12. The Mansion Family
- This episode came out at the height of Britney Spears’s popularity, and they just gave her normal lines to read, in a tremendous display of a total lack of creativity. Why in the living hell is one of the biggest pop artists of the time hosting a local awards show in a nowhere town like Springfield?
- Probably this episode’s only significant cultural export is this frame grab of Lenny.
- Why is Mr. Burns even at the Springfield Pride Awards? I kind of thought it was weird he was at the Chuck Garabadian seminar in “Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo,” but it makes a little sense if you don’t think about it too long. But here, it makes no sense at all.
- “Who’s that fellow who always screws up and creates havoc?” “Homer Simpson, sir?” “Yes! The way I see it, he’s due for a good performance!” And just like that, reality is broken. The show has done meta commentary about how all relevant events of Springfielders lives seem to always come back to the Simpsons, but this is just the writers throwing their hands up and going fuck it, we don’t care if it makes sense, we just want to write a story where Homer pretends to be a rich guy. Also, why does Burns even need house sitters at all? The Simpsons don’t have any specific duties to tend to during their stay. How many days does he need to just go to the Mayo Clinic and back? And why are Burns and Smithers taking a normal taxi? Aaaaaagggggggh.
- There’s no story to be had whatsoever in this episode. Homer wants to be a high-rolling rich guy, pretends to be one, then some crazy shit happens, and then he’s back home lamenting he’s not rich. That’s it. His international waters boat party is just a crazy random thing that happens in our third act, as a crowd of recognizable faces joins him to hoot and holler. Moe, Apu, Krusty… it’s like the Super Bowl mob in “Sunday, Cruddy Sunday” all over again.
- The only scene I like in this episode is Burns’s diagnosis of having every disease ever, but them all existing in “perfect balance.” It’s a bit of a silly conclusion, but it’s a humorous explanation of why a decrepit old skeleton like Burns is still alive.
- We get a bunch of pirates as our ending. And one of them has four shoulder parrots. They capture everybody in a giant net ball, plummet them into the ocean where we see shark fins, then the sharks are gone as the net ball magically floats and over two-thirds of the people drowned, I guess. I can’t wait to never watch this episode again.
- Simpsons Archive retro review: “More proof OFF’s writers still have it. Except for a few ludicrous moments during the last act (the ‘net in the water’ gag, for example), nothing was horribly wrong. Both of the ‘in-jokes’ were excellent. I liked both Homer’s gang in international waters, and Burns at the Mayo Clinic. Even Britney Spears’s appearance was pretty cool.”
13. Saddlesore Galactica
- I like the brief bits we see of Mr. Largo at the beginning and his startling lack of imagination (“I thought for once we could play a song that wasn’t written by Sousa.” ”You mean something just arranged by Sousa?”)
- At least the state fair is kind of fun, right before the episode starts to careen off a cliff. OmniGogs and the punchline with Lenny is good, and Homer yelling at BTO to play their two hit songs is alright.
- Why does Bart care so much about Duncan right away? They tried to pepper in a few moments of him encouraging and bonding with the horse, but it doesn’t play at all. But I guess his quick plea is enough to convince Marge to take the damn horse with them. Why not? We also have the meta Comic Book Guy scene, which honestly, isn’t really that necessary. The two episodes are about the Simpsons getting horses, but the set-ups and executions are so wildly different, I may not have even put the connection together if the writers hadn’t shone a big spotlight on it and directly told the fans to shut the fuck up. It certainly feels like the first big moment (of many) of trying to excuse shoddy writing by highlighting it as a “joke.”
- Act two ends with a sad beat of Duncan loses his first race, and I’m wondering why exactly I should give a shit. There’s zero investment to be had in Homer and Bart’s racehorse plan, other than I guess it’s like a Honeymooners-esque get rich quick scheme. But to what end?
- Furious D acting like a human sucks. There have been a few times where Matt Groening’s “animals should only act like animals” rule has been broken that have been funny (the pets attempting to speak in “Bart Gets an Elephant.”) This is not one of them.
- The fucking elves. The fucking elves. Jockeys are short, so they’re elves who live in a Keebler elf-style treehouse. They keep themselves secret until they fire a cannon in broad daylight and chase Homer and Bart through town. Then they’re sprayed with water, shoved into a trash bag and left on the curb. What more could I possibly add?
- I kind of liked how peeved Lisa was at the Ogdenville band’s glow stick-assisted win, but the President Clinton ending is just terrible. Also, his final lesson he gives to Lisa (”If things don’t go your way, just keep complaining until your dreams come true”) aged like milk considering the 2000 election fiasco nine months after this aired.
- Simpsons Archive retro review: “Coming just days after a Salon article outlining the growing rift between the show’s writers and many internet fans is a rather blatant attack on this newsgroup. The show responded to criticism that the show is no longer realistic with one of the most outrageous episodes ever. And to be honest, I laughed so hard through most of it — especially the frequent appearances by the Comic Book Guy — that I really don’t mind having been slagged in this manner. Say what you like about the character development and outrageous plots of late, but the show has rarely been this funny.”
14. Alone Again, Natura-Diddly
- Marge is a-OK with her and the family crossing a busy racetrack, and with Bart riding along with a race car driver whose car just flipped over and burst into flames. Alright.
- Before he inadvertently causes Maude’s death, Homer gets the pit crew to work on his car before booking it, causing a big pileup of cars on the track. What a wonderful man.
- It’s pretty sad that the impetus of this entire episode was FOX being too cheap to keep paying Maggie Roswell. At the time, she was commuting from Denver to Los Angeles to record her lines and asked for a couple thousand per episode raise, and FOX countered with a measly $150. This sucks shit, but Roswell leaving resulted in the unceremonious killing off of Maude in the bluntest way possible. It’s honestly pretty awful how she just gets flung off the bleachers to her death, it feels so tonally improper for this show.
