Original airdate: December 6, 2020

The premise: When Miss Hoover gives Lisa a B-minus on her report, Lisa calls her a hack, landing her in detention. Miss Hoover proceeds to continue giving her detention unless she apologizes, but Lisa won’t budge.

The reaction: Of all the side characters I’d be interested in seeing a whole episode about, Miss Hoover would probably be towards the bottom of my list. Unlike Mrs. Krabappel, Miss Hoover functions perfectly as the perfect foil to Lisa. What cruel misfortune that a gifted and impassioned young student would get stuck with a teacher who couldn’t care less about her job. Could a Miss Hoover episode be interesting? Sure, I guess so. But unlike “The Road to Cincinnati,” this isn’t even that, it’s another boring as hell Lisa storyline. Lisa creates an elaborate model for her report, dreaming that it’ll be the lynch pin that gets her into Yale, but she is aghast that Miss Hoover gives the entire class B-minuses across the board because it’s easier. She also has a back injury so she’s laid up on a mat in the classroom, a detail that doesn’t really matter at all to the episode. Enraged, Lisa lays into her (“I come here every day eager to learn, and you just put me down!”) This presents an issue to me, as Miss Hoover has always been consistently shown as incredibly apathetic toward all of her students, but this episode paints her as weirdly antagonistic, goading Lisa into her apology lest she get more detention and her Yale dreams go up in smoke. She’s an adult woman who presumably knows how silly it is that a second grader thinks any of her individual grades matter to any colleges, so maybe she’s just messing with her? But anyway, the idea could be that getting called a hack cuts deep into Miss Hoover and this is her lashing out, but like I said, this episode isn’t about Miss Hoover or her story. The best we get is when Lisa follows her home to her shitty apartment where she lies on the floor with her cat who hates her (“I’m so alone,” she narrates, in case you didn’t pick up on that.) Real exciting stuff. Lisa believes she shouldn’t have to apologize, but after seeing how awful Miss Hoover’s life is, she decides to make amends by spending her Yale piggy bank money on a down payment for a vibrating chair for Miss Hoover’s bad back. Upon getting the chair, Hoover still doesn’t accept Lisa’s apology, still upset about the “hack” comment. But why does she give a shit? Miss Hoover is a non-character, and we’ve learned nothing about her this episode, so why is she still holding this over Lisa? Just to be a cruel bitch? I guess so. But everything’s cool when she finds the massage function on the chair and ups Lisa’s grade to a B-plus. Nothing was learned, nothing was felt, what an absolutely pointless exercise.

Three items of note:
– This episode was written by Nell Scovell, who has written for a bunch of different series, but most notably wrote the season 2 episode “One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish.” Surely this must be the longest break in TV history, thirty years between scripts. Wikipedia also reports she’s a strong advocate for gender equality in the TV workplace, writing of her experiences of the toxic environment at Late Night with David Letterman. I guess this explains the bit in this episode where Lisa goes on a rant about how women are expected to say sorry all the time “because men make us feel like we have to apologize for existing,” a point that feels weird in context since she’s refusing to apologize to Miss Hoover, a woman. Anyway, as usual, this episode by-and-large feels no different than anything else this season, which just makes me wonder if there’s anything that can shake up this series at all at this point. Bringing back the classic writers yields nothing different, be it David X. Cohen recently with “Podcast News,” or the great Jeff Martin, returning to write absolutely awful episodes like “Moho House” and “I’m Just a Girl Who Can’t Say D’oh.” I thought bringing in young blood would give the series a shot in the arm, but as we saw with “Undercover Burns” and “Three Dreams Deferred,” that didn’t seem to do the trick either. I say it over and over, but I just don’t know what happens in that writer’s room when they’re ripping these scripts apart that just sucks the life out of them
– Lisa’s super awesome presentation is on Gladys West, a mathematician whose work on satellite models of the Earth were incorporated into the development of GPS systems. She creates a little model Earth with satellites, then she hits a button that activates a recorded rap about Gladys West set to the theme of “Wild Wild West.” It’s Kevin Michael Richardson singing, but who recorded this song in-universe? Is this a real song? Or did Lisa get a random adult musician to perform a song she wrote? And the class is dancing and going apeshit about it for some reason. What is this? Lisa is normally the one who values studying and hard academic work over flashy gimmicks. It would make more sense if she got upset at her thoroughly researched and informed oral report got her a lower grade, not some dumb rap song. Same with her thinking this project will actually matter to the Yale admissions board. Does she think they’re gonna be movin’ and groovin’ to her cool rap song? I just don’t get it.
– The episode is told in media res by Lisa sitting on the roof as she’s joined by the rest of the  family in the end. In a tag at the end of the episode, Homer’s lying on the roof a la Snoopy on his doghouse, where he dreams of being a World War I flying ace, just like Snoopy used to do in the comics and TV specials. I’ll admit, it was kind of cute seeing the dream sequence where Homer is sitting on a doghouse-sized Simpson house. But do people still get this reference? I don’t know how many people 20 and under have seen the Peanuts specials, and I’m sure a lot have, but if you didn’t know the reference, I don’t know what the hell you’d make of this. Then the sequence ends with him crash landing near two British soldier, referencing a major scene from 1917. As usual, too late with a movie that’s exited public consciousness, even more so with this fucking year. Jesus, I saw that movie in January, this year, it feels like an eternity ago. But none of that is the show’s fault, to be fair.

