(originally aired October 2, 1994)
As a kid with Floridian grandparents, I was obsessed with Disney World: the rides, the environment, the unique overall aura of the place. So I would always be thrilled when this episode popped up in syndication, since it does such a phenomenal job recreating and lampooning so many theme park staples, from the names, the abused costume characters, the lame gift shop items, even down to small stuff like the concept of Disney Dollars. But around all the Disney bashing is a vein of an emotional story of Marge’s desire to have one family vacation that doesn’t end up a disaster, which oddly enough, concludes on a positive note that both amuses and satisfies. This is one of those episodes that’s filled with so many great individual elements. Just saying the title to a fan will make them laugh at the ten things that immediately pop into their heads. It’s an absolute classic.

There’s not much of a plot here, at least until the very end, as the Simpsons take a vacation to Itchy & Scratchy Land, the new theme park based on the homicidal cat and mouse team. Although they are transported to the park via a Jurassic Park helicopter, the allusions to Disney parks start almost immediately, with the park map mirroring Disneyland with its different themed lands (Searing Gas Pain Land, Unnecessary Surgery Land) and sad, sad men in giant mouse costumes who get abused by children. Bart and Lisa enjoy the ridiculous rides and learn more about the history of Roger Myers, Sr., the Walt Disney stand-in here, and see his previous works, including the exquisitely done parody “Scratchtasia.” Meanwhile, Homer and Marge enjoy Parent’s Island, a wonderful riff on Pleasure Island in Downtown Disney, which has more adult-oriented fare, like a retro disco, and the unfortunately mentioned-but-not-seen recipe-related bumper cars.

Marge is humiliated when she has to bust Bart and Homer out of Disney jail (another spectacular send-up of the extensive underground employee facilities under the Magic Kingdom), when unbeknownst to them, chaos has set in on the park. Professor Frink’s chaos thoery (another Jurassic Park reference) has come to fruition as the Itchy & Scratchy robots go haywire and begin to attack guests, leading to a full evacuation. The Simpsons are left behind, leaving them to fend for themselves. This ending is a bit silly, but it’s still neat to see the Simpson family work together to get themselves out of trouble. I like how Marge is the running focal point of the episode, starting from her not wanting to go to Itchy & Scratchy Land, then being swayed and eventually won over by the park, then her dissatisfaction about Bart and Homer, and in the end conceding that it actually was a great vacation… that they will never speak of ever again. It’s the perfect ending and in-character of Marge to want to sweep this tale under the rug. Stupendous show.

