Neighbors” and “Brother From Another Series”), but he really way over thought this one. The episode is a failure, but it’s an interesting failure, definitely enhanced by listening to the commentary. It also feels like Oakley & Weinstein’s very last meta deconstruction, but unlike “Poochie” and “Homer’s Enemy,” this one just really missed the mark.
• Simpsons Archive retro review: “Ken Keeler, I hate you. This episode is certainly a waste of tape. Abandoning all continuity and destroying a great supporting character in exchange for a few cheap laughs? I’m sorry, that might have worked on ‘The Critic,’ but if you haven’t noticed, this ain’t ‘The Critic.’ The only solace is that this appears to be Keeler’s final episode. Well, Mr. Keeler, with this episode, you have earned yourself the most welcome exit since Jennifer Crittenden.”

3. Lisa’s Sax

• Man, it’s so weird that Michigan J. Frog was the WB Network’s mascot. It was meant to appeal to kids and younger teens, but not only is he a relatively obscure character, but he’s a fucking frog who sings turn-of-the-century showtunes, and he’s gonna appeal to 90s kids? Whatever. When they finally retired him in 2005, WB chairman Garth Ancier commented, “The frog is dead and buried,” which is pretty hardcore.
• “It all happened in 1990! Back then, The Artist Formerly Known as Prince was currently known as Prince. Tracey Ullman was entertaining America with songs, sketches, and crudely drawn filler material…” The first big warning sign that the show’s been running too long is that the flashbacks are now officially clashing with show history. It’s a cute nod now, but it would become more of a nagging problem in the future.
• Li’l Jimbo’s bunny shirt is just adorable.
• I like Lisa’s demure clapping next to a more enthusiastic Bart and Lisa after Homer and Marge finish the first part of their story/song in the first act. It’s a great touch leading up to her outburst that they were telling the wrong damn story.
• Gotta love Curious George and the Ebola Virus.
• Li’l Bart’s troubling drawing is appropriately disturbing. Homer’s dismissive patronizing turned outright horror when he finally looks at it is a great performance by Dan.
  
• Dr. Pryor and the owner of King Toot’s make their first re-appearances in years, but neither of them have the same voices. Could they not have checked the old tapes to double check that?
• This episode has the first of what seemed like many Milhouse-is-gay jokes, with Dr. Pryor’s file about his “flamboyant homosexual tendencies.” The joke doesn’t really seem like it’s about the wild paranoia at overanalyzing and sexualizing young children, it’s more like, ha ha he’s gay/effeminate. Same with in “All Singing, All Dancing” with Bart’s lyrics “I hate to dance and prance and sing/That’s really more of a Milhouse thing.” 
• “The point I’m trying to make here is, that Bart must learn to be less of an individual and more of a faceless slug.”
• Yeardley Smith gives an adorable performance as 3-year-old Lisa (“Wave of the future!” still manages to touch my cold, black heart.)
• The plot of this episode is weirdly kind of start-and-stop, since we focus exclusively on Bart for the first half, then it becomes about Lisa up until the very end, with Bart getting a scene wrap-up to his story in act three. It’s funny that li’l Bart and li’l Lisa don’t even have any kind of interaction. But what we get is pretty good; Bart meeting li’l Milhouse (who is INCREDIBLY flaming, right?!) and his birth as a class clown feels very appropriate and satisfying. 
• I really like the jazzy end credits, which Homer angrily interrupts (“Lisa! Enough saxa-ma-phone already!”), then continues and closes out minus the saxophone part. It’s a pretty clever joke.
• Simpsons Archive retro review: “Hmmm. This episode read kind of like the old Simpsons- old in that they stuck to a plot, made some sort of sense, and still verged on hilarity. I liked it a lot, but there were a couple of things I just sort of shook my head at. The Fruitopia bashing, the WB bashing, etc- what’s the point they’re trying to make? It’s not satire, just bitter bad-mouthing. What was the whole ‘Simpsons is filmed in front of a live studio audience’ supposed to mean? Why were they reminiscing about the ’70s at the start of the show? All in all, it could have been a lot worse.”