7. Bart’s Girlfriend

• “That’s not fair, Nelson. They didn’t have the Killmatic 3000 back then!” “Records from that era are spotty at best!”
• Bart’s “Soul Man”/”Troll Man” song is so great. Every now and again, it pops into my head and I love it.
• “Yarrr, I hate the sea and everything in it.” Between this and his pathetic raft in “Boy Scoutz N The Hood,” I love how the Sea Captain is not only a complete fraud, but a self-hating one as well. It’s also yet another example of the show pushing their elements to their limits. How much more could you do with that character? I remember an episode within the last two years that had a first act devoted to the Sea Captain’s life and an adventure out at sea and it just felt so pointless. Thirty years later and you’re going to try to make him a real character?
• I actually laughed out loud at “Sunday School, Est. 1 A.D.” written on the classroom door. I don’t think I ever noticed that before.
• Maggie Roswell voices the Sunday school teacher here with a really great performance, you can hear her struggle to try and be open-minded about Bart as to not sound like a hypocrite to her class. Tress MacNeille voiced her in “Homer vs. Lisa and the 8th Commandment,” and probably in however many other subsequent appearances she’s had over the next twenty-five years. I feel like I bag on MacNeille a lot, and I don’t mean to, because she’s incredibly talented. She would just end up being very overused on this show when we get to the Al Jean era and she would voice almost every single woman character. She’s fantastic in more unique, over-the-top characters (Agnes Skinner, Brandine, Futurama’s Mom), but I think Maggie Roswell can do understated and subtle a lot better and funnier.
• This is the first of two times Bart has been tempted by the protruding behind of a teacher, the second being in “Team Homer.” It’s the same set-up twice, but with two different jokes (“Must… fight… Satan! Make it… up to him… later!”)
• It’s odd that Skinner performs his incredibly elaborate sting operation to catch Bart on a Sunday, giving him three months detention for a prank after school hours. But who cares, it’s worth it to hear Willie erupt at him for being an unwitting pawn (“YAH USED ME, SKINNER!! YAH UUUUSSSSEEEDDD ME!!”)
• Bart and Jessica’s rebel montage is set to “Miserlou,” music at the time just made famous by Pulp Fiction. It’s funny how a few episodes ago in “Itchy & Scratchy Land,” they made the soon-to-be-outdated John Travolta joke, and now they directly paid homage to his comeback movie. It had just come out a month before this episode aired, so this probably was a last minute addition to use that music in post.
• Homer talking about Bart missing his old glasses is one of those bits that makes absolutely no sense, but is so damn funny anyway.
• “Stop him! He’s heading for the window!” makes me laugh every time.
• I love how Lisa is at Bart’s side to help him through the whole episode, from the beginning when Jessica first rejects him, to the end where she takes it upon herself to expose her. It’s very sweet how despite how he annoys her constantly, she’s still very supportive and protective of her big brother.
• Great absurdist touch how they use a metal jack to lift Jessica’s mattress.
• The ending bit between Lovejoy and Jessica is so fantastic as it tells us so much in so little time about the family dynamic of the Lovejoys. Timothy tells his congregation his daughter was at boarding school, but it’s logically revealed she was expelled, but Tim just plugs his ears and will not have it, turning a blind eye to his problems. But is Jessica’s somber admission of her crimes being a desperate cry for attention just a sweet lie to avoid greater punishment, or does she really mean it? Or both? It’s neat to speculate about, but considering she’ll never be seen from again, don’t worry too much about it.
• Simpsons Archive retro review: “Ouch. Not funny. Hardly smiled. Why, oh why…? Not even Willy’s bare behind saved the show. There was no bite to this episode, it was lacking the usual wit. Meryl Streep, eh? They should have done something interesting with her, not this predictable stuff.”

8. Lisa on Ice

• I love the small bits of acting at the very beginning of the family watching TV. Homer is wagging his beer can in front of Maggie, while Bart and Lisa do homework in front of the set. The latter is setting up the joke where Bart tosses his book report in the fire, but the former is just a sweet little extra that I always love to see.
• Lisa’s prank with the “fake” snowball is a great moment, as is Jimbo’s backfired taunt (“Nice PJs, Simpson! Did your Mommy buy ‘em for you?” “Of course she did, who else would have?” “…alright, Simpson, you win this round.”)
• Skinner’s Academic Alert system reminds me how impossible it is to hide grades from your parents in our digital age when most schools have all grades up immediately for helicopter parents to glom onto. My wife is a teacher and there are certain parents who get on her ass immediately about grades way before their kid would have told them about it. I feel bad for kids now.
• “If you lose, I’ll kill you!” Great call-and-response action between Homer and Bart here.
  
