(originally aired November 26, 1995)
I kinda feel this one’s kind of underrated, but it’s my favorite Sideshow Bob episode. It just contains so many of the elements that makes Bob great: his heightened intellectual air he gives himself, his intense loathing of low-brow culture, and his long-standing rivalries with Krusty and Bart Simpson. We open with Bob decrying his fellow inmates for uproariously laughing at Krusty’s antics on TV. His tenure on the show was a period of his life that brings him much humiliation and chagrin, enough to frame his employer for armed robbery and make him a dangerous criminal in the first place. As a man who yearns for the days when men were more well-read and high-minded, he’s veritably disgusted of the hypnotic effect television has on the intelligence of the masses. The final straw is overhearing distinguished English actress Vanessa Redgrave guest-spotting on a moronic FOX sitcom. TV kills everything it touches, and for that, Bob must put an end to it, by any means necessary. It’s my favorite Bob plot, as it ties in so well to the motivations and beliefs of his character, as a snooty criminal mastermind.

Bob manages to make his escape and plot his master plan at a local air show, an event he isn’t too thrilled about either (“Buzz-cut Alabamians spewing colored smoke from their whiz jets to the strains of ‘Rock You Like A Hurricane’? What kind of countrified rube is still impressed by that?”) Said rubes are of course the Simpson family, who are in attendance. Bob manages to get his hands on an atomic weapon and delivers a message via the Jumbo-tron that if all television signals aren’t silenced in two hours, he will detonate it. Who will stop this madman? We all know who, it’s those lovable Simpson kids. I like that instead of playing Nancy Drew like in “Krusty Gets Busted,” they end up locked in the air base by accident, and Lisa’s quick-witted nature pretty much leads them right to Bob. Also great is the secret underground conference of Mayor Quimby and the various local TV personalities, who all agree they must stop broadcasting for the good of the people. Krusty stands as the lone dissenting voice, but afterwards realizes if he manages to stay on the air, he’ll be the only game in town. It’s half his instinctive duty as an entertainer, and half him just wanting to monopolize the ratings.

Bob is horrified to find his nemesis is still on the air (“Live from the civil defense shack in the remote Alkali Flats of the Springfield Badlands!”) As his agreement has been broken, he detonates the bomb… only to find it had expired thirty-five years prior. Foiled, he grabs Bart and takes off in the Wright Brothers plane, which proves to be another symbol of his classical ways, musing about how flight used to be a gentleman’s pursuit (“…back before every Joe Sweatsock could wedge himself behind a lunch tray and jet off to Raleigh-Durham.”) Truly unhinged, he claims he’s going to kill Krusty in a kamikaze mission, but the craft is so light it merely bumps off the broadcast shack and falls to the ground. Bob is apprehended, and all is well in the end. And even though he pretty much threatened a nuclear holocaust, he’s heading right back to Springfield Minimum Security Prison. It’s an episode that has a lot of silliness, with the bits at the air show and the police pursuit of Bob, but has a very grounded story that, again, feels very true to Bob. It’s one of my favorite all-around episodes.

