(originally aired September 27, 1998)
While the season premiere was aggressively awful, this episode is of a different color, namely in that it’s incredibly dry from start to finish. Despite a third act twist that seems like it should be a lot more biting, the tone throughout this show remains constant, and it’s something I can’t quite place. Marge forbids Bart from hanging out with troublemaker Nelson, but he ignores her plea so he can try out the hoodlum’s new BB gun. Bart ends up accidentally killing an innocent bird, which Marge finds out about, causing her to effectively give up on her son, having been disappointed one too many times. This episode has shades of “Marge Be Not Proud” since it’s about Bart trying to do right by his mother, except this one feels so much more heavy-handed. Nelson taunting Bart to shoot the bird feels like it belongs in an after-school special about peer pressure, and his remorse afterwards basically engulfs the entire episode. The first act ends with an extended slow zoom on Bart dropping the gun and looking regretful. The rest of the show never shakes this bummer feeling.

Bart finds two lone eggs in the newly empty nest and takes it upon himself to care for the orphaned birds until they hatch. Sounds scintillating, doesn’t it? I wouldn’t say it’s wildly out of character for Bart to want to make good like this, but it’s not something I’m that interested in watching, and there’s not much in terms of jokes you can milk from it. Act two is kind of one big dead zone. Around that you have Marge’s dissatisfaction with her son, which I felt worked a lot better in “Proud.” Her disillusionment of Bart stealing was a whole lot more interesting than her over-dramatic throwing up of her hands (“You wanna play with little hoodlums? Fine. Have fun killing things.”) As if the episode wasn’t overbearing enough. The mother-son disconnect in “Proud” felt very genuine and purposeful, but here, it comes off as very sour, and gives the entire episode this feeling of unease and displeasure. Not that I want every episode to be a laugh riot, but I don’t want to feel down either.

The clever twist is that the two eggs hatch to reveal Bolivian tree lizards, a species who eat bird’s eggs and lay their own in their place, so their newly hatched young can feast upon the mother bird. Bart comes to find that the lizards are federally banned for this reason, and the local birdwatching society seeks to put an end to them. It’s kind of interesting, but given that you need to have a scene or two to explain what the lizards are and their backstory, it’s not as easy to digest to make it a fantastic twist. This revelation gives us more sad, crying Bart, who’s come to care for these lizards, and Marge assists him to get away from the birdwatching mob. In the end, the lizards are set free, but end up being an unseen blessing in that they dramatically reduce the pigeon population in Springfield, although now they’re overrun with lizards instead. When this episode wasn’t making me uncomfortable, it was boring more than anything, with only a few select laughs to cut through the doldrums. Ultimately, it’s just downright forgettable.

