7. Lisa Gets An “A”
- Great, seemingly ad-libbed bit of ADR by Hank Azaria as Moe in the crowd bolting out of church (“Lemme out of here! That guy never stops talking!”)
- Homer buying a cheap baby lobster to raise it to maturity “and eat the profits” feels like a very in-character move, his way of beating the system or something. His growing relationship with Pinchy always feels very innocent and childish, which I will most definitely take over him being a raging Jerkass like most of this era. It all serves as a very sweet, silly B-plot that doesn’t try to outshine the simple and straightforward main Lisa story.
- I was a Nintendo kid growing up, so I never played Crash Bandicoot as a kid. Last year, I bought the remastered trilogy on sale just to see what all the fuss was about, and man, are they bad games. The gussied-up graphics made the aged mechanics and aggravating gameplay stand out even more.
- How in the hell does Homer’s driver’s license say he’s 140 pounds? Even in high school I’d have trouble believing he was that weight, let alone as an adult.
- Nelson’s cheating business housed in the boy’s bathroom is a great scene, with his filing cabinet inside the toilet tank, his employee of the month placard on the stall door, and his insistence that his products are merely study aids for novelty purposes only (“If a few bad apples use them for cheating, I can’t be held responsible.”)
- I don’t know how explicit the show had made Miss Hoover’s alcoholism at this point, but her spilling multiple types of booze on her kids’ test papers definitely locks it in.
- I really like how Skinner and Chalmers are both on the same page regarding keeping the grant money and encouraging Lisa to not come clean. Their relationship would devolve into a caricature of what they once were, but it’s nice to actually see them working together for a common goal. Even small stuff like Chalmers excitedly asking Skinner about the new scoreboard is lovely to see.
- This episode is forever deified by giving us “Super Nintendo Chalmers.” I’m also fond of “I’m learn-ding!” which I use more often than I care to admit.
- Dynamite cameo by the Sea Captain and his toughen-up boarding school for lobsters, capped off with him pathetically asking Homer and Marge for some spare change.
- The ending where everyone tricks Lisa with the fake grant presentation is perfect in concept, that Skinner and company would go through all that trouble to deceive a little girl just for a $250,000 check that they immediately cash at a liquor store. It does feel a little too over-the-top, with Otto’s incredibly realistic mask and vocal performance as the fake Comptroller. Maybe if they had created a new character, like an aide to Chalmers or somebody to pose as the fake Comptroller that Lisa wouldn’t know, but then the audience would have known so it might spoil the reveal… I don’t know what the solution would be, but it’s alright, that doesn’t really sour the ending too much.
- Simpsons Archive retro review: “The Simpsons seems to be slowly deteriorating into ‘The Wacky Homer Simpson and family show.’ Even in an episode based around Lisa, it’s still ‘look at Homer. Look at what he’s doing. See what he’s gotten into now.’ Terrible subplot and terrible ending. I want Ian Maxtone-Graham fired tomorrow!”
8. Homer Simpson in “Kidney Trouble”
- Abe slowly approaching the stalled Simpson car singing “Happy Birthday” as the suspenseful music builds is a pretty great scene.
- The ghost town is basically where the only laughs of the episode are, and there are some admittedly pretty great gags, with the tour guide rambling off about the rich town history of prostitution, Marge eagerly taking pictures of the floorboards, and the scrambling actors during the re-enactment, with one digging a hole for no reason. The animatronic dancing girls were good too, but the other robot bits drag on a bit too long.
- The idea of exploding kidneys is fine for a crazy one-off gag, but I just can’t go along with it as the crux for an entire episode. It just feels dumber and dumber every time I see this episode.
- So yeah, Homer is 100% responsible for Abe being near death, and is basically a humongous asshole for most of the rest of the episode. For doing the decent thing in giving his father a kidney, the family heaps praise and rewards onto him (“Nothing’s too good for a wonderful, generous man like you!” Lisa coos.) But the whole family was in the car when Abe’s organs burst, they know what happened (we see they were asleep for the last leg of the trip, but Marge directly tells Homer it was all his fault, so they must all know.) But I guess that doesn’t matter, since Homer’s such a great fucking guy, isn’t he?
- It really is just so terrible watching Homer run off like a coward leaving his father to die, let alone for him to do it again at the end. I feel like the only way this could have worked if the episode were about Homer’s latent hatred of his father and how awful he was to him growing up, and that feeling coming out of him through an unconscious desire to see him die… wow, that’s actually much darker than I thought it was, maybe that wouldn’t be so funny.
- Homer’s new life at sea and the ship of lost souls is so boring, and just plain strange, like I have no idea what any of it is supposed to mean. Homer is wallowing in shame and is ostensibly at his lowest point of loathing, but we still get jokes about him expecting to be captain or first mate when boarding a new ship, so he’s still an arrogant dick even then.
- “Aren’t you going to give him the last rites?” “That’s Catholic, Marge. You might as well ask me to do a voodoo dance.”
- Homer getting crushed by the car felt like appropriate karmic retribution for his shitty behavior that episode, but I don’t know if the intention of a show is to have your viewer hate the protagonist. For our ending, Homer is absolutely furious Abe got his kidney, vows to get it back, then ends up slobbering over the idea of stealing Bart’s kidney. Just lovely. I ended up listening to a few scattered bits of the audio commentary, and they were just laughing uproariously at both times Homer abandoned Abe, him getting thrown off the ship of lost souls and him getting crushed by the car. I’m glad they had a better time watching this than me, I guess.
- Simpsons Archive retro review: “IMHO, one of the best episodes in recent memory, being a good mixture of humor and seriousness. The scenes at the ghost town were extremely funny, and had me ROFL more than once (history being filthy, flying animatronic robot pieces, taking pictures of boards, etc.). The rest of the plot, although not as well done as this, kept up a good pace. The only really glaring bit was that Homer reverted at times to some of his less savory characteristics). Still, overall an above-average effort.”