- The funeral filled with meta references about Maude’s role on the show and the few “permanent” changes the series has made like Apu’s kids and Kirk and Luann’s divorce is early proof that the writers don’t give a shit about treating this serious in-universe event with any sort of realism. This show has done so many touching and poignant episodes about death, with this one feeling like the drooling, inbred stepchild of the bunch.
- In an episode ostensibly about Maude’s death, it really isn’t dealt with at all. To be fair, we really barely knew anything about Ned and Maude’s relationship, so you can’t dive too deep into specifics, but if that’s the case, then just don’t bother doing the episode. Rod and Todd disappear after the wake until the very end, we don’t even see Ned talking to his boys about their dead mom.
- “Do you even have a job anymore?” “I think it’s pretty obvious that I don’t.” Great writing, guys. Again, this is an episode about a significant character’s death, and Homer’s having a giddy old time shooting and editing a videotape and hiding in mailboxes.
- We see that Lisa is the one who edited Ned’s dating tape, so I guess that means Homer had his daughter review and cut footage of Ned naked in the shower with his enormous dong. Now that’s parenting!
- I forgot that one of the women Ned goes on a date with is Edna, so I guess Nedna was planned all along! Or maybe it’s because this show has incredibly few women characters, and even fewer single ones. They had to invent a new third woman; if this episode had aired a few seasons later, they would have had Ned go to dinner with the Crazy Cat Lady.
- The back half of this episode has shades of “Viva Ned Flanders” where Ned keeps going to Homer to find out what the next part of the episode is. Again, where are his children? Who’s watching those boys during his father’s dates? It would take almost two decades to get to an episode where one of the Flanders boys deals with their mother’s death, and it was fucking horrible.
- Rachel Jordan’s song is so long and boring. She would return the following season and then never again, leaving Ned more or less a permanent bachelor until Edna twelve years later, except for that one episode where he dated not-Marisa Tomei. Like all the “permanent” changes this show executed during this era, the series didn’t change at all. Neither Ned nor his sons acted any differently after this, and as I’ve mentioned before several times, killing off Maude completely ruins Ned as the subject of Homer’s envy for the perfect family. It’s an episode pretending to be emotional and serious, but if you look closely at it, you’ll clearly see that it’s actually a steaming pile of horse shit.
- Simpsons Archive retro review: “This was a surprise. I think this episode is comparable to season 2: mostly realistic, emphasizing character, and disappointingly short on laugh-out-loud humor. Flanders is portrayed more like a real person than in any previous episode centering around him, while Homer is a well-meaning schemer who (gasp!) actually helps Ned out. The first two minutes were weak and the last two minutes were rushed, making it seem as if Rachel Jordan will return (most likely she’ll be voiced by Tress Macneille). Rachel seems much more interesting as a character than the relatively bland Maude, and I hope we shall see her again. It was also wonderful that they didn’t have a cheesy scene where Maude reappears to Ned as a ghost. I didn’t think they could pull this episode off with dignity and maturity, but they did!”
15. Missionary: Impossible
- “Do Shut Up,” the PBS drive (with prizes like a tote bag and an umbrella with a picture of the tote bag), the Pledge Enforcement Van, all of that stuff is alright, if not stretched out a bit too much. Then we get the PBS mob with Yo-Yo Ma and Big Bird swooping in like a hawk and I start thinking of those damn jockey elves again. It’s all just a big pointless time sink because they only had two acts of material for the missionary plot (and could barely even fit that).
- This episode is almost entirely disposable, but it did give us “Jebus.” I guess we can be thankful for that.
- For so much of this episode, we’re stuck with annoying Homer on the island on his own with no one to challenge or rebuff him in any way. Over the ham radio, Marge mentions that Ned is jealous of Homer’s mission work. Why couldn’t he and Homer have gone to the island together and have butted heads on how best to help the natives? Instead, it’s just Homer let loose to lick toads and kill pelicans by pouring cement down their throats.
- Bart posing as Homer at work and at home is another joke that’s kind of cute in concept, but just serves to further deteriorate the reality of the series.
- This is gonna be my shortest write-up yet, because I really don’t have a lot to say on this one. Like I said, with Homer functioning solo on the island, it doesn’t feel like a whole lot happens. He introduces sin to the natives, makes good by building the chapel, and then we get our cop-out ending. I feel like in a much, much better episode, they could get away with this kind of meta slap-in-the-face, but based on the crap I just watched, Rupert Murdoch working the FOX telethon isn’t enough to redeem this mess.
- Simpsons Archive retro review: “I was really impressed with this one. It had satire, cultural references, and an overall feeling that was reminiscent of the best seasons of the show. It also incorporated the silliness of recent seasons, but in an interesting way that I did not find disagreeable. I loved the way the writers played with the conventions of the television industry, especially the Fox telethon cutting off the Homer plot. Anyway, by adding up all of the positive points, and subtracting a couple for the gratuitous and relatively unfunny chase scene, my final grade for this episode is an A.”
16. Pygmoelian
- I don’t care for Homer’s fake fire alarm getting us to Duff Days, but there’s some pretty good bits while we’re there: Marge stuck in the Designated Driver Fun Zone (“When I get home, there’s gonna be a lot of open pickle jars,”) the drunk simulator (Milhouse’s dizzy “This is the guy…” always cracks me up), and the grand return of Duffman, who hasn’t worn out his welcome yet. Moe’s two opponents are also great bartender stereotypes, and I absolutely buy Duffman as the type of guy who would sleep with a woman and walk back on his promise to help her win (“Duffman says a lot of things! Oh yeah!!”)