• I love how Apu has absolutely no problem hocking a puck at a defenseless eight-year-old girl not once, but twice (“Let’s try a hard one to make sure it wasn’t a fluke!”)
• The montage of Bart attempting to be a good student is fantastic. It’s one of those great jokes in this series where it’s openly making fun of shitty sitcom storytelling, then pulls the rug out from under its characters. Bart tries to fill Lisa’s shoes, fails miserably, then gets beat up for his troubles (“This is for wasting teacher’s valuable time!”) I also like how we see Lisa protecting Bart from the bullies, which could have easily just been its own isolated scene, but that the two lead directly into each other makes the story feel stronger.
• Every Marge bit in this episode is great, she’s completely out of her element in an episode about sports. I can relate (“By blocking the net, I really think you helped your team!” “How about we play the basketball?  I’m no Harvey Globetrotter…”) And, of course, you gotta watch out for her Shaq attack.
• Homer is definitely extra jerky this episode, but it’s for a story-specific reason. Just as he imagined he was living in a rowdy college movie in “Homer Goes to College,” here Homer is embodying all the shithead fathers who live vicariously through their kids’ little league sports (just as Lisa bitterly describes to her gym teacher). His riling up of Bart and Lisa against each other never feels like it goes too far, and all of that pent up passion purposefully builds up to the end, where even Marge gets poisoned by it (“He tripped my boy! I demand vengeance!!”), which makes Bart and Lisa’s mutual concession of the game even more satisfying.
• There’s some great painful sound design in this episode, between Milhouse’s teeth getting knocked out to Homer banging his head on the range hood over the stove.
• The bit of Bart knocking the ketchup across the table and Lisa catching it is a wonderful quick bit of animation. I love that in exaggeratedly fast motions from Marge or Lisa, their pearls stretch and squash with them.
  
• Moe’s random appearance is definitely a highlight. It has nothing to do with the episode at all, but it still works in adding in more conflict leading up to the final game. And for every single instance in newer episodes where Marge acts nicely to Moe and is more than happy to help lift him up, I always refer back to this line (“You caught me at a real bad time, Moe. I hope you understand I’m too tense to pretend I like you.”) It just makes more sense for her to be quietly angry at the man who runs the seedy bar that keeps her husband away from her and their children every night than for him to be a close family friend.
• The “Kill Bart”/”Kill, Bart” chanting is a tremendous joke.
• The ending with Bart and Lisa’s flashbacks is just beautiful, an absolutely perfect example of the show utilizing sentiment without feeling too treacly. It’s one of those great sequences like Homer’s proposal in “I Married Marge” where I’m laughing while tearing up simultaneously, where Marge is touched by her children’s actions, while Homer is crying for a different reason (“They’re both losers! Losers!!”)
• Simpsons Archive retro review: “Grrrr! Who was responsible for last night’s monstrosity? He should be forced to apologize on the air, and then be fired from the show, sterilized, and sent to live like an animal in the sewers below Los Angeles for the rest of his life.”

9. Homer Badman

• Lucky Charms is a really terrible cereal. The grain pieces taste bad, and don’t really work to balance out the sweet marshmallow. Throw the whole box away, Bart.
• I love how energetically Bart and Lisa help out in the great candy scheme, quickly backing down from asking Homer to go to the convention after understanding that Marge going means more candy for all (“For the greater good,”) to helping sew all the giant pockets into Marge’s enormous trench coat.
• It really bothers me that you can see Frink’s pupils through his coke bottle glasses in the sour candy scene.
• That’s a pretty damning expression. No wonder Ashley freaked out.
  
• I love the bit where Marge tells the kids they can donate the extra candy to charity, and a sick Bart and Lisa feebly grasp the sugar pile and continue to eat sweets for breakfast. It feels like the perfect contrast to the hundred jokes in later seasons where Homer would wail and scream at the very concept of something being given to charity. Here, it’s little kids being selfish over a childish thing, rather than Homer being a heartless dick.
• “Two! Four! Six! Eight! Homer’s crime was very great!” [pause] “‘Great’ meaning ‘large’ or ‘immense,’ we use it in the pejorative sense!”
• It’s really fantastic that from the very start, Marge believes Homer’s story, so we don’t have to deal with any stupid bullshit like her actually thinking Homer groped a teenager. I also love the scene later when they’re in bed and Marge has to break it to Homer that she can’t help him out of the situation. It’s a very sweet, genuine scene, where Homer pleads with his wife to help his dumb ass, but his dependency comes from a more earnest place than it felt in “Secrets to a Successful Marriage.”
• One of the protestors is Marge’s high school friend from “The Way We Was,” but appearing the exact same age she was in 1974. They must have just recycled the character sheet without realizing it.
• The Rock Bottom interview is so damn good. The constantly changing clock after each of Homer’s cut up words is great, but it’s even better that we saw his uncut interview and it’s less than a minute of him talking and the clock not moving, so it makes no sense either way. I also love that they shot the reverse angle of Godfrey Jones outdoors, that  they didn’t even bother shooting it in the same studio to make it look consistent. They could barely give a shit to make it look the least bit credible.
  