Tidbits and Quotes
– I like the bit at the very beginning with Homer’s mail call (“One stinkin’ letter? Why’d you make us gather ’round like that?” “I needed my power fix.”)
– The Family Fun Center set piece isn’t fantastic, but it’s got a few good things: Marge’s slow and steady speed on the go-karts, Nelson knocking Milhouse’s kart off the track, which of course bursts into flames, and Bart’s pathetic choice of prizes with his paltry amount of tickets. But then we also have Homer at the batting cage, which is just him wailing and getting hurt repeatedly, though I do Bart and Lisa’s commentary as balls continue to pelt their father’s motionless body (“Hang in there, Dad, just half a basket left!” “Wow, you sure get a lot of balls for a quarter.”)
– I kinda like how Bart purposely aims to miss the bird but hits it anyway, with Nelson commenting how Bart’s such a pro for compensating for the crooked sight.
– In his last appearance, Troy McClure stars in “Birds: Our Fine Feathered Colleagues,” a video which is pretty much the only bright spot here. Hartman is golden as always (“Precious eggs. If they’re to survive, they require the gentle warmth and tender love that only a mother can provide. Or better yet, a seventy-five watt bulb.”) Maybe not the best episode to go out on, but with the video ending with his callous response to little Jimmy and giving a big ol’ shit-eating grin to the camera, that’s just how I want to remember him. Farewell, Mr. McClure.
– Call me hypocritical for besmirching the batting cage bit, but I like Homer repeatedly falling down the stairs. First it works as a quick joke where Bart talks about finding a light bulb “lying around,” then we see Homer flick on the absent basement light and take a tumble. Then we see it again randomly in a montage, then much later after the whole lizard reveal and you’ve forgotten about it, Homer says he’s going to eat the remaining pies in the basement, and we get hit once more with it. That’s the way you make Homer getting gratuitously hurt be funny.
– The birdwatching society is filled with recognizable faces, some of which make sense, some don’t. Skinner is perfect as the leader, some like Jasper, Apu and even Moe make a little sense, but Edna? Mr. Burns? Kind of like bringing back Alison in “Lard of the Dance,” this is more of a growing trend of inserting as many recognizable characters into scenes as possible, without much regard whether it makes sense for them to be there.
– I like Skinner listing off the tree lizard’s target birds (“It’s already wiped out the Dodo, the Cuckoo, and the Ne-Ne, and it has nasty plans for the Booby, the Titmouse, the Woodcock, and the Titpecker.”) I don’t care for how bloodthirsty he seems to be, though: putting the lizards in the paper cutter works as a quick gag, but then he proceeds to hold up a power drill and talks about preparing for splatter… that doesn’t seem like Skinner. Also, this exchange (“Wow, did you know they had those webbed flaps for gliding?” “Yes, but I was hoping they didn’t know that.”) Why is Skinner a moron all of a sudden?
– Nice paltry gift Quimby bestows upon Bart for unleashing the lizards: a scented candle (“Mmmm… loganberry.”)

(originally aired September 20, 1998)
Well, this is our official season premiere, and boy oh boy is it a bad sign. I had more problems with “Lard of the Dance” then I remembered, but I still kind of enjoyed it on the whole. This one is pretty damn terrible, from its directionless beginning to its ridiculous twist ending. I knew we were trouble from the start: hearing on the radio that the new average life expectancy, Homer realizes he’s already lived half his life, stops his car on the freeway, wanders through traffic and picks up the phone in the call box thinking he’s talking to his wife. I don’t know, I guess the writers think it’s funny to see how unbelievably stupid they can make Homer, which may be amusing just talking about it in the writer’s room, but actually seeing it in the show, it just makes him less like an actual person and more of a caricatured dolt. The leap to the main story couldn’t be more tenuous: the family’s film projector breaks, prompting Lisa to comment that it was originally invented by Thomas Edison. Homer then becomes obsessed with researching the man, then realizes that his life can be fulfilled if he follows in Edison’s footsteps and becomes an inventor. Your guess is as good as mine as to how this make sense.

There’s not much to comment on in act two, since nothing at all really happens. Really. Homer sequesters himself in the basement to come up with ideas for inventions, so it’s just scene after scene of either him trying to jump start his brain (a nigh impossible task) or the other members of the family coming down to help and/or bother him. Eventually he comes up with four awful contraptions, which are faulty products, but still seem too well done. I mean, Homer couldn’t even build a spice rack properly, you think he’d be able to make an electric hammer? Or a make-up gun which he hilariously holds up and shoots in his wife’s face? Marge tells her husband as politely as she can that the inventions are fucking terrible, which he takes to heart. “I’m not saying you’re a bad inventor…” she starts off. Why? This is another thing that would develop over these seasons, when it’s a wacky Homer story, the other Simpsons are just tag-alongs, enabling him in his goofy antics. Later when they discover Homer’s chair with two extra legs, they shower him with praise and give him a group hug with big smiles on their faces. It’s a really eerie shot, like they need to cheer up this mentally insane person or fear the consequences. They’re treating a delusional idiot with kid’s gloves or something.

