Original airdate: February 15, 2026
The premise: Homer goes into business with Kirk Van Houten, who has invented a revolutionary crumble-less cracker. Everything seems to be going great until Kirk’s behavior starts becoming more erratic as a result of him stopping taking his bipolar medication.
The reaction: As the years have gone on, we’ve seen the show begin to flesh out a number of the secondary and tertiary denizens of Springfield. I’ve bitched before that certain characters I’m totally fine leaving as simple joke characters, like Mayor Quimby or Cletus and Brandine. Kirk Van Houten doesn’t seem like the most fruitful person to develop an inner life for, but I’m not totally against it. Surprisingly, this sad sack has had quite a number of episodes to his name already. Even though he’s been back together with Luann for decades now, he’s still portrayed as a sad loser who is desperate for attention, one that Homer can barely stand to be near, which is a promising start. He’s still slaving away at that cracker factory, and despite being with Luann, is stuck sleeping on the couch at night (“‘Cause of my night sweats and night farting and also something I’m too embarrassed to talk about.”) An off-hand observation from Homer about Marge being pissed about crumbs in the bed throws Kirk into a frantic multi-day brainstorm, culminating in the invention of a new cracker that doesn’t shatter upon biting. He convinces Homer to go into business with him, with “Kirkers Crackers” becoming an enormous success. I’m not quite sure why Kirk didn’t just pitch this idea to the company he works for, get a huge raise and a promotion and leave it at that. Instead, I guess Kirk has the capital to start his own damn company by himself, and this miracle cracker is enough to make him stinking rich. Things start going off the rails at a celebration dinner with the Simpsons and the Van Houtens. Kirk begins to act strangely, aggressively coming onto his wife with their kid sitting right across the table, rubbing his body and gyrating on top of the table (“Come on, baby, shake your Milhouse maker! I wanna bang the whole world!!”) It’s one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever seen on this show. Dr. Hibbert sheds some light on the subject that Kirk has stopped taking his bipolar medication and is experiencing a manic episode. He later appears on a cable news show, ranting and raving about needing to fund an aquatic rocket to save humanity from an apocalyptic event. I guess this is supposed to be reflective of Elon Musk’s continual delusion lie about colonizing Mars or maybe Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin as well. Later on in Kirk’s depressive state, he’s of no help with the FBI ransacks the company for misappropriated funds to his stupid rocket, and Homer volunteers to have the whole wrap pinned on him. Let’s back pedal though. I remember season 28’s “There Will Be Buds,” the first episode exploring a would-be friendship between Homer and Kirk, where Homer was pretty turned off by this sad weirdo and his bizarre behavior. He often frequents strip clubs to whine and cry to the dancers, he asks Homer in the car where the strangest place he had sex with Marge is, with their kids in the backseat… he’s kind of a dang ass creep. This characterization is consistent at least, and I can definitely buy Kirk being a disturbed deviant who’s completely beaten down by his wife, so he indulges his sexual urges and fantasies in other ways. That said, it’s not very fun to watch. On the flip side, Luann is just in generic bitch mode, only turning around when Kirk makes her rich of course, with the running gag that Marge keeps coming over to try and help Kirk, but Luann assumes she’s a gold digger wanting to fuck her husband. It’s a sad state of affairs. Kirk is an unsavory freak, but he’s depicted with an actual disorder and clearly needs help, but Luann turns a blind eye to him the entire time, cavorting in expensive clothes as Kirk is lying in a fetal position in tears inside his giant safe. There’s no resolution to this, as the crux of the episode is Marge convincing Kirk to stop Homer from taking the fall for him, and the fate of their friendship. But what is their friendship? Homer inspires Kirk about the cracker, and Kirk does a big rousing speech to convince him to go into business with him. But what do they bond over? What’s their connective glue? I just don’t see any reason to care. I’d rather this had been a Kirk and Luann episode with the two of them ending in a better place. I dunno, as fucked up as he is, I can see Kirk being a wildcard character who we can have some affection for, even if it’s just sweet, sweet pity, but it’s easy to push things too far, and with moments in this episode and the aforementioned “Buds,” I find myself incredibly turned off.
