(originally aired February 28, 1999)
Waaaay back in the before time, in the episode “Lisa the Greek,” there’s a rather cruel moment where Homer has Lisa sit on the other end of the couch while watching a football game. It’s supposed to establish the distance between the two characters before they start bonding throughout the show, but it still feels pretty harsh, and is only saved by the fact that the rest of the episode is so fantastic. This episode feels like that uncomfortable moment for the entire twenty-two minutes. At some point the writers apparently felt it was hilarious to have Homer act like an insensitive dick, because he’s basically in flaming asshole mode from start to finish, made even more disconcerting that a majority of it is aimed toward Lisa. This has been a present problem in the Mike Scully years, but it seems even more accelerated here. Didn’t anyone notice how absolutely unlikeable Homer is when he’s abusing Lisa like this? That and there’s pretty much no story and no jokes. That also hurts the episode.

After Homer desecrates the Bill of Rights at the traveling Smithsonian exhibit, he ends up striking a deal to repay the damage with phone company/corporate sponsor OmniTouch by installing a cell tower on the Simpson roof. Homer ends up clearing out everything out of Lisa’s room to turn it into the operating station for the tower. I know Homer’s an idiot, but this is just incredible. Why would he think this is a good idea? And where are all of Lisa’s possessions? It’s absolutely horrible, and the worst thing is is that Homer doesn’t realize how upset his daughter is. That realization is what made these kinds of episodes work in the past: Homer realizes he’s failed one of his kids, then bends over backwards to fix the problem. And usually it’s for smaller stuff, like in “Lisa’s Pony” when he didn’t get her saxophone reed to her for her performance. Here he’s ripped her entire room apart with absolutely no sense of why she would be upset. Instead he acts as an absolute irritant toward Lisa, providing no answers to her concerns and being a raging dick (“Dad, why did you have to take away my room?” “Maybe you’d feel better if we watched some TV together.” “I just want to study!” “That’s no fun!” “It is to me.! “No it’s not!”) After an exchange like that, you just want to punch Homer in the face.

From all the stress at home, Lisa starts to fall ill. Yep, so now Homer’s behavior is physically damaging her daughter as well as emotionally, and he remains as thoughtless and callous as ever. It takes Lisa flat out telling him that they’re drifting apart for him to actually become conscious of the situation. The two go to a new age shop for some holistic medicine, and end up taking part in a sensory deprivation session, where they’re put in water-filled tubes to clear their minds and meditate. While Lisa has some deep introspection, Homer ends up hijacking more screen time when repo men raid the store and take his tank. It falls out of their truck on the road, and Homer is sent on an exaggeratingly cartoonish roller coaster ride as the tube is rolled down cliffs, buried, rushed through pipes and eventually spit out on shore, where it’s finally returned to the store by Chief Wiggum. It’s over-the-top and stupid, and it makes no sense why the tank never opened, or that Homer should still be alive after all that abuse. The shit kicker of an ending is that Lisa apologizes to her father. She has an out-of-body experience as him, and realizes he should be thankful for all the places Homer takes her that he hates. Well, that could make sense, except at the beginning of the show we see Homer whining and moaning about having to take Lisa out and that Marge basically forces him to do it. The point is that Homer is absolutely reprehensible for the entire episode and gets no comeuppance and learns nothing, and we’re given an ending of them reconciled and we’re supposed to go “aww” on cue like Homer-Lisa episodes in the past. Well those endings only worked when they were earned, and this time, it is absolutely not earned. Fuck this shit.

