(originally aired November 21, 1999)
At a glance, this appears to be a season of sweeping change. Maude Flanders gets bumped off, Barney takes a vow of sobriety, and in this episode, Apu and Manjula wind up with eight kids. You would think this would open the door further down the line for some interesting story opportunities. You would think. In actuality, we basically see no real follow-through with any of these stories, other than that Maude is still dead and the octuplets are still around. I think this could have been a great in to do more Apu stories, but if this show has illustrated anything, it’s that the writers are hopelessly dependent in that a minute of screen time can’t go by without seeing a Simpson, more often than not Homer. The family are ever present in this episode, sometimes for reasons that don’t make sense. The series was originally about one family surviving in the world, and now it’s slowly being that everyone else’s lives seem to revolve around the Simpsons.

Apu and Manjula decide it’s finally time to have a child, but find it’s much more difficult to conceive than they thought. So who does Apu consult about this? Homer, of course. Is he the only man he knows? What about Sanjay? He’s nowhere to be seen. But no matter, Homer is a bastion of good advice, cooking beans inside the can and ripping the hood off Apu’s car. These things aren’t so much funny as they are clinically insane. Due to taking an excessive amount of fertility drugs, Manjula gives birth to eight children, who don’t take long to drive the couple into an exhausted and irritable lot. The best scenes in the episode are, surprise surprise, when we see just the two of them dealing with the situation, running themselves ragged (“I just had the most beautiful dream where I died.” “Oh, no, you don’t. Not ’till they’re out of college.” “Listen, I’ll die when I want to.”)

Apu and Manjula’s domestic hell seems to be at an end thanks to zoo owner Larry Kidkill, who offers the two stay at a beautiful nursery in exchange of being behind glass for the public to see. They’re initially pensive, but eventually accept. Things seem to be going fine until they find that their children are being used in an over-the-top stage show “Octopia!” I don’t exactly know what to make of this third act twist. I get the appeal of the show of just watching cute little newborns, but it all just seems so, so bizarre. I feel this would have worked so much better as a more emotional, down-to-earth story, and somehow what we got is Apu and Homer breaking his kids out of a zoo. Then Homer gets attacked by cobras and yells and screams a lot. How we got to this ending confuses me more than it annoys me, but it absolutely doesn’t work. I really like the idea of this episode, and it has its fleeting shining moments, but there’s just way too much focus on the Simpsons (namely stupid, stupid Homer) for what should have been Apu’s story, as well as too much weird nonsense, like Butch Patrick showing up. A promising, but ultimately disappointing episode.

Tidbits and Quotes
– I like the idea of making fun of IKEA with SHOP. Too bad none of the jokes really worked. Makes me hungry for some Swedish meatballs though.
– I like Apu’s rationale for deciding to have kids (“I have noticed that this country is dangerously underpopulated.”)
– The pregnancy test, for some reason, works like a Vegas slot machine. Apu and Manjula get two babies… and a lemon (“All that sex for nothing!” “Well, that is a pretty grim assessment.”)
– I like the demanding, fickle nature of the media, hoping to squeeze stupid sound bites out of Apu and Manjula and lavishing them with gifts, until they rescind them all when they find out about the next “freak show”: the Shelbyville Nine (“Would you say that you’re on cloud nine?” “We’re on cloud nine!”)
– Apu lying on the floor with his eight bottle harness is wonderfully disturbing (“Welcome to my nightmare…”) I also like when he goes off with Kidkill, no questions asked (“But you don’t even know who he is!” “Who cares, there’s only one of him!”)
– Great quick line where Kidkill calls the octuplets “the eight wonders of the third world.”
– It’s really dumb, but I always liked Homer mixing up chloroform with Colorforms.
– The ending really doesn’t make any sense. Why would Kidkill immediately accept the offer of Homer, this stranger he’s never met, into losing the octuplets? It’s just ridiculous. Homer writhing in pain being bitten by cobras and a mongoose as the show’s big finish is pretty disconcerting. This is their version of a hilarious finale now.