9. Mayored to the Mob
- The Bi-Mon-Sci-Fi-Con feels like a watered down version of the convention from “Three Men and a Comic Book.” I really like Comic Book Guy’s anti-meet-cute (“Comb the Sweet-Tarts out of your beard and you’re on.” “Don’t try to change me, baby,”) but that’s about it. Also, Jonathan Harris (Lost in Space’s Dr. Smith) tries to pick up Bart for some reason? What’s that about?
- I can believe that Springfield could have gotten 1998-era Mark Hamill to appear at the con. This is still a year before Phantom Menace, with Star Wars not quite reaching its newest height of popularity yet. At this point, Hamill was becoming a well-established and talented voice actor (also voicing bodyguard teacher Leavelle in this episode), but it’s great that he’s totally game to play himself humiliated by being typecast as Luke, having to perform shitty local dinner theater or get inundated by a mob of nerds (I’m sure he took great pleasure in reading, “Back off, you freaking dweebs!”)
- Why exactly are Lenny, Carl and Willie so adamant about getting to perform a scene with Mark Hamill? I don’t see any of them having a strong love of Star Wars. Between this, Krusty and Mel at the celebrity compound and the very few girl characters the series has being positioned as Lisa’s friends in “Lard of the Dance,” the series is slowly phasing out all generic townspeople in favor of our regular twenty or thirty Springfield regulars, populating them in crowd scenes regardless of logical reason for them being there. At the bodyguard school, Gil and Kirk are there for some reason, but also a handful of random faces, which I was surprised to see at this point.
- Homer becomes Quimby’s bodyguard because he pointed at him and said he could be it, and that’s about the extent of it. They wanted to write a Homer the Bodyguard episode, but no one bothered to write an actual reason he’d want the stupid job in the first place.
- Mark Hamill gives a funny performance as Leavelle, even if that whole section really could have been a lot shorter.
- Homer once again annoys the shit out of everyone with his new job, taking it a step further by applying a sleeper hold and knocking his children unconscious (twice!) Do they not realize how this makes him look like a big asshole? I once again switched to the commentary for those sections, and once again everyone there was hooting and hollering as Homer incapacitates his children and wife for no reason. Bleh.
- I love the design of the Genuine Animal Milk carton, with Fat Tony holding a farming pitchfork.
- The break for act two is so damn stupid with Quimby flying off his treadmill out the open window. Why the hell would he have his treadmill faced away from the window? And the window’s open so he can feel the open air on his back, I guess? It’s just transparent bait to convince the dimmest viewers that Homer might have killed the Mayor, when of course he fucking didn’t.
- After Fat Tony issues his threat against the Mayor, Homer tries to send Bart off to start his car in case it was boobytrapped. What a likable protagonist!
- I love Quimby not even being able to muster a false enthusiasm about wanting to stay home with the… wife. The best stuff in this episode is all Quimby-based, with his excitement over catcalling and the openness of his bribery (“In the future, I would prefer a nondescript briefcase to the sack with a dollar sign on it.”)
- Ah, the first appearance of the Yes Guy. I remember thinking he was funny here, just because it’s a silly voice, but he would proceed to be driven into the ground over the coming years. I know lots of Springfield regulars are based on famous celebrities and characters, but this guy is literally just Frank Nelson in yellow skin. And I don’t even know who that is.
- Just as we get no real beginning of the story, with Homer just being Quimby’s only bodyguard for no reason, we end on Fat Tony just beating Quimby with a baseball bat in public with no repercussions whatsoever. Mark Hamill has to tell Homer that Quimby is doing okay and that he was a great bodyguard, two things that make no sense that he would know or for him to say. These stories are just getting flimsier and flimsier.
- Simpsons Archive retro review: “The best Homer episode in a very long time and one of the best all round from the last three years. For once Homer was not portrayed totally stupid or as a total a**hole.”
10. Viva Ned Flanders
- The conversation at the beginning with Marge, Lisa and Homer talking about why they would have moved Burns Casino with the rest of the town, and Homer’s “perfectly logical explanation” gets cut off feels like the first instance of the show making fun of its terrible writing specifically to piss fans off. I could give two shits about continuity, but I care about stories actually making sense, and this is the first sign that the writers would rather hide behind a joke to excuse their bad writing. In this scene, I like the demolition man’s confused “Implosion?!” but I feel like the building should have immediately exploded then, instead of him continuing, “But I thought you said…”
- “Once again, tithing is ten percent off the top. That’s gross income, not net. Please, people, don’t force us to audit.”
- Ned being revealed to be 60 feels like a real stretch (how old does that make Maude?) and I hate that it’s revealed by Homer holding court in church for some reason, but the story of Ned feeling like he’s wasted his life being too safe has some potential to it. I just wish it were done in a different season. The first scene of act two where he attempts to rebel by growing out his mustache, much to his wife’s amusement, is very sweet, but then Ned catches Homer out his window barbecuing on the fucking roof and the episode plunges into the toilet.
- “Lost Our Lisa” featured Homer’s new mission statement about being an insane risk-taker, and this episode took that ball and tore off with it. Homer is now Captain Wacky, relishing in getting into misadventures, much to Ned’s admiration for some reason (“Never a dull moment, huh, Homer?” “You got that right!”) The entirety of act two is just scene after scene of Ned asking why Homer is so cool and him saying something fucking stupid. It’s all just so terrible.
- Homer has Ned sign a bunch of forms for “The Homer Simpson program,” but what the fuck is written on them? Apparently he wants power of attorney, but I doubt Homer even knows what that is. And for what? What the fuck is all this?
- The only joke I like in the back half of the episode is the casino rep manipulating Ned from the ceiling camera (“Keep gaming. It means, keep gambling.”)