Tidbits and Quotes
– I guess everyone must have their own threshold of how stupid Homer can possibly be. At the beginning of the episode, a radio program makes a napping Homer believe he’s gone back in time. I think that’s too far. Really, it’s just like the writers are saying, hey, he’s supposed to be dumb, we can do this joke. But there’s a difference between dumb and brain dead.
– Homer’s cruelty starts immediately when he whines like a baby at the prospect of doing something for her daughter, but there’s a few glimmers of humor to be had before the horribleness starts (“You agreed to spend one Saturday a month doing something with the kids.” “Quit complaining. It’s half the work of a divorced dad.” Yeah, but it’s twice as much as a deadbeat dad.”) Also the bit about Homer against book fairs (“I’m not falling for that again. If it doesn’t have Siamese twins in a jar, it’s not a fair.”)
– The beginning actually has some good things about it. I like that OmniTouch owns the historical artifacts, and that the government sold them off to save funding for what’s really important (“Anti-tobacco programs, pro-tobacco programs, killing wild donkeys, and Israel.”) Also great is that Lincoln’s stovepipe hat is just sitting out in the open, while Fonzie’s jacket is under laser-protected glass with armed guards, right next to the Bill of Rights. Then Homer breaks in and starts reading it and everything goes to hell.
– Couldn’t Lisa have just moved into Maggie’s room? Or better yet, gut the baby’s room and move her crib into Lisa’s room. In that case you’d have no real episode, but… well, that would be a good thing, so yeah. Then they open the Bart-Lisa angle to the story with having her in Bart’s room, then drop it almost immediately. I feel like they could have done something interesting with it, other than have Homer and Bart do clicky pen wars.
– I love that as horrible as Homer is in this episode, they pepper smaller bits of him being horrible in just to intensify it more, like Lisa mentioning her father taping over her favorite movie, The Little Mermaid. This is moments after the reveal of her room being destroyed. It’s just played off so sad. Like, this isn’t funny at all, this is childhood trauma.
– There’s also a subplot where the cell tower screws with the baby monitor, causing Marge to hear in on people’s cell phone conversations. It’s actually pretty amusing and a nice story, but honestly anything would have been a breath of fresh air compared to the A plot. I like Agnes’s disapproval of Skinner driving through tunnels (“I know what they represent!”) and Bart’s play acting as a killer apparently going to the house to trick his mother.
– Really, why didn’t that fucking tube open during Homer’s wild ride? Then at the end we see Lisa lifts it open with ease. The whole third act is a dead zone, apart from a few momentary smirks from the repo men (“The crystal says your baby shall be a girl!” “Hey, shut up!”) and Chief Wiggum (“I am so sick of companies dumping their crud in our ocean without a permit! It’s not like those permits are hard to get!”)

(originally aired February 21, 1999)
Marge is a demure, subdued person holding back a lot of passion, so episodes like this where she unleashes some untapped emotion are always interesting to see. But this is season 10 we’re talking about, so it’s not quite as developed or impacting as something like “Marge on the Lam” or “$pringfield.” The episode seems to be on fast-forward, moving past all moments of emotional resonance, all so we can get to the absolutely dumb action set piece ending that’s oh-so necessary. We open on a set piece of the faculty of Springfield Elementary doing a talent show. Is this for a charity of some kind? They don’t say, so apparently they’re just doing it for… whatever. These are people who bolt out of the school at the last bell faster than the students, they hate their jobs, but now they’re just permanently tethered to the school just so they can do something wacky for its own sake. When the crowd rushes out mid-show, Homer spots Krusty in his behemoth of a vehicle, the Canyonero. Why is Krusty at a school talent show? Was he a judge? Don’t think about tit, just more cramming in characters wherever. This may seem like nitpicking, but this is the kind of stuff the show usually put a lot of thought into. Now it’s just whoever we need at whatever time we need them.

Homer impulsively buys a Canyonero, but is mortified to find he accidentally got the F-Series for women (Lenny points out that instead of a cigarette lighter, it has a lipstick holder.) Not wanting to be seen driving a “girl’s” car, Homer takes Marge’s, leaving her to drive the beastly SUV. She slowly gets warmed up to it, with its extra space for groceries and polite GPS system, and before long she ends up with a severe case of road rage. The problem is we don’t really spend that much time on Marge’s condition. Bart encourages her to cut through a field to get out of gridlock, then we see her obsessing over the car at home, then the next scene we see her full blown raging while driving. Then Wiggum pulls her over and assigns her to the anger management class in ten seconds. It’s like a switch just turned on in her brain or something. If we got a scene or two more of her increasing frustration on the road that made sense for Marge, I would buy it. Also missing is the family’s response to this behavior. Compare this with “$pringfield” and the family’s, particularly Homer’s, views on Marge’s gambling, it’s a major part of the episode. Here, road rage isn’t even mentioned once by the family.