(originally aired November 14, 1999)
Normally when you’re writing an episode, you should make it around one story, one concept, one core idea. This show is very disjointed, but even stranger is there is some groundwork for the final act put into the first, but the middle portion of the episode is so disconnected and irrelevant that it doesn’t even matter. It’s just such a mess structurally. Things are pretty aimless at the start with Homer blowing off steam after work going bowling, with a crowd slowly emerging as he gets closer and closer to bowling a perfect game. For him, it’s a release after a particularly bad day, but it’s less satisfying to us as the audience since all the bad things that happened to him were his fault. Classic Homer was an unlucky son-of-a-bitch who fate spat in the face of repeatedly. Here, Homer oversleeps, runs his car through the median and molests his boss’s face repeatedly. Then he’s punished and made to eat barrels of toxic waste. Nothing wrong with that. Nope. Totally makes sense.

When Homer gets his perfect game, the episode shifts gears to be about the fleeting nature of fame, particularly of the flash-in-the-pan variety. Homer has his brief moment in the sun, but is unable to step away. I really don’t know what to make of this second act, every single scene is truly bizarre. I get that Springfield is an easily impressed podunk town, but why are they this amazed about a guy who bowled well? Also, we just jump from random set piece to random set piece. From giving a talk at Bart’s class, we immediately go to Springfield’s answer to Hollywood Squares, with Homer as the center square. And placed over Ron Howard, no less, in his second guest appearance for some reason. From then on we’re just burning through celebrities. Homer tries to do a walk-on during Penn & Teller’s show and almost gets crossbowed, one of the only funny scenes in the show (“I’m gonna kill you!” “He’ll do it! I’m not the first Teller!”) Then he watches TV at home where Pat O’Brien and Nancy O’Dell tell him he’s old hat. Why have them on the show? Hosting “Access Springfield”? Not only does it make no sense, but was it really necessary? All just to raise the guest star count, I guess.

What’s a man to do when your popularity is waning? Commit suicide, of course. Think back to “Homer’s Odyssey,” where Homer wanting to jump off a bridge was a tough pill to swallow, but at least it made sense and the episode was building toward it. Time and again we’ve seen that Homer feels he only has worth if he can provide for his family, and when things seemed impossible for him to do that, he gave up. Here, he thinks his life has peaked and he makes a snap decision to jump off a building. No consideration to his family, nothing. Then he’s saved by Otto bungee jumping and everything’s okay. Brilliant. After that, he decides to devote his life to his kids, but when he finds himself too out of his depth with Bart and Lisa, he settles for Maggie, who has a not-so-great view of her distant father. Now, this technically was set up earlier in the episode how Homer ignores the baby and the effect it has on her, but there’s nothing in the rest of the show that built toward his realization that his kids could give his life meaning. The only prompting was him running into Ron Howard and his kids, it was more random than anything, much like most of the content here. This is the most scatter-shot episode ever, with no focus, no ideas and no clue where to go. There’s a few funny lines, but that’s about it.