Tidbits and Quotes
– I loved watching Double Dare when I was a kid, so I love Krusty’s version of it, setting up a canned food drive just to send Sideshow Mel through a slippery slide of rancid Bearnaise sauce, pickle brine and detergent. Mel howls in pain, much to Bart’s amusement watching at home (“Just think, Lis: that’s our pickle brine burning Sideshow Mel.”)
– Our intro to Bob sets the stage perfectly: he’s created a scale model of Westminster Abbey in a bottle, and must carefully set the clock to Greenwich Mean time… only to be startled by braying laughter, causing it to fall apart (“My dear Abbey!”) The source, of course, is other prisoners laughing at that wacky Krusty using Mel as a mop. Bob’s fellow inmates are quick to point that he was on that show, a fact he wishes to forget (“Don’t remind me. My foolish capering destroyed more young minds then syphilis and pinball combined!”) His heavy criticism of television almost gets him in a fight with Rupert Murdoch, who appears to be incarcerated too, for some reason.
– I like the Simpsons family’s various reasons for being excited about the air show. Even though she bombed seventy mosques in Iraq, Lisa is excited to meet the first female stealth bomber pilot who shares her name, Bart wants to see birds get sucked into jet engines (“Rare ones!”), and Marge has prepared homemade ear plugs made from biscuit dough.
– An example of fine police work. Wiggum goes through the list of convicts, but finds he’s missing two: Bob, and that guy who eats people and takes their faces. A cordial, normal-looking prisoner shows up accounting for the latter, but no Bob. Wiggum is slightly annoyed by the absence, then establishes a cover (“If anyone asks… I beat him to death.”)
– I like the stages of Bob’s plan. First he locks himself in the Colonel’s private washroom to agitate him, just so he can get down his voice and mannerisms. The Colonel is voiced by R. Lee Ermey, who does a great job, as always. I also love Bob’s dumb rube voice he uses to goad the Colonel further, and Ermey delivers ridiculous lines with total severity (“I’m going to come in there and corpse you up! Corpse you up and mail you to mama!”) Later Bob mimics the Colonel’s voice to gain access to a restricted area, but he hesitates slightly at the crudity of one of his written exclamations (“Get moving or I’ll tear you up like a Kleenex at a… snot party!”)
– The least excited Simpson to be there, Marge can’t catch a break. She asks Homer to get her aspirin, but all Homer could find are cigarettes. Her headache is only exacerbated more as she’s seated directly behind a giant speaker at the top of the bleachers.
– The box kite parade is made as painfully dull as possible, led with great pride by Martin (“The common box kite was originally used as a means of drying wet string.”)
– Great quick joke by the Colonel (“Get ready for the pride of the United States Air Force: the British-made Harrier Jump Jet!”) Also just as great is that the performance is to “Rock You Like a Hurricane,” like Bob sarcastically quipped earlier.
– Bob appears on the Tyrann-O Vision (another genius Simpsons name, either meaning like ‘Tyrannosaurus’ in its humongous size, or like ‘Tyrant,’ being the sole decider of what you should see), calling for the end of television. The crowd of course is not on board (Hibbert comments to his wife, “Surely he’s not talking about VH-1.”) There’s no choice in the matter of course, as Bob makes his ultimatum and ends the transmission. Then he comes back to one quick addendum (“By the way, I’m aware of the irony of appearing on TV in order to decry it. So don’t bother pointing that out.”) I also like how you can clearly tell Bob’s voice is higher, and we saw the Duff blimp earlier, so you could guess where Bob is if you were paying attention.
– After evacuating the airbase, guards search every nook and cranny for Bob. They check the port-a-johns, only to find Abe in one (“This elevator only goes to the basement. And somebody made an awful mess down there.”)
– Hilarious line from the Colonel down in the bunker (“Bob is not here. We have searched every square inch of this base and all we have found is porno, porno, porno!”) Which is then followed up by Krusty coming in and seeing the magazines (“Hey hey! This is my kind of meeting!”)
– I like how Bob was outdone by his affinity toward the classics (“There were plenty of brand new bombs, but you had to go for that retro 50s charm.”) And of course the old “stall the villain with flattery” scheme, which Bob references himself. Bart claims he must be too smart to fall for that, which stops Bob in his tracks (“Really? What type of smart? Book smart? Because there are a lot of people who are book smart but it takes a special type of genius to…”) And with that, the blimp is surrounded, as Lisa used the time to type a message into the blimp’s marquee, complete with animated symbols.
– Lisa’s overenthusiastic claims to her mother is really cute (“Mom! I found Sideshow Bob’s hideout and I got a secret message to the police and I had a blimp fall on me and I was in an atomic blast but I’m OK now!”)
– The police slowly pursuing Bob with their arms passively raised, and the blockade of tennis rackets and pool skimmers is hilarious.
– My favorite moment watching when I was younger is when Bart warns Krusty to clear the shed, so he dramatically leaps through the window and ducks for cover. Beat. Krusty looks up, sees the plane is still slowly approaches, gets up, lights a cigarette. “What is the freaking hold-up?” And the plane tapping the shack and grounding itself is so pathetic. And then a tank runs over the historic icon (“Ooh, sorry. We don’t normally drive these in the Air Force.”)
– We end with a great call-back to the horrible show Bob heard earlier as he bemoans his capture (“How ironic. My crusade against television has come to end so formulaic, it could have spewed from the PowerBook of the laziest Hollywood hack.”) Cut to Abe showing up acting like a horny grandparent archetype. The Simpsons exclaim, “Here we go again!” (Marge half-heartedly) and then the FOX logo shows up. What a stellar ending.