Marge goes to anger management, but still ends up getting her license taken from her. So the stage is set for the ending, something where she sees the dangers of reckless driving and learns her lesson? No, let’s do the opposite, but in the most ridiculous way possible. At the zoo, Homer inadvertently causes an incident that lets some incensed rhinos loose, leaving him and the kids stuck atop the roof of their car. Wiggum seeks out Marge’s help, under the thought that she’s the only one ruthless enough to corral the animals back into their pen. Makes no sense, yeah, but it does kind of make sense by Wiggum logic. So Marge drives the Canyonero and puts the rhinos back. But then there’s one more left who takes Homer off through the town. Then Homer breaks free. But then the rhino attacks him in the porta-john. Then Marge saves the day. Then I fall asleep. Such an overindulgent ending. When did they feel like they had to end every episode with a big action set piece? This would have worked a lot better as a smaller, more emotionally driven story. Instead it feels like they got stuck and just went with whatever they felt fit. Great work.

Tidbits and Quotes
– The talent show opens with them singing, “We’re proud to be teachers…” Yet we see Willie and Lunchlady Doris You’d think this event would be just for teachers, like faces the parents would recognize. I was shocked that there were one or two extras there, but I’m sure that’s only because they didn’t have enough named characters to complete the human pyramid. Anyway, the show has zero laughs in-universe and out. The only thing I smirked at was Chalmers muttering under his breath calling Skinner a “sexless freak” as he stormed off stage.
– Gil makes a good appearance. I love his absolute shock, then delight at Homer’s eagerness to buy a car, only for his sale to be swiped by a more savvy salesman. He then has to make a sorry call to his wife on a rotary cell phone (“Honey, you should have seen me with my last customer, I… no, but I came so close. This guy was… Whose voice is that? Is that Fred? Aw, you said it was over! No, don’t put him on… Hello, Fred, hi!”)
– Marge refuses to give Homer her keys, so he hot wires her car in two seconds and takes off with it. Yeah, so more of Homer being an asshole, and doing wacky things which totally make sense that he can do. The man can barely function a toaster, he’s gonna hot wire a car?
– Marge tests out her high-intensity halogen headlights, which seemingly can pierce through the walls of the house into the kitchen. Then more likeable Homer as he goes to scold Bart for rummaging through Marge’s purse, then proceeds to join him.
– I always took umbrage with Marge’s “Oh for God’s sakes, go back to New Jersey!” being a Jersey native myself. I take even more umbrage now living in Florida, where it’s ten times worse being on the road than in Jersey.
– Wiggum’s “Can the sweet talk, Thelma and Louise!” made me really wish I was watching “Marge on the Lam” right now…
– For the film “Road Rage: Death Flips the Finger,” right off the bat, you feel Phil Hartman’s absence. 100% this would have been hosted by Troy McClure, who has been replaced by a gruff cop voiced by Tress MacNeille. But it’s actually the highlight of the episode, full of great bits like the insane astronaut driver and the film’s final message (“Anger is what makes America great, but you must find a proper outlet for your rage. Fire a weapon at your television screen. Pick a fight with someone weaker than you. Or write a threatening letter to a celebrity. So when you go out for a drive, remember to leave your murderous anger where it belongs: at home.”)
– Nice bit with Eddie as Curtis E. Bear, the courtesy bear, where the students can release their anger on him via complimentary 2x4s (“Can I at least shield my crotch?” “Bears can’t talk, Eddie.”)
– Wiggum can’t tear up Marge’s license since it’s laminated, so he hands it to Marge to do it, who then tears it up into little pieces like it was paper. Is this too nit-picky? I dunno, I just noticed it.
– If the ending isn’t stupid enough, of course it’s started by Homer being a jerk and slingshotting a sleeping lemur against his daughter’s protests (“Daddy will fix that broken animal!”) Brain cells are dropping rapidly…
– There’s a shot of people running out of the zoo from the rhinos that looked kinda weird, like the characters seemed too specifically detailed. The commentary reveals it was Mike Scully, his wife and his kids. Scully comments, “Take that, No Homers!” Ugh.
– From the moment they threw Homer into the porta-john, I knew that after the rhino was subdued, they’d have a joke where he proceeded to take the opportunity to take a shit. Sometimes you can see a joke coming a mile away, but it’s still funny, but this… is not one of those times. And sure enough, they did it.
– I don’t know what to think about the whole NBC ending. It feels kind of strange and random, but it’s partially saved by the voice-over on the credits (“I’d like to read the following statement, but I do so under… [gun cock] …my own free will. It has come to my attention that NBC sucks. I apologize for misleading you and urge you to watch as many FOX shows as possible. So in summary, NBC: bad, FOX: good. …CBS great.” [multiple gun shots, body hitting the floor])

