(originally aired January 19, 1997)
And so we come to another Marge episode, and we know how much fun those can be. It’s somewhat an examination of a more determined Marge that more or less works for the purposes of the story. We start in showing her involvement with the Investorettes, a group where the ladies of Springfield try their hand at stocks and local investments. Being the overly cautious type, Marge certainly does not fit in, and is quickly expelled from the group when she raises concerns that high-risk ventures “sound a little risky.” The Investorettes is comprised of Helen, Maude, Edna, Luann and Agnes (basically every single female character of note in this sausage fest of a show), all of whom act as a single, overtly catty entity, stonewalling Marge throughout the episode. I do like seeing these characters outside of their respective male partners for a change, giving them a bit more individuality, even if it is just more bitchiness. The only one I question is Maude, but then I like that outside the circle of namby-pamby influence from her husband, she can have a bit of a mean streak to her.

At the local franchise expo, Marge is discouraged at her lack of gumption, but is taken in by the kindly vendor of the Pretzel Wagon, Frank Ormond (voiced by the legendary Jack Lemmon). Invigorated to one-up her former friends, she agrees to join the franchise for a hefty five hundred dollars. At this point, I thought back to “Scenes of the Class Struggle in Springfield” when Marge greatly hesitated spending ninety dollars on a dress, but the difference here is that she has a bit of ire, and she’s really driven to do this. Motivation outside of housework is such a rarity for Marge that she truly puts her heart and soul into her new business venture, with the rest of the family providing assistance and moral support. There’s a lot of cute family moments in this show, like their fake ticker tape parade to drum up business (“Welcome back, space girl!”) and Homer’s makeshift title of “Pretzel Inspector” examining the product with a micrometer. All of Marge’s efforts seem to be thwarted one way or another, which ends up being very crushing for her. Wanting to help his wife, Homer goes to Mr. Ormond for help. Finding him to be deceased, he turns to the next most reliable people: the mob.

Given the low-key nature of the episode, the third act is especially silly, jump starting with a montage of Marge’s business thriving thanks to the mob smashing up hot dog carts and transporting girl scouts out of the city limits. We go from that to Fat Tony being briefly dissuaded by a dimwitted Homer, and then a really disconcerting scene where Tony and his goons knock Marge’s car off the road in the desert and confront her. It just seems like there’s a weird tonal clash going on at the end, where things seem grave for Homer and Marge, even though we know they’re not. It’s not a major quibble, really, just something I noticed. Thankfully the Simpsons are saved by the Investorettes of all people, who in retaliation for ruining their business sick their own criminal gang on Marge’s, the Yakuza, leading to an all-out mob war on the Simpson lawn. Yeah, really, really absurd, but it does work since it ties in with the bitch fight of the entire show, and it’s really funny. There are some ups and downs, but this is a pretty solid Marge show with plenty of laughs in it. And now I really want a pretzel. Where’s that Pretzel Wagon when you need it…