- I’m sure I already bitched about Homer and Ned’s Vegas wives and how them already being married means their new marriages aren’t legally binding, so there should be no goddamn conflict at all. Besides that, it’s just so incredibly uncreative. Given the writing prompt of someone waking up after blacking out in Vegas, I’m sure the very first idea would be that they got married. If you’re a good writer, you’d move on from that trite idea, but if you’re in the writer’s room of one of the biggest shows on TV, I guess it’s good enough to run with and leave for lunch early.
- In lieu of writing an ending, Homer and Ned run around Vegas for an incredibly long time and then have to walk home through the desert as Homer fantasizes about Ned getting gang-probed. I never want to watch this episode ever again.
- Simpsons Archive retro review: “This was a simply outrageous episode! It was reminiscent of the fabulously hilarious episodes of classic Simpsons. Some of the best material came from the signs and ancillary gags. I know I haven’t given OFF extremely good grades this season, but this one is totally deserving of an A+!”
11. Wild Barts Can’t Be Broken
- The Cyndi Lauper cameo at the beginning is completely disposable; the only “joke” is her singing the National Anthem to one of her own songs… funny? There have been pointless celebrity cameos in the past few seasons, but this one feels especially egregious, and weirdly prescient for the tidal wave of guest appearances to come, where a celebrity will show up out of nowhere for barely a minute of screen time, do their one tepid jokes and then leave. At this point, there must have been a master list of celebrities who had either expressed interest in doing the show or somebody on staff had connections with to possibly book, and during the Mike Scully era, they must have just ran through that whole fucking thing and plugged famous names into scripts wherever they could.
- Waiting in the car for the Isotopes game to end, Homer sings a crude playground version of “Whistle While You Work,” but the two scenes are cut so tight and spread so far apart that you can’t really even tell what he’s singing (“Hitler is a jerk! Mussolini…” “…it doesn’t work!”) The joke lyrics are, “Whistle while you work, Hitler is a jerk,Mussolini bit his weenie, not it doesn’t work.” I only know about it from an old “Life in Hell” comic strip that featured a lot of those childhood joke lyrics, but if you didn’t know that, what would you be able to make of four seconds of Homer in his car singing about Hitler and Mussolini?
- “They lost.” “But only by two points, and they didn’t resort to stealing bases like the other team, so it’s kind of a moral victory.”
- “Homer’s Night Out” is definitely the highlight of the episode, it’s so perfectly executed in the sepia tone style, and I especially love the abrupt way it ends with the quick cut to the end card and slam down on the piano.
- It makes sense enough for Wiggum to snap to judgement on persecuting the kids of Springfield, and for the other adults to go along with it, and we get a fair amount of good lines out of him for it (“Let this be a lesson to you! Kids never learn!”)
- The promo for “The Bloodening” is perfect, beefing up the true terror of the film that “even the new management of Sony Tristar could not contain the pure evil of.” It’s a great blend of the promotion of old cheesy horror movies of the 70s (claiming a registered nurse will be on site for every screening “trained in the treatment of terror,”) as well as gimmicky shit that still gets done today, like with the original Paranormal Activity, where there was a big marketing push to get audiences to demand this film too shocking for a wide release get played in their town, despite it being a major Paramount movie.
- I like that the kids take inspiration from “The Bloodening,” but the film goes on for way too long, as does almost everything in the back half of the episode. It feels like they could have burned through it in half the time and it would have been fine.
- “Let’s put it on the Internet! No, we have to reach people whose opinions actually matter!” You think the writers are salty about online criticism yet?
- The whole town gathers to discuss the kids’ pirate broadcast, but I guess they just leave their kids home unattended during that time? They know it’s kids doing it, why are they not keeping a vigilant eye on them? It’d be one thing if that were the joke, but it’s not.
- The “Kids/Adults” song is… okay. It’s not great, but I don’t really hate it. It feels like a sliding scale from season 8’s “We Put the Spring in Springfield” to season 9’s “The Garbageman Can” to this. Everything is steadily getting worse, and the show’s once great songs are no exception.
- Simpsons Archive retro review: “You know, I was ready to give this a high grade for the first 20 minutes….then it all came crashing down. WHY, WHY, WHY must they SING? The Simpsons has *never* pulled off a successful Broadway-style musical number, and I don’t understand why they keep insisting that they do such. So many parts of this episode I really enjoyed too; the voice acting was a treat to listen to. Harry Shearer’s always accurate impersonation of baseball announcer Vin Scully blows my mind. Unfortunately, the third act with the cliched, overdone, tiresome town-Mayor-mob scene-turned-Broadway-musical was utterly deplorable and turns what had potential to be a good episode into just another Simpsons later-season mediocrity.”
12. Sunday, Cruddy Sunday
- It’s baffling to me how this episode has four writers on it, two of whom are the Scully brothers. How did this happen?
- The post office is an absolute dud of a set piece. Also, Skinner’s “I’m just glad I work at an elementary school” is an incredibly tasteless throwaway line. To be “fair,” this aired a few months before the Columbine shooting, and now over twenty years later, it’s far grosser considering pre-pandemic it felt like we had a new school shooting every few weeks. But even extreme subject matter like that can be satirical in the right context (South Park’s “Dead Kids” comes to mind, highlighting the horrifying numbness a lot of people have to the ever-repeating tragedies.)
- Wally Kogan is an absolute flatline of a character. No fault of Fred Willard (RIP), but there’s nothing really funny or interesting about him. He’s just this nice guy who befriends Homer and is his ticket to get to the big game. I guess his only quirk is that he’s as big a gullible sap as Homer, since he got swindled by fake cracker tickets, but it’s not even a thing beyond that one joke. In short, he sucks.
- I never understood the scene where Homer, Wally and Moe put the beer mugs in front of their mouths to obscure the football team names until much, much later, and it’s really such an insider joke about looping replacement dialogue over existing footage that it just comes off as bizarre and not funny.
- For the final time, have I mentioned I love Dankmus? This forty seconds is a hundred times better than the entire episode.
