(originally aired October 18, 1990)
Episodes like these are the reason I’m doing this re-watch. There are plenty of classic shows that I vaguely remember parts of, but definitely warrant a refresher. Last season, we got a good sense of Homer as a family man, but here we get a look at Homer the man, and his feelings concerning his job and his station in life. For a man of 36 (!), baldness is a mighty sting for Homer, but he is in shock of a new “miracle breakthrough” being advertised on TV: a hair-growth product called Dimoxinil. Unfortunately, it carries a heavy price tag of a thousand bucks. However, figuring how to slip it under the radar of the power plant’s health insurance plan, he gets himself a kit, and after one day of caressing and primping his scalp, he awakens with a full head of bushy, unkempt hair. It’s Homer’s unabashed, child-like enthusiasm that really make you completely invested in his character. He runs out of the house and throughout the town bidding one and all a good morning, Jimmy Stewart-style. He even encounters a fellow newly saved soul doing the very same thing: one look at each others’ new hair growth leads them to cry out “Dimoxinil!” and they have a warm embrace.

This episode also features the first look at the dynamic between Mr. Burns and Smithers. Burns may be a cruel, heartless bureaucrat, but he’s also easily dissuaded. I wouldn’t say naive, but at times, he sees what he wants to see, projecting his own views on others even if they’re not there. In this case, Burns lays down an arbitrary promotion to Homer, purely based on his new luscious locks. Later in a staff meeting, he calls upon Homer for his ideas, and out of Homer’s nervous ramblings about tartar sauce portions, he surmises that “a happy worker is a busy worker” and that keeping the mindless drones well fed will make them more productive. In one of the best Burns lines ever, he concludes with a dark undertone, “Let the fools have their tar-tar sauce.” Smithers is, as we’ve seen, Burns’s doting boot-licker, but we start getting hints of his deeper affections to his boss as he becomes frustrated at Burns’s growing liking toward Homer. He may be demeaned and under-appreciated in his line of work, but it’s where he belongs. It’s who he is.

With his new job title, Homer finds himself an assistant, the sage-like Karl, voiced by a gravely Harvey Fierstein. Karl’s character may be somewhat shallow, as his only purpose in life seems to be pep-talking middle-aged men less qualified than him, but he works because his actions and affections toward Homer are so sincere. Some of his lines are funny just by the level of intensity Fierstein brings to them. Smithers uncovers Homer’s Dimoxinil purchase under the plant’s insurance (Homer’s brilliant cover for the expense was “to keep brain from freezing”), but Karl ends up taking the fall. When Smithers asks him what he cares if Homer is bald, he responds, “My reasons… are my own.” It may be the best line in the whole episode. Karl is such an enigmatic character, a Magical Negro-type, except of questionable sexuality. When he returns to help a newly bald Homer one last time, he attempts to instill confidence back in Homer, claiming “my mother told me never to kiss a fool!” right before laying a big fat kiss onto a stunned Homer. That may be the first gay kiss ever seen in animation during primetime (outside a crossdressing Bugs smooching Elmer Fudd, of course). It’s a real nice, ballsy moment, wonderfully concluded with the quick pat on the ass Karl gives Homer on his way out.

In typical Simpsons fashion, we follow an emotional build-up with a backhanded climax. Even with his bravado restored, and with Karl’s flashcards that have some actually well-thought out and valid proposals for the plant, no one will give Homer the time of day due to his newly regained baldness. Burns is incised, but in a great, true-to-character moment, his rage is softened by his connection to Homer’s plight of male-pattern baldness, thus he gives him his old job back. It’s a great, rollicking road right back where we started, ending with a Homer and Marge moment that would be cliche and corny in any other show, but thanks to the strength of the characters and the performances, feels like such a sweet and earned end to a great episode.