Tidbits and Quotes
– I like the times we see Marge’s attempts to be sociable, because they always turn out disastrous. She was truly an outsider and ended up being warped by the country club, she’s not enough of a go-getter for the regular ladies of Springfield… poor Marge, a woman without a friend in the world.
– This is a tour de force episode for Agnes, who gets a fair share of great lines (“Children are so fat today. Isn’t there some way we could make money off that?” “Gimbels is gone, Marge. Long gone. You’re Gimbels!”)
– Pretty dumb, but I love Homer’s selective response to Marge’s sad story (“Wait, wait, back up a bit now. When are the pancakes coming in the mail?”)
– Nice sign at the Franchise Expo: “Where You Can Make Your Non-Sexual Dreams Come True.”
– Disco Stu returns with a vengeance at his own booth at the expo (“Did you know that disco record sales were up four hundred percent for the year ending 1976? If these trends continue… aayyyyy!“) He then laments he can’t get the dead fish out of his aquarium platform shoes.
– I love the scene with the Investorettes checking out Fleet-A-Pita, starting with Helen’s extremely insensitive concerns (“I don’t know about food from the Middle East. Isn’t that whole area a little iffy?”) The representative has done all she can to sanitize and localize the brand, renaming the traditional ingredients (“falafel” is now “crunch patty”) and offering pitas dubbed the “Ben Franklin.” She also attempts to discretely disguise the disgruntled Arabic cook, “Christopher.”
– I like Lemmon for his small role, especially his riffing with his “knot bread” joke, and his dramatic speech on what Marge’s territory will be (“Wherever a young mother is ignorant of what to feed her baby, you’ll be there. Wherever nacho penetration is less than total, you’ll be there. Wherever a Bavarian is not quite full, you will be there.”)
– Marge receives her ingredients: two big hefty bags, one reading “Salt,” and the other “Ingredients.” Seems on the up-and-up to me.
– It’s really sweet how Homer puts on a charade at work to entice pretzel fever (“Let’s all give in to deliciousness, the Pretzel Wagon way!”) Unfortunately the Investorettes and their flashy Fleet-A-Pita van intervene (“Wow, check out that van! It looks like it doesn’t even need our business.” “Hey, let’s go!”)
– The best scene of the show hands-down is Cletus’s big score of three hundred pretzels with three hundred coupons (“I should’ve said ‘Limit: one per customer.’ “Should’a but didn’t’a,”) and him calling his army of kids by name. I love how they all just walk out and gather on the porch and wait for the rest to come out. Some of their names feel like “hillbilly” names, but they’re all believable, unlike later seasons where Cletus’s children would be given “hilarious” names like Incest and Crystal Meth. Real sharp work, you guys.
– Free Pretzel Day at the ball park proves to be a bust. Just as every patron was about to take a collective bite, the winner is announced for the grand prize ’97 Pontiac Astrowagon: C. Montgomery Burns. The crowd throws their pretzels at the car in disgust. Hall of Famer Whitey Ford attempts to calm the crowd, but is knocked unconscious by the barrage of snacks. Things look grim, but the family tries to put a positive spin on things (“You can’t buy publicity like that. Thousands and thousands of people saw your pretzels injuring Whitey Ford!” “You could call them Whitey-Whackers.”)
– i like how Homer claims that Ormond is doing pretty well for himself, walking through a lawn of plastic flamingos and cheap garish lawn ornaments.
– Grim but great scene of Skinner forced to buy pretzels at gun point. Marge questions his bandaged hand. An off-screen thug whispers, “Boating accident.” Skinner fumbles, “I believe it was a boking accident.” [gun cock] “I have to go now.”
– Seeing Fat Tony threaten Marge is a bit unnerving, but it’s softened a bit by the sweet scene where she assists him in taking the keys out of the ignition, and his final proclamation (“You have twenty-four hours to give us our money. And to show you we’re serious… you have twelve hours.”)
– I like Homer’s defense to Marge on how he got into this mess (“I saw your pouring your heart and soul into this business and getting nowhere. I saw you desperately trying to cram one more salty treat into America’s already bloated snack hole. So I did what I could. I did what any loving husband would do: I reached out to some violent mobsters.”)
– He’s always great, but Joe Mantegna’s really fantastic in this as Fat Tony (“I’m afraid I must insist. You see, my wife, she has been most vocal on the subject of the pretzel monies. ‘Where’s the money?’ ‘When are you going to get the money?’ ‘Why aren’t you getting the money now?’ And so on. So please, da money.”) I also love his low-key “C’mere, you little squirt” when he’s hit in the face by one of the Yakuza.
– Great bit at the end where Homer anxiously awaits what the little Yakuza guy is going to do, just standing there biding his time. Of course when Homer goes back into the house, we hear the results of some epic fighting move. Then later the Japanese man gets thrown through the kitchen window and runs outside back into the fray.

