(originally aired February 25, 2001)
Ah, boy bands. Meticulously manufactured pretty boys with non-offensive ballads about “true love” to generate huge amounts of profit from young girls. It’s the kind of thing that seems parody-proof, because it didn’t take long before the genuine articles felt like parodies unto themselves. But being the new hip thing, of course the series was going to take a stab at it, and of course they could get *NSYNC to do a guest spot. There’s plenty of this episode that makes no sense and is dumb, but I have to say I have a certain fondness toward it. It’s almost like they knew they had to put a ridiculous spin on it, and when shit goes off the rails in act three, it kind of feels wonderfully absurd, than just plain absurd. Same thing with *NSYNC; they’re unnecessary and crammed in the episode in every respect, but when they show up with their little theme music at the end as they land their speedboat on the aircraft carrier out of fucking nowhere, I’m laughing. Sometimes you push things too far and they become hilarious. This is one of those times.

Things start out randomly as Homer decides he’s going to run the Springfield Marathon, and it’s even more impromptu and head-scratching than you’d think. Bart pulls a “prank” by posing as a foreigner and cutting off the lead runners near the finish line and winning. He’s rescued from an angry mob by LT Smash, a record producer who thinks he’d be perfect for the new boy band he’s organizing, along with Nelson, Milhouse and Ralph. It’s not exactly clear why any of these boys want to be in the band, but I guess that doesn’t matter. The other three don’t even feel like themselves, they’re just thrown in the story because we need recognizable kids there. Boy band protocol usually calls for five members, but we only have four boy characters, so they’ll have to do. By the end when Nelson is commenting, “I can’t sing without dancing!” I’m wondering exactly who are these characters I’m watching. I’m not saying it couldn’t have worked with these kids, but perhaps injecting some of their actual personalities into the episode would have helped.

The episode’s saving grace comes from the twist. Lisa is suspect of the Party Posse’s new song and its eerie chorus, and comes to a shocking discovery: “Yvan eht nioj” is “Join the Navy” backwards! LT Smash is revealed to be Lt. Smash, who is using the band’s music to inject subliminal messages for naval recruitment. But when the navy orders the program to be shut down on the eve of a scathing parody of the band by MAD Magazine, Smash goes insane and hijacks an aircraft carrier to New York, aiming to take down MAD. The subliminal messages angle is an interesting one to go with involving the sinister motives behind boy bands, but it all becomes so incredibly silly. But part of me really likes that, it’s going overboard to the greatest degree. It’s a different kind of silliness than jockey elves or the Prisoner island in that the naval plot makes some modicum of sense, and we can go along that Smash is simply a maniac because he never seemed all that all together from the moment we met him (“Who are you?” “You’ll find out in due time.” “Well, it says here your name is L.T. Smash.” “The time has come. I’m L.T. Smash.”) The characterization in this show is garbage, and there’s a lot of nonsense, but a fair amount of that nonsense is actually really entertaining to me for some reason. As much as I should, I don’t hate this episode. It’s one of the better ones this season, that’s for sure, and for an episode featuring *NSYNC, that’s saying something.