Tidbits and Quotes
– The I&S cartoon at the beginning always disturbed me, how it seemed that Itchy would have Scratchy die slowly and painfully by blood loss. Then they give an ad for the theme park, and Itchy jams scissors into Scratchy’s brain. The cat takes them out, brain and all, and proceeds to drool profusely. Very sick. And very funny.
– I like how Bart and Lisa run into Homer in the living room, who is inquisitively looking at a Bible. I almost wish they hadn’t have Homer talk about it, like have that be a joke on its own. Also, great bit of animation and sound effects when Bart runs into the kitchen and screeches to a halt, his sneakers squeaking against the tile floor.
– Homer, the most obnoxious tourist ever, packs his suitcase (“Lobster hat, Fishnet Speedo Junior, wheelie shoes, ‘Invisible Dog’ leash…”)
– Nice quick moment with Grampa, befuddled at the responsibilties of watching the Simpson house (“What was that last thing you said? Grampa’s Little Helper?”) He sadly asks the pets which one of them is the mailman, and the animals give each other a glance.
– A lot of quick bits on the road, from Homer’s paranoia about the fruit and vegetable check-point (he nervously looks over at a pamphlet “Smuggled Vegetables: The Road to E-Z Success,”) country AM radio, which is all religious stations spewing damnation (very true), and the fabulous fake-out of Homer seemingly falling asleep at the wheel and crashing the car in a fiery wreck. And then the great finale of Homer taking a shortcut through a corn field… and ending up at the park with their car destroyed. It’s one of those great jokes that says so much with no description. There’s an army missile lodged in the back, a Homecoming banner, a chicken flies out of Marge’s hair, you can come to your own conclusions as to what the hell happened.
– We get our first great Disney swipe at the gigantic Itchy lot, and the equally as big Scratchy lot. The Disney lots have a bit more variety, but one Goofy lot is pretty much that size.
– I like the smarmy I&S Land official who keeps popping up to reassure guest concerns. When he gets cornered by Marge’s concerns regarding the violent cartoon, he makes a swift exit.
– I absolutely love that in the Tavern on the Scream restaurant, there’s a light music version of the I&S theme song playing. It’s such a wonderful minor detail that is really great.
– The I&S parade is great, which kind of mocks the various Disney parades. I like when Lisa coos about the baby axe, and Marge still expresses mild disdain (“It’s cute, but I’m sure it’s very sharp and probably dirty.”)
– The log ride is spectacularly dumb. Let’s look through how dangerous it is. The arrows and cannon fire could have been timed by the ride’s proximity, so that’s safe. Then are the spikes, which seem to be molded to get mere centimeters away from piercing the Simpsons. Now even that could be explained if the ride seats two small children in the front and the adults in back. But the giant buzz saw slicing through the ride vehicle seems like it would raise some red flags about safety. I love how there’s just mats haphazardly placed at the bottom for people to land on. Also what a waste of a good log, that ride must cost a fortune to maintain.
– Nice bit at Itchy’s Disco (est. 1980) with a sheepish John Travolta as bartender, who at the time was in a career slump. Actually Pulp Fiction came out that year, so this was right before his career insurgence, I guess.
– I love the idea of the Itchy & Scratchy & Friends hour, like at some point studio executives forced them to make more characters so they could sell more toys, with memorable characters like Disgruntled Goat and Ku Klux Klam. I’d love to see a clip of that show.
– The Roger Myers Story building is perfect: the set-up of the standing room with guard rails is just like in Disney World, where they have a similar thing for Walt’s story. The narration is brilliant (“Roger Meyers, Senior, the gentle genius behind Itchy and Scratchy, loved and cared about almost all the peoples of the world. And he, in turn, was beloved by the world, except in 1938 when he was criticized for his controversial cartoon, ‘Nazi Supermen Are Our Superiors.'”) I mentioned “Scratchtasia,” but also great is “Pin-itchio” and Dan Castellaneta’s great Italian Scratchy (“OUCH-AH!”)
– The underground, super sterile and industrial I&S Land is so wonderful. Passing the control room are three jokes, but what’s great is that two of them call back to previous events, one being the waiter at T.G.I. McScratchy’s seems to be attempting suicide, and the other that the gift shop is out of Bort license plates.
– I like Homer’s indignation about his wrongful incarceration (“I kicked a giant mouse in the butt! Do I have to draw you a diagram?”)
– During the robot fight, Bart, mimicking a movie tough guy like Schwarzenegger, tells an Itchy-bot, “Say cheese” before scrambling its circuits. He comments, “With a dry, cool wit like that, I could be an action star.” Later, Homer emerges from a pile of robots with the less clever “Die, bad robots, die!” He then attempts to repeat Bart’s earlier comment, but Bart cuts him off, not paying the least bit of attention.
– Great final swipe with showing the completely deserted Euro Itchy & Scratchy Land (“My last paycheck bounced! My children need wine!”)

(originally aired September 25, 1994)
As the title suggests, it’s time for another clip show. The crew may have been harangued by the network into making these, but as we saw in “So It’s Come to This,” clip shows can be done somewhat effectively. I don’t know if they were just rushed with this, or completely exhausted from working on other episodes, but this one felt very vacuous. I’m sure FOX loved it because it was cheap to make, but it’s still pretty thin. Our wrap-around device is Marge talking to the kids about love, and they all proceed to share stories of past potential romances. Marge retells her almost affair in “Life on the Fast Lane,” Homer rebutts with his almost affair in “The Last Temptation of Homer,” Lisa recalls Ralph’s obsession with her in “I Love Lisa,” Bart briefly remembers his devastation at the hands of Laura Powers in “New Kid on the Block,” and Homer effectively wraps things up with remembering he and Marge’s first kiss in “The Way We Was.”