(originally aired January 12, 1997)
Being about aliens, and told as a story-within-a-story (by the great Leonard Nimoy), parts of this episode feel a bit like a Halloween show. It’s like I’ve seen it before: Homer believes to have made alien contact, but is dismissed by his family thinking he’s drunk. …oh wait, I have seen this, in “Citizen Kang” like eight episodes ago. This one is totally different though, I’m not trying to cry foul, but it’s just unusual that such a similar and unique plot element would appear in two episodes within three months of each other. This episode takes place in the “real” world, and this time around, Homer actually is drunk, stumbling home late one night, and sees what he thinks to be a glowing green alien in the woods. Understandably, no one believes him. Despite the ludicrous claim, FBI agents Mulder and Scully come to investigate the matter, but conclude that Homer’s just another nutcase. Determined to prove he’s not crazy, Homer, along with Bart, camp out at night and end up getting video footage of the creature, creating a media circus anxiously waiting for its return. But the alleged alien turns out to be an entirely different sort of monster.

What struck me about this episode is how little really happened in it. There’s no story to be had until the very end of the first act when Homer sees the alien, act two is largely Mulder and Scully dealing with Homer, and act three is just a ticking clock to the reveal of who the alien is. I’m not entirely sure how they could have beefed up a small story like this, but I felt like it needed a little more to keep it from meandering. But onto the business of the crossover; it’s sort of similar to “A Star is Burns” in that the episode is about the subject matter of the crossover series, with the stars appearing within the Simpsons universe. I’ve never watched The X-Files, so I can’t comment on any inside jokes or the authenticity to the characters, but I think they did a fine job for what they had to do. Nimoy was also fantastic in his second appearance on the show, getting plenty of laughs for his minimal amount of screen time.

I feel I haven’t much to say about this one… probably because as I mentioned not a lot happened in it. There were plenty of jokes interspersed and I was never bored, it’s just one of the thinner episodes we’ve seen. I guess I should address the ending. It’s one of those reveals that sort of rides the line between being so ridiculous it’s funny, and so ridiculous it’s stupid. It’s close, but I still give it the former. I laughed at the wonderful animation of Burns being altered and contorted on the conveyour belt, of course under the watchful eye of Dr. Nick (“The most rewarding part was when he gave me my money.”) But why would Smithers allow Mr. Burns to go wandering around by himself in the middle of the night in that condition? And we’ve seen Burns at night before without that green glow. Perhaps the procedures affect some minor radiation poisoning in his system or something that makes it more prominent? Whatever. All I know is I got a duet of “Good Morning Starshine” with Burns and Leonard Nimoy, and that’s the best I could hope for. A somewhat paltry, but still substantial outing.

Tidbits and Quotes
– Nice bit from Homer recalling a movie that inspired his plan to get out of work (“I saw this in a movie about a bus that had to speed around the city, keeping its speed over fifty. And if its speed dropped, the bus would explode! I think it was called… ‘The Bus That Couldn’t Slow Down.'”)
– Nice knock at Waterworld, even if it is incredibly dated at this point. Sort of reminds me of Waterworld on Virtual Boy. As the Angry Video Game Nerd intelligently put it, “it’s like puking on a pile of shit.”
– At Moe’s, Homer is in the mood for something more exciting than boring old regular Duff. With quick use of a marker, Moe provides him with “Doof,” allegedly direct from Sweden. Surprisingly, Homer isn’t fooled for long, and Moe gives him Red Tick Beer, with a striking taste he just can’t place. Turns out it’s dog.
– Great gags on Homer’s spooky way home: he hears the famous Psycho theme, but it’s actually just a bus carrying the Springfield Philharmonic, all playing their instruments for some reason. Then a frightening billboard: “DIE.” Homer screams. A neighboring tree is blown away slightly to reveal the full message: “DIET.” Homer screams again.
– Even someone as thick as Chief Wiggum is quick to mock Homer’s ridiculous story (“Your story is very compelling, Mr. Jackass, I mean, uh, Simpson. So, I’ll just type it up on my invisible typewriter!”) He also has the same reaction to a self-confessed arsonist a minute later.
– I’m torn about the alien line-up gag. It’s neat to see Marvin the Martian, Chewy and ALF standing side-by-side, but does that mean they’re all real? Are they just people in costumes? The whole story is about no one believes Homer saw an alien, then we see a line-up of five seemingly real ones. I’m kind of over-thinking this, I know, but it just struck me a weird way.
– Great readings by David Duchovney and Gillian Anderson captivating by Homer’s blubber while he’s on the treadmill (“His jiggling is almost hypnotic.” “Yes. It’s like a lava lamp.”)
– We get another look into Moe’s shady backroom antics, where this time he’s abducted a killer whale from Sea World for some reason. Nice callback after Mulder gives his dramatic “the truth is out there” speech and we see Moe and his cronies attempting to carry the whale off in the background (“Cheese it! The feds!”)
– Bart and Homer actually have a great night out camping, which is nice to see. The best moment is Bart’s chilling ghost story (“…and that’s how much college will cost for Maggie.”)
– Tonight on Eyewitness News, a man who’s been in a coma for 23 years wakes up. But upon hearing Sonny Bono is a Congressman and Cher won an Oscar, he figures it’d be better to just die on the spot.
– Homer is pleased to see T-shirts reading “Homer Was Right” are being sold at the alleged sighting site, but then finds the alternative “Homer is a Dope” shirts sold out immediately. Even Marge bought one (“These shirts are a hundred percent cotton. And look at the fine stitching on ‘dope.'”)
– I love Hibbert’s response to the alien’s offering of love (“Is that the love between a man and a woman or the love of a man for a fine Cuban cigar?”) and Willie’s cries to kill the alien, which he repeats with the same intensity after it’s revealed to be Mr. Burns.
– The animation of Burns wandering into the woods is hysterical, it really does make up for the logical fallacies I brought up earlier. This episode is flawless, I realize this only now.