4. Treehouse of Horror VIII

• God bless the FOX censor and robbing us of that bit about the crack pipe (“As the FOX censor, it’s my job to protect you from reality.”) It’s also probably the last clever TOH opening. The one next year with the twisted opening sequence where everyone dies is neat, I guess, but this one feels more creative.
• “I stand by my ethnic slur!” is a Quimby line for the ages.
• It’s weird that Homer refers to “The Far Side” calendar as a Gary Larson calendar. It couldn’t have been an issue of permission; why say the cartoonist’s name when most people would most recognize the name of the comic?
• There was a period where I thought the show writers had forgotten to put Kang and Kodos in this year’s special. Sadly, they were victims of syndication cuts, which sucks because it’s one of their best appearances; I like the idea of a reverse-UFO sighting and their shock at seeing the missile fly by.
• Seeing Homer in that theater full of corpses makes me really miss going to the movie theater. I’d even see a David Spade/Chris Farley movie, I don’t give at shit.
• I always smile at Homer singing along and responding to “War” (“Say it again! Okay!”)
• “The Homega Man” kind of falls apart by the end. The freaks and why they want to kill Homer feels kind of rushed, and we get an extended chase sequence that isn’t really funny, and Marge and the kids killing them as the twist ending feels more random than unexpected. The chase scene did give me Hit & Run flashbacks to the final Halloween level. Even the music felt kind of reminiscent of the game. Remember the last mission where you have to carry nuclear waste barrels to the spaceship, but you can’t drive too recklessly or else they’ll explode and you have to start all over? What a pain in the ass that was.
• Not only is the cat ear medicine the exact same type of can as a Duff, but it’s placed right between two Duff cans. Amazing.
• The two-headed Santa’s Little Helper/Snowball II fusion actually beat Nickelodeon’s CatDog to the punch by a year. FOX should have sued!
• It goes against Matt Groening’s long-attested rule about animals never acting too humanlike, but the spider shaking its fists at fly Bart as it escapes is still really funny to me.
• I love the touch of 1649 Krabappel having the scarlet A.
• Impressively, this show has gotten two equally funny retorts to Lisa quoting the same Bible verse to make a point (“Doesn’t the Bible say `Judge not lest ye be judged?’”) In “Bart’s Girlfriend,” Lovejoy murmurs, “I think it’s somewhere towards the back…” and here, 1649 Wiggum dismisses, “The Bible says a lot of things,” before ordering Lisa’s mother to be shoved off the cliff. 
• “Oh, Neddy, look at them up there, plotting our doom! They could force us to commit wonton acts of carnality!” “Pffft, yeah, that’ll be the day.” Great line, and interesting that 1649 Ned is considerably hornier than his modern day counterpart.
• It really is funny how quickly the dial is being turned on Homer’s characterization. This is the second episode of the ninth production season, and first to air, and we’ve got Homer angrily punching corpses, threatening Bart with an axe and an ending where he gets an angry mob to chase Lisa out of town. Season 9 still has a lot of the same writers as season 8, but Oakley & Weinstein must have tethered these impulses to some extent, and then Mike Scully moves up and I guess decided to just let the chains loose. And look how good that turned out!
• Simpsons Archive retro review: “While TOH VIII didn’t quite reach the heights of III or VI, it was a decent entry in one of the most unique holiday series on TV today. ‘Fly vs. Fly’ was the best episode; it lacked any jarring shifts in tone and had an abundance of good gags. The endings for ‘The Homega Man’ and ‘Easy-Bake Coven’ clashed with the shorts’ beginnings, but each short had something to recommend it.”

5. The Cartridge Family

• The soccer ad feels like a classic manipulative Simpsons commercial (“It’s all here: fast-kicking, low scoring, and ties? You bet!”) Also, Ariaga and Ariaga II is one of those jokes I absolutely don’t understand but love all the same.
• Great bit of Springfield history from Marge about the soccer stadium (“It’s hard to believe this used to be an internment camp!”)
• Great detail at the riot with Dr. Hibbert strangling Dr. Nick.
• “But surely you can’t put a price on your family’s lives.” “I wouldn’t have thought so either, but here we are.”
• Hey, have I mentioned Dankmus in a while?
• Homer in this episode feels reminiscent of “Homer’s Phobia,” where his character is being co-opted slightly to represent the average American man, previously in his latent homophobia, now with his loudmouth support of his right to own a gun. He definitely comes off worse here than “Phobia” for a few reasons, but the core of the episode feels sound to me.
• The episode has its fun with gun-nut culture, with the NRA group scenes feeling depressingly familiar over twenty years later. It’s not really even parody anymore. Moe’s closing joke of his story about shooting and paralyzing a would-be robber (”I guess the next place he robs better have a ramp!”) being met with raucous laughter from the crowd is quite literally something I’d expect to see from CPAC or a similar militantly right-wing meetup.
• Homer’s fantasy about the gilded life he would lead if he robbed the Kwik-E-Mart is another wonderful looping gif-worthy moment.
  