(originally aired February 14, 1999)
I feel this episode is kind of similar to “Homer to the Max” in that it also has a plot that does feel like it could work, but somehow it doesn’t. I’ll say it’s more on point story-wise, but said story proves to be not entirely that funny, and soon devolves into a ridiculous stupid ending and making our characters unlikeable. But I’d be hesitant to say either episode is terrible, but I also couldn’t choose which I thought was best: they’re both kinda… okay. We get our first look at Apu and Manjula’s marriage since their wedding last season, and find there’s trouble in paradise when Manjula finds out that eighteen-hour work days are not an American standard. The beginning certainly works with the couple inviting Homer and Marge to dinner, with some nice character stuff and things quickly becoming awkward when the marital spat ensues, with Marge thinking they should leave and Homer attempting to eavesdrop. This starts as a smaller, more intimate episode, and when it stays grounded, it works.

To make it up to his wife, Apu puts together a week’s worth of romantic surprises all leading up to the main event on Valentine’s Day. Training a bird to sing, tickets to the opera, encasing himself in chocolate, he spares no expense for his beloved, and inadvertently ends up making the other husbands of Springfield look bad. This results in a collective of them, spearheaded by Homer, spending their Valentine’s stalking Apu to try to sabotage his last big romantic gesture. They’re misguided and stupid, I get it, but it really does make you sort of root against Homer when he’s trying to thwart the earnest actions of one of his good friends. Also we have more roping in characters into scenarios for no real logical reason. Wiggum and Hibbert I can buy, but Flanders? The man who sung a beautiful Rod Stewart song in a heart costume to his wife? Even with his constant insistence against their mission, he should not be in that car. Also Moe is there, just ’cause. This is when characters stop feeling like characters and more like utilities for whatever jokes or flimsy premise needs to be held up.

The climax ensues when the husbands find out Apu’s plan: a love note in the sky done up by a skywriter. To thwart the mission, Homer hops aboard the skywriter’s plane and engages in an all-out fist fight with him. It’s already stupid enough before the skywriter flies the plane upside down, smashing Homer’s head into lampposts, bridges and other blunt object to try and kill him. Seeing a scene like this makes me think of instances of Homer getting hurt in the past, which seemed like a rarer occurrence than nowadays. The humor always seemed to come from something more than just the act of violence: Homer becomes too cocky while jumping over the Gorge so fate makes him fall down it twice, he tries to maintain a sense of bravery to his son whilst being pummeled by reindeer, Bart’s attempts to pin his father up against Milhouse’s mom’s new boyfriend by randomly smashing a chair on him in the tub. What’s happening at the end of this episode? Homer is a raving lunatic who purposely engages in a fight with this man and get brutally injured. And yet he still succeeds in the end when he does a perfect landing from the sky with roses for his wife. Homer famously succeeds despite himself, but it only really works if he tried at all to begin with. He spent all of Valentine’s Day trying to betray his friend and beat the crap out of an old man, but still wins. Anyway, the first two acts work well enough, and there’s some jokes to be had, but I’m still ambivalent about this one. Like I said, it’s alright, I guess. Just alright.