- “Sea Captain, Bumblebee Man, Comic Book Guy, the Squeaky-Voiced Teen …” “Yeah, it’s a good group.” The absolute waste of so many characters comprised in Homer’s Super Bowl mob is so baffling. Ignoring that many of them would have no real interest in seeing the game, they’re all largely there just to fill up space and scream, outside of one or two token moments, like Wiggum determining which jail cell bar is “fake” and some other forgettable joke I don’t recall. If all these unique personalities being boiled down to just be part of a hooting and hollering, football-crazed mob was the point, then mission accomplished, I guess.
- The stupid egg painting subplot… well, it fills valuable airtime, alright. Also, why did Marge let Homer take Bart with him? Oh, who cares.
- The guest star line-up is substantial (in number, of course, not in actual substance), but two particularly stick in my craw. Dolly Parton feels like the perfect template for shitty stunt casting appearances, announcing herself by name and showing up to be admired rather than ridiculed, saving the day with her superpowered makeup that burns through steel (?!?) Second, Rupert Murdoch shows up, crediting himself as “billionaire tyrant,” to magically generate bodyguards to seize Homer and company so he can relax in his skybox and continue earning millions. By comparison, Murdoch’s last appearance in “Sideshow Bob’s Last Gleaming” (voiced by Dan Castellaneta) had him locked away in a cell where he most likely belongs. Barely three years prior, the show was still biting the hand that feeds, now they’re inviting that hand in on the joke.
- There’s really no point in trying to make sense of any of this. When we get to the end and everyone ends up in the winning team locker room and they go home with Super Bowl rings… like, what the fuck is any of this?
- “What a way to treat the loyal fans who put up with so much nonsense from this franchise.” Maybe you guys should try and make your scripts better instead of directly highlighting how bad they are.
- Simpsons Archive retro review: “This ep was so funny I find it impossible to see it not being liked, up until the very last part, with Madden (the most annoying person alive) and Summerall and Jodi Price driving the bus, it was on my 10 favorite list ever. The post office beginning was great, the body-shop scene was great, the Super Bowl was great. It even had an excellent, albeit minor subplot.”
Me Blog Write Good 
-Lisa Gets an “A” is definitely in the upper tier of Season 10 episodes. It has sprinkles of classic, iconic moments/elements (Pinchy and Supernintendo Chalmers), has a solid plot for the most part that has a logical execution, and the gags that work often hit bullseyes, unfortunately as good as the show usually gets in this part of the series. I would also like to bring up Bart’s “Can we go Catholic for communion wafers and booze?” which pissed off a ton of Catholic groups iirc. Side note, as a big fan of Crash Bandicoot, I don’t think they’re bad games at all. The first is the only one of the trilogy that’s a little rough but still a super fun game honestly. some gameplay elements ARE outdated but they’re still great platformers at the end of the day IMO. If you’re not into it because of the difficulty I get it, because especially when going for 100% those games can get enraging. But I also love games like Mega Man to death so I get a kick out of the difficulty in all honesty.
Homer Simpson In Kidney Trouble, 23 years later, still stands as one of the worst of the worst. It’s pretty much devoid of jokes, has a completely unrelated first act, and is just beyond mean spirited, and won’t be the only episode of Season 10 to just be this disgustingly mean spirited. There isn’t a lot to say about it though honestly besides that it’s just mean spirited as hell, not funny, and completely derails Homer’s character.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Mayored To The Mob but I remember it being just a super by-the-numbers Homer gets a job episode. Not awful, but not great. The only gag that really sticks out to me is Comic Book Guy trying to flirt with girls at the sci-fi con opener, and that’s really it besides some funny mafia stuff. I do like them milking rats though, it’s stupid but in the right way. Also I do love Quimby’s “Rats? You promised me dog or higher!”
Viva Ned Flanders is yet another whatever episode. The central concept isn’t bad but it’s really just completely squandered. Again it’s been a long time but ehh. I can’t really comment on it but I always thought it was a whatever episode.
I’ve been watching a lot of classic Simpsons recently, and decided to rewatch Wild Barts Can’t Be Broken on a whim like a week ago really late at night, and I was surprised by just how much I enjoyed it. It’s a great episode, in all honesty, with a solid theme of “kids vs. adults” that delivers, has a ton of phenomenal gags, and a plot that makes sense and resolves nicely. The musical number isn’t super great or memorable but I still like it- I’d take it any day over a stupid fucking chase scene/action ending. Definitely one of my favorites from Season 10 if not my favorite.
Sunday Cruddy Sunday is such a disposable episode, definitely one of the most. It’s just such an empty, unmemorable void throughout. I do like the super just unapologetically sexualized Catholic Church commercial, it’s the only gag that really works throughout the episode, and again, pissed a lot of people off.
At this point it’s just weird considering some of the other programming on FOX Sunday nights at the time. By this time, King of The Hill and Futurama were in full swing- and the content they were airing at the time was way better than the average Scully era Simpsons episode. As those shows were airing some of their classic all-time greats, The Simpsons was airing stuff like Homer Simpson In Kidney Trouble. We’re one year off Malcolm In The Middle airing, and I believe even though the show switched to weekday nights (I’m not sure to be honest) That 70’s Show was airing for a while, which was always a sitcom I really enjoyed (albeit not easy to go back to because one of it’s lead actors is a cultist rapist dog poisoner but I digress). I wasn’t born until 2001, but point is, if I was viewing in the time being, with the airing of Malcolm In The Middle a year later, there would’ve been way more programming I know I would’ve definitely opted to watch over new Simpsons episodes.
As much as people don’t want to admit it, Family Guy was also a better show around this time. That’s part of the reason the Simpsons staff didn’t like it, because they felt like FOX was grooming Family Guy to be the new #1 cartoon and it was allowed to be edgier than them.