Two items of note:
– I gotta say, now that we’re almost a season in, Kelly Macleod really is an incredibly recast for Milhouse. Of course it’s not an exact one-to-one, but similar to Grey DeLisle as Martin, it gets so damn close and the rest is pulled off by just getting the spirit of the character. Even someone like Alex Desert, whose Carl sounds very different from Hank Azaria’s, became natural sounding to me fairly quickly just because his voice seemed to fit with the character. The one recast I just have not been able to get over is Kevin Michael Richardson as Dr. Hibbert. Maybe it’s just that Richardson’s voice is too recognizable, but I could also say the same about DeLisle. It’s definitely in the Hibbert ballpark, but it takes me out every time I hear him show up. I guess all these recasts are totally subjective based on how you find yourself still being able to connect with the characters with a new voice. It’s a similar situation with the “new” performer for Kermit the Frog, Matt Vogel. I could go on forever about this, but I think he’s doing an incredible job, and I think a big part of the difficulty of getting used to the recast is a result of there barely being any Muppet productions in the now ten years since Vogel assumed the role, and even fewer Muppet productions that featured Kermit prominently (or in the case of Muppets Mayhem, he didn’t appear at all.) I thought Vogel absolutely killed it in the new Muppet Show special, and I’m hoping that a lot of other people warmed up to him too.
– We get an almost two minute music video of depressed Kirk set to guest star Michael Stipe doing a parody of R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts” (“Everybody Kirks, crumb-times…”) The man can still nail that song after all these years, but it’s just empty time filler. I get we need to reestablish the terrible mental state Kirk is in, but you could do it in a faster, funnier way than devoting so, soooo much time to a parody song that is mildly cute at best. The reveal of the chorus is a little smirk-worthy, even though you can basically figure out where it’s going by the time it gets there. Then we end on R.E.M.’s “Superman,” because why not. Hey, you know Scrubs is coming back? Oh wait, that’s the other “Superman” song. Who sang that? Oh, who cares.
Me Blog Write Good 
This is the episode where I went ‘you know what? Fuck it!’ when it came to how after I gave up regularly watching the show’s, the only ones I would still watch (besides the two or three per season with an interesting though usually wasted premise) would be the season premiere, the THoH, a milestone if there was one and the season finale. But the fact that it was going to be a Kirk episode that they were dumb enough to try and do after previously portraying him as a parallel to one of history’s monsters, I went ‘nope!’ even if it meant this is now the first season with more episodes I haven’t watched over the seven that I actually did.
I do see myself as a glutton for punishment, but not enough of a masochist to try and sit through an episode about Kirk not just after the aforementioned point, but also There Will Be Buds which unlike most people I actually hate both because of Kirk and the episode’s warped view on morality as it forces you to side with the piece of crap weirdo who doesn’t deserve any while the one we actually do sympathize with (Homer) is viewed as the villain for wanting to get as far away as he can from this weird ass creep who won’t leave him alone!
And as if this episode wasn’t already DOA enough just by being a Kirk episode, it becomes especially repugnant once it was revealed that he’s bi-polar which from what I’ve heard wasn’t much different than how it would’ve been portrayed on Family Guy where it comes off as being in very poor taste.
Mike, I don’t know if you watch Rick and Morty, but if you do, how do you feel about the new voice actors?
I think those are incredibly faithful recastings. From the jump I though the new Rick was perfect. New Morty was like 90% there, but by a few episodes in, I was totally on board with both. There are certainly differences you can point to compared to Roiland, but none of them feel so major that it detracts from the authenticity of both characters.
No end of season recap? I know there’s still the two Disney+ specials but this is the last episode of the actual FOX run.
I don’t have much to comment on regarding the episode (other than that ridiculous title) because I haven’t actually seen it.