• “Simpson scandal update: Homer sleeps nude in an oxygen tent which he believes gives him sexual powers.” “Hey, that’s a half-truth!”
• The theme of this episode of people being emotionally manipulated by sensationalist media, even affecting the thoughts of their own family, definitely rings truer than ever in 2020. This episode’s specific story about a man being railroaded by a woman slandering them on sexual harassment feels like it’s probably been held up by some folks as a means to mock any woman who comes forward with a story, but I don’t want to go down that rabbit hole any further. In-universe, it’s great that Homer doesn’t begrudge his kids for believing TV over him. He’s just as conflicted as they are (“Maybe TV is right. TV’s always right…”)
• “The courts might not work any more, but as long as everybody is videotaping everyone else, justice will be done.” Jeez, speaking of bits that feel more relevant now… In an age where everyone can film stuff on their phones, we’re definitely exposed to more horrific stuff going on, but we’re in an even greater hellscape than The Simpsons could have ever predicted, where there’s people in our society who can see actual video evidence of crime and corruption, and still not believe what they’re seeing is true.
• The Rock Bottom corrections are a freeze-frame bonanza. Some highlights include “Our viewers are not pathetic sexless food tubes,” “Licking an electrical outlet will not turn you into a Mighty Morphin Power Ranger,” and “Godfrey Jones’ wife is cheating on him.”
• The twist at the end of Willie getting put in the media crosshairs and Homer going along with it is fantastic (“Marge, my friend, I haven’t learned a thing.”) He may have missed the moral completely, but at least he and TV are back together.
• Simpsons Archive retro review: “C-plus – a good episode, with a few laughs, but the story just dragged along, and the “Willy with his video tape” ending just made the show stop cold as if it had slammed into the side of the house. I’ll agree with one thing: the nerds on the Internet are not geeks…”

10. Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy

• First off, this is probably the best episode title ever. I don’t remember how old I was when I first saw this episode, but I remember reading the title as a kid in the Simpsons complete guide and not understanding it whatsoever.
• I love how by the end of a sexless year, Marge is so pent up she hurriedly shoos a terrified Bart off in the middle of the night.
• Al Gore’s “celebration” is a fantastic scene. Ah, the days when your most scathing critique of a high-ranking politician was that they were too boring. Wasn’t that quaint?
• I love how pissed Homer and Marge look when they’re at the end of their patience with the Paul Harvey tape. It’s also great that Marge is the one to toss the cassette out the window, then Homer backs the car up over it. Teamwork!
  
• Hilarious work by Dan Castellaneta for Abe’s elongated “seeeeeeeexxxxxxxxxx!”
• The Stock Footage Festival joke is pretty silly. It’s bizarre that the kids would go to such a thing, but for the purposes of the joke, the Festival sign is hanging on the wall in the dark theater.
• “You look like a man who needs help satisfying his wife!” “I guess people have some sort of moral objection to our sex drug.” Most comedies would kill for two slam-dunk jokes like this in a single episode, while this show doles them out in ten seconds.
• I love Milhouse’s stupid little head nodding, completely none-the-wiser of what his parents are up to.
  
• Speaking of, I love the “B-plot” of the kids trying to figure out what’s wrong with their parents. It’s not even really a plot since it goes nowhere, but it’s a cute couple of scenes that thankfully doesn’t rely on the kids’ misinformation about sex, just child-like silliness (beware the reverse vampires!)
• Young Homer doing his Kennedy impression is pretty damn adorable. And of course, it’s the perfect lead-in for another great awful parenting moment from Abe (“This is the greatest country in the world. We’ve got a whole system set up to prevent people like you from ever becoming president! Quit your daydreaming, melonhead!”)
• As we wait for the Homer/Abe reconciliation in the third act, Homer attempting to overcompensate on being a good father to make up for his own lackluster childhood is logical to the story, and very funny. I love at one point we see him with Maggie strapped to his chest, but he’s eating a bag of potato chips and all the crumbs are falling all over her. Bart and Lisa are less than enthused by all this extra attention (“Dad, it’s just that too much of your love can really be… scary.” “Someday you’ll thank me for all this scary love.”)
• Though not as big an emotional wallop as “Lisa on Ice,” I like how this ending feels incredibly genuine. Homer finding the picture of his father dressed as Santa doesn’t absolve all of Abe’s sins, but it does show that he did care for his son. Meanwhile, Abe is truly sorry he hurt Homer. The two accidentally burning down the family house is representative how they both share some of the blame and need to apologize to each other, which Abe sincerely, though begrudgingly, does in his own way (“I’m not sorry I had you, son. I was always proud… that you weren’t a short man.”)
• Simpsons Archive retro review: “Although I’ve supported the show this season while other people have trashed it, I’m afraid that tonight’s episode sucked. Grandpa, who is usually the highlight of the show, got on my nerves tonight. His stupid lines got boring, and the plot was not too well thought out.”