With all this competition, plus South Park on Comedy Central and the live-action shows that were influenced by The Simpsons popping up or hitting their stride, the show didn’t really belong anymore. It reached its natural conclusion and it should have ended at this point.
Family Guy has always sucked.
Family Guy was being groomed to be a rival. The FOX higher-ups, especially Murdoch himself, wanted in-fighting between the producers of the two shows. I think when that didn’t really happen is when FOX lost interest in Family Guy (in its first run, that is).
Ah, Fox Sunday night memories. Even if The Simpsons wasn’t at its strongest at this point, that was a block I always looked forward to (and I also have memories of having to go bed once The X-Files started and having the theme permanently implanted in my brain because of it.)
Oh, we’re back to this season again. Eh, still better than Season 32.
“Lisa Gets an ‘A'” is the next good Season 10 episode. Yeah, it has problems. The plot falls apart by the second half but the jokes throughout are solid and make you think you’re watching a Season 9 episode instead. In fact, the scene where Chalmers, Skinner and Lisa tour the school to show how decrepit it is feels like it’s right out of Season 4 and is probably the last time the show successfully highlights the ugliness of SES. I remember your “D’oh-in in the Wind” re-review was a lot more critical, but so was your original “Lisa Gets an ‘A'” from 2012. Ah well, they’re both beacons of hope in a disastrous season.
FUCK HOMER SIMPSON IN KIDNEY TROUBLE
“Mayored to the Mob” at least isn’t terrible, it’s more of a hit-and-miss episode with more misses than hits. The hits would be the parts of the science convention (Comic Book Girl, the Neil Armstrong bit was brilliant), parts of the bodyguard school (Homer eating the Ann Landers melon always gets a chuckle out of me and the graduation ceremony was pretty good), Mayor Quimby (“Quick, honk at that broad!”), and of course, Mark Hamill. He was great in this otherwise eh episode from him talking about Sprint to expressing his complaints about his role on “Guys and Dolls.” Oh, and “Luke, Be a Jedi Tonight” is wonderful. But you pretty much highlighted everything wrong with this episode. In the end, it’s just your standard “Captain Wacky Gets a New Job tm.” that happens without interruption and boy is Season 10 Homer just the best? We’ll always root for that guy even if he refused to give his father a kidney twice.
Here’s “Viva Ned Flanders” summed up: Jerkass Homer is the wacky loveable comedy character that does wacky jerkass things and is seen as a mentor to boring 60-year-old straight man Ned Flanders as he learns from him how to be a jerkass too and then it ends with them married to a couple of dumb floozies for some goddamn reason who later come back in that godawful horrendous Season 13 episode which thank god is not required for re-reviewing. I think that about sums it up.
P.S. Poor Moody Blues got absolutely shafted in this episode. I hope that one guy was happy with his paycheck just from saying “I want fatty!”
Oh well, at least it leads to the next good Season 10. The plot for “Wild Barts Can’t Be Broken” is forgettable, but it’s still a decent concept. But what makes this episode not another dud is that there’s a lot of great jokes. Homer’s recap of last night, Nelson’s Dr. Hibbert impersonation, Marge’s old board games, “Don’t Go There,” “The Bloodening,” and “We Know All Your Secrets”. Of course, the song at the end kinda sucks but unlike that guy on the archive, it’s not enough to keep it out of my Season 10 rotation.
Seems like the show’s getting schizophrenic again because after an awful episode followed by a decent episode, we get an awful episode! The Superbowl episode! Yay! An absolute classic! …What is there to say about this? It’s just a bunch of random stuff that happens in the 1999 Superbowl in Miami while accompanied by some nobody voiced by the great Fred Willard. Oh yeah, don’t get me started on all the shoehorned guest cameos. It’s another instance of the show now being more culture than counter-culture. I liked Troy Aikman and Dan Marino at least, but that’s about it. If I wanted to watch a Simpson episode about the Superbowl, I’d watch “Lisa the Greek.” At least the characters are watching the game from TV instead of actually being present in the stadium.
“Sea Captain, Bumblebee Man, Comic Book Guy, the Squeaky-Voiced Teen …” “Yeah, it’s a good group.”
I know those names were probably intended to be a joke lampooning on the fact that these were previously nameless characters whose names were given to by the fans but the fact that characters refers to them as this from this point forward just bothers me so much. Remember in “Bart Sells His Soul” when Milhouse says “I kinda traded your soul to the guy at the comic book store.” And then in Season 16 when they actually give him a real name, he follows it with “But everyone calls me Comic Book Guy.” It’s a really telling sign of the everyone knows everyone fiasco that plagues Zombie Simpsons.
This is an interesting lineup of episodes, with half of them being decent (“Lisa Gets an A,” “Mayored to the Mob” and “Wild Barts Can’t Be Broken”) being decent in my mind, and the other three being among the season’s (and era’s) worst. In other words, it’s a great summation of Season 10.
Just a couple stray thoughts:
* I don’t see why Lenny or Carl wanting to act out a scene with Mark Hamill would be unusual. Star Wars has already had a pretty wide appeal, and they both seem like they were of the age when they would have seen it in 1977 and gotten really into it. I guess you could make a case for Willie, but it’s not like they crammed Ned or Reverend Lovejoy into that scene.
* The scene with the two bodyguards (Is there anything fluffier than a cloud?” “If there is, I don’t want to know about it”) always pops in my head whenever I see a cloud.
* I only learned recently that Mark Hamill was also the voice of Leavelle, which blew my mind. He really is a great voice actor.
* I don’t like Viva Ned Flanders, but there are a few good jokes in the first act, namely the jab at ’70s/’80s AC garbage (or “wuss rock”) and the scene where Ned sees Abe and Jasper in a convertible with sexy women blasting ZZ Top and thinking they’re living it up when they’re actually being kidnapped (It’s a good, if a tad ridiculous, bait and switch.) I don’t like the fact that they made Ned in his 60s. How old would that have made Dr. Foster then?