Tidbits and Quotes
– The beginning is very confusing to me. The family is watching a TV program about great Olympic moments, causing Homer to announce that he’s going to run the local marathon. Never mind that we really didn’t need this at all, since the family could have just been watching the marathon for the plot to work. Then it’s as if he lost track of his own conversation, saying he’ll swap jobs with Marge and see who has it tougher, and storms out of the room. Marge and the kids exchange confused glances. So do I. What the fuck is happening? Does this man officially have brain damage?
– I like the quote on the marathon banner: “Ruin Your Knees for Charity.”
– Bart’s faux-Italian accent is a pretty cute bit, but then a bird takes off with his mustache and he’s revealed to be a fake. Not entirely sure why he wasn’t busted earlier, since I’m sure there was registration for this race, and also a whole bunch of people who would have seen him run in at the finish line, but whatever. Then, another problem: we see an angry mob is closing in on Bart on the town hall steps. Then L.T. Smash’s car pulls up in front, and we see from Bart’s POV that all of a sudden the stairs are empty, and the mob is all on his level. Then when he jumps to the car and drives off, we see there’s people lining the sides of the stairs allowing him to get away. Did no one notice how sloppy this scene was staged?
– The secret to the Party Posse’s sweet, sweet vocals? Studio magic. Or more accurately, a voice altering machine labeled ‘Studio Magic’ (“Thank you, NASA.”)
– Why would the Party Posse perform at the school where everybody knows who the kids are? It almost feels like a talent show, not the start of a superstar career. I like Smash’s interplay with Skinner though (“Man, they’re gonna be big. And you stood in their way.” “No, I didn’t. I even came in early and made orange drink.” “Orange drink? What, do you live with your momma?” “She lives with me.“)
– I really do like *NSYNC’s appearance, I gotta say. It’s just so dumb, with Justin Timberlake repeatedly saying, “Word!” and the other guy constantly calling stuff “old school!” And their little dance in to their theme song, and at the very end where they show up out of fucking nowhere, and say, “We heard what you said!” Somehow they heard, as they were randomly speeding around the bay. The dumbness of it all is staggering, but it’s hilarious nonetheless.
– The Party Posse’s songs are almost too good, since they basically sound like the real deal. The “Drop Da Bomb” video (directed by Ang Lee) is pretty amazing, as the boys lift a flag pole a la the soldiers at Iwo Jima, but only to play volleyball with some fine Iraqi girls. And ‘Yvan eht nioj’ is brilliant, one of the last truly inspired and memorable things the series would have to offer.
– The dumbness continues with the reveal of Lt. Smash. First he’s got a navy tattoo, then a nearby fan blows open his shirt to reveal another one on his chest reading “I [Heart] the Navy,” then Lisa removes the period from Smash’s nameplate to make “L.T.” into “Lt. Smash.” It kind of goes a bit too long with his fake wig and pant legs, but it continues to be a great scene, with Smash’s superliminal messaging and informing Lisa that he can’t let her leave… except she already did.
– Homer childishly teases Lisa, to which he rebutts, “Cut it out! You’re a grown man!” I’ve screamed that at the screen many a time in the last few seasons…
– Smash is confirmed to be truly insane as he imagines the mindless Party Posse fans into future soldiers, fighting the hippie menace, striding atop a giant praying mantis sling shotting deadly flowers at their enemies.
– Marge and Lisa escape the aircraft carrier as Smash takes off and they don’t seem to concerned about Bart. Also why did they have to leave Homer there? He proceeds to be a complete irritant in the background for the rest of the show.
– Like “The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson,” this episode was pulled from syndication for a while following 9/11. Perhaps the finale of a maniac blowing up a building in New York City is somewhat offensive in hindsight… but at least no one was hurt. I like the look into the MAD writer’s room (“Why don’t we call it ‘Everyone Hates Raymond’?” “Well, we stayed up all night, but it was worth it.”)

(originally aired February 18, 2001)
“Brother From Another Series” was a brilliant sign-off for Sideshow Bob. After so many false reformations, he actually cleaned up his act and saved the day… but got thrown back in jail as a cruel twist of fate. This isn’t to say that they couldn’t have brought Bob back after that. That’s not even to say they couldn’t have brought him back as a villain again, but if they were, they’d have to do it in a new and interesting way. This episode doesn’t do that at all. It’s the same song-and-dance we see with every Bob episode, except the sharp writing and interesting stories are replaced with a bunch of nonsense and over tread ideas. Let’s start with what ignites Bob to get out of prison to hatch a new evil scheme. He is shocked to hear that Krusty has taped over all of the old episodes of his show, erasing all the work Bob ever did for him. Bob is infuriated that Krusty has eradicated his legacy… for some reason. He hated Krusty’s show and the work he did on it (“My foolish capering destroyed more young minds then syphilis and pinball combined!”) Why would he care that his work was wiped from existence? He should be applauding this. It makes no sense. The episode is pretty much dead from the start since I don’t buy Bob’s motivation at all.

Bob’s convoluted plan involves assassinating Krusty at his “final” show, having been pushed to quit show business after getting fed up with pushy network executives. First he gets a job at the school. Skinner, who a mere three episodes ago took great issue when he found out he hired a convict, has absolutely no qualms about hiring Bob. The two even have a good laugh when he reveals he’s tried to kill Bart multiple times. Bob then calls Bart out to the isolated utility shed over the loudspeaker, with Skinner right behind him, where Bart and Lisa can hear and possibly identify his voice. Once out in the shed, where no one has followed him or asked what he’s doing for some reason, he plans to hypnotize Bart, which I guess he knows how to do. He uses a target with concentric circles, which when he spins it magically turns into a spiral, and Bart is under Bob’s control instantly. At Krusty’s show, he rigs Bart up with plastic explosives, and has a trigger word that will make Bart go on stage and hug Krusty, causing both of them to explode. Do I even need to comment on this? Bob’s plans were never foolproof, since he was always undone in the end, but they were always expertly planned and thought out. This is just garbage, and really insulting to his supposedly intellectual character.