11. Fear of Flying

• The Mt. Lushmore caricatures are really fantastic, drawn by David Silverman in the style of famed caricaturist Al Hirschfeld. You don’t get a great look at them in this episode, but seeing them reminded me that the drawings appear in the Moe’s Tavern section of “The Simpsons Guide to Springfield,” probably the best tie-in book the show ever put out. It was like a fake travelogue with a little write-up on every single attraction, shop, restaurant, and other miscellaneous tourist highlights if you were to visit Springfield, USA. The fact that you could fill an entire book talking about fictional locations is a true testament to how fleshed out the world of the series is. It’s a really unique book that I’d highly recommend you check out if you can find it in a used book store for fifty cents or something.
• The Little Black Box is such a brilliant name for a pilot’s bar. I also like that Homer’s wacky accident was completely a result of being thrust into it against his wishes in an absurdist fashion (“I keep telling you I’m not a pilot!” “And I keep telling you you flyboys crack me up!”) There are plenty of examples in later seasons of Homer doing dumb shit on his own and inexplicably getting rewarded for it.
• The build of Marge’s increasingly fraying psyche is pretty engaging. She just gets more and more unhinged over time and you really wonder what the root of it all is.
  
• Homer’s paranoia about therapy is played out very well. Despite his aggressive stance on not wanting to get “blamed,” it comes off more like his insecurities of being bad for Marge, and worrying that the jig is finally up and she’ll rightfully leave him. His nervous backpedaling asking Marge about her session is a great moment (“Don’t tell her I raised my voice! Happy family, happy family…”)
• Marge’s father has always remained a big question mark in the lore of this series. There was clearly less interest or desire to explore the Bouvier family on the part of the writers, so sadly, this episode remains the only episode that ever highlighted him in a real significant way. Given her very traditionalist upbringing in regards to societal roles for men and women, Marge seeing her father figure in a “feminine” occupation definitely seems like it would be jarring for her as a child. Part of me wishes we got more information about the fallout of the inciting incident. Almost thirty years later, and I still want to learn more about the Bouviers.
• The ending is very rushed, but purposefully so (“That’s okay, you don’t have to make her into some kind of superwoman. She can get on a plane, that’s plenty!”) Again, I want to know more about Marge’s family, but instead we get the silly joke montage of her past traumatic incidents involving planes, although I love Ann Bancroft’s read as she brushes it all off (“Yes, yes, it’s all a rich tapestry.”)
• Simpsons Archive retro review: “It sucked for one simple reason. Homer is funny. Bart is funny. Willy the Groundskeeper is funny. Principal Skinner is funny. The Flanders family is funny. C. Montgomery Burns is the living avatar of ‘funny.’  Even Lisa has her moments of being funny. Marge, however, is not and never can be funny.”

12. Homer the Great

• The power plant parking lot extending to the Simpson backyard has got to be the biggest geography cheat in the show’s history, but it’s so damn funny, I don’t even care. The point is Homer is having a tough morning, and how he barely acknowledges Bart and Marge at the window, nor the ridiculousness of his insane commute being for nothing, makes the cheat completely worth it.
• Homer’s paint can plan to track Lenny and Carl is actually pretty clever, maybe even too clever for him to come up with (“Now all I have to do is follow the yellow drip road…”)
• The scene at the dinner table where Abe keeps trying to say he’s a Stonecutter is pretty unique. Rather than just play the scene straight with Abe bringing up the information, or the family just ignoring him and having that be the joke, they add on top of it with Bart commenting on it (“Dad, remember those self-hypnosis courses we took to help us ignore Grampa? Maybe we should be listening to him now.”) And of course we get Homer giddily saying he’s a chicken and Marge being completely exhausted by it.
• “And by the sacred parchment, I swear that if I reveal the secrets of the Stonecutters, may my stomach become bloated and my head be plucked of all but three hairs.” “I think he should have to take a different oath!”
• I wonder how extensive the Stonecutter secret tunnel is. It’s not like it only leads directly to the power plant, it’s got to be a whole series of routes to different locations around Springfield. I also love how it was included in The Simpsons: Hit & Run video game.
• I saw this episode a lot in syndication, so I always forget about the cut scene of the Stonecutter’s version of what happened at the Declaration of Independence. The idea of a secret society’s bastardized history is funny, but I can’t say that I missed seeing it from all those reruns.
• The Stonecutters song is just wonderful, especially having heard it and sung it for years at the Stonecutters LA live trivia events.
• Similar to the last episode with Homer damaging the plane not being purposeful, I love that Homer using the sacred parchment as a bib was originally a precautionary measure of not wanting to make a slob out of himself and disrespect his fellow members. Of course, he’s an oblivious moron, but it’s funnier if his intentions are good and he acts dumbly because of it, not just him being a selfish, destructive dick.
• I love the start of act three where Homer, in full Chosen One garb, walks to the stage absolutely giddy, giggling to himself. All he wanted this episode was to feel a sense of belonging, and now he’s gotten more than he ever could have imagined.
• It’s a little unclear why the other Stonecutters treat Homer with such absolute reverence, letting him win at cards and bowing before his presence, even outside of the Great Hall. The whole point of the Stonecutters is to just be a rowdy, boorish men’s club, a place to get drunk and play ping pong. All the mysticism and prophecy stuff is just nonsense set dressing. Now all these guys have to cater to Homer’s every whim, which doesn’t make it seem very fun. But it’s fine as a stepping stone to Homer making them actually do good and charitable things for the community, which they get really pissed about, which makes for a great third act conflict.
• “He’s gone mad with power. Like that Albert Schweitzer guy.” I never understood this joke. Finally, based on the footnotes on the Simpsons Archive capsule, I think it’s that Moe actually meant to say Adolf Hitler? That definitely seems to make sense. But when I watched it, it just made me think, who’s Albert Schweitzer?
• This ending is another sneak attack sentimental ending. Homer realizing his sense of belonging in the family Simpson is genuinely sweet, and again, it’s fucking funny at the same time, with Marge’s talk about two special rings, prompting Bart and Lisa to loudly blow on their cereal box whistle rings.
• Simpsons Archive retro review: “This is the first time I’ve ever been disappointed by a episode with ‘Homer’ in its title. First, the plot was simply too UNbelievable. Second, many of its gags just didn’t work: They were either predictable, stale, cheesy, or just plain embarrassing. Grade: C.”