* I agree that the Cyndi Lauper bit wasn’t a great way to start the episode, but I did like the announcer’s reminder “We do have a game today” as the crowd is leaving.
* I kind of like the mug gag, if only because of the reference to Clinton’s impeachment at the time (although I do have to wonder how Moe’s “Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always liked” line would have worked if a relatively new team like the Panthers had been the NFC champions that year. Guess the writers got lucky.)
Friends was one of the biggest shows on TV and a few months after “Viva Ned Flanders” aired, they had a storyline where Ross and Rachel got drunk in Vegas and ended up being married. Unlike The Simpsons, they didn’t use it for a joke, because that storyline carried the first couple episodes of season six, with Ross not wanting to get the marriage annulled because he was still in love with Rachel.
I’m only pointing this out because it’s Vegas. Having people get drunk and married in the Vegas episode is like a rite of passage for your show. Then again, Fresh Prince was able to avoid that story when Will and Carlton went to Vegas.
“Kidney Trouble” was the death of Homer Simpson.
A certain episode later this season will claim the life of Monty Burns.
My issue with “Kidney Trouble” (besides the obvious) is why Abe would even sit there with a full bladder, enduring Homer’s abuse in the backseat of Homer’s car. Wasn’t there an extremely easy way for him to kill two birds with one stone?
“how old does that make Maude?”
Presumably not that old, given that her kids are so young. The implication would be that Ned married a woman many years his junior.
Still, I’ve no idea why they felt the need to establish that Ned was 60, even for the purposes of this story. Wouldn’t a bog standard mid life crisis have gotten us into the exact same plot trajectory?
Just thinking about Maude’s age makes me feel bad for how young she was when died. It’s hard to watch episodes like these knowing Maude only has days remaining until she gets knocked off the grandstand to her death.
“The gussied-up graphics made the aged mechanics and aggravating gameplay stand out even more.”
Oh boy if you dislike those games then you’ll haaaate Crash 4. The new one is basically 2/3rds filler too, which is annoying since the original games had practically no filler at all.
For the record I love 2 and 3 but I can definitely admit a big chunk of that love does come from nostalgia, so I can see why someone who never played those games as a kid could hate parts of them. The first one is bullshit hard though at points (I’m looking at you Sunset Vista and Slippery Climb), which his why I don’t like it as much. Maybe give CTR a go? It’s a great Mario Kart clone.
…
Oh right this is a Simpsons blog isn’t it? Nice write up as always Mike. When do you intend to stop doing these revisited posts by the way? Around the time the show finally turns to pure crap I assume?
He’s stopping after season 11.
I know he said he would stop at Season 11, but a part of me wishes he would look at Season 12 just to close out Mike Scully’s run to see if Scully made any improvements between the most infamous season and the final season he ran, even if there were Season 12 holdovers in Season 13. It’s also the last time we can look back at a showrunner and give an actual grade to since Al Jean’s tenure has been established as “2001 to The Heat Death of the Universe”.
In a way, it makes sense because I think season 11 was the death of The Simpsons (specifically the one-two punch of Jockey Elves and Maude’s death.)
I think I speak for everybody when I say that the last remnants of classic Simpsons died alongside Maude.
As a fan of classic era Moody Blues, I have a soft spot for their cameo in Viva Ned Flanders.
“Can the poems, it’s arse whooping time!”
Not big on the rest of the episode though.
Kidney Trouble is so bad that the last time I watched it, it actually made me feel sad, which is the exact opposite of what The Simpsons is supposed to do. Fuck that episode.
Actually the slide in quality of this show and the fact that it’s been pooping out crud episodes for what feels like fifty years now makes me sad too. There’s an alternate universe where this didn’t happen, I’m sure of it.
Dare I ask this Mike… are you *deliberately* selecting bad Simpsons Archive reviews for good episodes and good SA reviews for bad episodes?
No way in hell CBG is a sports fan. He should not be accompanying Homer to the Super Bowl. He’s also an irritable loner who would never associate with any of these characters period. In fact, how and why do any of these characters know each other? The image on your original review of “Sunday, Cruddy Sunday” has Krusty in the group, which makes zero goddamn sense. He’s a major celebrity and should not just be casually hanging out with Homer and the rest.
I’ll excuse the awkward Rupert Murdoch guest spot. He wasn’t very well known by Americans in 1999 (Fox News was still in its infancy). I’d like to think that the show would have more integrity than to have that evil piece of shit guest star for them in later years.
Ugh, Kidney Trouble has to be the first episode I legit hate.
Episodes from season 9 and here had issues before, but this is an episode I honestly don’t plan on seeing ever again.
Forgot to do this last week, but better late than never, I suppose.
“Lisa Gets an ‘A'” remains a particularly solid episode in a growing sea of sludge. The environment around the show hasn’t gotten completely toxic, but it isn’t safe to go swimming anymore. It’s also one of the last times the show would depict Lisa as an actual child as opposed to the talking point of view the writers use to espouse their collective beliefs on the audience, since we see her getting addicted to video games, try to get out of going to school, and cheat on a test. By the way, I know you hate Crash Bandicoot, but I think the appeal is largely either if you’re into platforms from the PS1 days (the difference between PSOne and N64 households was, due to the N64’s limited library as a result of demanding cartridges that could hold limited space and charging high fees per cartridge, it meant you were bound to see the same games with an N64 collection but a PSOne owner could have much wider tastes) or if you liked platformers. I think the cardinal sin of N. Sane Trilogy was remaking them too faithfully, especially the original Crash Bandicoot, since there were elements of that game which likely could have used some more forgiveness and veteran players likely would have accepted that.