(originally aired November 5, 1995)
Homer is such an unhealthy glutton, it’s kind of surprising he only checks in at a mere 239 pounds. You’d think he’d be a lot heavier, but here we see he needs the right motivation. When Homer discovers he can go on disability if he’s over three hundred pounds, he vows to gain the extra weight so he can work at home. This leads to a great montage of Bart helping Homer put on the pounds, first consulting the incredibly ethical Dr. Nick, then raiding the supermarket of its fatty wears, buying such products as Much Ado About Stuffing and Uncle Jim’s Country Fillin’ (Just Squeeze ‘N Swallow!) His plan is a success, as he manages to gain over fifty pounds in one weekend, and a plant workstation is installed in his living room. Donning a festive muu-muu, Homer embraces his portlier self (“The slim lazy Homer you knew is dead. Now I’m a big fat dynamo!”)

Amidst the goofiness of the concept of the story is an actual dose of reality. Lisa is rightfully concerned for her father’s health, where Marge turns mostly a blind eye, asserting most of her husband’s hair-brained schemes deflate once he finds something good on TV (“But this season…”) I really like how we see both Simpson women’s viewpoints, where Lisa, as a peppy youngster, is very outspoken, while Marge is a bit more reserved, not wanting to be a bother, and has to be pushed to say what’s really on her mind. She eventually confronts her husband about her worries, but it’s to little avail. Meanwhile, it turns out Homer is equally as incompetent at home as he is at the plant, watching TV on the couch whilst batting at his keyboard with a broom, then later going out to the movies, leaving his drinking bird to tap away at the keys. This of course bites him in the ass when he returns to find that he accidentally caused an impending catastrophe at the plant, and must find a way to get there to save the day.

While I appreciate the attempts made to create a realistic layer to this story about rampant obesity, this episode is pretty much fueled on jokes. You’d think a whole episode filled with fat jokes would grow a bit tired, but that’s not the case here. Plus, there’s other avenues of humor, from Homer’s ignorance of computers (“‘To start, press any key.’ Where’s the ‘Any’ key? I see ‘Esc,’ ‘Ctrl,’ and ‘PgUp’…”) and his general workplace ineptitude carrying over to the home as he inadvertently gases an entire field of crops (“Oh, no! The corn. Paul Newman’s gonna have my legs broke.”) The only thing in the show that mildly bothered me was Burns leading the exercise program. He’s got his fair share of great lines (“I want to see more Teddy Roosevelts and less Franklin Roosevelts!”) but his generally cordial attitude to his workers felt a bit alien for him. But it does lead to the great finale where he attempts to coach Homer to get thin, but gives up and decides he’ll just pay for his liposuction. Which begs the question, why didn’t they suck out more fat and make Homer thin? Maybe Burns only wanted to spend the money to get Homer down to his normal weight. Or maybe we just love Homer just the way he is, 239 and feelin’ fine.