Original airdate: November 29, 2020

The premise: Superintendent Chalmers is scheduled to speak at an administrator’s conference in Cincinnati and is dispirited when he ends up having to take Skinner with him. Their road trip proves to be calamitous, but the two end up growing fonder of each other along the way.

The reaction: One of my biggest wants over the past fifteen or so years for this show is for them to explore their enormous roster of secondary characters. I think we’ve had enough Homer and Lisa episodes for one lifetime, why not give us some variety and feature Ned Flanders, or Mayor Quimby, or in this case, Skinner and the Superintendent? Just like Comic Book Guy going to Comic-Con, a story with Skinner and Chalmers being stuck together feels like a promising idea, one I was genuinely curious as to how they would execute it. While it definitely felt novel to have an episode that barely featured the Simpsons at all, I was ultimately disappointed as to how bland and unambitious the episode ended up being. If you’ve seen any road trip comedy featuring two mismatched protagonists, you can basically predict the story beats here: the two bicker, meet up with odd characters and get into wacky shenanigans, one or two token acts bring them closer, a secret is revealed leading to a falling out, then a tearful reconciliation and everything is a-OK by the end. That’s not to say a traditional story can’t be engaging or fun to watch, but there’s not enough unique here that really kept my attention. Skinner resolves to have more backbone and be proactive in getting on Chalmers’ good side, and his kindness and quick thinking gets the two out of a few jams, which helps to make Chalmers grow more fond of him. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem like we learn a lot about these two during their trip. We see Chalmers freaking out about air travel, getting them kicked off the plane, but that never really develops into anything. Skinner finally standing up for himself to Chalmers was a little cathartic, but feels a little empty since there’s no real stakes for him in the episode. He tags along with Chalmers not for a promotion or a pay raise, he just wants to be his friend, I guess. This show has actually had some success in the past few years in showcasing new and different shades of our familiar characters (Mr. Largo and his partner’s domestic life, Krusty’s dream of filming an “unfilmable” adaptation of a sci-fi story), it’s just a bummer that this episode entirely focused on the secondary cast feels so rote and formulaic. 

Three items of note:
– In an episode where the Simpsons barely appear, it was interesting seeing how the rest of the cast were given some rare token roles. Dan Castellaneta plays the Missouri sheriff, though he typically plays a lot of non-Homer roles per episode. Yeardley Smith gets a lot of lines as one of the improv Shakespeare performers Skinner and Chalmers pick up. And, something I didn’t notice before the credits revealed it, Julie Kavner performed the turkey on the airplane that freaks Chalmers out, and pretty well, I might add. She also gets a decent sized bit as Marge in the tag of the episode, so don’t worry, all of our regular performers definitely earned their large paychecks for this episode.
– Attached to the episode description I read somewhere, it mentioned that there would be a steamed hams reference, which instantly made me cringe. I feel like the genesis of this episode was inspired by the explosion of the Steamed Hams meme, so I was preparing for the worst, most on-the-nose callback ever. However, the reference ended up simply being a Steamed Hams restaurant they drive by, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it background sign. I was pleasantly surprised by the restraint.
– If it’s one thing this show is unable to do anymore, it’s balancing genuine sentimentality with a snarky twist, something that really made this series shine in its heyday. Now, happy endings are played 100% straight, and even if they’re somewhat earned, they feel like they belong in a completely different show. Here, Skinner races back to Cincinnati to get Chalmers his cue cards for his speech while Chalmers riffs on stage about how lame Skinner is, before slowly realizing he actually cares for him (“God help me, I respect Seymour Skinner! In fact, I like him!”) The two have a tearful hug and Chalmers gives his speech uninterrupted. It literally feels like something out of a bad movie, with no attempt at adding anything new on top of it. Maybe Chalmers’ speech goes terribly? The two get kicked out? Some other crazy thing happens? You can still have your sweet moment and have it land meaningfully, but there’s got to be more to it.