But I do have one observation regarding the episodes as of late, and it’s the animation. Whenever the camera closes in on the characters or objects, the outlines get really thick. This sort of thing was common back in the 90s and 2000s when digital animation was still a new technology (in fact you can see it a lot in season 14 when they first switched to digital), but eventually as people got the hang of digital animation you stopped seeing it, so it’s weird to see now.
I can’t seem to find an official statement that this is in fact the season finale, but it seems like the agreed upon belief that it is. It totally slipped my mind, so weird to think about an end of season in February. I am lumping in the two D+ specials into season 37, so for my account, it’s not “over.”
A press release that was posted on Nohomers labeled this and the previous episode as a ‘one hour season finale ‘.
I too am counting those upcoming Disney + episodes as being part of Season 37 simply because having the season end on a Kirk episode where he’s got a legit mental disorder is too much of a pill for me to swallow!
This is episode 15 of the season, and last year’s renewal was four seasons with 15 FOX episodes and 2 D+ specials.
So this is the last normal episode of the season.
I don’t like that they’re doing these D+ specials. South Park did a similar thing a few years ago; they shortened their regular seasons and made extended-length specials for Paramount Plus. It at-least made sense why they were doing it (to get around the HBO contract), but it still wasn’t enjoyable for the viewer. Besides the two Post COVID specials, the Paramount specials were all stretched and bloated to meet an arbitrary “special” runtime.
Now they’re doing the same with The Simpsons, except here it doesn’t even make sense. D+ already has the full Simpsons catalog, no one’s subscribing to D+ just for these specials. If these were regular broadcast episodes they would’ve made more money off them (airing, reruns, cable vod, also Hulu subscriptions since the newest season is always exclusive to them).
By the way Mike (I can’t seem to start a new thread), have you ever given any ideas for what your ideal Simpsons episode for today’s world would be like?
I don’t really know how to answer that. I’ve talked a lot about how I think so much of the bedrock of the show is rooted in an Americana of the past that it can’t help but feel somewhat anachronistic in modern day. But if you start changing the foundation of the show, it stops being what it was. I instinctively want to say that my ideal modern Simpsons episode is a Bob’s Burgers episode, a show that I feel picked up the dysfunctional working class family sitcom ball to the greatest effect. Even though that show is also a long-hauler, now in its 16th season, but I think its spirit is still present and remains enjoyable to watch.
Michael actually did a decent job on ‘Everybody Kirks’, all things considered. He did a few one-off performances in the last couple of years and it’s safe to say his voice is shot. He definitely tried as hard as he could to match the original.
Almost every time the past 20 years of this show attempt topical satire, it feels self-centered. I guess that’s because it almost always takes the form of simply acknowledging things that everyone already knows. It rarely has anything personal or incisive to say, or if it does, that gets watered down in rewrites.
So instead it feels like these topics are being name-dropped for legitimacy. “We’re modern Simpsons and we’re not totally clueless! Look, we know what [teen fashion culture/toxic masculinity influencers/obnoxious wealthy techbros/concert ticket scalpers/etc] are!” And yes, they do. But if all you have to say is “I know these things exist”, it doesn’t feel like you actually care about them, or you’d bring them up for a stronger reason.
So to treat bipolar disorder as the topic of the week like that is, uh… it’s certainly a choice. As always with the modern era of this show, I bet one or two writers genuinely were passionate about telling this story, but most weren’t and that’s what shows. It feels callous to half-ass this story.
But I’m guessing the conventions of “The Simpsons” mean it’s impossible not to half-ass. Homer has to be the POV character and no one is allowed to permanently change. It seems cynical to say that means Kirk van Houten can’t make strides fighting the bipolar disorder the writers just now diagnosed him with. But I can see how this show’s premises would lead writers to that conclusion.
It’s a bit of a bummer to say certain stories can just never be done on The Simpsons. The good news is that’s not true. They can. But they can only be done if the story itself is held up as more sacred than the Simpsons brand. I thought that was what the Selman era initially promised. No more following a rigid template dictating what The Simpsons is allowed to be. The show is now a malleable format to tell interesting stories. But if it actually committed to that, every episode wouldn’t feel damn near indistinguishable to watch.