Tidbits and Quotes
– In art school, I leaped at the chance to see Koyaanisqatsi basically because I knew it from this episode in the fast-motion sequence of Homer oversleeping. It was… interesting.
– Homer pulls out Burns’s dentures, who regenerates a new pair complete with a cash register sound. He escapes and hides in the reactor core, where Burns proceeds to strangle him through the mounted gloves, and kick him with the mounted feet, which makes no sense. Then Homer is forced to eat nuclear waste. That’s a trifecta right there, the show is officially a goofy cartoon that can do anything.
– Lenny and Carl at the bowling alley have a lot of great material: ‘POO’ and ‘ASS’ on the scoreboard, Lenny’s banana split (“I paid 7.10 for this split.” “Will you at least call it a banana split, you dumbwad?” “Hey, spare me your gutter mouth!”), and Lenny dumping his pills in the trash seeing a “psychotic” Homer get strike after strike.
– I don’t quite see why Marge isn’t upset that Homer lied to him to get out of bonding with their daughter. Instead, she and the kids just stand at the sidelines at the bowling alley, telling them to not disturb their father.
– I don’t understand the Springfield Squares bit. Why is the Capitol City Goofball there? And really, if you’ve got Ron Howard, you make him the center square. And Itchy & Scratchy are real? Somehow? Whatever. I do like this exchange though regarding Howard (“Homer, you can’t just ride one accomplishment forever. Why do you think I stopped acting and became a director?” “I don’t know, because you weren’t cute anymore?” “Hmm… I’ll agree.” “Circle gets the square. Goodnight, everyone!”)
– More dumb cartoony shit where Homer somehow inhales the ‘300’ balloon. He didn’t even inhale that deeply, it just plummeted down his throat.
– Otto was conveniently bungee jumping off the building and managed to catch up to a falling Homer, which defies gravity, and for some reason his cord was long enough to descend through various underground levels below the city. So if they hadn’t gone in that manhole, Otto would have smashed his face into the pavement. Was that the aim? And I love that Homer gets hit with the manhole cover before he pops back on the surface, just one more opportunity to see him get hurt.
– Speaking of which, his Teletubby bit makes no sense either. He’s got the TV chained to his neck, sometimes holding it with one hand, which is ridiculous as that thing must weigh a fair amount. Then the TV seems to work without being plugged in, and electrocutes him somehow. Okay?
– I don’t even feel like commenting about Maggie saving Homer’s life at the end. The commentary yields no answers, as usual. But the episode can barely be bothered to explain it, they just crammed in a quick Hibbert line (“When a parent’s life is in danger, a child can summon super-human strength.”) No joke, no response, no questioning. Honestly, if you’re going to pull this kind of shit, at least have characters acknowledge how it makes no sense. By this point though, I’d been so dulled by the rest of the episode, this is just the cherry on top of the shit sundae. …oh, but I will say that I thought Maggie looked very cute in her little swim suit. At least I have a positive note to end on. …before she pulled a two hundred and eighty fucking pound man to shore. WHAT THE FUCK.

(originally aired November 7, 1999)
Already I can tell that season 11 is going to be curious for me. I think a big reason is that it’s the first season I can remember watching first run, and as such, I have a strange affinity towards some of these shows. Season 10 had a lot of garbage, as does this season, but I feel there’s a lot more to love here in terms of the ratio of enjoyability to shit. This episode is a good example, as there’s a lot of weirdness and elements that really shouldn’t work, but as a whole it kind of works in a weird way, has a fair amount of humor, and gave us the concept of tomacco, which is pretty amazing. Even the opening kind of makes sense to me: Homer is the kind of dolt who would mimic a movie hero in challenging strangers to duel (reminds me of him parroting an action one-liner way back in “The Way We Was”) and I can definitely see him taking advantage of the privilege, and get bitten in the ass when he tangles with the wrong southern fried sheriff. The stereotypical candor of the Sheriff is kind of stupid, but it’s stupidness I can get behind.

Homer and the family escape their house when the colonel arrives to duel and they must find a place to hide out. They end up at the old Simpson family farm, and must adapt themselves to a new way of life. Why he figures he has to grow crops and be a farmer now and not just drive to a convenience mart and stock up on junk food isn’t exactly clear, but it’s easy enough to hand wave. The jokes in the middle half are kind of hit and miss. You’ve got the most wildest risque joke in the show’s history (Sneed’s Feed and Seed, Formerly Chuck’s) and the condescending rival farmers, but the writers also seem to think tractors repeatedly falling on Homer to be comedy gold. Hoping to kick start the growing process, Homer loads up a pesticide sprayer with plutonium, and with his random assortment of seeds he planted, ends up tending to an entire field of tomacco, the unholy hybrid of tomato and tobacco. And wouldn’t you know, people just can’t get enough. Bart acknowledges it tastes terrible, “but it’s smooth and mild. And refreshingly addictive!”

Laramie Cigarettes takes notice of the new tomacco craze, wanting to buy the plant off Homer so they can use it to get kids addicted to nicotine (“Kids are crazy about tobacco, but the politicians won’t let us sell it to them.”) It’s an interesting idea, but it feels too crammed and rushed within the final four minutes of the episode. It also doesn’t help that Homer is a brain dead moron throughout, raising the stakes from million to billion and arguing with Lisa about how he can’t destroy the plant because he doesn’t know how, a bit that didn’t make any sense to me. Ultimately, the hopelessly addicted animals of the farm attack, and the last tomacco plant ends up in Laramie’s hands anyway, at least until their helicopter crashes thanks to a rabid stowaway sheep. And then we bring it all the way back around to the colonel, which has a pretty satisfying payoff that calls back to an earlier event and is somewhat satisfying seeing our hero shot in the shoulder. So here’s another episode that has its problems, but in the end is pretty damn enjoyable.