Tidbits and Quotes
– Apu is surprised when Marge mentions that all the other stores in town close so early (“At 11:30? But this is the peak hour for stoned teenagers buying shiny things!”) Cut to Jimbo marveling at a sheet of tin foil (“It’s like a living mirror!”)
– I love all the stuff at Apu’s: calling Manjula a “Ma-hot-mama,” the two wives compromising that they both feel ashamed of their respective houses, the seemingly stereotypical Indian music being the result of the record player being on the wrong speed, the succulent meal of chickpeas, lentils and rice, and Homer attempting to translate Apu and Manjula arguing in Hindi (“I’m picking it up… ‘Sala’ seems to mean ‘jerk,’ and I think ‘Manjula’ means some kind of spaceship.”) Also, great act break with Homer reading the Kama Sutra, complaining that they apparently stole one of he and Marge’s trademark sex positions.
– Marge and Manjula discuss Apu’s new romantic ways over badminton (“I can’t believe it; he covered your whole bed in wild flowers!” “Oh, I’m sure Homer has done that for you.” “Sometimes I find pickle slices in the sheets.”) I also love later when she’s discussing the bird incident to Homer in bed, who is immersed reading the back of a box of Krusty O’s for some reason (“Then the bird sang ‘I Love the Night Life’ with clever new lyrics.” “Yeah, I hate that song.” “I do too, but it was sweet.”)
– The best joke in the whole show is the Wiggums in bed: Clancy is confused as to why reading from his dirty joke book isn’t turning his wife on like it normally does, and Sarah comments how Manjula got opera tickets and shuts off the light. Clancy pleads with his despondent wife, then quietly comments, “Sarah, it’s ten dollars a pill.”
– Another example of just throwing characters anywhere: Captain McAllister is amongst the bitter men at Moe’s griping about Apu, then the next day we see him happily accept the porn magazines from him aboard his ship.
– Elton John makes a pretty good appearance, and at least he ties the plot up. I like his surprised joy at Wiggum’s bullshit claims about “teaching us to love again” (“Really? I did that?”) and his displeasure at Apu’s self-satisfied laughs at quoting titles of his songs.
– The resolve of the story with “I LOVE YOU [BLOB]” kind of works, I guess, as every wife in Springfield sees what they want to see in it. I do like Edna’s extrapolation (“‘I Love you, Edna K.!’ It’s a little run together, but that’s what it says!”)

(originally aired February 7, 1999)
Even at this point in the run, there’s still a dwindling sense of vitality in the Mike Scully run, with episodes that have elements and ideas within them that could actually work and be entertaining. Homer changing his name and getting wrapped up in the cultural elite? Farfetched, yes, but it’s possible. The problem here is that this episode is so lopsided that we spend two-thirds of the episode dwelling on the set-up, which is a lot less funny than the writers seem to think. The story begins with the family watching the new mid-season show “Police Cops” and being surprised to find the suave hotshot detective lead is named Homer Simpson. The entirety of act one is focused on Homer becoming a hometown celebrity, which he absolutely laps up, asserting that the fictional character was wholly based on himself. But watching the next episode of “Police Cops,” he’s shocked to find the character has been altered to be a bumbling idiot, leaving him to subject of constant mockery by the whole town. Unable to get the TV executives to change their show, Homer is left with one option: change his name to Max Power.

That short plot write-up is basically the entirety of the first two acts, and it plays as thinly as it sounds. Not even in the town of Springfield do I buy that not only would people care so much about Homer sharing the name of a TV character that it would make the paper, but Moe and the barflies seem to believe Homer’s bullshit about the producers of the show using him as inspiration. The same basically applies in the second act except in reverse, where the townspeople are making Homer’s life a living hell, mocking him and trying to goad him into saying his TV catchphrase. So Homer changes his name to Max Power, a moniker that grabs the attention of the fellow awesomely named Trent Steele, who invites him and Marge to an elegant garden party. Homer’s new name seems to have been enough to grant him access to Springfield’s cultural elite, something he takes full advantage of, until he gets himself stuck at their ecological rally to save the town’s redwoods from loggers.

The ending set piece with affluent people being activists for self-obsessed reasons is really a rich topic for comedy, but it’s localized to the last three minutes. Meanwhile we spend half the episode with the stupid “Police Cops” shit. Why didn’t they just have the Homer Simpson character be a doofus to begin with? They could’ve gotten their jokes, like Homer commenting how the dumb idiot character is nothing like him, gotten his name changed by act two, and developed his relationship and feelings toward his new social group better. There really isn’t any need for any of the material in the first act, it’s inconsequential to what the main story is. This is an episode that I think really could have worked if there hadn’t been so much time wasted getting to Max Power. Homer developing this other self in distancing himself from his TV persona, then desperately having to back out when he gets in too deep, it could have been kind of interesting. But instead he screams and yells and causes every tree in Springfield to collapse like dominoes. Much better.