There’s so little of this episode that actually works. Since it’s a Bob episode, it’s all kind of hinged on him, and as I said, since his motivation makes no sense, I’ve pretty much clocked out at the get-go. From this point on, future appearances by Bob would just become more and more odd, with him turning into a more generic villain type, when he was always so much more than that. In “Krusty Gets Busted,” Bob framed his employer partly as retaliation for the abuse he went through, but mainly to hijack his show and bring the high enlightened arts to children over the airwaves. Here, it’s just petty revenge, for a reason that doesn’t fit his character. You could say “Cape Feare” is nothing more than brutal vengeance toward the boy who caused him to go to jail, but that episode is saved by it being absolutely insane and hysterical. “Jackanapes,” like many shows this season, didn’t muster more than a few choice chuckles for me. Bob episodes used to be season highlights, but now it seems they’re just as dull and forgettable as the rest of the lot.

Tidbits and Quotes
– Of all the oddball titles in series history, and there are a lot of them, this one confuses me the most. It’s taken from “The Day of the Jackal,” which is an English thriller novel about an assassination attempt, so that makes sense. But what is a jackanape? Apparently it’s old timey slang for “an impertinent, presumptuous person, especially a young man.” So I guess that could be Bart. But then why isn’t it “Day of the Jackanape”? I’m so confused. If anyone has any ideas, please lay them on me.
– “Me Wantee!” is not so much a parody of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? as it is just that show with different set dressing. I’m not sure why Moe’s on there, or what he did with his enormous cash winnings. I love this line though (“Yesterday, we asked if you wanted to risk it all for five hundred thousand dollars, and you stalled for twenty minutes. But now, we must have your answer in the next ten or fifteen minutes.”) I remember how they would just linger forever on contestants sitting there thinking with that quiet, pulsing soundtrack, where whole minutes would go by with nothing happening. They needed an editor on that show, it was ridiculous.
– The network executives are kinda good with their incessant, impossible to please notes (“We just want you to open it up.” “Run wild. Shatter the boundaries. Slash and burn!” “Without alienating anyone. All we’re saying is be dangerous. But warm. And edgy-cute.”) They’re enough to make Krusty run screaming out of the room.
– Krusty claims he’s been in show business for sixty-one years. Now, even if he includes clowning he did as a child, which I don’t see why he would, that puts him in his seventies, which seems kind of weird. Then again we did find out the Flanders is sixty. And then again Krusty could have just been exaggerating. And then again it doesn’t really matter that much anyway.
– Marge’s line regarding Krusty cancelling his show is so, so painful (“Well, I think it’s a good thing for a show to go off the air before it becomes stale and repetitive.”) But I’ll even say “stale and repetitive” is much too nice of a description compared to what this show has become.
– I like seeing a washed up Rainier Wolfcastle, bloated and disheveled on the red carpet, begging for work. He’s even lowered his price to eight million (“I do nude scene, I play nerd, don’t make me punch your throat!”) Also on the red carpet is Ron Howard, still in a bath robe with some buxom babe on his arm, and Gary Coleman doing his karate moves, making it the third time he’s been credited for the same recycled vocal performance. I’m still confused as to why that is.
– Krusty opens his final show with his trained monkey doing a strip tease to “You Sexy Thing.” Again, I’m not entirely sure what kind of a performer Krusty is. He is, and always has been, whatever we need him to be.
– Good thing the air duct was right below Bart’s seat so Bob could call up to him. That was awfully convenient.
– I like Krusty’s botched appearance of Laugh-In, unable to open the prop window (“Those lousy shutters set me back another twenty-two years.”)
– The third soundtrack CD “Testify” had a cut song from this episode sung by Bob. It actually sounded pretty good, with most thanks to Kelsey Grammer. They could have had it start act three, it would have worked. Shame. The one great thing about the episode wasn’t actually in it. Here’s the song, if you care to listen.
– The whole ending is terrible. As much as I don’t buy Bob’s motivation to get Krusty back, I don’t buy how quickly he’d change his mind based solely on Krusty’s tribute song. Mr. Teeney saves the day, grabbing off the explosive belt, without the detonators, though it still explodes when he throws it in the room with the executives in it. Then later the police roll in a guillotine to kill Bob, who has gotte the death penalty without trial. But don’t worry, he’ll be back. Unfortunately. Ugh…