Tidbits and Quotes
– Nice Buzz Cola depicting the horrors of D-Day in the pre-film advertisements. Reminds me of when they have Veteran’s Day mattress sales. Something doesn’t quite compute with that…
– Seeing the Milk Duds swimming in “butter” makes me sick. I worked at a movie theatre, it’s all oil, that must taste absolutely disgusting. But that all makes it make even more sense that Homer would want it.
– The Zorro movie is pretty good, with his anachronistic fights between the Three Musketeers, the Man in the Iron Mask, and ninjas. I also like the over-the-top read at the end by the Scarlet Pimpernel (“Do you accept? Or are you a coward.” “I… am a coward!!“)
– One of my favorite bands, the B-52’s, guest star to play a variant of one of their hit songs as “Glove Slap,” which is pretty damn incredible. Whenever the tune gets stuck in my head for some reason, it’s a 50/50 chance of whether it’ll turn out as “Love Shack” or “Glove Slap.”
– Nice bit towards the end of act one where Homer wonders what Zorro would do against the colonel. Turns out, according to his dream sequence, he would just get shot. It’s a nice tie-in to the opening, and the mentality of how we got here. It makes the episode feel more complete, rather than just have random, tenuously connected sequences as we’d see later on.
– The Simpson farm did burn down in “Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy,” but I’m not that huge of a stickler for continuity. Perhaps this episode took place before that one chronologically, who cares.
– I like the discourse between Homer and the condescending farmers, a running bit that has an amusing rhythm and great payoff (“Well, well. Look at the city slicker pulling up in his fancy German car.” “This car was made in Guatemala.” “Well, pardon us, Mr. Gucci loafers.” “I bought these shoes from a hobo.” “Well la-de-dah, Mr. Park Avenue manicure.” “I’m sorry, I believe in good grooming.”)
– I like Homer’s haphazard approach to farming: he figures if he just plants a little bit of everything, like candy corn and gummi bears, something must grow. And if not, just get some plutonium to help it along. He calls Lenny to have him mail some (“Plutonium? Gee, Homer, isn’t that kind of risky? …yeah, I guess you’re right. It’s not.”)
– Great Ralph line where he comments the tomacco tastes like Grandma. But nonetheless, he and the Chief are hooked (“We’ll take a bushel or a pack or just… just give it to me.”)
– I really do love the ending. We have Marge earlier unable to sell her mincemeat pies (Homer even chastizes her for it: “You’re scaring off the customers, honey!”) but in the end they almost save Homer when the Colonel asks to have some. But thick-headed as ever, Homer calls for the duel to begin and the Colonel casually shoots him in the arm. But that won’t stop Homer from having some pie himself. Great stuff.

(originally aired October 31, 1999)
Prove me wrong, later seasons, but I believe this to be the last solid Halloween special. I’ll say one factor of my eventual departure from watching new episodes was my perpetual disappointment of each year’s Treehouse of Horror, of how even with the free license to have the characters do whatever the writers wanted, they still felt as banal and lifeless as the rest of the season. But I feel I’ve treaded this point many times before, so for now, let’s enjoy these three great segments. First is “I Know What You Did-Iddly-Did,” where the Simpson family must cover up the fact that they accidentally mowed down Ned Flanders with their car, but someone knows what they did… It’s reminiscent of past segments that parody something specific (here, obviously, being I Know What You Did Last Summer,) but adds its own spin and flourishes to make it its own. The bit with Homer acting as ventrioloquist with Ned’s corpse to create a fake death for his wife is wonderfully dark, and the inexplicable twist at the end with the werewolf is pretty excellent as well. Full of great jokes, succinct plotting, and just the right level of fright and violence (Homer being ripped to pieces by Werewolf Flanders off screen leaves it all to your gory, disgusting imagination), we’re off to a pretty good start.