- The first act break with Carl talking to camera is strange (“See, this is why I don’t talk much.”) Aside from the fourth wall breaking which I usually always hate, Carl has never come off as soft-spoken to me. He and Lenny seem to talk just as regularly, so the joke that Carl usually keeps his hurtful opinions to himself doesn’t make sense. On top of that, immediately into act two, everybody makes rude remarks and observations about Moe, so everyone is just as mean as he was.
- “There’s too much emphasis on looks these days. That’s why they won’t let Bill Maher on TV before midnight.” Goddamn, I forgot how fucking long Bill Maher has been allowed on TV. Can he just go away already?
- The elephant balloon “subplot” is so strange, since we introduce the balloon at the end of act one and then it gets two scenes to conclude in act two. It’s more of a runner than a story, and is pretty transparent filler. By the time Moe gets his plastic surgery, there’s only eight minutes of show left. It’s literally the plot of the episode, and they couldn’t even fill time for half a show? The punchline with the gay Republicans is fine, I guess, but it felt like a long, unnecessary road to get there.
- After the surgery, Homer basically becomes attached to Moe, be it gleefully attempting to commit arson or just hanging out backstage with Moe at the soap opera for whatever reason. It’s literally, “When Homer’s not on screen, everyone should ask, ‘Where’s Homer?’” On that note, Moe gets on the soap opera by just wandering onto the set with the good fortune of arriving just when another actor was about to be fired, and then he just gets hired on the spot. It’s all just so slapdash and random. We never really get into why Moe likes acting or what he gets out of it, he just does it because that’s the plot that they wrote.
- I’m sure I bitched about this last time, but they’re apparently shooting the soap opera live and the producer just lets Homer keep running his mouth instead of cutting the feed, despite her horror at spoiling a whole year’s worth of storylines. Is this really the best fucking conclusion they could come up with? Considering they didn’t even bother writing how Moe got his old face back and decided to just comment on how nonsensical it was instead, I guess they just didn’t care about any of it.
- Simpsons Archive retro review: “A little extreme wackiness is occasionally a good thing, but it’s always good to come back to a solid plot-line with good quasi-reality-based humor. I saw this solid performance in ‘Pygmoelian,’ and it made me happy. There were several laugh-out-loud moments, such as the return of Duff Man and Moe’s liquor license. However, I do have one complaint. Where did the balloon subplot go? I would’ve liked to have seen the balloon show up in the later scenes back at home. Anyway, keep ’em coming. Season 11’s turning out all right!”
17. Bart to the Future
- “Hey, an Indian casino!” Why bother trying to write set-ups in your script when you can just have a character announce a location and they just go to it?
- I feel a little bad that this awful episode has the unceremonious return (and only reappearance, I think?) of Arthur Crandall and Gabbo. It makes total sense that the two are washed up has-beens playing small venues, though. And while Gabbo did display some degree of “sentience” in “Krusty Gets Kancelled,” it’s still weird that Crandall reacts to Bart like Gabbo’s turned human.
- Future Bart and his 10-year-old voice sucks. I’ve said all this stuff before, but I don’t like future visions of Bart as a childish loser. It feels less creative and believable than him either straightening up his act, or just being a blue-collar slob. He also lives with Ralph, because why not, I guess, whose voice is also the same.
- The biggest “Lisa’s Wedding” contrast I can make is that while almost all of the future gags in “Wedding” were mostly believable and achievable technological and societal advances, the future gags here are all goofs that would be rejected from Futurama scripts (virtual fudge, BrainVision News, etc.) There’s also a couple meta gags about how characters seem aware that they’re in “the future,” which tears at the reality as well.
- Obligatory President Trump mention. He really invested in our nation’s children, didn’t he? It’s also not an “accurate” prediction, since Lisa mentions she’s the first “straight female President,” implying an LGBTQ President before her. That almost ties into the “Gay President in 2084” joke from the last episode, which sadly still feels like too generous of a prediction. And speaking of predictions, they might have accidentally hit on Trump, but the Chastity Bono shout-out was a big swing and a miss.
- The Lincoln’s gold subplot is just completely boring filler, as the episode itself even acknowledges.
- There’s no emotional narrative to latch onto in this episode, considering that Bart is a directionless mooch who’s just kind of floating around Lisa’s orbit and ruining everything during the second act. The Secret Service can’t lock this guy in a closet while Lisa’s doing her address to the nation? Then we’re supposed to feel bad when Bart’s at Camp David, and his “redemption” is that he buys Lisa maybe a day’s worth of time to repay America’s debts? And that’s the happy ending? As bad as this episode is, I would most definitely watch it over the recent future episode “Mother and Child Reunion.” Of the eight future episodes so far, this one probably falls in the lower-middle somewhere, as sad as that may be.
- Simpsons Archive retro review: “When you compare this episode with ‘Lisa’s Wedding,’ this episode was a little better for me. Despite a so-so first act, the episode really picked up when Lisa became president. Bart’s behavior during Lisa’s speech was very funny. I liked the way Bart uncovered her lie so very much. Another highlight was the search for Lincoln’s Gold, and how Bart got the foreign leaders to think that America paid its bills.”
Me Blog Write Good 
Those Simpsons Archive Reviews really bug me. “I hope we see Rachel again as she’s more interesting than that bland Maude” Just shit on the character who literally just died. It’s weird how in the earlier years The Simpsons Archive Reviews were more negative, but as we start heading towards Season 10 there so nice to the later episodes. There like “It had a terrible plot, but I was laughing so that’s an A” Okay I guess all that matters for an episode to be good is that you were laughing?
To be fair, I am cherry picking the more extreme examples. For most episodes, in the classic and Scully eras, there’s a relatively healthy mix of opinions, good and bad.