Oh yeah, how was the bi-polar representation? Because that was the final nail that there was no way I was ever gonna watch this even though it was already DOA just for being a Kirk episode!
From what I’ve heard, it came off as though it was no different than how FG would’ve done it where it comes off as being in really bad taste.
I think this part of the main blog entry says it all:
“Kirk is an unsavory freak, but he’s depicted with an actual disorder and clearly needs help […] There’s no resolution to this, as the crux of the episode is Marge convincing Kirk to stop Homer from taking the fall for him, and the fate of their friendship”
The episode treats Kirk being bipolar as A) a non-specific crutch explanation for having him do weird shit and B) less important than this sudden, overnight, semi-transactional friendship with Homer which will never, ever be spoken of again.
I’m not an authority on bipolar representation or anything, but this seems very flippant to me. It might be genuinely offensive, or it might just be this show’s writing style not working for me in general. Maybe for someone who is moved by modern Simpsons storytelling, this representation will seem more respectful. I kind of doubt that, though.
Most people didn’t appear to like the bipolar element either feeling that it was more of a negative than a positive, even to those who liked the episode.
I’m not bipolar but I have Autism, and just from the perspective of someone with a mental disorder the idea of doing this just felt repugnant (because they couldn’t settle on just being DOA as a Kirk episode where we’re meant to feel sorry for him) let alone that it was used to retroactively backpedal the prior actions of this crappy character!
You know, I’ve been shitting on this show non-stop this season, so I feel like balancing that out with some positivity for once.
Compared to the state it was in ten years ago, this show is ridiculously, unfathomably good. That’s more a testament to how horrible it used to be than praise for the way it is now, but still, every season has had one genuinely great episode and about 20% of the others are still charming and pleasant instead of obnoxious and irritating. I didn’t really give most of my favorites their due in the comments when they came out, so I’m going to sing their praises a bit now. For each season, we have:
Season 33 – Pixelated and Afraid: This is such a bold episode that it’s almost come to single-handedly represent what fans wanted the “Selman Renaissance” to be. If modern Simpsons sucks at comedy now, I guess that’s OK when it provides a solid survival drama. And I love how it not only isn’t a marriage crisis episode, but seems to outright refute the episodes that were. That shows The Simpsons isn’t beyond redemption because of the mistakes it made in the past. It just has to understand why those things are mistakes and consciously avoid them. Homer and Marge and everyone else are charming characters when they’re allowed to act like human beings, and when those human beings have needs and desires and obstacles to overcome to get them, I genuinely want to see their story unfold. I don’t know why this is so rare, since it seems like writing 101, but “Pixelated and Afraid” pulls it off with aplomb.
Really, I feel like I’m just repeating stuff everyone already knows. You already know why people love this episode. It’s pretty good.
Season 34 – Treehouse of Horror XXXIII: A better THOH than either of Oakley and Weinstein’s. Yeah, I said it. Not since Season 16’s “The Heartbroke Kid” has a Simpsons episode felt like you could slot it into the classic era (and that example was only because of Albert Brooks)… until now. Modern Simpsons “comedy” feels completely different from classic era comedy, even when the former works okay, but its storytelling, minus the lack of jokes, can feel close enough when the stars align. THOH episodes are more drama than comedy to begin with, and all three of the segments in 33 would fit perfectly into the classic era. None reach the heights of “Citizen Kang”, but I like them all at least as much as the others in THOH VII. But none of these segments could have actually been made in the 90s. One parodies a movie than didn’t exist yet. The next shows an understanding of anime as a medium that none of those writers had. The last one only exists as a reflection of this show’s endlessly long refusal to die, and avoids the trap of being mere fan service by tapping into the pseudo-existential dread that idea invokes.
Every THOH after this has been a huge disappointment just because this one set the bar so high. (That and because they just kinda sucked in general. But back to being positive for a little bit.)