Next is “Desperately Xeeking Xena,” which has one of the last truly classic bits the series has to offer: Stretch Dude, Clobber Girl, and Comic Book Guy as the Collector. Superheroes aren’t exactly Halloweeny, as I’ve chastised the show for using non-spooky subject matter in these specials in the future, but at least they tried to tie it in at the beginning where the kids get superpowers through radiation inspecting trick-or-treat bags. Because that totally makes sense. But no matter, Comic Book Guy is the real star, in his greatest role ever as the evil celebrity-snatching Collector, this time getting away with Lucy Lawless, aka Xena. Everything about this segment is just so much fun, from Bart and Lisa’s new theme song, how they choose to best use their powers, the other kidnapped celebrities, and how CBG is finally outdone: in the heat of the moment, removing a limited edition lightsaber from its packaging (“No!! It is no longer a collectable!”) Lawless is also fantastic, from the very start in dealing with her adoring nerd followers, to the great bit where she manipulates CBG into letting his guard down so she can get all Xena on his ass. An absolute classic. I’d say this can fit somewhere in top ten “Horror” segments.

“Life’s a Glitch, and Then You Die” seems like it wouldn’t age well, but it serves as an amusing time capsule of how insane people were at the turn of the millennium. Homer is assigned as Y2K compliance officer for the power plant, and of course his sole screw-up causes all hell to break loose on New Year’s Eve as all technology goes haywire and the end appears nigh. I remember how people were going apeshit, building fallout bunkers and stocking up on supplies, for an event that even I as a child knew was absolute nonsense. So this episode is cathartic in showing the absurdist version of Y2K, how the entire world just goes to hell. If all that weren’t enough, they have the great ending where the planet’s best and brightest are sent off to colonize a new planet, and the planet’s worst are rocketed into the sun. Tom Arnold’s a great sport for voicing himself on that ship, amongst the likes of Pauly Shore, Al Sharpton and Rosie O’Donnell. Homer and Bart ultimately can’t be dead soon enough and eject themselves into space, where their heads inflate and explode off-screen. See, the violence can be horrifying and graphic, but here it works because it’s woven into the story and serves a purpose. But in summation, after the last two specials which were a bit rocky, we’ve got one last amazing one to go out on. I’ve got a fair amount left to go through, and maybe I’ll be surprised, but for now, I’ll just reiterate, this is the last of a dying breed of awesome Halloween shows.