This clip show is odd in that big chunks of it are just abbreviated recaps of those past episodes, except when told in three or four minute intervals, they don’t give you the full emotional impact of the story. I guess with any clip show, half the humor comes from our recollection of these events from past episodes, but it kind of felt wrong re-appropriating the episodes like this. But beyond that, the whole topic of the show feels so wrong, in that Marge and Homer regale their children with stories of how they almost cheated on each other, even worse that Marge went first, and Homer followed her as an almost vindictive one-up. Some of the clip bits were funny, like Homer recalling kissing Flanders and Marge recalling Selma marrying Sideshow Bob, which she immediately back pedals from, but this whole episode just feels totally naught. Even a clip show requires some effort, and this one didn’t seem to get much of any. I’d say it’s the worst clip show, but I harbor a pretty deep loathing toward the much later “Gump Roast,” but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Tidbits and Quotes
– I remember when I’d watch this episode in syndication, the opening with Marge in bed is so unassuming, where you think it’s a regular episode, then we get to the first clip of Homer in the kiddie pool, and I’d always groan, “This episode again…” For some reason I remember it getting repeated a lot in reruns, but I may just be mis-remembering it.
– Great use of a clip with Homer throwing Marge’s book in the fire from “Dog of Death” with Marge commenting, “I knew we shouldn’t have put a fireplace in the bedroom.” There’s an idea of a clip show, where you try to construct a new episode using mostly old clips, but entirely new dialogue. It could’ve been a neat challenge.
– I like Lisa’s evaluation on the state of romance (“Romance is dead. It was acquired in a hostile takeover by Hallmark and Disney, homogenized, and sold off piece by piece.”)
– Though I really don’t like the context in which they found out, I still like Homer and Marge’s reactions to their respective stories of almost-infidelity. Homer, of course, is dumbfounded (“Marge, I want you to stop seeing the Jacques. You can let him down gently, but over the next couple of months I want you to break it off!”) and I like how Marge is seemingly satisfied that Mindy Simmons apparently hit the bottle pretty hard and lost her job.
– A minor thing that annoyed me was how characters “recalled” stuff in their stories that they were not witness to. Homer’s Mindy story contained the clip of Burns and his flying monkeys, then later his memory also had Marge and Artie’s altercations in his car. They could have cut those bits out, or had Marge recall the latter moment, but I guess they had no problem with it.
– Also, we retell “Lady Bouvier’s Lover,” an episode that at the time had aired only four months earlier? Why bother?

(originally aired September 11, 1994)
Here’s another episode with a fairly simple story and plays out in a very natural way. With not many friends and a hectic home life, all Lisa really has is her reputation at school for being the overachieving brain, a title she holds quite dear to her. Enter Alison Taylor, a girl one year younger then Lisa, but who is smarter, sharper and a better saxophone player. Despite her heightened intelligence and compassion, I like how Lisa has her own foibles. She and Allison could have formed a great friendship right away, but instead she becomes instantly threatened by this girl who has horned in on her territory, seemingly taking away everything that made her feel special. She develops a quiet loathing of this innocent girl; upon witnessing Allison get harassed by some bullying bitches, Lisa laments, “That used to be me in that mud puddle.”

To pad out our Lisa story is some crazy Homer antics, of course, where he ransacks the goods of a jackknifed sugar truck, hoping to sell it off for a profit. This is Homer at his most insane, which fluctuates from hilarious to reminiscent of the Jerkass Homer of later years. His logic regarding his right to take the sugar (“Read your town charter, boy. ‘If foodstuff should touch the ground, said foodstuff shall be turned over to the village idiot.’ Since I don’t see him around… start shoveling!”) and his bulletproof marketing strategy (considering the nails and broken glass within the product as “prizes”) is classic Homer thinking. But on the whole, the scheme just feels so poorly thought out, even for Homer. When Marge urges him to stop, we get another rambling monologue similar to his movie quoting in “Secrets of a Successful Marriage,” only saved in that this one’s a bit funnier and has spectacular animation by David Silverman. Maybe it would make more sense if more time were spent on it… or maybe not. Whatever.

Bart acts at the devil on Lisa’s shoulder to use underhanded tactics to slander Allison, until she eventually breaks and accepts his brother’s help. The ending with the diorama displays, and Lisa living out her own version of The Telltale Heart is very satisfying, and a suitable conclusion to the story. In the end, Lisa and Allison are friends, but since the latter is voiced by guest star Winona Ryder, we know we’ll never hear from her again. This episode is also greatly responsible for popularizing Ralph, as we get two landmark lines from him: “I bent my Wookie” and “My cat’s breath smells like cat food.” The ending of Lisa and Allison walking arms locked with Ralph is very sweet.