Now we get to the big dumb ending. Homer finds that he subconsciously stole the six-legged chair idea from his Edison poster, which leaves him with only one option: go to Menlo Park, find said chair and destroy it. Bart questions this, thinking his father loved Edison. Homer replies, “Ah, the hell with him!” He’s spent the entire episode praising the man’s name, now fuck this guy, smashy smashy, I’m an inventor too! But before he can commit the deed, he finds that Edison had the same stupid invention graph as he did, competing with his own idol Leonardo Da Vinci for the most patents held. Totally makes sense. Then the finale of the show is that Homer leaves his electric hammer behind in the museum, which is then credited to Edison and his newly wealthy heirs. Still totally makes sense. I chuckled a handful of times here, but this one’s an absolute mess beginning to end. What’s most puzzling to me is that it was written by John Swartzwelder, who penned some of the greatest episodes of the show’s history, and his detective novellas are just as hilarious. Meanwhile, he also wrote some of the worst episodes ever: this one, “Kill the Alligator and Run,” “Simpson Safari,” and so on. Lots of talented people still work on this show, are these seasons just a higher form of comedy? Or is it all a big damn joke? Well either way, I’m not laughing.

Tidbits and Quotes
– I like Homer’s vision of his funeral, featuring multi-Oscar-winning Barney, President Lenny and Heckle and Jeckle for some reason. The shot of the dump truck dropping Homer’s bloated corpse into the ground is pretty funny.
– I feel like there’s some kind of meat that could be pulled from Homer’s mid-life crisis. I like his line about not being able to remember anything (“You know how many memories I have? Three! Standing in line for a movie, having a key made, and sitting here talking to you. Thirty-eight years and that’s all I have to show for it!”) I have a piss poor memory, I can’t imagine what it’s going to be when I get that old. Spring boarding from that to the family showing him the home movies of his achievements makes sense, but then the show completely derails. I do love the shot of Homer’s space shuttle ramming the Mir station. Wonder how they got that footage.
– Homer at the school library starts out fine, citing some unexplained “unpleasantness” at the “big people library.” But then he acts more infantile than Bart and is quick with a “SCHOOL” pennant to show the librarian. There was a weird sort of pennant running gag through the Scully years for some reason… don’t know what that was about.
– Homer’s Edison obsession is really boring. I don’t get why they thought this was a good idea.
– I like the bit where Homer backs up from his work, then rushes toward the paper, hoping kinetic momentum will jog an idea out of him, but… nothing.
– The scene with Homer and Frink is indicative of how empty this episode feels. Homer wants to be an inventor to give his life meaning, but doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing at all (“I just wanna know how to invent things. Tell me!”) As a result, the whole episode feels very meandering and meaningless. At least we got Frink’s hamburger earmuffs out of it (“These babies will be in the stores while he’s still grappling with the pickle matrix!”)
– Homer holding the gun up to Marge’s face is slightly uncomfortable. But then again he did it in “The Cartridge Family,” but it made more sense story-wise there. And I hate his line, “Women will like what I tell them to like!” It just encapsulates this new Homer attitude, that he thinks he’s better than everyone else and he’s the only one that matters. Remember when he was kind of a humble guy?
– I like the bit with Edison’s ghost getting “run over” by Homer, him screaming back at him, then Homer backing up as Edison worriedly hides behind some bushes.
– The only really great stuff in the show is at the Edison Museum: the sign out front, “No Gang Colors,” the tour guide’s lame riddle much to the crowd’s amusement, Edison’s boyhood gift shop, and an incredible tease (“Now, behind that door is Edison’s actual preserved brain. Ordinarily, folks, tour groups are not allowed to see it. And of course, today will be no exception.”)
– The ending is so goddamn stupid with that Edison/Da Vinci poster. And it doesn’t really close off the Homer inventor story at all, just his sporadic random intention to destroy Edison that we got a mere three minutes ago. Also apparently Bart knows who Da Vinci is.
– The framing for the final shot of Homer on his toilet chair is pretty poor. We clearly see that he’s right next to Bart on the couch up until the last shot. I’m all for cheats, but only if you try a little hard to cover them up.