Season 35 – The Tipping Point: This felt like a good Scully episode, keywords: “good” and “episode”. I like a lot of the Scully era’s moments, because its anything-goes comedy sometimes blends in with the classic era, as long as Jerkass Homer is kept at arm’s length. “The Tipping Point” isn’t as sharp or quick-witted as the classic or Scully eras, but it has that bold “anything goes” attitude where it actually feels like the people who wrote it were… get this… funny! It’s not just the Homer x Moe sex scene that everyone remembers. The whole episode has this unpredictable aura about it that feels distinctly human and personal. It feels more like a Simpsons shitpost than a modern episode of the show, and yet it works as a satisfying enough story regardless.
When so much of this franchise feels like Krusty Brand Imitation Gruel churned out of a machine, “The Tipping Point” is a very welcome exception. Watching it is a guilty pleasure instead of just… guilt… and… pain.
Season 36 – O C’mon All Ye Faithful: Structurally, this is a weird episode. It’s basically two unrelated storylines forced to work together in some second, third, or fourth draft. (Or fifth, or tenth, or twentieth. This show has a lot of rewrites.) But it’s just so charming that I don’t even care. Homer thinking he’s Santa could have easily come across as tiresome, but again, these are charming characters when they feel like people and for once, the denizens of Springfield actually feel like human beings.
Should I buy the emotions of Homer and Ralph bringing joy / a Santa cult to the town, or Flanders having an existential crisis? Strictly speaking, no. On paper, it shouldn’t work. But the character-driven way it’s written has me on the writers’ side. Do whatever you want, guys. Stay true to the humanity of this show and I’ll go along with anything. I’m still not sure why you struggle so much with that first part. Believe it or not, I always want to be on your side.
Season 37 – Parahormonal Activity: The Simpsons is a creative dead end and I’m pretty sure I’ll stop watching altogether after the second movie. But it doesn’t have to be. “Parahormonal Activity” feels like a glimpse into an alternate reality where the Simpson family was allowed to grow and change. It’s a better reality, where the characters feel real, their struggles feel interesting, and I get the sense that this is an actual family and not a bunch of self-referential sitcom tropes. This is what people want when they ask for meaningful status quo changes or the cast to age a few years. They want them to feel like people again.
Being in stasis for 37 years made these characters feel removed from reality, no matter how many topical issues they attempt to satirize. This episode just lets them out of the stasis. It’s the brilliant future episode “Holidays of Future Passed” claims to be. That one sucks. This one’s actually brilliant. It might be just as good as “Lisa’s Wedding”. If this turns out to be a soft pilot for a permanent time skip after the second movie, and we get more adventures of teenage Bart and Lisa and an actual speaking Maggie… well then, I’ll actually keep watching this show. Not only that, I even think I’ll enjoy it. If “Parahormonal Activity” is anything to go by, that could be a true Simpsons Renaissance.
That’s one episode a year for the past five years that I actually really loved. Now back to this franchise being garbage.
What is the title even supposed to be a reference to? The simpsons wiki doesnt say
“I’m not quite sure why Kirk didn’t just pitch this idea to the company he works for, get a huge raise and a promotion and leave it at that.”
This is why you’re poor.
Lol at bragging about a 2 week vacation to Japan. Idiot.
This is a perfect example of inflammatory Internet discourse, where my “bragging” about my trip was either a complete misinterpretation of my post, or just making shit up in your head to get mad at/dunk on. I’m leaning towards the latter.
Also, yeah, I guess I’m poor, you sure showed me. I suppose even the greatest sigma mindset types have a little downtime to read cartoon blogs and post comments shitting on the cuck betas who write them.
I’ve noticed an uptick in these kinds of comments (at least posted publicly) since your post on the Bumblebee Man episode. Just an observation. Wonder if you were cross-posted somewhere?
Grow up.
Maybe that means this guy should just quit this blog. It’s not like he keeps making great posts when most of them are the definition of mediocre, lmao.