Tidbits and Quotes
– The opening sets up how Lisa’s life is her intelligence and her talent, showing the rest of the family a bit perturbed at her playing her sax in the house. Bart ends up botching his prank call to Skinner (“Well, as a matter of fact, my refrigerator wasn’t running. You’ve spared me quite a bit of spoilage: thank you, anonymous young man,”) and Homer destroys Marge’s camera hammering it with a drill (“I’m going to need a bigger drill.”) The best bit is Marge’s daydreams of her ridiculous romance novel, of her in the strong arms of a tanned, muscular fellow of questionable sexuality (Marge asks if the earring in his right ear means he’s a pirate. The man noncommittally responds, “Kinda.”) She’s jolted back to reality by her daughter’s music, giving a great Freudian slip (“Lisa, stop blowing my sex. I mean, stop blowing your sax, your sax!”) I also like the somewhat sad look into her domestic life, in that she admits to sacrificing a perfectly good camera for Homer to destroy in order to get some quiet time.
– Nice brief appearance by Hans Moleman, driver of the sugar truck,. Homer offers to guard his vehicle while he finds a pay phone (“If only this sugar were as sweet as you, sir.”) Once he’s gone, Homer wastes no time to start shoveling (“We’ve hit the jackpot here! White gold, Texas tea … sweetener!”)
– I love Lisa confronting her mother about why she was never moved up a grade, insinuating that she could have been a bit “nicer” to Principal Skinner. The read and timing of Marge’s response is fabulous (“Lisa! …I am nice.”) There’s so many possible reads for this… maybe it’s just my filthy, filthy mind, but I think “nicer” implies “favors.” As said from an eight-year-old girl. Makes perfect sense. Not really. Whatever, the scene’s still hilarious.
– The first act break is hysterical, with the double fake-out and Largo’s seeming self-awareness of it (“Alison got first chair, and believe me, this is not a dream!”)
– Great bit with Bart using a tape recorder to make note of future pranks, then his evil cackle. Then stop. Then record, and finishes off the cackle. I also forgot this episode had the FBI chasing Milhouse, which is one of the best things of the entire series. Milhouse’s “Oh no, not again!” implying this has happened to him multiple times, and then the call-back to him in The Fugitive jumping off the dam (“Aaaaaaaaah!! …my glasses!”)
– Lisa’s daydream assuring there’s no shame in being second best is great, with her in a band with other famous second bananas, who proceed to boo them immediately. Lisa awakes stating the obvious (“Why would they come to our concert just the boo us?”)
– I love the extremely patronizing nature of Allison’s father. When Lisa fails to play along with their complicated anagram game, he dumbs it down a shade and gives her a ball to bounce.
– Homer’s paranoia of sugar thieves surprisingly ends up being valid when he catches a proper British fellow stealing some for his tea (“I nicked it when you let your guard down for that split second, and I’d do it again.”) Also great is his spit take when the sugar pile melts in the rain.
– The dioramas are all great: Nelson’s literal take on The Grapes of Wrath (“Yes, very good wrath,”) Uter’s complete shame of his devouring of his rendition of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (“I begged you to look at mine first… I begged you!”) And of course, there’s Ralph’s box full of unopened Star Wars action figures (“What’s a diorama?”) Skinner geeks out, and immediately announces him the winner.
– I like how the end really ramps things up to a ridiculous level. It’s pretty clear Allison didn’t make the fake diorama and seems very distraught and shocked at it, but Skinner doesn’t hold back in sternly scolding her about it. Then when the real diorama is revealed, Skinner is completely unmoved. Then we think Lisa may win, but he’s equally as unmoved by her display. Both projects are incredibly detailed and very proficient for frigging second graders, and he gives them such cold dismissals. For some reason, I find Asshole Skinner to be very amusing.

(originally aired September 4, 1994)
Our fall premiere takes place in the dead of summer. It’s the second season premiere they’ve done so far set in summer (after “Kamp Krusty”), which must have made first-time watchers wax nostalgic over the recently bygone days. It’s a fairly simple story, but is executed splendidly and contains lots of great character stuff and plenty of jokes. When Bart and Lisa just can’t beat the heat, they pester their father into buying a pool, making the Simpson house a hotspot for the youth of the town to cool off. However, a fall from the treehouse leaves Bart in a leg cast, which turns him into an increasingly nutty hermit locked in his room. The episode gets its mileage out of pool jokes, from the store they buy it from (Pool Sharks, “Where the Buyer is Chum”), everyone’s horrified reactions when Homer actually adds in chlorine, and Homer and Marge’s adult swim, interrupted by a perverted Chief Wiggum.