Tidbits and Quotes
– I would like to see a bit of “All in the Family 1999” (“Aw, jeez, they got me livin’ with an African-American, a Semite-American, and a woman American there, and I’m glad! I loves youse all! I love everybody! I wish I’d saved my money from the first show…”)
– I like Homer’s enthusiasm for midseason TV, having written up a scorecard of two categories: Excellent Shows and Very Good Shows. But upon watching the first program “Admiral Baby,” Homer is struck with a bizarre feeling (“I never thought I’d say this about a TV show, but this is kind of stupid.”)
– Great ending of “Police Cops,” with Homer saying, “Arrest that guy!” after having just flung a bullet through the crook’s heart, and the credits card revealing the blood used in the show is real, donated by the Red Cross.
– A trend in the Scully years is Homer consistently being happy and sure of himself, which there’s a lot of in the first act, with his cocky attitude towards his peon friends, and saying he’s available when his high school prom queen calls him. I do like the callback to her later on (“This is our chance to rub elbows with Springfield’s young, hip power couples, like me and Debbie Pinson!”)
– All the scorn and mockery turns Homer into a crazy attic-dwelling hermit, for all of one scene. Again, not a lot of material here.
– At first I thought “Police Cops” was shot in Springfield, like Krusty’s show and other local productions are, but that wouldn’t make sense given that the producers probably wouldn’t have named the character after Homer if he was a local, semi-well known resident. So yeah, it seems Homer flew out to Hollywood somehow for a single scene. Whatever. At least it’s a funny scene, with the producers explaining how they came up with the idea of the show (“The thirteen of us began with a singular vision: Titanic meets Frasier.” “But then we found out that ABC had a similar project in development.”) Also the original name: “Badge Patrol.” (“But the network idiots didn’t want a show about high- tech badges that shoot laser beams!” “So we asked ourselves, ‘Who’s behind the badge?'” “Police…” “Cops…” “‘Police Cops.'”) Brilliant minds at work.
– Homer’s alternate names for himself are pretty amazing (Hercules Rockefeller, Rembrandt Q. Einstein, Handsome B. Wonderful), as is Judge Snyder’s decree to give Homer the only name he actually spelled correctly.
– There’s a few good bits with the family finding out about Homer’s name change: Homer callously commenting there are acids to burn off Marge’s tattoo of his name on her nether regions, learning about the right way, the wrong way, and the Max Power way (also the wrong way, but faster), and this raw but still hilarious line (“Nobody snuggles with Max Power. You strap yourself in and feel the G’s!”)
– I like Homer’s innocent revelation that he got Max Power off a hair dryer. It totally makes sense that that’s where he got it from.
– More celebrity name dropping, but it makes sense coming from a starstruck Marge to point out Woody Harrleson and Ed Begley, Jr. by name. Begley isn’t given much, though I do like his personal go-kart powered by his sense of self-satisfaction.
– Great moments with President Clinton, mentioning he’s done it with pigs (“Really, no foolin’, pigs!”) and telling Marge if she’s near the White House, she can find him in his tool shed out back.
– Trent Steele addresses his guests about taking up their cause, while an obnoxious and irritating Homer makes loud comments after each sentence. And no one says a word about it for some reason.
– The ending is so fucking stupid and makes no sense. Homer running in circles with the chain around him for what couldn’t have been more than a few minutes cutting through an entire redwood? Which then of course causes a chain reaction and knocks over every tree. Uggghh…

(originally aired January 21, 1999)
With a title that’s very much an omen, this episode is pretty bad. But I’ll be honest with you, I was expecting a lot worse. This is one of those episodes that stuck out to me as being absolutely atrocious, but it didn’t feel that level of terrible upon re-watch. Where shows like “Kidney Trouble” and “Viva Ned Flanders” were particularly offensive, this one was just kinda… whatever. Its lack of story and absolute squandering of its cast was disappointing, sure, but never to the point that I became upset. For its bombastic setting and cavalcade of guest stars, it was just very banal. The “fun” begins when Homer crosses paths with some schmuck named Wally Kogan, a travel agent with no discernible personality who invites him and his buddies to Miami for the Super Bowl. Before long, a collection of notable secondary characters are on their way to the game. We see a lot of familiar faces who make sense as football fans, but also many who don’t. Sideshow Mel? Comic Book Guy? Reverend Lovejoy? Burns’s lawyer? Something’s not quite right with the whole line-up.