1. Bart of Darkness

• Through multiple heat waves across the series, I like that Bart takes after his father in just lying around in his skivvies, Marge tries to remain respectable with her normal dress, while Lisa has changed to her pink one piece bathing suit.
• The scene where Bart and Lisa confront Homer about getting a pool is one of those great scenes that just has joke after joke after joke. Homer turning sideways off the couch to see the TV behind Lisa, Bart unplugging the set, Homer replying cheerfully after his obstinate display (“Yes, Lisa?”), then Lisa’s very eloquently prepared speech, followed by incessant hammering of “Can we have a pool, Dad?” with Bart. I also love that Lisa holds her hand up to signal Bart to stop the repetitive chant, so he gets to the next “Can we” before stopping. And then Homer’s diplomatic, “Let us celebrate our new arrangement with the adding of chocolate to milk.”
• “Awww, I’m going to miss the whole summer.” “Don’t worry, boy. When you get a job like me, you’ll miss every summer.” Last time I watched this episode I was gearing up for another year of school. Watching this again after many years in the workforce, this hits harder.
• The Busby Berkley-style pool performance is great, almost like the summertime version of “Bart Gets an F” where Bart is forced to watch an incredibly fun day out that he can’t participate in. I don’t quite know why, but I always laugh at Homer’s tube just floating into the human circle. He’s probably really loaded and not sure what these kids are doing, but he’s having a great time drinking Duff in his undies, so he doesn’t care.
• This episode has the longest Itchy & Scratchy up to this point, which in later seasons would be a bad sign, but this one is great, I love the slow build where you’re not quite sure how Scratchy is going to get butchered, and the sound design of the future Itchy heads pulsing is pretty wonderful and gross.
• I love all the glimpses of older Krusty shows, where despite being a low-rent kiddie clown, he’s done several different adult formats over his career for no discernible reason.
• The lighting in Bart’s darkened room is just fantastic, it looks beautiful and further emphasizes his isolation. Also, when his shirt is completely in shadow, it almost looks light blue, which is almost feels like a weird Easter egg to early merchandise that inexplicably had him wearing a blue shirt instead of orange. Also, this face of him silently calling Lisa on her bullshit is great.
  
• Is spying on people in the nude with a bucket of popcorn the grossest Chief Wiggum moment? Last season he entertained a brothel, but those are professional sex workers, not regular civilians getting peeped on by the authorities.
• A special shout-out to Nancy Cartwright’s demented performance as Bart goes more and more stir-crazy. Even beyond his more animated lines, I love how he’s completely uneven through the whole second act and most of the third.
• “He’s going to kill Rod and Todd too? That’s horrible! …in principle.”
• I like how dramatic the ending feels. Of course Ned isn’t a killer, but the combination of the great staging, the music, and Bart and Lisa’s childlike naïveté, it definitely feels a little intense. I also like that despite the joke being that it’s a big cheat that Ned was just burying Maude’s plants, none of his language feels purposefully misleading, like him saying Maude was with God being revealed that she was at Bible Camp (“I was learning how to be more judgmental.”)
• Martin singing “Summer Wind” in his ravaged backyard all alone might be my favorite Martin moment, and maybe in my top 10 endings in the whole series. There was just enough set-up to his final scene that made it seem worth it, also this being a whole episode about summer, it feels really appropriate. I only wish they had him sing through the credits, since Russi Taylor is such a great performer, but I like the instrumental version just the same.
  
• Simpsons Archive retro review: “In many ways, ‘Bart of Darkness’ was a typical Season Fiver: it had the ‘Simpsons get a wacky object plot’ (already used twice before, with a trampoline and an elephant), and a long movie reference that substituted for a plot (‘Rear Window,’ as opposed to ‘Cape Fear,’ ‘Thelma and Louise,’ ad nauseum). The Simpsons has never been a formula show, but last season (and this episode) came dangerously close.”

