(originally aired January 17, 1999)
Pretty much all the episodes in this season I either don’t remember that well, or just remember that they’re horrible. This fell into the former, and I was quite surprised at how much I really enjoyed it. It had a fairly solid premise and theme that played throughout, characterization was strong, lots of laughs throughout, satisfying conclusion… a pretty damn good episode, helped even more coming after the last couple of clunkers. We start on the baseball field where Homer mocks and berates the perennially losing hometown team the Isotopes, but is quick to jump on the bandwagon many months later when he finds out they made it to the championship game (Moe casually comments, “That sniper at the all-star game was a blessing in disguise.”) Following the ‘Topes win, Homer and his pals have an inebriated celebration, driving his car through the school and wrecking up the place. What I love most about this opening is that everything Homer does works: his petulant and childish demeanor regarding the game (“I’m gonna warm up the car.” “But there’s only been one pitch! “And it sucked”), his quick turn-around to supporting the team when everyone else does, and of course his drunk driving, and the spectacular sequence of his faulty memory regarding the drunken night prior (SCENE MISSING).

Chief Wiggum jumps to the conclusion that the damage at the school was caused by punk kids, thereby issuing a curfew for all minors to be indoors by sunset. The dynamic and building animosity between the children and adults sets in at the start of act two with Bart and Lisa adamantly against this unfair punishment, with Homer and Marge being less than supportive. This turmoil brings the kids of Springfield together as a collective in a way that makes sense. Together they agree to sneak out after dark to catch a drive-in screening of the new horror film “The Bloodening,” which is an amalgamation of classic scary movie tropes: a black-and-white picture allegedly unreleased to the public due to its content, and now showing with a registered nurse on staff (“trained in the treatment of terror.”) It features disturbingly soft-spoken little English kids using psychic powers to read the thoughts of the villagers, then brutally kill them. When the Springfield kids are caught by the police, they use the movie as their inspiration to enact revenge on the adults.

Through jury rigging the transmitter on the newly installed police billboard, the kids hijack the radio airwaves to put on a program revealing the dirty untold secrets of the people of Springfield. Even with Lisa in the group, this seems a little out there that they’d be able to do this, but it works so well within the story that I really don’t mind the improbability of it. The kids are caught, and it’s time for a big generational stand-off. By what means? Through song, of course. I’m not totally on board with this idea. The song isn’t terrible, but I feel like there could’ve been a better means of resolving the plot. But it does get us to the very ending that I love, where the seniors get everybody under curfew and “take back the streets.” So hey, while I can’t say this episode is perfect, it was really enjoyable, certainly at the top of the season 10 pile, though that’s not saying a whole lot. It at least proves that the writers still have some sense in them, but how much of it they can enact over a whole season seems to be questionable.