Also, the Scully years started around the time the Internet started to become more mainstream and less geared towards computer nerds, so we got an influx of less upright viewers sharing their opinions.
“Hey, an Indian casino!”
I don’t get what’s wrong with that line. Unless they were doing something completely different and they drop it the minute they see the casino. Family Guy also did the Indian casino plot around this time, but that actually tied into the story. Yeah, Family Guy was better than The Simpsons around this time and I’ll always stand by that.
As bad as the Scully era was, on some level, I appreciate how much the writers didn’t give a fuck anymore. They knew the show shouldn’t be on at this point and they just threw everything at the wall hoping it would stick. Most of the time, it didn’t work, but the fact that they’re just embracing the broken reality and doing whatever they want is something that could work in theory.
When Al Jean came back, I can tell he wanted the show to be heartwarming and sincere again, but the staff didn’t put any effort into it and inherited all the problems from seasons 9-12 on top of that. At least Scully didn’t even bother trying most of the time.
Cliche as all hell, but I did laugh at Duncan giving his all running in his first race after Bart’s encouragement… only for us to find out THE RACE WAS ALREADY FINISHED. Even then, did they just forget Lisa wants a pony, especially considering THEY SPECIFICALLY POINTED OUT the last episode with that plot?! Maybe they could’ve tied it in: Lisa immediately is distracted by the pony after writing that letter, and legit forgets about it until Clinton shows up. Plus, didn’t Lisa HAVE horse riding lessons in that episode? How the hell did Bart learn that?!
And also, the idea of them literally only changing the status quo when reality is forced to intervene perfectly exemplifies why the seasonal rot of this show runs so deep- whereas shows like South Park, or even FAMILY GUY, have some effort put in to adapt to modern trends and evolving their characters, Simpsons is still using trends with jokes that were hacky and dated even when they were popular and doing so in the most inoffensive, milquetoast way possible. At least Family Guy does their humor with such an irreverent, don’t-give-a-fuck-who-cares style that it gives it their own style. Simpsons satire at this point is such a bland pablum that it’s essentially cartoon wallpaper- nobody notices it or cares. And part of the reason why is they don’t care enough to actually change their characters, seemingly out of fear that neckbearded superfans will riot their studios if the character they laughed at in 1997 changes even slightly. Meanwhile, they frequently resurrect old characters, even if they DIED, simply for fanservice. Most telling- Mona Simpson has appeared twice as many times in flashbacks as she did when her character was alive. Maude is a good example, too. They kill her off to save a LITTLE money, but they’re so creatively bankrupt they REPEATEDLY bring her back to voice the character. So they basically killed their image, and permanently warped Flanders, for literally no reason.
I recall in the review of when Todd doubted his faith in God because he was still mourning his mother, that Mike said even if they did try an episode like that, this rot is so deep they barely actually had it, and mainly just used it to advance other characters. That is a perfect explanation of the decline of this show, and the fact that we as an audience don’t wise up and demand better is honestly nothing short of depressing. But really, what can we do?
Jesus Christ, this is a long and depressing comment, I apologize.
Some of us did wise up and demanded better. But we were told we were “haters” and “impossible to please” for wanting better standards. So we fucked off and let the ass kissers stay behind.
Considering the show’s under Disney now, I suppose that’s entirely fitting. That whole company’s fanbase will thoroughly kiss the ass of Iger, Chapek, or whoever they like simply because they can’t imagine anyone else in the role, and considering they’ve had that type of image literally since Walt was alive, it’s gonna be pure schadenfreude when this company finally gets the negative karma coming to them. Even then, though, they’re not gonna learn- they’re just that enigmatic.
It’s funny how much I rewatched “The Mansion Family” on TV here in Latin America, yet I still don’t remember anything about it, just like any solo Al Jean era episode.
“Saddlesore Galactica” is definitely one of the worst episodes to get a meta commentary… But unlike most people, I don’t really hate it… Is not good, of course, but at least you can forget about it and pretend it doesn’t exist when you watch later episodes, which is not the case of “Alone Again, Natura-Diddly”…
I hated Maude’s death even if I never truly liked her as a character. It didn’t really helped to make Ned more interesting, actually did the opposite. The thing that bothers me the most about the modern era, is that many things could have stayed canon in order to develop the characters, and yet the writing staff always choose the most inorganic garbage to change the Simpsons universe and its characters… Inorganic because those were just gimmicks to get quick attention, or to give someone the middle finger, and nothing more, just like the whole Nedna desperate publicity stunt 11 years later. Changes made for the wrong reasons…
“We see that Lisa is the one who edited Ned’s dating tape, so I guess that means Homer had his daughter review footage of Ned naked in the shower with his enormous schlong. Now that’s parenting!”
LMAO, it makes it obvious that they made the episode just to give Roswell the middle finger. It gives the impression that they did not bother to check the script before it gets the greenlight.
The worst part of this is that while is my most hated episode, is not the one that made me quit watching new episodes, I had to go until season 19 to finally give up…
And the whole Nedna thing just made me hate Maude’s death even more. Later attemps from the writer to “develop” Ned after Maude just ended being contraproductive, especially now that the writing staff apparently doesn’t know yet how to use him as the new Bart’s teacher…
Thank you very much, Modern Simpson: “Grade School Confidential” was the perfect last character arc for Edna and you had to ruin it, it was her only real chance to get an ending where she gets both ALIVE and happy, because not even “Holidays of Future Passed” gives her that.
I don’t really hated the concept of “Missionary: Impossible”, but when I watch the episode makes me wonder how Classic Simpsons would handle it.
“Pygmoelian” is one of the few episodes of this season that is kinda funny to me, but Moe’s later characterization gives me a sour taste in my mouth…
“Bart to the Future” is the first disposable future episode. Nuff said.