(originally aired May 17, 1998)
Finally, what we all came here to see… hardcore nudity! Talk about your season finale. I bet the promos for this episode were pretty bombastic (“Homer and Marge NUDE! Tonight on FOX!!”) It ultimately is pretty low on the risque factor, and has a few bits that kind of drag (woooo!), but there’s enough good stuff here that kept me satisfied and smiling (wooooooooooo!). The first act features Homer and Marge discouraged that their sex life is in a bit of a rut, something that ultimately feels like a lite version of “Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy.” But I appreciate the effort, and there’s some genuine-feeling moments. I love the ad-libbing by Dan Castellaneta and Julie Kavner in attempting to initiate obligated anniversary sex, and their relief of the dog entering the room to break the awkwardness of their inability to do so. Though perhaps with not as much emotional heft as the show used to have, but you still feel for these two, stuck in a natural rut that they can’t seem to get around.

The spark in Homer and Marge’s marriage is reignited thanks to one thing: dirty sex out in public. Sounds pretty questionable, but it’s mainly played for laughs, especially when you consider the final act. Although I have born witness to some disturbing Simpsons porn pictures on the Internet that have caused my mind to fill in a few blanks of the dirty deeds committed in this show… I can’t say that I’m proud of it, but here we are. The two lovebirds return to their most sacred place: the windmill on the mini golf course where Bart was conceived. But when they’re almost caught inside, they knock it over and escape, leaving them out and about the city completely nude. It’s a conceit that leads to a few good parts, like a pretty funny Gil scene, but it kind of felt too silly. There were plenty of ways the bit could have logically ended, but instead it just kept going to its over-the-top conclusion.

There’s a B-story here that feels a bit more satisfying. Bart and Lisa uncover Grampa’s old metal detector and decide to go treasure hunting. Ultimately they discover an incredible find: an unseen alternate ending to Casablanca. Now, aside from the fact that The Critic did something incredibly similar, it’s a pretty amusing concept, an incredibly lame, tacked-on Hollywood happy ending to appease stupid film executives. One of said executives turns out to be the Crazy Old Man (“We tried to hack that happy ending on the picture ’cause back then, studio execs, we were just dopes in suits, not like today.”) This little Bart and Lisa story serves as a nice break from the main story, and is pretty cute on its own. All in all, there’s a fair share of good stuff in this one, but despite the more mature content, it’s not extremely memorable. But it’s not bad either. Maybe it’s just the season 9 malaise. It’s been a little bit rough.

Tidbits and Quotes
– I love Bart and Lisa sword- fighting with Hot Wheels tracks (“Ow! That had a guide pin in it!”) and Grampa repeatedly asking kids to cut him a switch… whatever that means.
– The Up Up and Buffet is a nice set piece, a perfect family-oriented high concept theme restaurant from hell (“Okay, folks, this is your pilot speaking. If you look to the left side of the aircraft, you will see Homer and Marge Sampson, who are celebrating with us today their eleventh air-niversary. So hang on, while we dip our wings to this happy couple.”)
– It’s nice that the dumb joke about Homer trying to catch the miniature bride and groom in action in the freezer pays off, as he left the door open and that causes the motor to short out. It’s not even emphasized, this is the first time I’ve really made the connection.
– Again, great job by Castellaneta and Kavner in the bedroom scene (“Do you want me to…” “No, don’t do that.” “But we used to do…” “I know, but I don’t like it.”)
– Great brutal exchange between Bart and Grampa at the retirement home (“Are they pulling the plug on anybody today?” “Nope, everybody’s paid up!”) And the flashback to Abe’s poor usage of the mine detector in the war is pretty excellent too.
– Inspired observation from Homer (“When you think about it, mud is nothing but wet dirt.”)
– I don’t know why, but I love the disgruntled farmer and his shotgun-pitchfork, vowing to dole out some serious ass-forkin’. He then leaves to go check the media room. Amazing.
– I like Bart’s dream about pirates, where the captain shoots one of his crewmen for suggesting they buy things with their treasure instead of bury it. But then it lingers too long with the bit with the map drawn on a cracker, which isn’t really funny.
– Great scene after work where Lenny and Carl find out about Homer’s jump-starting of his marriage. The two try to give innocuous pleasantries to Marge when she shows up, who promptly calls them perverts.
– Homer covering his shame, or his nipples, rather, with two teacups is great, as is the maid’s “I’m so sorry! I saw everything!”
– I love every bit with the Flanders family golfing: Ned telling his wife the secret of the windmill hole (“Not to hit the blades?” “Bingo”), commenting the ball never came out the rear end, and Maude telling Rod to fish it out with his girlish hands. I like how ridiculous it gets how everyone’s shoving their hands in there, then perhaps pushed too far when Moe shows up with his car on the green somehow aiming to gas the obstruction out. Homer and Marge make their escape, leaving their clothes behind. Ned is mortified (“It was people! People soiled our green!”)
– The Gil scene is pretty great. He’s so desperate to make a sale, he doesn’t even skip a beat in mentioning that Homer and Marge are naked, and he immediately defends himself to the police for living in the hot air balloon. It’s just until things pick up, you know?
– Homer and Marge in the balloon is just extended bits of Homer getting hurt, but I love the slow drag up the church’s glass ceiling, and the pastor’s quick cover to his flock (“Gaze down at God’s fabulous parquet floor. Eyes on the floor… still on the floor… always on God’s floor.”)
– I love the Sideshow Mel line as the balloon enters the crowded stadium (“Dear lord, look at that blimp! He’s hanging from a balloon!”)