Tidbits and Quotes
– A truly pathetic, but hilarious shot of Homer reduced to his underwear and sweating up a storm after doing a few jumping jacks.
– Homer attempts to get himself injured to get on disability: he stands under a hard hat area at a construction site, but thinks better of it when he witnesses a man get crushed by a wheelbarrow full of cinder blocks. Then we get a wonderfully staged sequence when Homer spills oil on the floor at work and attempts to slip and fall, but just ends up sliding through many different rooms of the plant until he ends up in Burns’s office. After an awkward back-and-forth, Homer asks Burns to give him a push the other way, which he does.
– I love Homer reading off the list of qualifying disorders (lumber lung, juggler’s despair, achy breaky pelvis) and his ultimate grief over having none of them (“I’m never going to be disabled! I’m sick of being so healthy!”)
– Dr. Nick coaching Homer on gaining weight may be his best scene in the entire series, starting with revealing the four neglecting food groups: the whipped, congealed, empty calories, and the choco-tastic. In a serious manner, Homer asks what he can do to speed up the process. Dr. Nick tells him to be creative (“Instead of making sandwiches with bread, use poptarts. Instead of chewing gum, chew bacon!”) Bart throws out his own suggestion (“You can brush your teeth with milkshakes!”) which Dr. Nick is impressed by (“Did you go to Hollywood Upstairs Medical College too?”) As a farewell reminder, Dr. Nick gives this tip: whatever food you intend to eat, rub on a piece of paper (“If the paper turns clear, it’s your window to weight-gain!”) This comes back later in a great scene where Homer is concerned how fatty a fish sandwich is, until Bart rubs it on the wall until it turns clear.
– I love Homer’s insane dream of what working at home will be like, with his power station set up in the backyard with a snack machine and Marge doting on her go-getter husband. Meanwhile, Ned returns from work looking a wreck (“A crazy guy shot a bunch of people and the subway ran over my hat.“)
– There’s some great animation of Homer’s new chubbier self, first when he gets in bed, lowering the mattress and causing Marge to tumble on top of him, then later when he gets up for work, and the entire bed shifts as he whips his massive frame to the edge of the bed. Just fabulous.
– Homer’s one pound away from salvation, but Bart informs him they’re out of food (“We’re even out of the basic elements of food. You ate all the tarragon and you drank all the soy sauce.”) Maggie comes to the rescue with a Play-Doh donut. Bart informs his father it’s non-toxic, but Homer has eaten it anyway. He just makes the 300-mark… then notices that his gut is stuck on the towel rack, and jostling it loose, he sees he’s actually 315 pounds.
– Burns still doesn’t know Homer’s name, even after the dramatic events of “Who Shot Mr. Burns?” I love how Smithers refers to him as a “chair moistener.” Homer working at home also makes the paper… sort of (“Burns Survives Brush with Shut-In.”)
– Amazing dream sequence of Bart wanting to be like his dad, morbidly obese and bed-ridden. The reading of “Ah wash mah-self with a rag on a stick” is so disturbing, but hysterical, one of the best lines of the series.
– I love the throw-away line when Marge talks about how sensitive Homer is (“Remember when I giggled at his Sherlock Holmes hat? He sulked for a week and then closed his detective agency.”) I’d love to see the story behind that.
– The confrontation between Homer and Marge is an incredibly honest scene, with Marge concerned for her husband’s health, but also their marriage, clearly not so physically attracted to Homer’s new lifestyle. This leads to a great moment later when Homer discovers he only has to type ‘Y’ instead of ‘Yes,’ so he thoughtlessly takes the opportunity to gloat to his wife (“Hey, Miss Doesn’t-find-me-attractive-sexually-anymore: I just tripled my productivity!”) Marge could care less, of course. Another great moment is when Homer is briefly distracted by the dog, but when Marge comes to the room, he rushes back to his desk and taps the keyboard, like a kid caught doing something he shouldn’t of by his mother. As Marge leaves the home to do errands, Homer asks for a lemonade and a beer, referring back to his dream in the first act.
– There’s two jokes in this episode where Lisa attempts to defend her father, then her assertions are dashed. Neighborhood kids stare at Homer on the couch through the window, and Lisa attests he’s a good-hearted person, then Homer yells and berates the kids (“Don’t make me close that shade!”) Later on the bus, Lisa tries to claim her father isn’t a food-crazed maniac, then Homer drives by in an ice cream truck stuffing his face.
– Homer attempts to call the plant to warn them, but is unable to dial properly, getting a voice message (“The fingers you have used to dial are too fat. To obtain a special dialing wand, please mash the keypad with your palm now.”) Even better is the message is done by Joan Kenley, who was the voice of many answer machine and voicemail systems.
– Similar to the crazed derelict in “Bart Sells His Soul,” Homer acts like a raving crazy man attempting to hitch a ride with anyone foolish enough to pull over and engage with him. When he rants at an unsuspecting ice cream truck driver, he runs off terrified, like this is his worst nightmare that a big fat guy would take over his truck.
– Lisa and Bart have their own unique takes on Homer saving the day (“I think it’s ironic that Dad saved the day while a slimmer man would have fallen to his death.” “And I think it’s ironic that for once Dad’s butt prevented the release of toxic gas.”)