(originally aired February 11, 2001)
Twenty minutes may seem like plenty of time to craft a meaningful story with a beginning and end, but it really isn’t. The writers in the past have talked about how precious every second was in keeping the story moving forward and building everything up to its rightful climax. A trend that would present itself in the later seasons is disjointed first acts, where the main story barely even kicks in until the start of act two. There’s nothing wrong with a slow burn start to a plot, but in some cases there would literally be no connection. This is one of those cases. Homer takes Abe to look at cemetery plots, but concludes that they are far too expensive. The caretaker tries to sell him on their deluxe model, touting that it has as much concrete as a regulation tennis court. Cut to a tennis court being put into the Simpson back yard. It’s such a ridiculous leap that at least they have the decency to comment on it (“I can’t believe we went through all that just to wind up with a tennis court.” “Bet you didn’t see that coming”) but it just makes me feel like I’ve just wasted my time. Abe doesn’t appear for the entire rest of the episode, it’s like none of it matters.

A first act can also set up your characters for the main story, but here, the Simpsons are all fairly competent at tennis right away. For some reason, Marge cares a lot about how well they play, and Homer takes it upon himself to be a court jester, like all the other lovable sports clowns, which I guess is a thing that exists. There’s no real build-up or explanation for any of this, it’s just things that happen and we’re meant to accept. Whatever emotional content with Marge feeling embarrassed of being a laughing stock is sort of diminished in that we’ve really only been in this story for like three minutes. And me asking for emotional content from this episode is a big stretch, since there’s mostly just gags here, and Homer acting like an absurd buffoon for reasons that escape me. When he refuses to take the game seriously, Bart fills in for him as Marge’s doubles partner in a local tournament, leaving Homer incredibly judgmental of his wife and son. He gets back at them by teaming up with Lisa, leaving the family divided.

The third act is really painful, where the entire Simpson family devolves into petty competitive children. There could have been a way to make this family strife work, but they’re just making infantile swipes at each other. This whole show is just so odd, in that it’s all about tennis, but never do any of the family members even seem to express any interest or enthusiasm about it. Homer has Bart fill in for him while he goes inside the house, and he seems to be playing somewhat competently like an adult. And when Lisa comes in, we haven’t even seen her play. The point is they’re getting all ruffled up about a game I’m not even certain they enjoy. The big tournament arrives and Homer is so desperate to win he subs his daughter with tennis legend Venus Williams. Eventually this swap continues until all the Simpsons are switched out for professional athletes. This is some of the most pathetic stunt casting we’ve seen so far. Not only is there no reason for these tennis stars to be here, they barely have any lines. The Williams sisters have a few, but Pete Sampras has like two, and Andre Agassi gets a check for only saying his name. And “Yoink!” Lame. Did I mention this episode is awful? I don’t know if I explicitly said so, but it is.