Lisa’s morality in the third act still confuses me to some extent, though I think this is due to the show doing a poor job (in my opinion) explaining the stakes. There were a few examples of the show highlighting that the funds would be misappropriated, like the scoreboard and at the end where Skinner comments on cashing the check at a liquor store, but they also try to explain the basic services the school needs, like actual periodical tables, and computers (very old computers, but computers nonetheless) that help give Ralph the “learnding” he needs. It’s the latter that made me feel like Lisa would rather be moral and honest than do something that would help the collective, a “the needs of the self outweigh the needs of the group” if you would, and the show turning Lisa into a pious judge of character often resulted in some of the worst episodes in the series (“All’s Fair in Oven War”, “On a Clear Day, I Can’t See My Sister”, and “Sorry Not Sorry”), not to mention arguably the most pretentious character in the series. This goes against what Lisa did famously in “Lisa the Iconoclast” where Lisa spent the whole episode rallying around exposing the town founder as a fraud, regardless of how unpopular it was, only to backpedal at the last moment when she realized the myth had value for the community. It’s a rather complicated thesis to unravel in an episode that began cause she didn’t read The Wind and the Willows.
The episode’s B-story is just a dumb story about Homer buying a lobster to fatten it up for consumption, only to befriend it, and is crestfallen when he accidentally cooks it. And I love it. Homer is acting like a big, dumb kid most of the time, a rarity as we march deeper into the Scully Era that prefers self-awareness in Homer over cluelessness.
“Kidney Trouble”, hands-down, is one of the worst episodes in the series. It’s also one of the few episodes I have serious complaints over with its subject matter, to the point where the commentary did me no favors (they sure did a lot of laughing, though) since Scully forgot to ask George Meyer where he came up with the idea at the last moment, but by then, it was too late, so let’s just repeat “good pitcher”. On the actual review, I went into a lengthy rant about this since it genuinely annoys the hell outta me, but I’m gonna rant once more cause I can and I will.
Let’s begin with Human Biology 101, shall we? The urinary system is designed to filter wastes and excessive fluids from the human bloodstream via the kidneys, which then travels into this little organ called the bladder. Your waste liquid, now known as “urine”, is stored in the bladder until it is discharged when you go to the bathroom. Now… what did Grampa end up blowing out cause Homer wouldn’t let him shake the dew off the lily? Wasn’t the organ that stored the wee and the source of his discomfort, it was the organs that filtered his blood. Yes, the writers assumed that urine was stored in the kidneys, since they wanted to do an organ donor story. To be fair, bladder ruptures have happened historically and even today, and total kidney failure is very common. However, the show decided to do Grampa’s problem for cruelty just cause Homer didn’t want to miss a Biography special on F. Murray Abraham, which also goes back to the beginning of the episode, where it was viewed that tagging Grampa along was a punishment for not taking car maintenance seriously. Yeah, he’s annoying and such, but this was arguably one of the worst things Homer ever did, if not the worst thing, and that includes framing Marge for a DUI, cause this nearly killed a family member. I am also aware someone called into attention why didn’t Grampa just… go… but perhaps he was bladder shy, or he likely was afraid Homer would dump him in the middle of the desert for urinating all over the car, since we are now in the age of Homer being needlessly vindictive on top of cruel.
In addition to all of this, the show doesn’t go out of its way to explore dialysis as a short-term solution for Grampa, or even tap into what was a growing industry at the time, instead putting him at death’s door immediately. Centers and treatment was common even in the 1990s, and although it is painful (not to mention expensive, although money is only an object on the show when it needs to be), it could have bought him some time. This further goes into the “they really didn’t try” category, which is compounded by how the show treats organ donation as potentially deadly, presented Homer’s incision in the shape of a kidney bean, and had Marge go how Homer drastically cut decades out of his life just so Grampa could live a little bit longer, when most experts say you just need one functioning kidney to survive as long as you live a healthy lifestyle (then again, given Homer…).
As a child, I admit the first time I ever saw Homer as truly malicious as “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Marge”, but this is genuinely the first time in series history Homer is loathsome, if not downright evil. And he’s the main character, to which you want his actions to be at worst misguided. This discounts the antics at Bloodbath Gulch where he wanders away from the tour guide, insults the bartender, instigates animatronics to shoot at him, somehow gets wanted for lewd behavior while there, and is complacent in letting a man with crippling alcoholism drown in a trough, laughing at his problems. The show tries to show how terrible Homer is that a ship filled with creeps and weirdos wouldn’t take him, even though this highlights a constant writing flaw that becomes prevailing in the series to this date. Highlighting that a character is awful doesn’t mean anything if the character is still going to do awful things, to which this show has yet to figure out.
TV Tropes weirdly uses this episode as an argument about Dr. Hibbert being an antagonist, but I consider the Al Jean episodes later to be better cases of Hibbert becoming a villain (“Bart-Mangled Banner”, “Midnight RX”, and “Don’t Fear the Roofer” are examples), where he openly looks for ways to get out of malpractice lawsuits and sells out to Big Pharma. He’s on the cusp of becoming as bad as Dr. Nick, but this is one of the final episodes where he’s presented as being competent at his profession, a rare trait in Springfield. Homer deliberately put his father in harm’s way, and at one point goes “This is everybody’s fault but mine”, so Homer is blatantly the bad guy. Them only stealing a kidney from him after running away twice is better than what Homer deserves, especially as Homer is already contemplating stealing another kidney from Bart at the end.