Tidbits and Quotes
– Pretty useless cameo at the beginning by Cyndi Lauper. I guess the joke is that she sings the national anthem to the tune of her hit song. I guess? But I like the announcer’s comment after she leaves the field and most of the people in the mostly empty stands take her lead (“Thank you, Cyndi Lauper! Just to remind you, folks, we do have a baseball game today.”)
– The baseball game was a great early sign for me as each scene had a joke that worked: the two players urine testing positive and them clinking their glasses, Marge’s mother’s advice to stick with your loser choices ’till the bitter end, the pitcher’s arm snapping (“That’s a rotator cuff, his career’s over!”), Babe Ruth the Fourth bunting, then getting tackled immediately, and Homer sitting outside in the car singing the childish edit of “Whistle While You Work.”
– I like this exchange on the car ride home (“With a little middle relief, they might even make the playoffs!” “You’ll be in your cold, cold grave before that ever happens.” “Homer, would you please stop talking about the childrens’ graves?”)
– Not only does he immediately change into a ‘Topes fan at the drop of a hat, Homer becomes one of those boorish obnoxious super fans for Kent Brockman’s news cast. I love Dan Castellaneta’s read for that bit (“It’s a great team, Kent! We never gave up hope! I wanna thank Jesus, and say hi to my special lady Marge. We did it, baby! Woo!”)
– Homer’s memory of what happened the night prior is fantastic, told in silent movie slides and everyone in old timey garb. He goes to Moe’s for a drink, SCENE MISSING, Homer dancing with some faeries around the maypole, SCENE MISSING, THE END. I love how the nice piano music comes to a loud end too.
– Homer has some great logic regarding blaming kids for everything (“If kids are so innocent, why is everything bad named after them? Acting childish, kidnapping, child abuse…” “What about adultery?” “Not until you’re older, son.”)
– There’s a really sweet scene in the middle of the show with Bart and Lisa bored in the house keeping a kite afloat with a fan. They let go and it wafts into the kitchen and gets caught in Marge’s hair. Without looking up from his paper, Homer comments, “Marge, kite.” It’s such a charming, funny bit that feels so alien in this bombastic, over-the-top season, I love this stuff.
– Wiggum forces the kids to clean off the new police billboard and leaves them with some great final words (“Let this be a lesson to you! Kids never learn!”)
– Lisa tunes the old radio past FDR’s war declaration speech after Pearl Harbor, and after a few seconds into the secret broadcast, Homer comments, “Boring! Go back to that infamy guy.”
– Amazing bit where the kids reveal Luann Van Houten has been cheating on Pyro with his brother Gyro. The two muscled men duke it out with giant cushioned sticks like true American Gladiators.
– Nice bit with another scandalous secret. “And guess who’s been practicing medicine without a license?” Hibbert looks worried. “That’s right: Homer Simpson!” A faint “D’oh!” is heard in the distance.
– I like the Crazy Old Man’s rantings running into the credits (“You wanna stop with the kicking? My pills are in that can! Good gravy, I don’t kick your things!”) All the way into the Gracie Films shush (“Don’t tell me to shush! You stupid lady!”)

(originally aired January 10, 1999)
One of the biggest crimes of the Mike Scully years is making me hate Homer. Or rather, the exaggerated cartoon version of himself he had become. But another aspect that made it even worse is that no one seemed to comment that his behavior was anything unusual. As obnoxious, inconsiderate and downright brain dead as the things he said and did were, no one around him would call him out on what really is clinically insane behavior. There’s so much wrong with this episode, rotten almost to its core, but what baffled me the most is that it seemed to center around canonizing this new crazy-go-nuts Homer, almost like a spiritual sequel to “Lost Our Lisa,” but instead of just the last three minutes, it’s the entire episode. But before all of that, our episode begins where Ned Flanders is goaded into a confession at church, revealing that he’s sixty years old, and has kept his youth by living a tame, risk-free life. This whole idea feels so silly, considering it steps on the idea he was raised by beatniks, but honestly, the episode gets so much worse from this point, it’s the least of my worries.

Ned feels he’s squandered his life by playing it safe, so who does he turn to? Captain Wacky, of course, who all of a sudden has in place a program for living on the edge, and decides to take Ned to Las Vegas. Much of the back half of the episode consists of Homer doing something incredibly stupid and irresponsible, and Flanders either not reacting to it at all, or asking how he could be so stupid and irresponsible not out of anger, but of reverent amazement. I was just plain stunned more than anything watching Homer not even bat an eye as he makes reckless turns while driving, gambles away all of Ned’s cash and credit cards, and inadvertently cause the death of Captain Lance Murdoch. He’s really beyond a cartoon character, because at least in a cartoon, there are usually some clear motives for what someone is doing. Here, I really don’t understand what Homer is doing through parts of this episode, he doesn’t act like anything closely resembling a human being. And again, no one seems to comment on this. Ned has become Homer’s sidekick, which is something that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

So our big third act climax is that during their wild Vegas night, Homer and Ned get married to two cocktail waitresses. Okay. Well considering they’re already married, then this new one is presumably not legally binding, so that’s it. They straighten it out and leave town. End of episode. Or we can have a big dumb chase sequence that makes absolutely no sense that ends with the two of them having to walk home through the desert. Yeah, that’ll work. I’m hard pressed to really add on or elaborate on anything. Most of the entire episode as I’ve said is Homer doing some absolutely moronic and Ned acting as his fawning lackey. From this, I assume that the writers think that Homer’s behavior in this episode was so hilarious that it could act as the crutch for the entire show. If that’s the case, then we are in big, big trouble from this point on. The throne for worst episode has a new owner and “Kidney Trouble” was only two episode ago. Oh dear.