But really, none of that matters since every single character exhibits no real personality throughout the episode, they’re just mindless sheep in Homer’s insane Super Bowl mob. While I suppose the point is that they’re like revved up football fans psyched for the game, it still feels like such wasted potential. You have a show filled with so many great side characters and not give any one of them their time to shine? Instead they’re identity-less, with each one saying a token line of expository dialogue here and there (“I can’t believe it! We’re actually in the winning locker room!” Thanks a lot, Ned, I didn’t notice.) It’s kind of amazing how much is in this episode, and yet how empty it feels. The whole second half of the show is Homer and company running from set piece to set piece, with isolated guest appearances from the likes of Dolly Parton and Rupert Murdoch. Nothing that happens is particularly funny, or in the least bit interesting. It’s just like a bunch of random crap that happens. Like I said earlier, nothing I can get too angry about, it’s just a bunch of dead air.

There’s something about this episode that feels very ominous, a show filled to the brim with useless guest star appearances with the hopes that they’ll be funny and eat up enough screen time that they don’t have to write as much story. But in the end, it all feels sort of empty. And the plot line doesn’t kill enough time, so the writers have to cram in a sub”plot” involving Marge and Lisa coloring eggs. I barely have much to comment on the main story, so I got nothing for this one. It’s just inoffensive and dry, with only the ridiculousness of Dan Castallaneta’s Vincent Price impersonation to help it along. By the end, the writers (all four of them!) try to cover their asses by having Pat Summerall and John Madden comment on the absurd and nonsensical nature of the episode, but that only serves to make the show out to be even worse in retrospect. “What a way to treat the loyal fans who put up with so much nonsense from this franchise!” Madden complains. No kidding. It’s a pretty damn awful episode, but some sporadically placed laughs help it slightly. Very slightly.

Tidbits and Quotes
– The post office opening is pretty much laugh-free. There’s a pretty crass line where the postman assures the kids that the days of disgruntled mailman shooting up the place are in the past, and Skinner comments, “Well, I’m just glad I work in an elementary school.” This episode aired a few months before the Colombine massacre, and what seemed to be a growing number of school shootings (at least from a media coverage standpoint anyway). I guess I can’t blame the writers for this being questionable in hindsight, but it’s a pretty distasteful joke nonetheless.
– I laughed at Homer mistaking ‘colonic’ with ‘colada,’ and singing “Escape” to that effect.
– Wally Kogan is named after the classic era writing team Jay Kogan and Wally Waladorsky. I’m sure they must be honored to have one of the dullest characters in the history of the series named after him. And poor Fred Willard with absolutely nothing to work with.
– I get the bit with Homer, Wally and Moe holding the mugs up to their mouths while mentioning the team names, a meta joke about how the show can just dub in whatever year’s teams with no concern about lip sync, like how they would update reruns of “Lisa the Greek” to include new dialogue with whatever two teams were at the Super Bowl that year. But it kind of felt too inside baseball.
– I love Harry Shearer’s nondescript Lenny noises when Homer pleads with him to go to the Super Bowl (“Naaaaaaah…”)
– The bit with Marge saying how glad she is Homer’s going to the Super Bowl feels off, kind of like a sign of things to come where she’d become more and more enabling of her husband’s insane hijinks.
– I like how Jerry “Lightfoot” McGee seems to be Dan Castellaneta doing his Grampa voice from Hey Arnold, a show created by Matt Groening’s brother-in-law.
– The only guest appearance I like is Troy Aikman as a caricaturist. I love his bizarre insistence of drawing everyone on dune buggies because it’s so stupid and random (“Everyone likes dune buggies!”)
– The absurd Super Bowl ad for the Catholic Church got the show in a lot of trouble back then. The joke is so obvious though, but you know how uptight fundamentalist groups are about things like humor and fun. It’s a pretty good gag, especially Lisa’s confused, slightly disgusted reaction.
– Dolly Parton’s explosive make-up, the gang running out of Murdoch’s skybox Looney Tunes style, them winding up in the locker room… the third act is absolute shit. The only bit I like is after they get out of jail, we get a montage of them running around like maniacs to “Song 2” by Blur, which is cut short by Moe stopping and saying, “We’ve been running around cheering for an hour! Where the hell’s the game?” It’s just really well timed and delivered.