“Mayored to the Mob” is another in a long line of “Homer gets a job” episodes, and yet, it’s one of the better ones. I think this is due to Homer having the qualities of being a bodyguard already (the transition to Jerkassdom helps), which makes it a more believable moonlighting gig. However, given Homer’s lack of athleticism overall, he’s more in line with the “rent a guards” who likely wear shirts bearing a company logo and carry around pepper spray with their black denim jeans as opposed to those who would protect government officials. Whatever, I do like the opening set piece, despite disjointed establishing sets becoming the norm in the series. I know purists will argue that stuff like that had been done even as far back in the second and third seasons, but those places were often used to set up the plot complication, rather than the actual plot itself. “Old Money” didn’t begin the episode with Discount Lion Safari; the family took Grampa there against his own will and on Bea’s birthday, made more tragic that she died that night, and “Radio Bart” didn’t begin at Wall E. Weasel’s, but rather that was the culmination of Bart doing stuff on his birthday, only to be let down by a series of craptacular gifts. Mark Hamill remains of the best guest voices on the series, especially with him advertising Sprint despite him admitting it’s nowhere near as dependable as other, equally defunct telephone companies (and Homer yelling at the crowd that he’s trying to save them on long distance is legendary), as well as pointing out how illogical it is to do “Guys and Dolls” in his Luke Skywalker garb. Also, I can never look at pepper steak without thinking about the time Big Bossman “fed” Al Snow’s dog to him, cause the dog was named Pepper. Get it? The show also got mileage out of Hamill as he also voiced a character in the episode, to boot.
The episode isn’t perfect, by any means. Homer casually using nerve grips on his family feels mean-spirited, and Homer’s morality only comes to play due to the mafia using rats for milk, not to mention he’s fine with anyone other than his own kids drinking the stuff. Plus, he fails miserably in protecting Quimby in the end. However, we are in Season 10, and beggars can’t be choosers. The second half of the season is a poor crop.
“Viva Ned Flanders” is one of the weakest episodes in the season, not to mention an episode that the show decides to honor as continuity in a series that refuses to believe in continuity. Oh, Homer has a half-brother? Well, we don’t bother bringing him in. But we’ll certainly bring in Vegas Wife several times and even feature an episode that begins with the family going to her funeral in Springfield just cause. The genesis of the episode seemed to be about pushing Ned’s age all the way to 60 for shits and giggles, which strikes me as odd, not just for the age, but the fact that Scully was continuing what Oakley & Weinstein were doing as far as trying to build or establish lore to secondary characters (and Al Jean would come in and undo everything he could within 3 or 4 seasons) remains questionable given that character development was not one of his strong suits, thanks to the overall weakness of the staff and direction the show was going, where characters weren’t going to need depth.
As for the episode… it’s got jokes, why wouldn’t it? I especially love the part where they run over Joan Rivers as she’s pleading with them to be in the audience, as well as the beverage Ned finally picks that has him go on a bender. As a whole, however, it serves two purposes and fails at both; a travel episode and a wacky Homer misadventure, since you already had a casino in town you just decided to blow up, and Homer is more obnoxious than funny, even before the trip where he once again is mean to Marge, not to mention the whole barbecue on the roof scene. There’s also a DVD edit where the original has Homer remembering Barney’s birthday is the same as Hitler’s, but the DVD uses the UK version which replaces the joke with Lassie’s due to April 20th being the Columbine High School shooting. Finally… I gotta be blunt; are the Moody Blues a one-hit wonder in a figurative sense or literal sense? All I ever hear on radio is “Nights in White Satin”, so is this a Danzig or Muse thing where radio stations decide to only air the most noteworthy song from their collection, perpetrating a myth, or are they genuinely known for other songs like “Your Wildest Dreams” or “Go Now”, which made it to the Top 10 on Billboard but don’t get playing time on radio stations?
There’s some bits and pieces to “Wild Barts Can be Broken” and in a season where Bart is treated more as a henchman than as a person, it gives him at least something, but it’s more of an episode where you’re watching it for the jokes than the whole thing. I once tried to explain to a teacher about the crude song Homer was singing, but since they cut off the part about Mussolini biting his weenie, it doesn’t work (well, the song doesn’t), leading to a rather confusing moment. There’s some great jokes about Homer being a bandwagon fan (“They lost?! THOSE LOSERS!”) and the whole montage of him trying to recall the previous evening, as well as establishing children dealing with the adults in both a confrontational and later a rebellious sense. And then we get to the third act and the song and dance routine and it collapses on itself, which is a hallmark of Mike Scully’s shows. He just couldn’t make solid episodes all the way.
You know what? I like “Sunday, Cruddy Sunday” and I’m not ashamed of it. It’s a terrible episode if you’re coming in to watch an episode about the Super Bowl, to which they don’t show any action on the field, and the jerking off to various celebrities (most notably Rupert Murdoch) certainly feels grating, but it’s a dumb, loud episode. I like Homer’s excitement over getting two terrible pizzas for the price of one and being blissfully unaware of getting his anus washed, confusing “colonic” with “colada”, not to mention getting screwed over by the car mechanics as well as the whole waiting room sequence (that famously pissed off Fox executives and marketing as the staff told them they were planning on doing something amazing during the credits, and it was just them reusing the shot of Homer with a brief eye movement as “Spanish Flea” plays). There’s Rudy claiming being obnoxious is a good thing, Homer rightfully getting his spine broken, “the Spungos” (which I use in real life when I talk to a non sports fan), “Where’s that infernal clutch?”, and everything said by the late Fred Willard.
This batch is particularly easy for me, given we have stuff worthy to save and stuff to destroy without second thought. I know people aren’t into “Sunday”, but that’s why it’s an option to do as you wish.
1. Lisa Gets an ‘A’ (Salvage)
2. Mayored to the Mob (Salvage)
3. Wild Barts Can’t Be Broken (Salvage)
4. Sunday, Cruddy Sunday (Toss-Up)
5. Viva Ned Flanders (Destroy)
6. Homer Simpson in “Kidney Trouble” (Destroy with Vengeance)
I completely hate the “jokes” about how the plots are completely illogical and full of holes. You’re not being funny; you’re being lazy. I know the classic years did it on occasion, as well. I couldn’t stand it then, either, but they get a bit more leeway when it’s rare, the story is otherwise solid, and the jokes land. It becomes increasingly frequent as the show’s quality deteriorates.
In lieu of wasting your time with “Viva Ned Flanders,” I prefer rewatching Okilly-Dokilly’s “White Wine Spritzer” video. 1,000% better.