Tidbits and Quotes
– The Dimoxinil commercial is a quick, great parody of these kind of miracle remedy commercials, with the balding man walking on the beach with a pensive look on his face. “Today, I’m gonna do it.”
– I love the Dimoxinil salesman’s alternate option for Homer: Hair in a Drum (“I must assure you that any hair growth you experience while using it will be purely coincidental.”)
– We’ve seen Lenny and Carl, Homer’s work buddies, in the first season, but here’s where they first start to take shape and resemble their modern-day selves. Lenny’s defense of Homer using the plant’s insurance plan is pretty great (“Why should you get nothing, while some guy who loses a finger hits the jackpot?”) Homer muses that $1000 is a lot to bilk the company out of, to which Lenny scoffs that Burns won’t be able to afford another ivory back-scratcher. This leads to a great callback when Smithers alerts Burns to the purchase, to which Burns angrily murmurs about wanting to have purchased said item.
– Homer’s ever-changing hairstyles throughout the episode are really fun; the progression of 80s and 90s hairdos is like a timeline through the show, but it’s extra funny since it feels like Homer is trying out all the different styles he missed out on during his life of baldness.
– I love the executive washroom juxtaposed with the shitty, uncleaned normal bathroom, a great parallel between the two classes.
– There’s a great transition from the tiled floor of the washroom panning and dissolving to the paneled windows outside the plant, building Smithers’s frustration and finding Homer’s secret. Between stuff like this and what we saw last episode, I’d forgotten how creatively directed this show used to be. In more recent years, we’d only get interesting stuff like this if the show was doing a direct parody of something, in which case it would just be straight mimicry of the source material.
– So many great Karl lines… but aside from “my reasons are my own,” I love his speech to Homer on why he took the fall (“Have I done something extraordinary here today? No. I did what I was born to do, what any good soldier would have done if a live grenade threatened his commander: I threw myself upon it, and bore its terrible brunt!”) Such intensity.
– Great stuff with Homer’s rage against Bart after spilling his Dimoxinil: his strangling is cut short by Bart telling his father he loves him (“Dirty trick.”) Collecting himself, Homer tells his son three things he hopes will harm him more than his hands around his throat (“You’ve ruined your father, you’ve crippled your family, and baldness is hereditary!”) Following this is a truly high moment for Homer as he kneels over on the floor, trying to sop up the spilled formula in his hair, sobbing uncontrollably (Lisa comments, “Dad is taking this in a less than heroic fashion.”)

(originally aired May 13, 1990)
So we cap off the first season with the very first episode produced, oddly enough. When the writers and producers got this episode back from overseas and screened it, they were horrified: characters were off-model, the look was brash and ugly, and the laws of physics seemed to not apply to people and objects in motion. They considered it unsuitable for air, and left the fate of The Simpsons in limbo until the next episode, “Bart the Genius,” ended up being a huge improvement in quality. As such, “Evening” was sent back to be reanimated, with over three-quarters of the footage completely redone. Perhaps this was all for the best, though: transitioning the Simpson family from the five-minute Tracey Ullman shorts to a Christmas special, and then to series seems like a smoother transition than than a premiere episode featuring a deranged, thieving babysitter and a rocky marriage saved by seedy motel sex.

The episode begins innocently enough: once again, Marge finds herself unappreciated and unacknowledged by her family, particularly her husband. Fired up by the urgings of radio psychiatrist Marvin Monroe, she stands by the door, stewing with bottled up rage ready to unleash at her husband when he comes home. Having overheard the radio show at work, Homer attempts to make things right with a box of chocolates and one piddling rose. When Marge opens the door and Homer lets out a sincere but trembling, “I love you,” all of her hate dissolves into a puddle of love. They make plans for a romantic evening: dinner, dancing, and a night at the Ye Olde Off-Ramp Inn.

The children are left in the care of a mysterious Ms. Botz, a snidely, hunched-over woman who treats the kids with nothing but contempt. While channel-surfing to “America’s Most Armed and Dangerous,” the kids discover that Botz is actually the “Babysitter Bandit,” a notorious crook who cons parents to gain access to their home and raid their stuff. Again, it’s so odd to think of this as the pilot; Ms. Botz is a truly bizarre and unsettling character, even before the reveal of her larcenous ways. Two young children bound and gagged whilst a stranger robs the house blind would be horrifying on any live-action sitcom, but this show manages to squeeze dark comedy from the set-up, with baby Maggie becoming their savior and Bart enacting swift vengeance on their captor. However, a bumbling, oblivious Homer lets a tied-up Botz go free (paying her triple, no less) right before the police arrive, giving this dark show a similarly dark ending.