Tidbits and Quotes
– I hate the beginning with blowing up Burns’s casino. The writers tried to cover their asses about how it makes no sense for it to be there after they moved the town, but it just serves to remind how much it wouldn’t make sense for them to move it, and also how the ending of that episode made no fucking sense. It’s just like they were saying, remember how that made no sense, and neither does this? Well let’s remind you. And then for some reason Don Rickles was still in the building when they blew it up. Okay.
– Perhaps the only good line from the episode comes from Reverend Lovejoy (“And, once again, tithing is ten percent off the top. That’s gross income, not net, please people, don’t force us to audit.”)
– The craziness starts when Homer stands up in church to put Ned on trial about apparently lying about his age, making an overly dramatic speech which everyone in church just sits quietly for and listens to. And all gasp in unison when appropriate. Why is this happening?
– An episode about Ned wanting to live life more dangerously is feasible, but it just doesn’t work here. I don’t buy his wanting to be more risky, and I certainly don’t like how he words it that he feels he’s wasted his life. That’s not the Ned I know and love.
– I guess Homer barbecuing a chicken over the chimney is something we expect is normal for him to do now. I don’t get it, when did he become Homer the Daredevil? When did this become normal behavior for him? If Homer wants a chicken, he whines for Marge to cook one for dinner. I don’t think he’d even have the energy to climb the ladder to the roof on his own volition.
– Homer talking to Ned in the car about living life impulsively pretty much mirrors the scene with him and Lisa in “Lost Our Lisa,” except it’s even more terrifying here since it’s happening with more than half of the episode left to go.
– Lance Murdoch’s lovely assistant appears to be the replacement Lisa from “Spin-Off Showcase.” Just interesting to note.
– During Murdoch’s stunt, Homer hilariously sits up from the ‘X’ to make sure Ned doesn’t spill his beer. Murdoch is startled and reacts, and ends up crashing his bike. His head is still encased with a safe, which I assume is a lightweight one to hold on his shoulders, but he flies off the bike and hits that wall so hard. Just from seeing it, and maybe it’s just me, but I think he’s dead. That impact felt so final to me, there’s no way he survived. And Homer walks away not giving a shit. At that point, my hatred towards him was seething.
– Alright, what’s left… Ned attempting suicide, wacky chase scene atop slot machines… oh, one last thing that was pointless was the Moody Blues cameo. Homer addresses them by name, and each band member gets one line each. In the coming seasons, we’ll be seeing that over and over and over again. Ugh…

(originally aired December 20, 1998)
Well look at that, another job for Homer! I don’t know how these ideas came to be, but I’m guessing that someone in the writer’s room said, “Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if Homer was a bodyguard?” And before someone answered “no,” another writer had written an outline already. This is certainly not a terrible episode, but it has the same kind of ridiculous plot turns and circumstances that most Homer-gets-a-job shows have, the biggest of which being who in their right mind would entrust Homer Simpson with their lives and why so many people would just go along with it like it’s normal. The guy can’t even run down a city block without becoming exhausted, he’s going to be muscle to the mayor? The impetus for this premise begins at the Springfield comic convention, which has a few good gags, but it only reminds me of the infinitely better “Three Men and a Comic Book.” There, it was a small town rinky dink operation, here it’s this massive event with big time guest star Mark Hamill and characters like Willie and Lenny and Carl are inexplicably there. When a riot breaks out, Homer, with no real provocation at all, screams and bursts through the crowd to save a trapped Mayor Quimby and Hamill. Quimby proceeds to fire his two loafing bodyguards and hire Homer in their place.