Season 9 Final Thoughts
So there it is. One Mike Scully season down, and boy, he’s not wasting any time doing a number on this show. The series is steadily losing its ability to tell focused stories with an emotional resonance, seeming to rely more on gag humor and the more exaggerated comic side of characters rather than be more subtle. We saw the emergence of the dreaded Jerkass Homer, as he began his descent from mostly honest average family man to bombastic, inconsiderate cartoon character. But through it all, one thing the show still has going for it is its humor, and I give lots of these episodes a pass because they made me laugh throughout. This season also had a fair share of strong B-stories, from the Freak-E-Mart, CompuGloboHyperMegaNet, and just now the treasure hunting story. They can pull off these smaller plots, but longer ones have a bit more difficulty to them. I can’t exactly say I’m hopeful for season 10 since I can already think of plenty of episodes I’m dreading to watch, but maybe there’ll be some funny stuff in store. Though four of the five episodes on the best list this season are technically not in the ninth production season, so… yeah. Make of that what you will.

The Best
“The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson,” “The Joy of Sect,” “Lisa the Simpson,” “Simpson Tide,” “King of the Hill”

The Worst
“Realty Bites,” “Miracle on Evergreen Terrace,” “Bart Carny,” “The Trouble with Trillions,” “Lost Our Lisa”

(originally aired May 10, 1998)
Lisa takes a bus to see a special exhibit at the museum and ends up getting lost in the big city. A pretty innocuous plot that could have been a sweet little story featuring the more kid-like side of the character. But once Homer gets involved, things start getting disastrous, with a ridiculous action sequence and an absurd proclamation from the Simpson patriarch that basically solidifies his jerkass character. But we’ll get to all that later. Marge originally intended to take Lisa to the museum, but gets sidelined when Bart returns home with novelties glued to his face… with superglue. Said glue was obtained from Homer, who Bart and Milhouse managed to bother at work. How they got in, I’m not sure. Also earlier in the day we saw he was at Moe’s. There’s no real reason they needed to get the glue from him, but I guess they figured more Homer means more funny. Although if anything, this “B-story” provides the best scene in the whole show, where Hibbert removes the items by frightening Bart with a violent-looking button applicator, where his sweat dissolves the glue. It’s one of those bits that’s so dumb it’s fantastic (“Couldn’t you have just turned the heat up a little?” “Oh, heavens no! It had to be terror sweat!”)