“Alone Again” was a jump the shark moment for me, and the only Simpsons episode that I honestly cannot bring myself to forgive, as it’s here that the series seemed to cross a line that it had no way back from. Homer’s grotesque recklessness had gotten someone killed, a fact that both Homer and the episode itself seem depressingly unconcerned about. It’s not as though Homer’s (barely existent) remorse or Ned’s (justified) anger toward Homer are developed into plot points, so I don’t understand why they insisted on making Homer responsible at all, but for the likelihood that someone in Scully’s crew thought it would be hilarious.
Frank Grimes knew it. Consider him vindicated.
I’m certainly more charitable than most regarding this era, but this is an absolutely shitty batch of episodes. Any other show would have been dead if they had a stretch of this quality, but not The Simpsons.
* The Britney Spears stunt casting reeks of “She wanted to do a voice, and we had to figure out how to write her in.” Still, they could have given her some actual jokes. The rest of the episode isn’t any better, although I do enjoy the jab at the Grammys even if “Homer’s Babrbershop Quartet” had a much better one.
* Funny thing: “Saddlesore Galactica” was actually one of my favorite episodes as a kid. I guess I was into wacky humor, so the twist of having the elves be jockeys was certainly going to land with me. Of course, once I rewatched it as an adult, I realized how stupid and nonsensical it was for this show, and the rest of the episode sucked too. It does have a handful of decent jokes though: anything by Mr. Largo or the announcer is good, and I like Chief Wiggum’s “I’d rather let a thousand guilty men go free than chase after them.”
* “Alone Again Natura-Diddly” is a much worse episode, because while “Saddlesore Galactica” at least isn’t trying to take itself seriously, this one is and it falls completely flat. The circumstances behind Maude’s death were so mean-spirited, and her death is treated so callously with any attempt at emotion being undercut by a joke, most of them terrible. Easily this season’s worst. The only silver lining is “Billy Graham’s Bible Blaster” (even if it does undercut what could have been a touching moment between Bart and Rodd and Todd), although the dating video has some good moments. (“Your prayers have been Flanswered. Ned Flanswered, that is!”)
* “Missionary Impossible” is OK. I like the stuff with PBS and the Fox telethon (“You’ve saved this network!,” “Wouldn’t be the first time”), and Betty White is great as always. The stuff on the island is kind of a dead zone though, although I liked the Flintstones reference.
* “Pygmoelian” is the only real gem of this stretch. It’s a far better Moe-centric episode than any that followed. :It Never Ends” is the perfect name for a soap opera.
* I’ve mentioned before that I think the future episodes work in theory, given that the characters never age, but are never executed well. The problem with this one is it’s such a bullshit future. Lisa might be intelligent and driven, but her getting elected president feels like too much of a stretch, as is having Milhouse as her treasury secretary. Of course, this is based on a mystical vision which may not be accurate, so it’s likely not even canon (unlike current future episodes, which seem to be treated as canon). I’m also not sure what they did with Ralph in this future. He’s portrayed as slightly smarter than he usually is, but he also falls off Air Force One numerous times. Pick a lane, writers! I do like this exchange regarding Crazy Talk though.
I noticed you found more flaws with “Pygmoelion” than when you first reviewed it in 2012. You had a positive opinion of it back then, but I guess that’s just because it was an okay episode surrounded by utterly awful ones. It looked really good by comparison.
I hate the “future Bart is a loser” stuff too. They do realize the character is only ten years old, right? He’s not going to be acting the same way at 38 (or however old he’s supposed to be here) as he is as a child. Dumb. What was the point of making Ralph his roommate? He contributes absolutely nothing to the episode.
When “President Trump” (ugh) happened in real life, they did a blackboard gag shortly after he was elected saying “It sucks to be right”. Really though, it was just an incredibly horrible coincidence that this completely ridiculous sounding joke they made in 2000 ended up becoming reality 16 years later. That’s all I have to say on that.
Put in a room of 100 complete strangers. I guarantee you at least 90 of them likely aren’t going to remember the time Trump attempted to run for president in 2000, let alone what the “Reform Party” was. Which was the reason why this joke came to be.
Even by the standards of the time, this was a particularly awful stretch of episodes (except Pygmoelian which is okayish). One failure after the other. This dark period wouldn’t be beat out till a couple seasons into the Jean era.
The one-two punch of Jockey Elves and Maude’s death was the death of The Simpsons.
I think I speak for everybody when I say that the last remnants of classic Simpsons died alongside Maude.
You are 100% correct. And thus, Zombie Simpsons was born.
For me, Zombie Simpsons began with season 9 (the beginning of Scully’s tenure). But there will still a few glimmers of dignity up until this point.
As Principal Skinner would put it, “Ohh… now we’re into the dregs”.
The reason for the fellatio regarding Britney Spears in “The Mansion Family” was largely due to a 1-2 punch from both FOX and Spears’s manager. According to the audio commentary in a rare case of them actually providing useful info as opposed to laughing at things they probably should be ashamed of, they wanted her to refer to herself as “teenaged songbird” and similar self-depreciating comments, but other parties were livid towards the idea of the show mocking one of the biggest musical acts at the time. So, instead, we got the gladhanding celebration that sort of serves as an ominous reminder of years to come. I think with the more recent years, we have seen the staff genuinely gush endlessly about celebrities and how awesome they are, which only makes episodes like “Lisa Goes Gaga”, “The Musk Who Fell to Earth”, and “Do Pizzabots Dream of Electric Guitars?” all the more insufferable, but I believe this still was a time they were still punchy. Not much longer, but it’s still there.