I’m of the belief that you can make any kind of story work, and as improbable as it sounds, Homer the bodyguard could have worked. He could have some kind of specific drive toward wanting the job, train a little bit, do his fair share of expected bumbling, confront some believable conflict and eventually end up back at square one as status quo dictates. So why does Homer want to be a bodyguard? Because Mayor Quimby pointed at him. Does he have go through any hardships for the position? He does go through training, but that’s like a minute and a half of screen time and we don’t really see Homer in action, or caring about it at all. Before long, he’s donned in full black and exacting the sleeper hold on his wife and children. Never mind the cruelty, or the fact they reuse the joke over and over, but really? He learned that? At this point, Homer is not so much a character anymore as he is a vehicle for whatever joke the writers need.

The main conflict arises at the midway point with Fat Tony. When Homer finds Quimby is allowing him to supply the local school with rat’s milk, he demands the operation be shut down. Fat Tony is  not pleased and makes a very obvious death threat towards him, over public air waves, no less. To take his mind of violence and gangsters, Homer takes Quimby out to a dinner theatre performing Guys and Dolls (with leading man Mark Hamill), where of course Fat Tony is there. The stage is set for some kind of suspense, but instead they squander it by having henchman Louie do a ridiculous dance routine on stage before accosting Homer, and have the pay-off be that during the fight, Fat Tony was pummeling Quimby with a baseball bat. Out in the open. Come on. When you play your entire episode silly and over-the-top, you run the risk of falling hard when the jokes don’t work, and boy do a lot of them not work. There are a few shining moments here and there, particularly with Hamill, but a lot of this is just too big a mess to salvage.

Tidbits and Quotes
– Again, I’ll say the treatment of the comic convention in “Three Men” was a lot better. Springfield’s a small time nothing burg, the biggest star they could get was the guy who played Fallout Boy, who is currently doing community theater. Here, not only did they get Mark Hamill, but also Neil Armstrong, Dr. Smith, and ALF! ALF! Armstrong’s agent is appalled that his client’s booth is getting no play against the likes of Doctor Who and Godzilla, crying that he’s an actual sci-fi hero. Armstrong himself isn’t thrilled either (“This is one small step towards firing your ass!”)
– Comic Book Guy gets a shining moment, griping that some uninformed fool has mixed up two separate series of Spider-Man comics. He then comes across a nerdy girl and a potential love connection (“Tell me, how do you feel about forty-five year-old virgins who still live with their parents?” “Comb the Sweet-Tarts out of your beard and you’re on.” “Don’t try to change me, baby.”)
– Lenny desperately wants to act out Star Wars with Mark Hamill? Why? Willie critiques Frink’s lightsaber sounds. Why? Again, it’s just whatever characters we can cram into a scene, regardless if they would believably be there or not.
– Here’s a distasteful Homer line (“Oh my God! Someone has to go back in for Maggie!” “Forget Maggie! She’s gone!”) Now compare this to “City of New York vs. Homer Simpson” where Homer drives alongside the carriage telling Marge, “Throw the kids! No time for the baby!” Same kind of line, but different context. Homer’s paranoia about the city has turned him into a crazy madman, so the line there makes sense and is actually funny. What’s going on in this episode? Nothing. Homer’s just an inconsiderate asshole for some reason.
– Nothing at the bodyguard school is funny. Homer screaming because he has to do push-ups? Meh. And I guess they thought the instructor singing the theme from The Bodyguard was hysterical.
– The best bit of the show is Homer learning the ropes his first day on the job: whilst driving, be sure to slow down when you see a hot babe on the sidewalk so Quimby can do cat call them (“Good work, Simpson! I couldn’t be happier with the way that went.”)
– There are a few good Quimby lines here, like asking Fat Tony for a nondescript briefcase instead of a sack with a dollar sign, and his outrage at finding out about the rats (“You promised me dog or higher!”)
– There’s o much dumb suspense in this episode. Homer bursts into the school and we get like a dozen shots of everyone drinking milk and him looking disgusted. I do like how he spots Bart who is about to use the craziest crazy straw I’ve ever seen, and Homer has a few seconds before the liquid reaches his precious son’s mouth.
– Stupid, stupid, second act break where Quimby gets flung out the window, because it makes perfect sense for someone to set up their treadmill right in front of their open window, so the fresh air hits their back while they’re exercising.
– I cringed when Homer informed Quimby not to fear, as he’s the best bodyguard in the business. When did his self-confidence sky rocket so much? Remember in “Homer Defined” the absolute shame he felt at being acknowledged as a hero for saving the town accidentally? If that were a season 10 episode, he would lap up the praise and demand all the town’s riches.
– We get the first appearance of the Frank Nelson “Yesss!” guy. Somehow he sort of became a regular character, but I kind of like him. I just love that voice.
– We get the great joke at the entrance of the theater (Mark Hamill is Nathan Detroit, Peppered Steak is the Entree), which is made funnier when Hamill is confronting a showboating Louie (“Hey, pal. That’s my head shot up there next to the pepper steak, and don’t you forget it.”)
– I like Hamill’s despair of being pigeonholed as Luke Skywalker regardless of context, and he does give it his all with the songs. I still love “Luke, Be a Jedi Tonight.” In high school, I was doing stage crew for Guys and Dolls, and no matter how many times I heard “Luck, Be a Lady Tonight,” I’d still think about Hamill yammering on about Chewy and the Ewoks.