With some of the original footage sprinkled through this episode, it feels pretty rough to watch after seeing the show evolve and improve over the season, but there are still a lot of bits of animation I really appreciate, like Homer and Marge dancing and the thoroughly creepy movements of Ms. Botz. There were still kinks to be worked out, but the overhaul of the episode ended up mostly successful, giving us a very suitable finale: bizarre happenings befalling a simple American family.

Tidbits and Quotes
– Always loved the psych call-in number: 555-PAIN.
– “You’re a pig. Barney’s a pig, Larry’s a pig, we’re all pigs, except for one difference. Once in a while, we crawl out of the slop, hose ourselves off and act like human beings.” The animation on Moe during this line is such grotesque, but wonderful at the same time, very befitting to what he’s saying. His face just morphs as he speaks, he’s so misshapen.
– Homer’s expressions on being inadvertently insulted by the babysitter service receptionist are so great, growling through gritted teeth (“Actually, the Simpsons are neighbors of ours, and we’ve found them to be a quite misunderstood and underrated family.”)
– I’ve always loved the Happy Little Elves. We barely see them now, but they were a brilliant parody of limitedly animated, overly peppy kid’s shows of the past.
– Maggie proves once more to be an infant savant in escaping her crib and working a remote control. That kid’s gonna go far.
– The end moment with Homer and Marge is pretty sweet, with Marge successfully commending her husband (“The way I see it, you raised three children who could knock out and hog-tie a perfect stranger, you must be doing something right.”)

Season 1 Final Thoughts
One down, nineteen to go. As I mentioned at the start, I used to kind of write off season 1 when I categorize the classic years. Sure, parts of it feel like a different show, and there’s plenty to be ironed out and retooled over time, but this season surprised me a lot. A lot of these twenty-year-old shows really hold up, with solid stories, great gags and character humor, and a consistent theme of the misadventures of this quirky family against the world. For a show that broke so much new ground with its concept, its material and its medium, I’d say this is a dynamite first season. Cheers all around. I’m ever so ready for season 2!

The Best
“The Telltale Head,” “Life on the Fast Lane,” “Krusty Gets Busted”

The Worst
I have a feeling I’m not going to make much use of this column until season 9 at least, but for now I’ll name the two stand-out “meh” shows of the season: “The Call of the Simpsons” and “The Crepes of Wrath.”

(originally aired April 29, 1990)
On tonight’s episode, we get our first major look at one of the greatest major secondary characters in the Simpsons pantheon: Krusty the Klown. A goofy, buffoonish harlequin, Krusty is at heart a true entertainer, by whatever over-the-top or potentially dangerous or humiliating means necessary. Later seasons will shine light on his angry and sleazy off-stage antics, but for now, Krusty and his empire is a perfect microcosm of children’s television: a madhouse of bright colors and loud shenanigans, and more show-related merchandise than you can shake a stick at (at the time, this series was cranking out its fair share of useless products as well.) In this episode, we get a look at Bart’s undying hero worship, Homer’s struggles to keep in his son’s good graces, and an epic war in kiddie TV.

We begin with a look at Krusty’s show, a chaotic affair of showboating, the audience blindly screaming catchphrases (“What would do if I went off the air?” “We’d kill ourselves!”), and senseless violence directed towards Krusty’s long-suffering second banana, Sideshow Bob. Between these antics and the first “official” Itchy & Scratchy cartoon, it’s completely devoid of any redeeming or educational content, just the way we like it. That night, however, Homer bears witness to the clown robbing the Kwik-E-Mart, and he is promptly arrested and stands trial. There’s some neat stuff within these sections sticking with the season 1 theme of Homer’s desire to not embarrass his son, but nevertheless, he must testify against his son’s TV idol in court, much to his chagrin.