(originally aired October 30, 1995)
I consider Treehouse of Horror IV, V and VI to be a trifecta of absolutely perfect Halloween episodes. I think this one is my favorite. The other two may be stronger overall, but I really love how each segment tops the previous one, and has a clever distinctive theme. First is “Attack of the 50-Foot Eyesores,” where all of the giant company mascots of Springfield come to live when Homer hijacks the giant donut held by Lard Lad of Lard Lad Donuts. To start, the title is brilliant, which leads to the idea of the segment: billboards and outdoor advertisements are such a visual assault to the landscape of a city… and now they’re a literal assault, destroying everyone and everything in sight. We get some great legally distinguishable parodies like Pep Boys (“Don’t scratch up them heads!”) and Mr. Peanut, who snaps open a car and eats the delicious people inside. The resolution is fabulous, where, as in real advertising, if no one pays attention to it, it’ll go away, ending the hideous rampage. The segment is sprinkled with a bunch of laughs, like Homer’s nonplussed attitude toward Lard Lad coming to life at his door, but I love the overall idea of this episode more than anything.

“Nightmare on Evergreen Terrace” is next, of course a riff on Nightmare on Elm Street. I can’t exactly say it’s a parody, it’s more like the show reenacting that film, with Groundskeeper Willie subbing for Freddy Kreuger. But that aside, it definitely makes up for it with a number of hilarious scenes, like how Willie died and vowed revenge in the first place, and all the dream sequences. This also has one of the more genuinely horrifying moments in a Halloween show when Martin is constricted and suffocated, with Russi Taylor giving a terrified death scream that’s pretty chilling (then of course made a joke of when Martin’s twisted corpse is revealed to his classmates, then accidentally wheeled into the kindergarten). Bart and Lisa conclude the only way to stop the madness is to confront Willie in dreamland, which is a great finale, with Willie taking several fantastical forms, the last of which being a giant spider with a bagpipe body. He’s also prone to quips and puns like Freddy; one line may be one of my favorite lines of any episode ever, “When I’m done with you, they’ll have to do a compost mortem!” Maggie saves the day, and then we have the very end, which I absolutely love. On a fresh new morning, Lisa posits Willie may not actually be dead, and can come back anytime in any form. Then a bus pulls up and Willie gets off, making some silly scary faces. The bus takes off, Willie bemoans he left his gun on the seat, and tells the Simpson children politely to stay there. So yeah, Willie was planning on shooting children in the face point blank. Then he chases after the bus and loses his shoe with a Benny Hill-style version of the Simpsons theme. It’s such a silly out-of-nowhere ending, but I love love love it.

Now for the main event: “Homer^3,” a parody of the Twilight Zone segment “Little Girl Lost” where Homer finds himself trapped in the third dimension. The CG animation may look a little primitive, but keep in mind this episode aired a mere month before Toy Story came out. The 3D segments were done by PDI, who would later merge with DreamWorks Animation. Having our characters stumble into 3D is such a visual treat and a really neat concept. I love the 3D environment, filled with random objects and equations, and a directional sign for the different axis. Of course Homer screws up this dimension just like his own, and his time is slowly running out. Professor Frink arrives at the Simpson home to give his hypothesis regarding this bizarre new world, starting with drawing an ordinary square (“Woah, woah, slow down, egghead!”) and adding onto it from the unheard of “z-axis” making a cube (or a Frinkahedron, in honor of its discoverer). Bart attempts a rescue mission, but is unsuccessful, as Homer is sent to an even more unforgiving universe… our own. Not only is this episode just really cool to look at, the ideas behind it are really interesting. Homer’s fascination of his newly weighted body in 3D makes me wonder how he must see himself and the world around him in his normal 2D world. But Homer finds a happy ending in an erotic cake store, discovering our world is just as odd and debased as his own. Not only is this episode alternatively hilarious and spooky, but it makes yah think too.