(originally aired December 6, 1998)
It’s usually a good idea to make sure your protagonist is likable. You don’t want to keep him a saint, and there’s something to be said about the benefit of having an antihero lead, but in the case of a series like this, it helps if you’re on your main character’s side as he struggles with life’s many foibles. For almost the entirety of this episode, Homer is an awful, awful, awful human being. It’s this black cloud that hovers over the whole show. With all of the bizarre plot twists and poor attempts at humor through the tense situation, all I could focus on what a colossal ass Homer was. Going back to the antihero thing, one of my favorite episodes of South Park involves Kyle needing a kidney, and Cartman, being his only blood type match in town, says he’ll only give it up for ten million dollars. Cartman is a selfish, immature dickhead, but we still love him for it. He’s one of the greatest antiheroes in TV history. But seeing Homer act like this? Granted, Cartman is an extreme, but Homer is absolutely the most despicable we’ve ever seen him here, and that’s not a trait you really want associated with your hero.

The only part of the show I like is the beginning at the ghost town, but even there, the jokes are hit and miss: for every great line from the tour guide and the ridiculous gun fight, there’s all the dumb robot jokes and Homer acting like an asshole. Grampa ends up tagging along when the Simpson car stalls in front of the retirement castle, a bit that could have been funny on its own, but it only serves to remind me how much worse Homer’s treatment of his father will get. On the way home, Homer ignores his father’s begging and pleading to stop to use the restroom, ultimately causing both his kidneys to burst. This early on, I felt like checking out. Seriously? I don’t expect realism from this show, but come on. So Homer is already pretty deplorable at this point, and giving up a kidney for his father is pretty much the only way he can get redemption. At least he promptly agrees to it when Hibbert brings it up to him. A talk about the danger associated with the operation at the bar gets Homer worried, and on the operating table, right after his father tearfully says he loves him, Homer leaps out the window and runs off in cowardice.

I don’t even know what to make of the third act. Ashamed to go back, Homer becomes a sailor for two minutes aboard the ship of lost souls, who each have their own tale of debauchery, but Homer’s story outrages them all and they cast him out. I’m just as disgusted with Homer as they are, so I’m in no mood for this wildly out-of-left-field shit to even know what to think of it. Homer eventually goes back to the hospital, gets back on the operating table… and then runs off again. When that car fell on him at the end, I was so happy. At that point, it would have been a more satisfying ending if he had died and Abe had taken both kidneys. And in the end, Homer is furious at his newly recovered father, a saint till the end. After watching this episode, I had to listen to the commentary to hear the defense. Of course being a Mike Scully-era commentary, there wasn’t much information to be had, but boy did they laugh loud and hard: after every dumb Homer line, at the ship of lost souls, each time Homer runs off… During the driving home sequence, Ron Hauge comments Homer’s behavior is “awfully cruel, it borders on making Homer unlikable.” Borders? And in response, Mike Scully just laughs. It’s pretty incredible to hear the people responsible for the show whooping it up over scenes you’ve just watched mouth agape. Bar none the worst episode so far, and probably one of the worst in the entire series.