As for the rest of the episode… it’s an episode that has no purpose to exist, really, in concept nor execution. This is right when the show embraces that the world revolves around the Simpsons as opposed to things just coming around to the Simpsons by happenstance with other characters either calling attention to that reality or embracing it, which is a realization the show should have never made. Also, earlier this season saw Homer start a motorcycle gang cause he saw a movie, and now because he’s a housesitter, he thinks he’s fucking RICH?! Logically, Burns wouldn’t need housesitters; earlier episodes established he had freaking security teams stationed on the premises going all the way back to SEASON TWO! If you have your own personal henchmen to look after the estate, why would you need to hire a blue collared slob and his family to look after it simply due to “the Law of Averages”? This episode also made international waters sound a lot more wild and rebellious than what it really is, as the lack of effort by the staff has begun to show. Whatever; the third act MUST be crazy.
I do like the taunting by the Coast Guard as well as the end credits rambling (“Don’t shush me, you rich bastard!”), but that’s not high praise.
Speaking of episodes that call attention to flaws in the show’s internal thinking, we got “Saddlesore Galactica”… whatever the hell that title has any bearing to the inspiration. The episode keeps wanting to allude to “Lisa’s Pony” only out of recognition that they somehow remembered they already did a “Simpsons get a horse” episode, except that episode was about Homer buying a horse to, in essence, buy Lisa’s love and the consequences of said endeavor, while this one is… them randomly getting a horse. I know everyone complains to hell and back about the jockey elves, and I thought that was extremely stupid (not to mention dehumanizing actual jockeys), but my gripes about the episode lie in the rapid transitions from plot point to plot point, at manic speed. Bart finishes last in one race, time for an attitude adjustment for the horse; now the horse is winning races and acting like a human, this upsets the other jockeys (Shouldn’t the ire be other horse owners angry about Homer eating into their winnings? As Martin Prince would paraphrase it, “the jockey is essentially ballast.”), they’re actually ELVES, Homer is told the Furious D must take a dive, the horse wins anyway, crazy ending sequence, sudden resolution to B-plot. That’s all in less than 10 minutes.
Oof, “Alone Again, Natura-Diddly”… commentary ducks the issue, but the way the show dealt with it was not only tone-deaf, but in hindsight, was one of the worst decisions in show history. They did very little with it in the future (Rachel Jordan only appears once more, it took 20 years to do an episode about one of the boys dealing with the loss, and Ned would become more known as an ultraconservative asshole in a few years time), so it seemed like they killed Maude to spite Maggie Roswell for complaining about low pay (which, when you look at how they write episodes featuring Roswell and Pamela Hayden characters in the lead, come off very spiteful) more than using it to undergo a dynamic change in the show. At least shitposters run with Ned’s dick.
I hate “Missionary: Impossible”. On my first watch many years ago, I sort of watched nothing but PBS at the time, so I thought in spite of agreeing with how much I hate pledge drives (still do cause I hate the programs made for pledges and how they interrupt regularly scheduled programming, though they now aren’t as invasive), I thought this came from a place of malice towards public broadcasting. It also featured a stupid chase sequence where the Teletubbies are firing lasers and Yo-Yo Ma is launching a bow from his violin like it’s an arrow. The rest of the episode features more insipid moments like everyone treating Bart like Homer at the power plant, and Homer drinking an ox testicle instead of a coconut since we’re now immature. Also, cop-out ending.
There’s not a lot for me to say regarding “Pygmoelian”. Moe is once again self-conscious about himself, so he gets all prettied up. Homer, however, sticks around cause we need a Simpson for the rest of the episode. It’s pointless drivel, though I do like “MOO?! Lenny, you were supposed to be ‘E’!”
“Bart to the Future” is when you realize that this group just doesn’t like Bart, period. They’re obsessed with “that guy”, who they described in great detail on commentary, and Bart’s depiction in this episode is a mirror image to “that guy’s” general image. But, a great deal of the audience have some level of emotional attachment to Bart, so seeing him pigeonholed as a complete waste of space when he grows up, which becomes the standard for future episodes set in the future. It’s also grown a high level of infamy due to the “President Trump” comment, which has forever set in stone this nonsensical idea that the show is clairvoyant or has the ability to predict the future, which several former writers (like Dan Greaney) have legitimately ran with, when in reality, it’s just the show being on forever combined with the Law of Averages (there it is again) meaning coincidences just happen. But, people just have to be fucking weird and must find answers in everything cause they can’t accept that life is predictable and dull. I don’t like any of this episode. As someone else said, Family Guy had also done an episode about an Indian casino at this time, yet they legitimately tied it to the story where Peter claims Indian heritage (“Chief Grand Cherokee”) purely to get out of a debt and goes on a spiritual quest where he meets the Fonz who gives him legitimate advice. The only purpose the casino was for this episode is just so they could loosely do a fantasy sequence via mysticism, I guess.
You have one more week of this. I legitimately want you to at least look at Season 12 just to close the book on the Scully Era and look back on a showrunner to see how Mike Scully crashed and burned, but I got a feeling you never want to revisit episodes like “Tennis the Menace” or “Simpsons Safari” ever again. Not to mention, you do want to take summer off.
I don’t know what was wrong with the “teenage songbird” comment, that’s not even an insult. I’m just glad to hear that it was Britney’s handlers who were being difficult to work with and not Britney herself. Actually, that’s the story of Britney’s life, isn’t it? I’m sure she would have loved to make fun of herself. In the earlier seasons, if something like this happened, the writers would have just replaced Britney with someone else, but by season eleven, the show just had celebrities on to worship them like every other show does.
The weird thing is there was still a part of the writing that wanted to make fun of celebrities in a genuine way. Like when *NSYNC guest-starred and they had Justin Timberlake say “word” multiple times. Apparently, he hated saying it, so they took the one recording they had of him saying it and used it as much as they could. That’s a level of trolling and shitposting that the show would never do these days.