Tidbits and Quotes
– This is the second episode done in digital ink and paint rather than cels, the first being season 7’s “Radioactive Man.” Clearly the writing was on the wall in this period regarding the show’s inevitable move to digital production, as would finally happen in production season 14.
– When an episode is particularly horrible, I take a quick listen to the audio commentary for curiosity’s sake. But like many in this era, I got no answers. During the abrupt first act ending where they’re building the tennis court, they have Phil Rosenthal do his line from the movie and talk about that for a few minutes. Do these guys get paid to do these? Though it can’t be much, I imagine they don’t do it for free.
– I never laughed at anything at the funeral home, but I did smirk at the different brands of anti-stink spray, and the on-payroll weeping widow.
– I don’t know who to blame for this exactly, but a lot of the times we see the actual tennis game being played, it looks wrong, or we won’t hear the ball bounce when it goes over the court and then they hit it. Marge and Bart hit the ball back and forth to each other without it hitting the ground for a good twenty seconds, which there’s nothing wrong with, but it seems kind of odd. More egregious is when Homer misses a shot from Kent Brockman that clearly goes out, but then declares game, set and match to himself.
– The end of act two when Homer remains oblivious to Bart being Marge’s new partner is so painful to watch. I get what they were going for, but it was so unfunny and felt like padding. Then Homer rips the little puff balls off Marge’s shoes and throws them at the car, which smash the back window somehow.
– The exchange about the Krusty Klassic is one of the only great bits in the episode (“It’s for charity. It benefits victims of balcony collapse.” “We can wipe out BC in our lifetime.” “I don’t care about BC. I care about ME: My Enjoyment!”)
– The whole Oedipus thing is a little bit weird, but I feel like the episode would have been better suited in that direction, where Homer starts losing his mind thinking that his son is replacing him. I can’t be bothered to think of a climax for this story, but anything would have been better than what we have here.
– Homer is so fucking petty that he’s constructed crude devil-version cutouts of his wife and son for his daughter to practice smacking tennis balls at (“Aim straight at your mother’s heart!”) The whole bit of him trying to take down his family in act three is really disturbing. Homer was once the man who would do anything for his family, now they’re just people he lives with, and his opinion of them changes from week to week.
– I genuinely like Krusty’s “raquet-earrings” joke, and his defense toward the audience’s non-reaction (“What do you want? I’m not going to do ‘A’ material for charity!”)
– As much as I hate almost all of this episode, I like Homer’s surmising of the moral at the end (“There’s a lesson here for all of us: It’s better to watch stuff than to do stuff.”)

(originally aired February 4, 2001)
Comic Book Guy was my favorite character as a kid, and he’s definitely still up there (I’ve grown a love for so many of them at this point, I can’t possibly rank them.) That being the case, I remember greatly anticipating this one when it first aired. It’s always iffy when you try to develop a side character. It can provide a more interesting angle to them and tap a new interesting vein to explore with the character, but if you handle it wrong, you might end up tainting them, or making them more than what they are. This episode dodges that by really barely exploring CBG’s character at all, which is kind of a bummer. Bart and Milhouse get banned for life from the Android’s Dungeon, and what poor timing that they’ll have to miss a late night talk with Tom Savini, special effects wizard. I love that since very little of the audience will know who he is by name, Marge literally reads his credits out of the newspaper. During the show, CBG suffers a heart attack, and while he is attempting to reduce his stress, he allows Bart and Milhouse to run his store, in gratitude for calling 911 to save his life.

A fair deal of the episode is focused on the kids, so we don’t even see much of Comic Book Guy, really. Homer brings him to Moe’s to try and socialize (why he’s suddenly his friend now, I have no clue), but to no avail, as he immediately insults the drunkards and is tossed out on his ass. He then goes to attend a class on how to make friends, which could have been an interesting scene, but he is interrupted by Agnes Skinner, and the two immediately bond due to their mutual bickering. This leads to a queasy relationship where they show their love of each other by causing misery to others. First, let’s put aside the fact that this union is… slightly disturbing. And by slightly, I mean very. But the two are sinking a little kid’s sailboats and ruining their good times, which feels very off. Agnes is just a bitter old woman, and CBG is a sarcastic quipster. They’re not out to cause misery, only comment upon ignorance. And CBG doesn’t even end up back at his store before the episode is over, the romance just kind of runs until time’s up, and we get no resolution to anything.

Bart and Milhouse as co-owners of the comic shop isn’t nearly as interesting. As expected, Bart puts himself in the “boss” position with Milhouse as his lackey. Eventually Milhouse breaks and the two have a scuffle, resulting in them discovering CBG’s secret stash of illegal video tapes, ranging from alien autopsies to secret government-issue films. The two make up and hold a private screening of the forbidden tapes, only to be busted by the police. But since the tapes aren’t theirs, the charge is levied on CBG, who is arrested mid-copulation with Agnes. Then the episode just ends. To be fair, there are amusing moments throughout: an episode centered on CBG is going to have some classic lines from him, and other stuff like the Lenscrafters superhero Biclops and the different illegal tapes are good. This episode just feels like so much wasted potential. Seing Comic Book Guy have to enter the real world, he could have inadvertently fallen into a different social circle who accepts him, but then realize that his store is where he belongs. Or something, anything but the Agnes romance, which is pointless since we never see the two together since. A somewhat enjoyable, but ultimately disappointing show.