Tidbits and Quotes
– I really do think the bit with Abe walking to the car like a zombie and Homer desperately trying to start the car could have been funny, but in any other episode that didn’t involve Homer willfully leaving his father to die.
– Bloodbath Gulch is rich in its history (“Founded by prostitutes in 1849, and serviced by prostitute express riders who could bring in a fresh prostitute from Saint Joe in three days, Bloodbath Gulch quickly became known as a place where a trail hand could spend a month’s pay in three minutes.”) Marge isn’t thrilled (“I never realized history was so filthy!” “First on our tour is the whore house, then we’ll visit the cathouse, the brothel, the bordello, and finally the old mission.” “Oh, thank heaven!” “Lots of prostitutes in there!”)
– The robot jokes here are nothing we haven’t seen before done better like in “Radio Bart” and “Selma’s Choice.” Also it doesn’t seem to make much sense that they have the robots just sitting out in the open for visitors to go up and mess with. And the saloon dancers have flesh colored robot asses? I guess maybe it makes sense given the seedy history of the town, but I dunno. This opening bit is the only thing this episode has going for it, and there’s still lots of stuff about it that seems wrong to me.
– The number of horrible Homer lines in the show is staggering: assuring Hibbert he knows more about medicine than him, telling Marge to blow up the hospital, and Homer moaning, “This is everyone’s fault but mine,” when it’s nobody’s fault but his. Really, did no one notice just how much of this episode comes off sour?
– I like the flashback of how “great” a father Abe was, using NyQuill to knock out little Homer.
– Homer washes ashore to conveniently witness a father and son building a sand castle. He vows he’ll go back to the hospital and go through with the operation. And just if you thought he wasn’t enough of an asshole, he walks right through the sand castle, destroying it.
– That car lands right on top of Homer. He didn’t even have time to duck, it crushed him. It seems if it was not fatal, he should be way more banged up than he was. And really, he’s got a kidney shaped scar on his side? I know some of these are smaller jokes I’m picking at, but this episode doesn’t even come close to earning laughs from absurdity. Never watch this episode, ever.

(originally aired November 23, 1998)
Similar to “Lard of the Dance,” this is a smaller Lisa story. These kinds of shows feel so alien amongst the bombastic and wacky hijinks that seem to be running rampant lately. And while I have less problems with this one than I did with “Lard,” there’s still something about it that keeps me from full emotional investment, as the episode seems to go too far with its quieter premise with an over-dramatic conclusion. The first half of the story seems to work, starting with Lisa being forced to stay home sick by her mother. With nothing to do, she ends up getting addicted to playing video games, leading her to purposely extending her leave of absence and ignoring her take-home assignment of reading The Wind and the Willows. It’s another great instance of showing how Lisa is still just a kid, and how even the most brainy, level-headed kids can get sucked into the tantalizing allure of platforming games. Though I’ll say it’s a tad unrelatable, because when I was in school, I never blew off schoolwork in exchange for playing Paper Mario for weekends on end. Nope. Never.

Lisa returns to school to face a test for the book she didn’t read, and she’s in deep, deep trouble. Her calling for a miracle leads her to Nelson, who holds hundreds of answer keys in his possession. It’s an interesting moral dilemma for her; upon receiving continuous accolades for her ill-gotten A+++, she goes from embarrassed modesty to a more seething displeasure. It isn’t long before Lisa has to confess, which she eventually does when Skinner informs her that her high mark raised the school’s GPA to the state’s minimum standard, making them eligible for a basic assistance grant. Now, here’s where the episode starts to lose it for me. Aside from it being absolutely ridiculous that one student’s grade on an inconsequential test was enough to boost the school average, Lisa’s reveal at the end of act two changes the emotional dynamic. It’s not really Lisa vs. herself, it’s Lisa vs. Skinner and Chalmers, who want to keep her hush hush for the good of the school. They present a bleeding heart case to her about improving school conditions, but I’m sure Lisa’s fully aware of their intentions to squander it, especially considering the exorbitant electronic scoreboard taking up all the space in Skinner’s office.