Tidbits and Quotes
– Homer is quite content driving down “the miracle mile,” full of giant mascots, “where value wears a neon sombrero and there’s not a single church or library to offend the eye.” He arrives at Lard Lad asking for the promoted “Colossal Donut.” Of course the product is just regular-sized. Homer cries false advertising, and vows he’ll get what he wants. Pimply Faced Teen pathetically counters, “You don’t scare us!”
– The scene of Homer, donned with pantyhose on his head, hooking the giant donut and taking off is pretty dramatic and intense, ending with Lard Lad angrily stepping off his perch and doing the Godzilla shriek. The other mascots take notice.
– Mission accomplished, Homer lies inside his giant donut, which takes up the entire living room, drinking a beer. Never mind how he got it in the house, just don’t think about it.
– Great bits with the various mascots, like Bart acting as the devil on the Red Devil Realty devil’s shoulder to get him to smash up the school, the giant Kent Brockman eating the real one, and of course Wiggum accidentally shooting the very tall captain of the high school basketball team (“Yeah, well… he was turning into a monster.”)
– I love the shot of Homer opening the door to Lard Lad’s giant face staring down at him. After tricking him once, Marge arrives and tells him to give him the donut (“Once he has it, that will be the end of all this horror!” “Well… okay. If it’ll end horror.”) Of course, it does nothing; Lard Lad rakes his donut across every roof on the block and continues his rampage. All hope is lost, which gives us a great Marge line (“These monsters are destroying everything and everyone we hold dear! And you kids should have jackets on.”)
– Paul Anka’s a random guest star, but I like how he shows up. The advertising head tries to pump out a jingle on his piano, then off-the-cuff comments it’d sound better coming from Paul Anka. Then, boom, we got Paul Anka to do a song. And plus, am I going to quibble about stuff not making sense in a Halloween show?
– The mascots are defeated, and fall to their deaths… crushing the hospital, the orphanage, and the birthplace of Norman Vincent Peale (how they randomly picked him, I’ve no idea). The last to go is Lard Lad, who falls over and loses his donut, which rolls out of town. This leads to the obligatory Kang and Kodos cameo, it’s always fun to see those two.
– Kent Brockman’s sign-off to the first segment is pretty great (“Lock your doors, bar your windows, because the next advertisement you see could destroy your house and eat your family!”) Cue commercial.
– I like the subtle style change at the start of the second segment, indicating a dream, with the more lusciously painted background and Tex Avery-style wild takes.
– Great back-and-forth when Bart screams himself awake. Homer calls from downstairs, concerned (“Bart, is that you?!” “Yes!” “Take out the garbage.”)
– Skinner appears on the schoolyard to calm the concerns of the kids (“Children, I couldn’t help monitoring your conversation. There’s no mystery about Willy. Why, he simply disappeared. Now, let’s have no more curiosity about this bizarre cover-up.”)
– Martin finishes his standardized test mere seconds after receiving it. An exasperated Edna tells him to put his head down and sit quietly. Martin is satisfied (“Ah, a duet of pleasures.”) His Latin dream is very in-character for him, and Willie appearing in it is quite chilling. And he gets a really great quip (“You’ve mastered a dead tongue, but can you handle a live one?”)
– I could quote every line from the flashback of Willie’s death, it’s just the best. “Stupid Smarch weather…” I love that Homer is inadvertently responsible for Willie’s fate, having raised the thermostat in the first place. I love the quick cuts of Willie’s attempts to escape, only to be thwarted by the measures to not pay for doorknob repair or fill the fire extinguishers (even though it was a free service from the fire department). Willie bursts in the classroom, engulfed in flames, begging for help, but is scolded for interrupting. So he sits in a seat and patiently waits, then burns to death.
– Once Willie is apparently defeated, Bart figures his dreams are back to normal, so he can get back to him and Krusty winning the Super Bowl. Willie reappears, and Krusty’s out of there (“Don’t dream about me no more, kid!”)
– The bit of Homer stepping through the invisible layer that turns him from 2D to 3D is so well done, and Homer is stunned by what he sees, mentally processing this unthinkable new reality (“Oh, glory of glories. Oh heavenly testament to the eternal majesty of God’s creation.”) Sadly, he can’t vocalize such eloquence (“Holy macaroni!”)
– I love how ineffectual the family is at trying to find Homer. They call Ned over to put a ladder in the living room, climb it and look around. What are they looking for?
– Great bit with Homer attempting to describe where he is, asking if anyone’s seen Tron for reference. Just like in real life, no one saw it… except for Wiggum, who immediately takes it back.
– Nice minor animated touch where Frink’s hair flops up as Wiggum fires into the wall. The bullets enter the 3D world and are immediately sucked into the ever-growing hole. Homer laments, “There’s so much I don’t know about astrophysics. I wish I’d read that book by that wheelchair guy.”
– Bart attempts to climb to the edge of the XYZ pole, but tells his father he’s got to jump over to reach him across the incredibly wide chasm. Homer is confident he’ll make it (“Piece of cake, son!”) but he barely jumps at all before he almost immediately falls into the hole. Back in 2D, Bart explains what happened (“We hit a little snag when the universe sort of collapsed on itself. But Dad seemed cautiously optimistic.”)