Tidbits and Quotes
– Lisa tops her pancakes with Ms. Butterworth, a bottle shaped with a get-up-and-go business woman with cell phone and briefcase.
– Homer eating the baking soda is pretty ridiculous, but is almost worth it when Lisa claims her father is having an “antacid trip.” Also, Marge was standing right there, why did she not stop her husband from eating a big spoonful of chemicals? Another example of Marge not even bothering to stop, let alone comment on, her husband doing stupid and dangerous shit.
– Nice bit where CBG demonstrates that Radioactive Man #1000 is so powerful, if you spill something on it, it will bounce off and land on a lesser comic. The lesser comic in question? Bongo Comics.
– Martin’s mother comes in the shop trying to sell some of her son’s old junk. CBG is aghast at its contents (“Handwritten script for Star Wars by George Lucas? Princess Leia’s anti-jiggle breast tape! Film reel labeled, ‘Alternate ending: Luke’s father is Chewbacca’?! Ooh! Ooh!! …I’ll give you five dollars for the box.”) When Bart and Milhouse stop her from the shoddy deal, she is indignant (“Well! If this is valuable, then back to the leaky basement it goes!”) We’ve seen Mrs. Prince before, but is this the first time we’ve heard her speak? I think Mr. Prince did all the talking in “Kamp Krusty,” and that’s all I can remember.
– Also on CBG’s Banned For Life wall: Sideshow Bob, Nelson, and Matt Groening.
– Dr. Hibbert advises CBG avoid stress, and is shocked to find he runs a comic book store (“Oh, dear Lord! We call that profession the widow-maker! Or we would, if any of the proprietors were married.”) He advises he take a break and have a friend run it for him (“You do have friends, don’t you?” “Well… the Superfriends.” “You should get some friends who aren’t printed on paper.” “What, you mean action figures?”)
– Moe seemingly shoots a man dead in his bar with no mention of it after. Whatever. I love the animation and sound effect when CBG is thrown out of the bar, with his flabby body just sliding across the sidewalk.
– Great performance by Dan Castellaneta as a drunk Mr. Rogers (“Whaddya mean I can’t take off my sweater? I’m hot!!”)
– The defense briefing tape is pretty funny (“If you’re watching this tape, you are the President of the United States. Hello, sir, or ma’am. Hopefully sir. Springfield has been classified NWB, for ‘Nuclear Whipping Boy.’ In the first moments of a nuclear war, Springfield will be bombed at will by all friendly nations to calibrate their missiles.”) The kids watching wildly cheer for this.
– Low on metaphors, Wiggum looks to Lou to complete them for him (“Well, well, well. This place’s got more pirated tapes than a…” “A Chinese K-Mart?” “Well, that’ll have to do.”) And then again (“The owner is in more hot water than…” “A Japanese teabag?” “Why don’t you lay off the Asians, Lou?”)

(originally aired January 14, 2001)
A Scully-era Marge episode with a zany Homer B-plot? A recipe for disaster if I ever heard one. Or… actually not! I was surprised how much I enjoyed this one. It’s not perfect for sure, but it definitely stands out amongst the rest of the schlock this season. The idea of Marge’s unwavering belief in thinking the best of people being tested and biting her in the ass is sort of a neat thing to explore, and while this episode didn’t delve into it as much as I’d hoped, it was still interesting to watch unfold. While attending a prison rodeo, Marge meets convict Jack Crowley (voiced by Michael Keaton), a gifted artist with a jail sentence for the easily hand-waved act of shooting Apu at the Kwik-E-Mart. Inspired to help this man, she volunteers to teach art classes at the prison, and eventually lobbies to get Jack out on parole. She succeeds, but ends up having him put in her custody. Marge helps him get a job at the school to paint a pride mural, but Jack ends up butting heads with Skinner over his creative vision.

Unlike the last Marge storyline where they tried to make her insane for some damn reason, this one explores elements of her personality we are already familiar with. True to her loving, nurturing nature, she immediately sees Jack as wasted potential and wants to do what she can to get him on the right track. Meanwhile, Jack is this grizzled, soft-spoken guy who seems tough, but is very mannered and speaks rather gently. But through the whole show, you can just sense there’s something wrong with him. He and Marge’s interplay is kind of neat to watch, where Marge is helpful but is still somewhat intimidated by this criminal, and Jack appears grateful for her but something seems to be bubbling beneath the surface. He’s pushed even further by Skinner, who forces him to sanitize his passionate mural in exchange for his poorly scribbled version, but then blames him when his design is a bust. Ultimately, Jack is revealed to be a maniac when he burns Skinner’s car. You basically see the twist ending coming by the end, but I still liked the ride there, so yeah.