Lisa coming clean feels less of a personal vindication, but would it have been better to keep her secret to the very ending? Then we would have two whole acts of stuff building up to make her feel worse and worse, it’d be “Miracle on Evergreen Terrace” all over again. But I think there could have been a direction to go with this that could have added a new element to the plot and had Lisa’s remorse run in the background. While its title is riffing on “Bart Gets An ‘F,'” the plot holds more resemblance to “Bart the Genius,” with a Simpson kid cheating on a test and having to admit it at episode’s end. Maybe Lisa could have been moved up a grade, appreciated the new challenge and her new surroundings, but deep down know she was there under fraudulent circumstances. But the meat of the story is still pretty solid, albeit a little low impact. There’s also the B-story of Homer’s beloved pet lobster Pinchy, which is pretty aimless and stupid, but that’s exactly what you’d expect and want from that kind of premise. And who doesn’t love Pinchy? He blows Spider-Pig out of the water for title of Best One-Off Simpson Pet.

Tidbits and Quotes
– The free-sample supermarket set piece at the beginning is pretty empty. I smiled at some of the Ben & Jerry-esque ice cream flavor names though (“Candy Warhol? Xavier Nugat?” “Nah, nothing made of dead guys.”)
– They’re both stupid gags, but I like Homer evening out the levels of salt in the fish tank to accommodate Pinchy and the fish, and the callback to the supermarket in revealing he has a packet of cold tablets on a toothpick.
– I love the scene where Lisa first plays “Dash Dingo” and her complete derision and lack of interest in the whole affair. Cut to not long afterward and she’s a girl obsessed. That’s how it works…
– Great nightmare illustrating Lisa’s paranoia that her one bad test score would deny her admission to Harvard (“Nasty business, that zero. Naturally, Harvard’s doors are now closed to you, but I’ll pass your file along to… Brown.”) What a silly dream. Almost as silly as one high test score affording a school a grant. …oh wait.
– My favorite part of the episode is Nelson’s makeshift bathroom office: his employee-of-the-month frame, keeping his files in the empty toilet tank, and insisting the purity of his business (“These are study aids. They’re for novelty purposes only. If a few bad apples use them for cheating, I can’t be held responsible.”) Also great is when he comes back in act two to further remind Lisa of her misdeeds (“Tomorrow’s fractions quiz. I’ll give you the numerators free, but the denominators are gonna cost ya’.”)
– Great bit on the bus illustrating the two mindsets of the Simpson children (“Cheer up, Lis. You got a good grade without even reading the book. That’s win-win!” “Can’t you see the difference between earning something honestly and getting it by fraud?” “Hmm, I suppose, maybe if… no. No, sorry, I thought I had it there for a second.”)
– As dumb as the entire third act dilemma is, I do love that all the ruckus is about a basic assistance grant. Fighting for the right to be proclaimed merely average.
– Great stuff showing the poor condition of the school, from the Oscar Meyer periodic table (“Who can tell me the atomic weight of bolognium?” “Delicious?” “Correct. I would also accept snacktacular.”) and the school’s only computer, a rusty old Coleco. And of course, we have the classic moment of Ralph saying “Super Nintendo Chalmers,” and “I’m learn-ding!”
– Part of me feels I shouldn’t like the Pinchy plot for the very reason I do like it, because it really is so dumb. But I really like Homer’s unusual affection toward the crustacean. The best scene is him dragging him along the beach and Pinchy getting schooled by a tiny hermit crab. Homer is incensed (“You don’t have to take that from no punk-ass crab!”) Then of course is the big finale when the lobster is accidentally boiled alive, and Homer must eat him in absolute misery (“Pinchy would have wanted it that way!”)
– The very end with the reveal of the phony ceremony before the real one is pretty stupid. The fake Comptroller is voiced by Harry Shearer, who also plays Otto, but am I supposed to believe Otto is a talented mimic? Plus such a realistic mask must have cost the poor, poor school a pretty penny, shouldn’t it have? But their ruse is pulled off and the real Comptroller hands Skinner his giant check (“I know a liquor store where we can cash this right now!”)