Completed unrelated note: updated my Disney Animated Canon blog with Winnie the Pooh. Now it’s all up to date. DreamWorks blog coming soon…

(originally aired October 15, 1995)
Considering Lisa has an incredibly ethically and socially conscious mind, it’s easy to turn her into a mouthpiece for adult issues, but one must always remember she’s still a young child. Here, we see her adopt a new cause, but ends up composing herself in a slightly immature way, only to butt heads with an equally immature father. The cause, if you couldn’t decipher from the title, is vegetarianism. Following a trip to a petting zoo, Lisa finds she can’t bring herself to eat a lamb chop after having bonded with an adorable little sheep earlier. Homer is absolute aghast, not so much incensed, but just completely befuddled at the concept that someone can not eat meat. He meanwhile, in a misguided attempt to one-up Ned’s family reunion barbecue next door, decides to old one of his own, so the stage is set for Lisa to be alienated for her beliefs in her own home.

It really does suck to be Lisa sometimes, stuck in a town full of small-minded, easily manipulated citizens. Her protests against dissecting worms and for vegetarian options at the cafeteria are met with hostility, and eventually a moral steamrolling through an educational film played in class, the classic Troy McClure reel “The Meat Council Presents: Meat and You: Partners in Freedom.” Unsurprisingly, it is staunchly pro-meat. Soon the day of the big barbeque arrives, and Lisa’s attempts to introduce an option of gazpacho are met with derisive laughter (yet another instance where grown adults laugh mockingly or boo young children. What’s with this town?) Lisa snaps and carts out Homer’s piece de resistance, a whole suckling pig, sending it down a steep hill, which through a series of events ends up launched far across town. It’s here that Homer and Lisa’s childish feud begins; while Homer being infantile is nothing new, Lisa’s actions are just as low, acting incredibly abrasive toward her father just because he eats meat. She ends up leaving the house in a huff.

In an overwhelmingly carnivorous world, Lisa starts to feel like she doesn’t stand a chance. But at her wit’s end, she discovers that Apu is a vegetarian too, who takes her to his peaceful meditation garden on the roof of the Kwik-E-Mart. There, along with special guests Paul and Linda McCartney, Lisa learns that she needs to be tolerant of other people’s beliefs, and that there are better ways to influence people than to just be belligerent. Now, two things about the McCartneys. One, their colored irises creep me out. The show should never do that. Two, they are pretty unnecessary guest stars. It makes more sense that Lisa confide in some she know, and Apu’s the one who ultimately gives her the message. The McCartneys are just kind of there, though I like the fake-out where Paul asks Lisa if she wants to hear a song, and then Apu starts playing “Sgt. Pepper’s.” We end with a reconciliation between Homer and Lisa, ending with a piggyback… err, veggie-back ride. Kinda reminiscent of “Lisa’s Pony.” That episode was awesome, and so was this one.