To be fair, there are examples of guest celebrities complaining about how they were represented and getting their way in the earlier seasons. Johnny Carson’s role in “Krusty Gets Kancelled” had to be completely retooled because Carson objected to their portrayal of him as a freeloader. Joe Frazier was originally going to be knocked out by Barney in “Brother Can You Spare Two Dimes”, but this offended his son, so the reverse happened instead. José Canseco’s role in “Homer at The Bat” was rewritten to make him mega-heroic because he disliked his original portrayal as sexually promiscuous (although in his case I think the writers were a little afraid of him).
Not that I’m defending “The Mansion Family” or the lazy way the series was using celebrities at this point – all of the above at least remained fundamentally funny, which is more than you can say for Britney here.
Knowing what we now know about the horrifying psychological stranglehold Britney Spears’ father has kept on her throughout her entire career, it absolutely makes sense that her management would object to any joke or line in her guest appearance that would make fun of her. I’m astonished that Burns’ “Don’t give me your kiss of death, you black widow!” even got in.
Pygmoelian isn’t very good but it looks better because it’s in the middle of a bunch of even worse crap, kind of like how like Revenge of the Sith doesn’t seem half bad because it follows two lumps of total crap.
Alone Again, Natura-Diddly is such a sour episode that I wouldn’t blame anyone for quitting the show for good after watching it. I mean, I could have a “few” drinks and get into the stupid junk that is a good bit of this awful season but that episode is just so unpleasantly mean spirited that there’s no fun in it at all, That one and Kidney Trouble just depress the Hell out of me. Uck.
Yikes, yikes, yikes… where do we begin?
My god, “The Mansion Family” is such a piece of shit. Ignoring the wall-banging pirate asspull at the end, nothing in this episode just makes any sense. Honestly, why would C.M. Burns want to entrust this guy he CLEARLY doesn’t know (Let alone the guy’s whole family) to watch over his mansion? Oh yeah, Burns is absolutely pathetic here, worrying about how he’s now the oldest man in Springfield not to mention the unfunny gags on his behalf during his check-up.
Literally everyone and their dog has talked about why jockey elves is one of the dumbest plot points in the show and for that, there’s nothing new for me to comment on “Saddlesore Gal-ass-tica” besides my intentionally bad pun that shows how much I hate this episode.
It’s just as Sean said, when the show killed off Maude on account of the Roswell payment dispute, not only did they kill one of their characters, but they pretty much officially sold their soul to Murdoch. Plus, this episode is the prime example of how the show is no longer able to balance comedy and drama like in the old days. Plus, Rachel Jordan is a boring. Oh well, still better than the Family Guy episode where they killed of Brian.
“Rod and Todd disappear after the wake until the very end, we don’t even see Ned talking to his boys about their dead mom.”
I hear in the DVD commentary they mention that they were going to do a scene like that but cut it because it was “too sad.” I don’t blame them, it probably would’ve contrasted WAY too hard with all the wacky shit that happens in the episode.
Continuing the streak of Season 11 awfulness we got Homer the missionary! Yeah, there really is nothing to comment on regarding this trash. Homer’s missionary shenaningans in the South Pacific are so boring and stupid. The island natives are also boring and forgettable. And Bart taking over Homer’s role at the nuclear power plant is just dumb. Doesn’t the kid have schoool… oh wait, Bart hates school. He’s LOVE to work at the… wait, WHY IS A TEN YEAR OLD WORKING AT A NUCLEAR POWER PLANT?! God, this episode sucks.
“Pygmoelian” is the sole good episode of this horrid batch. And by good, I mean passable. It still has its problems. Jerkass Homer is prevalent and the ending is dumb, but at least there are good jokes and I actually am able to root and support Moe as he tries to relive his dreams of being a TV star. And I love the plastic surgeon character too. (“Oops, we’ve got some leakage. Let me just cauterize that for you.”) I like to think Moe’s “handsome” design represents what Moe’s “regular” appearance would be if he was introduced in Season 11 because according to the double-digit seasons, cartoony designs are a no-no.
Too bad we don’t end with that high note, so we have to end it with a low note! “Bart to the Future” which honestly, why does this need to exist when we have “Lisa’s Wedding?” And ignoring all the stupid future shit, what I absolutely hate about this one is how intolerable and unlikeable Future Bart is. Just some obnoxious freeloader who mooches off of others for his own benefit. In fact, “Bart to the Future” feels less like a Simpsons episode and more like a shitty Pauly Shore flick.
Well, I’m looking forward to part four of this revisit of this shitty-fucking-ass-shitty-lame-o season. Goddamn do I miss Season 10 already. I can’t wait for you to revisit my arch-nemesis “Kill the Alligator and Run.” At least we have “Last Tapdance of Springfield” and “Behind the Laughter” to look forward to. After that, I’ll give a brief retrospective of Season 12 so you don’t have to.
“I hear in the DVD commentary they mention that they were going to do a scene like that but cut it because it was “too sad.” I don’t blame them, it probably would’ve contrasted WAY too hard with all the wacky shit that happens in the episode.”
Remember, the whole point of the episode was to piss on Maude Flanders’s grave, not mourn her. This was just to flip the middle finger at Maggie Roswell for having the temerity to demand better pay, so we weren’t going to bother putting in a depressing scene in an episode about death.
Hello Floreda is right; the show only did this to save a few dollars in the short term, but due to how lazy and creatively bankrupt they are, they kept bringing Maude back every single chance they could, so this change was a net loss overall.