There’s a neat running story with Lisa in the episode, who is put under the spell of faux friendship because of her pool. One could say it betrays her character a bit, but sometimes it’s neat to see her with a kid mentality, seeing this opportunity to lap up the sweet nectar of popularity and going for it. Particularly great is when her brain acknowledges the fleeting nature of her new stature, she scolds it and proceeds to talk in a dim, drawl-like fashion. Also playing to this story is Martin Prince, who is of somewhat equal mind of wanting to gain popularity. He steals Lisa’s thunder when word gets out that an even bigger push-over has gotten a pool, and they leave her stranded. However, Martin goes mad with his new power, over stuffing his pool and rupturing it, leaving him a lonely, broken boy without a bathing suit.

The allure of social status kept Lisa from comforting Bart, but with that gone, she takes a new vested interest in her brother. But things have taken a turn for the Rear Window when Bart appears to have witnessed Ned Flanders murdering his wife and burying her in the backyard. He sends Lisa next door to investigate, but Flanders returns home early brandishing an axe, leaving Lisa stuck in the house. Even though you know Ned is in no way a killer, there still is some believable suspense, and it’s all such a stupid magnificent mislead; his angry scowl and the way he brandishes the axe, all so he can place it back on the rack of the attic. In the end, Ned is proven innocent; his wife was just away at Bible camp,. As I said, there’s really not much to the story here, but this is one of those episodes that’s a lot of fun to watch unfold, with a lot of laughs and memorable moments.

Tidbits and Quotes
– All the heat wave gags at the beginning are great, ending with Homer’s ingenious plan to camp out in front of the fridge (“I got the idea when I noticed the refrigerator was cold.”) When the motor burns out, Homer goes to plan B (“Marge, can you set the oven to ‘cold’?”)
– Even though I had a pool at my house as a kid, I always wondered if the Pool-Mobile was real. Seems like such a cool idea. I love the animation of the water reacting to Otto hitting the brakes and splashing back into the driver’s seat (“Woah, I gotta replace that window.”) I also like how Martin is introduced early, as is his daring challenge regarding pantsing him (“Take your best shot! I’m wearing seventeen layers!”) Of course, a flurry of kids rip them all off (“I brought this on myself.”) Which of course gets called back at the end; Martin, believing he’s finally made it, only wears one pair, which after the pool explodes, Nelson promptly relieves him of it.
– I like Bart and Lisa’s negotiation tactics with Homer, calm and collected, followed by incessant repetition (a la “Brush with Greatness.”) Homer responds professionally as well (“Let us celebrate our new arrangement with the adding of chocolate to milk.”)
– Not often do I comment on sound effects, but there’s some excellent foley work of the slapping of wet feet in the Simpson kitchen. Real nice attention to detail.
– Great moment with Milhouse, who is quick to ditch his best friend in the middle of signing his cast (we see he’s unconsciously written “Milpool”).
– Stuck in his room, Bart tries to rationalize his position (“What fun can you have in a pool anyway that you can’t have in a bathtub with a garbage bag taped around your cast?”) We then get a fantastic sequence of kids in the pool having the most fun ever, reminiscent of the snow day in “Bart Gets An F.” They do a lavish synchronized swimming routine, ending with Homer in an inner tube floating into the circle of kids and spewing a beer fountain.
– I absolutely love Klassic Krusty, which again raises questions of what kind of an entertainer he really is, as he interviews AFL/CIO chairman George Meany (“Let me be blunt: is there a labor crisis in America today?”)
– The shadow design in Bart’s darkened room is so visually striking, very well done. There’s also great expression work on Bart’s slightly out of focus, twitchy face, especially the blank reaction shot when Lisa pussyfoots around expressing her excitement about being popular.
– Great animation with, upon hearing a woman scream, Bart reaching for the telescope box with his feet and hastily reconstructing it, then deconstructing it, then constructing it again.
– Bart is shocked in witnessing Ned talking to his sons (“He’s going to kill Rod and Todd too. That’s horrible! …in principle.”)
– Martin gazes upon his soon-to-be completed pool (“My plan has come to fruition. Soon I’ll be queen of summertime. Er, king. King!”) The two workmen exchange a puzzled glance.
– I love Bart’s performance reading his twisted play to Lisa, with his attempt to do cockney character voices.
– Great fake-out in the vein of “How To Cook For Forty Humans” when Lisa finds a wrapped container labeled “Human Head”! Actually it’s just “Schuman Farms Head of Lettuce.”
– Gotta love the Springfield Police Department Rescue-Phone (“You have selected regicide. If you know the name of the king or queen being murdered, press one.”)
– Absolutely perfect finale with Martin mournfully singing “Summer Wind,” which plays over the credits.