Tidbits and Quotes
– Storytown Village (Fun for Ages 1 to 7 1/2) is a great set piece, with crappy animatronics (like “Radio Bart”), Grampa sleeping in Baby Bear’s bed (“Well, I’m sorry but it was 150 degrees in the car!”) and the three increasingly more adorable sheep (the second sheep attempts to get some more love, but Homer shoves him out of the way). Also, Lisa fawning over the little baby lamb is adorable, in a great performance by Yeardley Smith.
– Here’s a perfect Simpsons joke: seeing Lisa with the lamb, Marge asserts that it was a good idea to come to the petting zoo after all. Then a gruff voice comes over the loudspeaker (“Attention, families. This is Mother Goose. The following cars have been broken into…”) Now, you immediately know the Simpson car was one of them, so there’s no need to even dwell on it. We then cut to them pulling into their driveway, the back window completely smashed. You get your laughs as the episode continues forward.
– The Flanders family reunion, with all of Ned’s relatives looking and acting like him, is a tad disturbing, but funny, of course, especially his English relation Lord Thistlewick Flanders, who adapts Flanders-isms begrudgingly (“Charmed… eh, a googily doogily.”)
– Homer is aghast that Lisa won’t eat any more animals. No bacon? Ham? Pork chops? Lisa informs him that’s all the same animal. Homer is incredulous (“Yeah, right Lisa. A wonderful, maaaaagical animal.”)
– I love the independent thought alarms, triggered by Miss Hoover and Lunchlady Doris. Skinner is perturbed at two outbursts in one day, and instructs Willie to remove the colored chalk from every classroom. Willie knew this day would come (“I warned ya! Didn’t I warn ya?! That colored chalk was forged by Lucifer himself!”)
– Great Itchy & Scratchy cartoon: at a fancy restaurant, Itchy serves Scratchy his own bloated stomach. He cuts off a piece and eats it, only for it to come out his stomach. He repeatedly eats the same piece, then Itchy comes over with the bill, which causes Scratchy’s head to explode. I love the small detail that Itchy boxes up the one repeatedly eaten piece for Scratchy before giving him the bill. Bart’s laughing, but Lisa isn’, as she’s come to a shocking discovery )”I never realized before, but some Itchy & Scratchy cartoons send the message that violence against animals is funny.”)
– Homer’s barbeque invitation, shaped like a pig, is great: “Come to Homer’s BBBQ. The extra B is for BYOBB.” (“What’s the extra ‘B’ for?” “That’s a typo.”)
– Skinner introduces the pro-meat film (“So, in the interest in creating an open dialogue, sit silently and watch this film.”) This has got to be one of the best Troy McClure films, the number of classic bits and lines in it are so high. Troy swiping his finger over the cow’s back and licking it, explaining the killing floor not actually being a floor, little Jimmy getting completely traumatized, the scientist getting cut off, the food chain (with all animals leading to be eaten by humans), the stock footage of animals eating other animals (culminating in a shark pulling down a gorilla into the water), and the dramatic look into a cow’s dead eyes (“If a cow ever got the chance, he’d eat you and everyone you care about!”) Lisa is utterly offended by the film (“They can’t seriously expect us to swallow that tripe!”) Skinner takes her set-up for a slam dunk punchline (“Now as a special treat courtesy of our friends at the Meat Council, please help yourself to this tripe.”) The kids of course all chow down.
– Good callback joke to “Treehouse of Horror” where Homer uses an entire can of lighter fluid and then some on his grill, then hits the gas… and a normal flame comes up.
– I like how Lisa was ultimately in the wrong for what she did; Homer’s barbecue was going great and he was proud, and then she disposed of the pig. But of course Homer’s immature nature takes over and both are equally reprehensible, with the great back-and-forth over breakfast where they avoid having to talk to each other directly.
– The ending really is sweet. I especially like Lisa’s low-key “Hi, dad. Looking for me?” Followed by Homer’s quick nonchalant turn “I dunno. You looking for me?” Both know they need to make amends, but are equally embarrassed about their behavior. Homer apologizes, not even knowing why, and is shocked to hear Lisa says she was wrong… too. She still stands by her beliefs, but apologizes to her father for what she did. Homer of course accepts (“I understand, honey. I used to believe in things when I was a kid.”)
– The one great thing about the McCartneys being on the show is having “Maybe I’m Amazed” over the credits, with a subliminal message played backwards: a recipe for a “really ripping” lentil soup.