With Krusty incarcerated, his show is handed off to Sideshow Bob, voiced by the blessedly voiced Kelsey Grammar. Having been mute save for his slide whistle in his first two appearances, he reveals himself to be a learned and brilliant thespian, and proceeds to change the format of the show to “learn about nutrition, self-esteem, etiquette, and all the mindly arts.” Bob creates a show the polar opposite of Krusty’s, a mindful and refined program where he reads “The Man in the Iron Mask” and ends each show by singing Cole Porter songs. Meanwhile, Bart remains loyal to Krusty, believing he was framed, and enlists Lisa to help him find evidence. During a taping of Bob’s show, which now takes the form of a kiddie version of a daytime talk show, Bart uncovers the truth: Bob is the culprit, given away by his grotesquely large feet. Years of torture and undermining from his former boss has chipped away at him, leading him to frame him for armed robbery. Watching this again knowing of Bob’s greater intelligence in later seasons, I feel this was a very weak plan coming from him. I mean, really, even Chief Wiggum should have been able to see the connection with the feet.

There’s so much stuff I missed talking about, like the town-wide vilification of the beloved clown in form of a public bonfire of all things Krusty, and the wonderful news biography of the entertainer’s life, from his humble beginnings as a street mime in Tupelo, Mississippi (just like Elvis) to his famed on-air heart attack whilst hocking Krusty Brand Pork Products. There’s just so much going on in this episode, but it all works fantastically, a wonderful introduction to a wonderful character. Comedy, thy name is Krusty.

Tidbits and Quotes
– Krusty uses the phrase, “I didn’t do it!” which would become Bart’s accidental catchphrase on the clown’s show in a much later episode. Just interesting to hear it this early.
– Great meta, semi-self deprecating line from Lisa on why Itchy & Scratchy is lost to her mother (“If cartoons were meant for adults, they would put them on prime time.”)
– Bob managing to perfectly disguise himself as Krusty still confuses me. Body padding would give him the build, but how could he have managed his mountainous tufts of hair down? He’d have to have them cut, but that would only arouse suspicion. Whatever. After the robbery, Apu has a great line to a hiding Homer (“You can emerge now from my chips. The opportunity to prove yourself a hero is long gone.”)
– The police line-up sequence is so wonderful, with an unusually competent Wiggum ordering, “Send in the clowns!” and Homer’s uncontrollably chuckling at the jesters before him (“If the crime is making me laugh, they’re all guilty!”)
– “Earlier this evening, the Springfield SWAT team apprehended the TV clown, who appears on a rival station, opposite our own Emmy-award winning Hobo Hank.” Now I really want to see Hobo Hank’s show. Must be pretty good if it won an Emmy.
– The animation of Krusty’s heart attack is absolutely amazing, so raw and horrifyingly drawn, but still hilarious through the whole thing. His weakened, guttural “Dying… I’m dying…” under the maddening cheers from his audience makes it.
– Krusty without his clown makeup is such a strange sight. I may be wrong, but I think this is the only time we see him like this, outside of his Rory B. Bellow disguise in “Bart the Fink.” Nowadays, even walking around in public, he’s got that get-up on, and nobody thinks twice about it. He’s just Krusty.
– Not quite sure why Marge calls Krusty an “insane criminal genius” just for robbing a convenience store. Partially-educated jailbird Snake seems to do it on a regular basis.
– Great bit with Lovejoy addressing the crowd before the bonfire (“Good people, I’m so happy you’re all here tonight. But please, just a few words of caution. Now, we are going to set this pile of evil ablaze, but because these are children’s toys, the fire will spread quickly, so please stand back and try not to inhale the toxic fumes.”)
– “Krusty wore big, floppy shoes, but he’s got little feet, like all good-hearted people. But Sideshow Bob really filled those shoes with these ugly feet!” He uncovered the truth, but I still don’t get Bart’s point. All people with large feet are evil?
– Homer has a great line toward the end apologizing to Krusty (“I’m man enough to admit I was wrong, and I’m sorry I fingered you in court. I sincerely hope that the horrible stories I heard about what goes on in prison are exaggerated.”)

(originally aired April 15, 1990)
The series has slowly been evolving from a show about an upper-lower-middle class family, to a show about the offbeat town of Springfield. This episode features our first look outside the city limits, and the United States as well. The Simpsons would make many family outings overseas in the future to mock, deride and parody other foreign lands, but in this first international outing, only one Simpson makes the trip. This is an episode that has some interesting ideas, but ultimately felt quite sour to me.