• I feel like I had greater anxiety with Homer’s reckless fooling around with his gun this time around. After the gun goes off twice during dinner, he sets it down on the table and it fires a third time. When we cut back to a wider shot of the kitchen, the gun is pointed incredibly close to where Maggie is sitting. Yeah, that scene is the breaking point with Marge, but Homer coming this close to shooting his infant daughter is pretty hardcore.
• Homer going to respond to Marge’s “I think you’d agree that I’ve put up with a lot in this marriage,” only to stop when he sees Bart and Lisa sternly shaking their heads is a great moment.
• Homer’s hiding place for the gun is pretty stupid, even for him, considering Marge is the only person in the family that would actually open the vegetable crisper.
• There’s been so many “last straw” moments in the last twenty years of the show, of Marge insisting this is the worst thing Homer has ever done, and that it may actually threaten their marriage and their family. Here, it really does feel like it. The episode does a solid job with Marge’s progression, humoring Homer’s new obsession, then her calm and concerned plea for him to give it up, then her justified outrage at his betrayal.
• Homer’s excitement over the gun is fine, but it goes too far by the third act when he’s gleefully shooting the TV and blasting every light in the house. It’s just way too silly.
• “Are you some kind of moron?” This one line from Cletus is not only funnier than anything we saw in “Yokel Hero,” but says more about his character than anything we “learned” in that episode. He may be simple folk, but even he has better gun sense than Homer.
• The episode really falls down at the ending, which I’m not even sure what to make of. Homer is exposed to lying to Marge again, but the day is saved by the other NRA members arriving, packing enough heat to frighten off Snake. So is this like a “good guy with a gun” happy ending? They joke about letting Snake get away, but characterizing reckless dimwits like Moe and Lenny as concerned citizens responding to the triggered silent alarm feels wrong and antithetical to the episode. Homer concludes he can’t trust himself and surrenders the gun to Marge, which I guess I understand, but then Marge decides she looks good with it and keeps it for herself, which I guess is the unexpected twist ending, but I don’t find it very funny.
• Simpsons Archive retro review: “I find that this episode was confusing, trying to preach a lesson that it couldn’t sustain. Lisa’s statement that the Bill of Rights was out of date, picking out one section, while ignoring that her statements could apply to freedom of speech and religion, seemed far too radical for her. On the bright side, all of us that find Marge to be a sexy woman got two treats in this show. One, Homer’s mental view of her in a very sexy and revealing outfit,  plus Marge’s strut when she pockets the pistol for herself. I don’t think this one is destined to be a classic by anyone’s reasoning, but like any of the Simpson shows, it does have a bright spot or two.”
  (we don’t kink-shame on this blog, but what the fuck)

6. Bart Star

• I love Dr. Nick’s big goofy grin manning the “What’s Your Sex?” booth. What else could his procedure possibly entail other than groping the genitals of whoever is foolish enough to indulge him?
  
• The goaded fury which Milhouse repeatedly and violently kicks Bart in the crotch to test the cup is still very funny.
• Lisa’s attempts to rabble rouse pee wee football is a really wonderful scene. She’s raising a stink to get attention, but she’s clearly just a little kid who sheepishly backs down when her efforts are foiled. She doesn’t come off as unlikable or out-of-character; she’s exaggerated a bit to serve the purpose of the scene, but it’s not pushed too far. Thankfully, this would be the very last time Lisa would bitch about a self-righteous cause and she would go onto be a worldly beloved, non-problematic character. Thank goodness for that.
• The two teams both being the Wildcats is even funnier to me as my high school mascot was the Cougars.
• Is there a reason that Uter is depicted throughout the episode only wearing one cleat? Is that a reference to a specific athlete?
• Homer’s hatred of coach Flanders goes sour mainly because of how long it goes on for, as we see him badmouthing him and acting like a dick over multiple scenes over multiple weeks. It also comes out of a self-processed place of meanness, which is incredibly out-of-character of Homer (“Dad, that was really mean!” “I know, sweetie!”) Maybe if he had vied for the coach job and lost to Ned, he would have some kind of motivation, but here, he’s just an asshole. Meanwhile, Ned seems quick to anger, or at least strong annoyance, at Homer’s taunting, and seeing him climb up the stands, stare down Homer and insult him to his face made this feel like a sequel to “Hurricane Neddy.” 
• Homer’s flashback to his gymnastic days is great (Smithers’s excitement when we go from women’s events to men’s, Abe’s “You’re gonna blow it!!”) but it seems like it should have come earlier in act one, or a bit later in act two. As it is now, Homer acts like an overbearing coach dad to Bart for the first minute, then switches gears completely after the flashback. A little more breathing room in either direction would have helped.
• “Son, you can do anything you want. I have total faith in you.” “Since when?” “Since your mother yelled at me.”
• Joe Namath is fantastic, miraculously appearing to help Bart when he needs it most, only to leave without giving any actual information. I like how Bart cycles through all the things he said to him in his mind, trying to parse out anything useful, but ultimately comes up with nothing. On its face, the scene reeks of what would come later where celebrities will just appear out of nowhere and a character will announce who they are (“Wow! Joe Namath!”), but this was intentionally done like that. Plus, Namath ends up looking like kind of a dope, especially in his ending PSA.
  
• The King of the Hill guest appearance is pretty worthless. My mind wants to read it as intentionally underwhelming in response to a presumed big marketing push promoting the crossover, but it doesn’t really feel that way.
• Homer’s awkward mending of fences with Bart is pretty sweet, while being biting at the same time (“If you forgive me, I promise I’ll never encourage you again.”)
• The bait-and-switch ending with Bart taking Nelson’s place in the back of Wiggum’s squad car really works, it’s satisfying unexpected and feels like an appropriate ending.
• Simpsons Archive retro review: “Did anyone else notice how superficial Lisa’s lines were tonight? She only wanted to play football because she thought it was going to cause trouble! As soon as she found out there were already girls on the team, she ran away. I’ve seen writers that couldn’t handle Lisa before, but this time they were just plain wrong! The C.U.P. joke was neither funny nor subtle. The only people that will laugh at it, have either forgotten it, or never heard it before. Even then, it’s likely to be a weak laugh.”