Tidbits and Quotes
– The beginning with Kang and Kodos is pretty good. It always must be a hassle to work them in every year, but it’s always great to see them.
– I love the start of “Diddly” where it seems the family is returning from a spooky adventure we didn’t see, fighting off vampires to relinquish their Sugar Crisp cereal.
– Homer propping Ned’s corpse up on the roof is so amazingly awful (“Relax, I’m fine! But when I do die, I don’t want any autopsies!”) He throws him off the roof (landing smack dab on the doghouse), but Maude goes inside and doesn’t see. So, Homer goes to plan B: “Hey Maude, I’m home! Uh-oh! I think I’m having a heart attack!” Throw the corpse in the foyer, wait for the scream and call it a day (“And that’s the end of that chapter!”)
– Ned’s funeral’s pretty great, with the family walking in with big smiles as to not look suspicious, and Homer’s eulogy (“When I think about Ned, I can’t help but remember the look on his face when Marge drove over… oh wait. What I’d like to say is, we’re still looking for the real killers. Anyway in conclusion, a man cannot be forced to testify against his wife.”) He proceeds to wink continuously until Marge tells him to stop.
– A great creepy atmosphere is built with the family sitting in the dark when the phone rings. I love how Homer whimpers and trembles in fear, then answers with a casual “Yello?” And the scary voice on the phone was just Moe. Then we get an awesome wrap-around shot of the family screaming in terror as lightning illuminates the room, with “I KNOW WHAT YOU DID” scribbled all over the walls.
– The car runs out of gas, so Homer must act quick as to where to hide (“Marge, you hide in the abandoned amusement park; Lisa, the pet cemetery; Bart, spooky roller disco; and I’ll go skinny-dipping in that lake where the sexy teens were killed a hundred years ago tonight.”)
– I love Milhouse’s Radioactive Man costume, reminiscent of old time Halloween kid’s costumes where you’ve have a Batman mask, then a weird over shirt that has the Batman logo and a picture of him on it. Like, what’s all that about? Costume makers were weird (“I don’t think the real Radioactive Man wears a plastic smock with a picture of himself on it.” “He would on Halloween.”)
– Skinner’s great at the beginning, when after Lisa lifts up the bleachers that pinned her down with her super strength (“Hold the funeral, Poindexter!”) he’s shocked (“Poindexter?!”) I also like how he falls for Bart’s dumb hand trick when he stretches around to knock on the door.
– Classic bit at Xena’s Q & A, where she explains that whenever something in a show doesn’t make sense or seems illogical, the explanation is always, “A wizard did it.” It works in any context. Also great is when the Collector uses a giant magnet to attract her breastplate, Lawless is hesitant to free herself, in more ways than one, in front of a bunch of camera-happy super nerds.
– Comic Book Guy is so great in this, wonderfully over the top and ridiculous as any great campy supervillain should be. I quote “Ha ha! I am unbelievably amused!” quite often. And of course his last hurrah in struggling to strike a Battlestar Galactica pose before the Lucite hardens (“Best… death… ever!“)
– Seeing Dick Clark’s skin melt off revealing his robot interiors, which turn to dust, seems slightly less appropriate now that he is deceased. Still funny though. I also love the more harrowing instrumental version of “Auld Lang Syne” as we see the world turn to disaster.
– Great appearance by Krusty, whose pacemaker is on the fritz (“It’s stuck on hummingbird! Nectar! I need to drink my weight in nectar!”) It’s also a believable means to get the Simpsons to the rocket that they swipe his ticket.
– Homer’s got a plan to get on the ship leaving Earth (“I am… uh, the piano genius from the movie Shine.” “And your name is?” “Uh… Shiney McShine?”)
– I like Homer’s increasing panic as he lists off more and more celebrities on the bad ship, until he screams in terror at the sight of Tom Arnold. Again, what a sport (“That ship’s going to Mars. Ours is headed for the sun!” “Yeah, ain’t that a kick in the teeth? I mean, my shows weren’t great but I never tied people up and forced them to watch. And I could’ve, because I’m a big guy and I’m good with knots!”) I also love his horribly off-tune singing along to “Clang, Clang, Clang.”

(originally aired October 24, 1999)
Similar to putting Bart on ADD medication, Homer the food critic seems like an idea that should have been done already. It’s another Homer-gets-a-job episode, but like I felt with him as a hippie or a trucker, at least here it makes sense as a position that Homer would actually want to do. As a result, the first half of the episode works well, but a random second act turn and silly finale taints a bit of the goodwill they built up. But like “Brother’s Little Helper” before it, the humor throughout alleviates some of the less favorable elements at play here. So even though the way in which he gets the job doesn’t make much sense, I do like the idea of Homer being a food critic, and his enthusasim towards it. Again, it’s a job tailor-made for him. Lisa moonlighting writing his reviews and Homer’s indiscriminate stomach loving everything he eats also all works. Homer’s not a jackass, most of the jokes land, the first half of this show is pretty solid.

Things start to turn when a group of other critics from the Springfield Shopper confront Homer about his consistently positive reviews. After this criticism, he turns the other way, and bashes each and every dish he eats, including in his own home. Now I don’t quite get why the critics would feel the need to talk to Homer about this. I kind of get their frustration about his fluff reviews, but they seem almost too vehement about it. And why would Homer then all of a sudden take it to such heart? The plot turn just seemed too sudden. One scene, Homer loves everything, then the next he’s turning his nose up at everything solely to curry the favor of some schmucks he barely knows. I feel there could have been a way to make this plot turn make sense, but it feels very hastily done here.

Our big bad finale takes place at the Springfield Food Festival, where the town’s restauranteurs shell out their wares, and have also conspired to terminate the man who’s been trashing their reputations. A sinister-looking Frenchman has cooked up an ultra-fatty eclair injected with enough poison to bring Homer down, and Lisa must save her father before he takes the first bite. Again, this final act seems pretty silly and too over-the-top, but it’s got enough jokes within it that make it worthwhile. It shares this element with “Helper,” in that all of the dumb plot twists and elements of the second half are pretty much alleviated with the good jokes along the way. This isn’t a spectacular episode, nor is it a disaster. It’s a fairly solid story with enough laughs to make it worth your twenty-odd minutes.