There’s also the side story of Homer starting his own chiropractic business. Sounds awful right off the bat, but it actually was pretty amusing. First off, the groundwork is set from the start when Homer is seriously injured at the rodeo, which I like immediately because it actually shows a realistic outcome to the over-the-top violence that normally we don’t get. Homer sees a chiropractor about his back, which will cost him a pretty penny, but then he finds that when he accidentally falls backwards onto a turned over trash can, his back feels as good as new. So he makes a makeshift office in his garage, treating patients with his new “Spine-O-Cylinder” (patent pending). There’s not much to this story, it’s just a silly thing that’s going on in the background, which is usually good to have in a Marge episode. So in all, not a bad episode at all. Any problems I had were pretty minor, and I enjoyed a fair amount of it. And it certainly took some of the awful taste of “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Marge” out of my mouth. Maybe Marge can be salvaged after all.

Tidbits and Quotes
– I kind of wish we had seen the apron expo, but it works just as well as a joke that the Simpsons are riding back from, where everyone had a good time except Marge, the one who wanted to go in the first place. Her complaint? Too many aprons.
– The prison warden is voiced by Charles Napier. I know him primarily as the voice of Ted Turner expy Duke Phillips from The Critic. He’s gone on to voiced a few other characters on the show, mostly all the same kind of character. At least one more warden for sure, in the episode where Bart goes to juvenile hall. But I love him, and his voice. R.I.P., Mr. Napier (“Maybe it’s the tear gas, or maybe this was the best damn prison rodeo ever.”)
– As one convict rides out, Bart yells at the bull, “Toss his salad!” Stop. With. All. The. Sex. Jokes. …please.
– I suppose Homer using his daughter as live bait to goad the bull into charging at full speed should bother me more, but for some reason it doesn’t. Maybe I’ve just been desensitized. Or maybe it’s saved by Homer looking to tone the bull down with some “calming blue,” but is shocked to see Bart’s wearing an orange shirt, not blue. Bart attests he doesn’t own a blue shirt, referring to how a lot of early Simpsons merchandise would have Bart’s shirt as blue, which always confused me as to why they made that change.
– I like this exchange between the warden and Homer. This is some good dumb Homer dialogue, which we see so little over nowadays (“He painted a unicorn in outer space. I’m asking you: What’s it breathin’?” “Air?” “Ain’t no air in space!” “There’s an air-in-space museum.”)
– Homer explains his back pain to Lisa (“Well, there’s a dull ache, certainly, and overlaid on that is a club sandwich of pain. Only instead of bacon, there’s agony. Marge, could I have a BLT?”)
– I like this line reading from Keaton as Jack is up for parole (“I’m sure your macaroons are scrumptious, Marge, but I’ve seen this warden turn down brownies… honest-to-goodness, brownies!”)
– Marge looks out the kitchen window and sees clear to the prison… then later she sees the school in the exact same spot. It’s not so much continuity I’m annoyed with as much as it is laziness. They could have come up with something else to remind Marge of the school or vice-versa with the prison, but they were just like fuck it, we’ll just have them both out the window.
– I love Skinner’s criticism of Jack’s first pass at the mural, a bold painting of a female warrior riding a puma (“The shapely female form has no place in art!”)
– Bruce Vilanch appears for no reason not only attending the unveiling of a elementary school mural for a small town, but I guess also wrote jokes for Skinner. It’s such a small scene and I don’t pay it much mind, but it is just a perfect example of how it doesn’t matter anymore why celebrities are appearing left and right. They’re just there, accept it, whatever.
– Skinner rearranges the school lunch menu in a manner similar to executives shifting their network TV schedules (“Pizza’s working well on Thursday, but I think the kids will follow it to Tuesday.” “That’s what you said about the stuffed peppers, and you lost the young males!”) Perhaps there’s still some sour grapes about the show’s move to Thursdays early in its run?
– Why would the new mural burn up to show the original one completely intact underneath? Aside from the fact that it makes no sense and is impossible, it doesn’t make sense for the scene to be there anyway. Nelson’s positive critique earlier implies it would have been a hit (“Finally, art that doesn’t suck!”), especially in comparison to Skinner’s lame drawing. So why need to reaffirm it? Ehh, but it’s nothing to get upset about. Small potatoes, really. Tater tots.