We start in familiar territory: Bart causing the school toilets to explode with a cherry bomb, one occupied at the time by Agnes, Principal Skinner’s mother (in an odd first appearance where she is quite kindly, compared to the overly critical hag she is now). This latest incident results in Skinner approaching Homer and Marge about allowing Bart into a foreign exchange program to get the boy out of their hair for a bit. With that, Bart is sent off to France, and the Simpsons welcome a seemingly sweet Albanian named Adil. This side story has a lot of great stuff in it, with some great culture clash satire, such as when Homer breaks up an argument between Lisa and Adil (“Maybe Lisa’s right about America being the land of opportunity, and maybe Adil’s got a point about the machinery of capitalism being oiled with the blood of the workers.”) Homer getting played by Adil to retrieve confidential nuclear power blueprints and photographs for his native land is an interesting, slightly dark storyline, but Homer’s naivety throughout the entire episode, even up toward the boy’s arrest, gives it humor.

The main story, however, isn’t much fun. Bart finds that he has been placed in the care of two scummy, self-serving farmers in the French countryside, who essentially use Bart as their slave, working the fields in place of their beloved mule. They steal his belongings, make him sleep on the floor, and have him test out potentially life-threatening wine laced with anti-freeze. First off, this storyline bothers me from a logical level: what kind of foreign exchange program is this that these two scoundrels can get away with being in charge of a ten-year-old? They just blindly send Bart off to their care, and it’s just assumed it’s fine? But beyond that, it’s just kind of sad to see Bart basically being tortured through most of the show. There are a few good lines here and there, but it’s kind of a bummer seeing a kid used and abused like this, especially when it reminds you of real-life stories of this kind of horrendous activity going on.

Bart is saved when he miraculously manages to wrangle the French language and alert a policeman to his caregivers and their criminal enterprise (he later comments, “So basically, I met one nice French person.”) Meanwhile, Adil ends up being used in a criminal exchange for an American boy placed in Albania. It’s an episode that feels like it could have been more poignant and pointed toward presenting other cultures and then tearing at them, but it gets too muddled down in the dourness of Bart’s unfortunate situation. There’s not much commentary on France other than they like wine. The B-story is a lot better, but it also feels a bit dark. I guess with four credited writers on this one, a little bit of mish-mashing was bound to happen.

Tidbits and Quotes
– The beginning of the episode is brilliant, with Homer falling down the stairs and unable to move because of his trick back. Santa’s Little Helper and Maggie falling asleep next to him, and the talking Krusty doll’s fading batteries are amazing, as is Homer’s weakened shudder when Marge and Lisa find him (“The boy… Bring me the boy.”)
– Skinner lays Bart’s situation on thick for Homer and Marge (“Mr. and Mrs. Simpson, we have transcended incorrigible. I don’t think suspension or expulsion will do the trick. I think it behooves us all to consider… deportation.”) It’s also clear how little of a shit he gives about the boy, he just wants him gone (“Bart doesn’t speak French.” “Oh, when he’s fully immersed in a foreign language, the average child can become fluent in weeks!” “Yeah, but what about Bart?” “I’m sure he’ll pick up enough to get by.”)
– Homer’s send-off to his son is funny and sweet: (“Always remember that you’re representing your country. I guess what I’m saying is, don’t mess up France the way you messed up your room.”)
– Skinner’s assembly introduction to Adil is a brilliant commentary of American relations and how we view radically different cultures (“You might find his accent peculiar. Certain aspects of his culture may seem absurd, perhaps even offensive. But I urge you all to give little Adil the benefit of the doubt. This way, and only in this way, do we hope to better understand our backward neighbors throughout the world.”)
– The only real funny bit in the France stuff is the two brothers’s plan in putting anti-freeze in their wine (“Too much can be poison, but the right amount gives wine just the right kick.”)
– It always struck me as odd that when Bart, visibly poor and starving, tells the policeman all the horrible things Cesar and Uglion had done to him, the policeman only reacts in shock about the anti-freeze scheme. I guess that was supposed to be the joke, but it didn’t feel much like one to me.