(originally aired January 5, 1997)
Apparently this episode was originally pitched as far back as season 3. At the time, the premise was viewed as way too bizarre, but now that we’ve had runaway monorails, killer theme park robots, and Homer fighting ex-Presidents, a hallucinogenic psychedelic trip doesn’t feel too strange by now. Even after twenty years, this remains one of the show’s strangest episodes, and that’s made it one of the more famous ones too. Homer is all revved up for the annual chili cook-off, but Marge isn’t so thrilled, making her husband promise he won’t drink and make a fool out of himself. Of course that proves to be impossible: the pope of Chili Town is bested by Chief Wiggum’s Guatemalan insanity peppers, but Homer finds that he’s able to keep the peppers down by coating his mouth with wax. Unfortunately, he quickly learns that they’re called insanity peppers for a reason, as he quickly loses grip on reality and finds himself in a strange mythical desert all alone. It’s there that his spirit guide, a coyote voiced by Johnny Cash, who tells him he will only achieve inner peace if he finds his soul mate.

There’s a lot to love about this episode. The chili cook-off set-piece is fantastic, it’s just the right event that Homer would go ape shit over much to Marge’s chagrin. Any time we see Homer truly in his element, it’s really enjoyable. He’s really cocky with his harsh critiques of all the different dishes, but there’s nothing else he knows better than food. Chief Wiggum also works so well as his adversary, a man of official title but garnering little respect, hoping to be at the top of the heap at the festival. These two characters are usually so comical and non-threatening, but to each other they absolutely mean business. When Homer goes into his wacked-out trip, the episode becomes an animation tour de force. The deformed, bizarrely styled citizens from Homer’s POV is a great start, then at the start of the second act we devolve into madness, with Homer deforming against live-action clouds with snakes and giant CG butterflies peppering the barren landscape. The angular look and stylized backgrounds give Homer’s trip a unique look apart from the normal series. Johnny Cash is also fantastic as the Space Coyote, giving such a solemn, serious air to the character, an animal of true wisdom.

As bombastic as this episode is, when you break it down, it’s really a gussied up Homer-Marge episode: Marge is upset with Homer, they make up at the end. Marge witnesses Homer about to down some beers at the festival, not realizing he only wishes to soothe his severely inflamed tongue after it barely touched one of the insanity peppers. There’s also the great, kind of haunting scene in the hallucination where Homer encounters a vision of Marge who dissolves before his eyes. When Marge chews Homer out for disappearing over the previous night, Homer begins to doubt if his wife really is his soul mate and goes off into the world to find some answers. There’s a bit of malaise that sits in with the third act since we know what the ending is going to be, but it’s distracted with enough great jokes that I didn’t mind much. You could also say it’s silly for an episode to examine the deeper meaning of the life of a big dumb oaf like Homer, but really, why not? Everyone has a purpose, and Homer’s is to ultimately be with the woman he loves. It’s an iconic episode worthy of its title, with a solid plot, good jokes and lots of visual wonderment to go around.