Tidbits and Quotes
– One of the last times they actually bother explaining why or how Homer got out of work, but here it’s ridiculously wonderful. It’s got mutiple layers of dumbness: Homer’s pathetic excuse for a decoy, Burns mistaking it for a real person, then on top of that giving it its own office. How it got up there, I have no clue, but it’s a pretty funny sequence.
– Most of the stuff at the Shopper is great: Johnny Newspaperseed, the current day paper being a result of merging the Springfield Times, Post, Globe, Herald, Jewish News and Hot Sex Weekly, the “reporters” just being telemarketers selling subscriptions (with a good Gil appearance), the cryogenically preserved Ann Landers and Dear Abby (“Our advice is to free us or let us die!”) and the paper’s proported claim of using a percentage of recycled newsprint (“What percent is that?” “Zero! …zero’s a percent!”) The shot of the giant trees being fed into the printing plant, with a poor boy inside a treehouse in one of them, feels like classic era brutal material.
– Homer’s employment at the paper is kind of hit-and-miss. I don’t care for his food song, or his pathetic takes at writing reviews himself (“You keep using words like ‘pasghetti’ and ‘momatoes’ You make numerous threatening references to the UN and at the end you repeat the words ‘Screw Flanders’ over and over again.”) I like that the ‘e’ is missing from the typewriter (“Food Box: Go or No Go” by Bill Simpson) but his final result seems almost too stupid. Though I do like later when Lisa leaves him, he looks elsewhere for help, logically starting with the dog (“Rough? You’ve been pitching that all night.”)
– It’s cute seeing Lisa mimic her father’s drooling noise and trying to articulate that in a word: transcendent! (“How about groin-grabbingly transcendent?” “Uhh… I don’t think so.” “We make a good team.  A groin-grabbingly good team!”)
– I like the title headline of Homer’s first review (“Cod is Great, Scrod is Good”) and the horrible photo of Homer, who looks absolutely drunk out of his mind. Even better is they use it again later.
– One of the knick knacks at Planet Springfield is the cane from Citizen Kane. I think there actually was a cane in the film somewhere, so it could actually be authentic.
– For some reason, the Shopper has a farm supply critic on staff. I love his catty review (“We see John Deere has come out with this years line of roto-tillers.  Surprise, surprise, they’re green! I say it’s time to time to send John Deere a Dear John.”)
– Great scene with Krusty doing some local dinner theater (“How do you make a King Lear? Put the Queen in a bikini!”) He’s ultimately surprised when he finds out that the play actually isn’t a comedy.
– Though I don’t like his random hatred, I do like some of Homer’s passive aggressive air in the late second act (“So come to the Legless Frog if you want to get sick and die and leave a big garlicky corpse. P.S. Parking was ample.”)
– Luigi is incensed with Homer’s criticism (“He gave me a bad review! So my friend put a horse head on the bed. He ate the head and gave it a bad review! True story.”)
– I like Homer talking about how bad things happen to him everywhere, then he proceeds to step in a puddle, get hit by a Frisbee and bit by a bat (“That’s a new one.”) Reminds me a bit of “Mother Simpson” when he “ruins” the moment when a pelican appears and spits a fish in his pants.
– Captain McAllister and Akira make some good small talk about Homer’s unbuttoned pants (“I’m surprised he doesn’t just give it up and go for sweatpants.” “He says the crotch wears out too fast.” “Yarr! That’s going to replace the whale in my nightmares.”)
– Classic line when the evil Frenchman shoos Flanders away from his killer eclair (“A rude Frenchman! Well, I never!”)
– Pretty good how Lisa gets Homer to chuck the eclair away by screaming it’s low-fat, which lands and explodes on Hans Moleman’s booth. The police arrive on the scene (“That was close! Thank God it landed in that smoking crater!”)
– I don’t care for the ending where Homer talks about having apparently badmouthed Lisa and everyone at the festival wanting their blood. Didn’t make much sense. But whatever.