As far as I think, they did it because they needed the ratings. Lasting 11 years, going into a new millennium, they thought “hey, let’s do something CRAZY!” and just ran with that ball. The jockey elves, Gary Coleman and Britney Spears doing pointless cameos, Homer being friends with Mel Gibson, all of it was done because that’s who audiences were apparently interested in. That has still lasted today, along with plots that are so quarter assed, they legit feel like they’re literally only named for a bad pun. People seem to forget that before the show had this image, famous stars only showed up if their family happened to be fans of the show. Now, they practically have to BEG them to be on, so why would they bother making jokes? Don’t want to offend our gracious guests. Compare it to other shows- Family Guy has frequently had guests stars come in literally just to do one or two lines that could be done by ANYONE. South Park literally hyped up a guest appearance by George Clooney…. who played a gay dog that only barked. Even Futurama did that in Bender’s Big Score, the credits proudly proclaiming a new character… who went on to make only a 3-second voiceless appearance. Compare it to Simpsons, who has literally paid a tennis player to say their name and “Yoink!”.
Next week’s list of “Season 11 Episodes that don’t constitute war crimes” is gonna be real short. So far, it’s just Brother’s Little Helper, Treehouse of Horror X, E-I-E-I-D’oh!, and maybe Grift of the Magi.
I’m no square who used to be with it but I have to ask. What is so funny about the word Jebus?
Not going to lie, I legitimately thought “Kill The Alligator and Run” was in this batch of episodes, That would have made the unholy duo of “Saddlesore” and “Alone Again” into the trio right off the bat.
“Mansion Family” and “Missionary Impossible” I remember seeing quite a bit growing up (I grew up in that tumultuous period where both the classic episodes and Early Zombie era of Seasons 9-15 were airing at the same time). They seemed to reair Season 11 a lot here in Canada back then and I don’t know why. Especially since these are two of the bigger sinks when it comes to anything interesting happening (I was more confused about how the PBS characters were doing things like firing lasers and flying when they’re literally just people in suits. Are they sentient beings in this universe? I mean I know Elmo apparently is, but how and why?). “Bart to the Future” is not only a terrible pun for an episode title, but just a terrible episode in general, and I definitely don’t like how it set the precedent for Bart being a loser all through his later years in life. Ditto with how the whole “President Trump” throwaway line became one of the go-tos in that bullshit “THE SIMPSONS PREDICTED THE FUTURE” clickbait nonsense.
“I don’t care for Homer’s fake fire alarm getting us to Duff Days”
It always bugged me that we never saw Marge’s reaction to Homer being this much of a Jerkass, much less to his own kids in the car. Maybe she had enough and just begrudgingly rolled with it? I don’t know, I’m just headconnoning now.
I used to watch the show regularly in syndication in 2001, and even though the local Fox affiliate in DC had access to the first 11 seasons at that point, Seasons 7 to 11 were the ones that got the most airplay. Sometimes they’d devote entire weeks to the first four seasons (and it was very noticeable, given the different animation), while Season 5 was barely touched at all (although I had seen most of those episodes at a younger age, when I was watching syndicated episodes somewhat erratically), and Season 6 episodes only seemed to air once in a while.
In fact, here’s a list of episodes I had no knowledge of until I got the Simpsons Complete Guide the following year:
* Bart vs. Thanksgiving
* Brother from the Same Planet
* Last Exit to Springfield
* Marge in Chains
* Bart’s Inner Child
* Boy-Scoutz ‘n the Hood (All I knew of this one was the clip that was featured in “All Singing, All Dancing”)
* Sweet Seymour Skinner’s Badassssss Song
* The Boy Who Knew Too Much
* Secrets of a Successful Marriage
* Bart’s Comet
* Lisa’s Wedding
I know, very sad. The good news is I’ve seen them all now.
I do remember the local affiliate would sometimes do themed weeks, sort of like what FXX does now. For example, in the week leading up to “Day of the Jackanapes,” they aired all of the Sideshow Bob episodes up to that point.
Eventually, that local affiliate became inaccessible for me once my parents switched cable providers. Then, over the years, Simpsons reruns became unwatchable because they would focus more on recent episodes. At least FXX still provides a good mix (and if you tune in during the right week, it’s all classic episodes), although Disney+ has mitigated the need for it.
If “Alone Again Natura-Diddly” is the drooling inbred step child of the death episodes, what does that make Season 19’s “Mona Leaves-A”?
And I assume “Lisa’s Wedding” is your favourite of the Future episodes, but which one would take second place?
For me, I would put “Holidays of Future Passed” in a very distant second. It’s not great, but it has heart and a handful of funny moments. I just don’t agree with some of the choices they made (Lisa marrying Milhouse just doesn’t feel right).
I’ve never particularly cared for “Lisa’s Wedding,” as I’m not a fan of future episodes in any show, but man oh man do the other Simpsons future episodes make it look like a masterpiece by comparison. I mean, it’s still a pretty good episode on its own merits, but I’d gladly watch a season of Lisa’s Weddings instead of the shit they gave us afterwards.
“Probably this episode’s only significant cultural export is this frame grab of Lenny.”
Don’t forget the monkey knife fight and “Drinking Time”.
Forgot one more…
“What you’re saying is I’m indestructible?”
“No, even a slight breeze could…”
“Indestructible.”
Was used when the vaccine came out, and during a few other things (e.g. Trump’s first impeachment)
“What you’re saying is Trump is no longer president?”
“No, he still need to be impeached by the Sen…”
“No longer President.”
Jeebus, this might be the worst stretch of episodes in the entire history of The Simpsons. Granted, part of the reason these are viewed so poorly is that expectations were much higher, so we actually cared about how shitty they were. After 20 years of bad episodes, it stops mattering, I guess.
Weirdly, despite how bad these episodes were, they still managed to give us some memorable jokes and lines. Jeebus, toad-licking, “Duffman says a lot of things, baby! Oh yeah!”.
I agree that futures where Bart remains a childish prankster (and futures where Lisa becomes president) are just lazy and unimaginative.