Tidbits and Quotes
– Nice bit at the beginning: Homer flips through his newspaper, dismissing the “World,” “The Arts” and “Religion” sections before he finds his reading of choice, “Kicking Back.”
– Great flashback to the last chili cook-off: a drunken Homer wallowing naked in a cotton candy machine. He jumps out and ends up rolling on the floor surrounded by dogs licking him. In the present, Homer chides Marge’s memory (“Well of course, everything looks bad if you remember it.”)
– I love Marge’s incredulous nature toward a rack with eight spices (“Some must be doubles. Ore-gah-no? What the hell?”) and Homer’s childish impatience (“Marge, we’re missing the chili? Less artsy, more fartsy!”)
– Classic scene of Flanders breaking down before Homer, admitting his chili is falsely advertised as “five-alarm” so he could impress his boys (“Daddy? Are you going to jail?” “We’ll see, son. We’ll see.”)
– Alone at the line dance, Marge encounters Smithers in an incredibly gaudy cowboy outfit trying to make a pass at her. If someone would like to make heads or tails of this scene, be my guess. I guess since his get-up is so over-the-top, it’s still another Smithers-is-gay reference, but it’s pretty bizarre.
– I love Homer taunting Wiggum (“Uh, Wiggy? My chili’s getting cold.”) and then later Wiggum’s inflated ego when Homer returns for seconds (“Want some more, do you? Well, sure! Heck, it’s not my job to talk people out of killing themselves.”)
– An odd moment where Ralph appears and acts somewhat normal, innocently informing Homer he’s about to drink a candle. Remember when he was a real character and not a dim non sequitur machine?
– I like how they had Dan Castellaneta talk like his mouth really was full of wax, and the gulping noises Homer makes swallowing the peppers whole. The crowd is absolutely aghast (“By all medical logic, steam should be shooting out of his ears.” “His ears if we’re lucky!”)
– Nice performance with Homer’s absolute impatience of dealing with the tortoise. And of course nice revenge as he is now forced to climb a gigantic flight of stairs due to his inflicted abuse on the poor animal.
– I like the stupid back-and-forth with Bart and Lisa regarding Bart’s “Time for Chili” hat (“You’re just mad ’cause there’s no clock in your hat.” “What hat?” This baby’s wasted on an idiot like you.”)
– Johnny Cash really did do a great job. And they got him to make gnawing noises. Fantastic. (“Knock it off!” “Sorry. I am a coyote.”)
– Homer wakes up on the country club golf course, thinking his whole trip was just a dream. The desert was the sand trap he was lying in, the pyramid was a pro shop (sitting atop a giant pyramid for some reason), and the talking coyote was just a regular talking dog (“Hi, Homer. Find your soulmate.” “Hey, wait a minute! There’s no such thing as a talking dog!” [dog barks] “Damn straight!”)
– Great scene where the denizens of Moe’s all tell Homer how they classify their relationships to him, with none of them soul mates, ending with Moe (“I’m a well-wisher, in that I don’t wish you any specific harm.”) Also Kearney is there drinking a beer for some reason. And he considers himself Homer’s “associate.”
– The funniest scene hands-down is Homer’s call to “GBM,” unfamiliar with the concept of “Looking For” classifieds (“Uh, no, I don’t like that… Or that… No, it’s not that I’m afraid. I’m going to hang up now, bye-bye.”)
– Homer steps in front of the light in the lighthouse, casting his silhouette across the town. Bart and Lisa take notice (“Hey look! Is that Dad?” “Either that, or Batman’s really let himself go.”)
– The short shorts ending is kinda dumb… but I still laughed.