With a no from her mother, Lisa shrewdly plays her father to get permission to take a bus, which is a nice scene. But due to a mix-up with the bus schedules, she ends up way off course, far out in the city limits. What kind of an asshole is this bus driver that he’d not only not bother to help this poor eight-year-old girl, but abandon her on the side of the road? So while Lisa’s trying to find her way to the museum, a talk with Lenny and Carl makes Homer realize the mistake he made in letting her daughter out alone and rushes off to find her. The two eventually find each other when Homer hijacks a cherry picker to get an aerial view of the city, but he ends up sending it careening down a steep hill. Then it’s just a big silly action set piece where Homer can scream, whimper and get hurt a lot, but it kind of takes it way too far here. He hits his head on a traffic light? Fine. He scrapes his head along the underside of a bridge? His skin would have been ripped off, but whatever. Then the picker goes into the river, where his body cuts through the wood on the dock. Okay… The picker’s still going in the water, where Homer could jump out of at any time. But instead, he’s saved when a drawbridge closes on his head. Maybe it’s just me, but it felt way too crazy, especially for what before this was a relatively timid episode.

As if that ridiculousness wasn’t enough, we get a sizable revelation from Homer within the last three minutes of the episode. When Lisa vows she’ll never take a stupid risk ever again, Homer slams the brakes and informs her otherwise, claiming that stupid risks make life worth living, and that’s why he has so many crazy adventures. So instead of Homer being an average American man who has dramatic and absurd scenarios befall him (which is part of the reason why they’re funny), now he’s Captain Wacky, actively doing stupid things on impulse so he can have “adventures.” It’s astounding how jarring this scene is. Even Lisa in-universe seems kind of perturbed by her father’s statements. Homer loves the thrill of adventure? Homer loves lying on the couch eating himself into a food coma. His whole diatribe is almost like his new mission statement, as from this point on he’s pretty much always up to some wacky hijinks, a fractured caricature of his former self. And just to put a cherry on top of the shit sundae, the scene’s even more aggravating because it comes out of nowhere with mere minutes left on the clock. At this point, I could care less about the two of them breaking into the museum, which is a pretty dull ordeal. This episode’s got a few good lines in it, but it’s a mostly dry first half and an absolute catastrophe of a back end.

Tidbits and Quotes
– I like dapper Barney early in the morning before going to Moe’s. He’s always been a real classy guy sober.
– Great line about the exclusivity of the exhibit (“It’s the first time these Egyptian artifacts have been allowed out of England!”)
– I really like the phone call between Lisa and Homer as she slyly plays him to get her way, omitting what her mother said and tricking him to “downgrade” her from a limousine to taking the bus. It’s classic kid tactics at work, finished off with her hanging up the phone, cutting her father off of saying he loves her.
– Nice minor bit of Moe hailing a taxi to the VD Clinic. Of course.
– It’s stupid, but I love the bit where Lisa sees a flock of geese flying north… who immediately fly into another flock heading in the other direction and they have an aerial scuffle.
– Lisa stumbles upon Area 51A. A map outside provides no help on finding her location (“You are Here. We are Not.”)
– The scene in Dr. Hibbert’s office really is the best scene here (“Why, if I had seventy five dollars for every novelty I removed… oh, by the way, I’ll need a check for seventy five dollars.”)
– I like the seemingly angry Russian man playing chess, and the reappearance of the Khlau Kalash vendor from “City of New York.”
– Another stupid bit, but I love the timing and progression of this scene: Homer concludes he needs to get to a higher vantage point to look for Lisa. He buys a bunch of balloons from a street vendor… and then walks over to the man by the cherry picker (“These are for you if you let me use your cherry picker!” “Well, I’ve already got some balloons, but.. they’re not this nice. Deal!”)
– That Homer speech… I could just dissect it line for line of how awful it is, and how horribly foreboding it is of what’s to come. “Feeling stupid? I know I am!” encapsulates it pretty well though. Jeez…
– Thinking on it more, the ending with the Orb of Isis also bothers me. Archeologists studied that thing for decades and couldn’t figure out how to open it? It fell a few feet and just opened by itself, for God’s sakes. The entire third act is just one terrible thing after another.