2. Lisa’s Rival

• “Lisa, stop blowing my sex! I mean, stop blowing your sax, your sax!” I love that Marge admits she “sacrificed a very expensive camera just to get some quiet time.” It’s a quick line, but it makes the opening feel more connected and coherent. Homer is an absolute dummy who instantly breaks the camera by hammering it with a power drill, which is funny in a base, simplistic way, but revealing it was a calculated move by a knowing Marge to keep him out of her hair for a while makes it even funnier.
• It’s great that Lisa is very quickly threatened by Allison usurping her turf, and despite how incredibly open and nice Allison is to her, she’s doing all she can to bite her tongue and grin and bear it. Her begrudging “Me too…” after Allison says they’re going to be best friends is fantastic, as is her lifeless compliment, “You’re a wonderful person” after she later “decides” there’s no shame in being second best and to try and be nice to Allison.
• The Homer sugar B-plot is definitely the craziest Homer scheme yet, and it makes sense that it was written by Mike Scully, whose tenure on the show would turn Homer into Captain Wacky. It feels a little too silly at times, but the fact that it’s just the subplot definitely helps, and there are definitely great moments to be had in it (the proper English gentleman stealing sugar, the two beekeepers).
• There’s a great moment when Lisa is confronting her mother about why she hasn’t been moved up a grade, where she says, “Maybe you could have been nicer to Principal Skinner, if you know what I mean.” She certainly isn’t implying what my impure mind is thinking, but I like that the adult Marge’s knee jerk reaction is, “Lisa!!” Pause, and then a flat, reaffirming “I am nice.” I love that bit.
• I’m not sure why Skinner is at the band tryouts, but he certainly looks incredibly bored being there.
• Bart’s extended laugh into his tape recorder always makes me laugh. It’s infectious, I guess.
• Ah, the Milhouse Fugitive moment. It’s an absurd moment that is mostly just recreating a movie scene, something I usually bitch about in newer episodes, but the fact that there’s actually set-up to it in Bart selling himself to Lisa on his manipulation skills (“Remember how I got Milhouse’s picture on America’s Most Wanted?”) and the ridiculousness of seeing a dweeb like Milhouse staring down the barrel of not-Tommy Lee Jones’ gun makes it even funnier.
• Homer’s ridiculous monologue about how his sugar business will enter him into high society (I think?) feels similar to his equally nonsensical movie-quote-rant in “Secrets to a Successful Marriage,” but this one is better only because it’s kind of related to what he’s doing, and it sports some great character animation, I think by David Silverman, instead of “Secrets” where he was mostly stationary.
  
• I love that the gag of Uter having eaten his chocolate diorama could have easily just been the only joke, but his anguished, “I begged you to look at mine first! I begged you!” just adds to it, like he knew he couldn’t help himself and tried his best to avoid the inevitable outcome. Fantastic.
• In the end, as Lisa gets more and more frazzled by her conscious, Skinner’s continued dressing down of Allison in the background is great, as he loses track of his point and starts getting a little too introspective (“Young lady, cow hearts belong in a butcher’s window, not the classroom. Well, maybe in an older students’ biology classroom, but that’s none of my business. Elementary school is where I wound up, and it’s too late to do anything about that!”
• Simpsons Archive retro review: “Not a great episode by any stretch of the imagination, it was more a mishmosh of a lot of subplots, some funnier than others, others overplayed. You could tell it was the last episode of the season, and the writers threw in everything that couldn’t make it into its own episode.”

3. Another Simpsons Clip Show

• This is definitely a sharp decline from “So It’s Come to This” in regards to clip shows, but honestly, the first five minutes are pretty serviceable. I like the idea of a creative experiment of trying to concoct a whole new episode using as many clips as possible. Marge recalling Homer on the lawn in the kiddie pool, the Itchy & Scratchy rerun, Bart talking about “Fluffy Bunny’s Guide to You-Know-What,” they all felt like semi-organic callbacks. But once Marge starts recapping “Life in the Fast Lane,” the episode tanks.
• “Mom, romance is dead. It was acquired in a hostile takeover by Hallmark and Disney, homogenized, and sold off piece by piece.” I’ll once again remind readers that this episode is available to watch on Disney+.
• I’m sure I talked about this last time (but it’s a clip show, how much new stuff is there to talk about?), but it really feels bizarre that Marge and Homer talk about their almost affairs in front of their children as a means of teaching them about true love. I wonder to what extent the writers were aware of how weird this is, although considering Homer’s introduction to his story, I guess they were (“As long as we’re traumatizing the kids, I have a scandalous story of my own…”)
• It’s also strange when Homer’s recollected stories contain scenes that he wasn’t actually present for, like Mr. Burns releasing the flying monkeys in “The Last Temptation of Homer,”) and the beginning of the final flashback to “The Way We Was,” when Homer presumably narrates to the kids how Artie Ziff attempted to get extra handsy with their mother after prom.
• Simpsons Archive retro review: “This is ridiculous. Shape up or you risk losing even your loyalest of fans. At least make it look like you are trying and let the show die gracefully. That is, unless Bart’s comment about the Cosby show was right and you do plan to ‘run the show into the ground.'”

4. Itchy & Scratchy Land

• Krusty hawking Itchy & Scratchy Land once again brings up the oscillating power dynamic between him and Roger Meyers, Jr? It wouldn’t be until much, much later that we would see Krustyland (way later, after it was featured in the ride, I believe.) It was also featured in a short-run of Simpsons comics in the early 90s, where the gag was that it was built on the cheap and was a rickety nightmare. Meanwhile, Itchy & Scratchy Land is pretty well put together, a gigantic park with a huge nightlife/dining extension, all put atop an exclusive island with the titular cat and mouse’s faces carved into it. How much did this thing cost, billions?
• Great animation of Bart and Lisa running into the kitchen as Bart screeches to a stop. It’s framed a little low like it’s more from their POV, which is a nice little touch. Also, the drawing of their aghast faces when Marge tells them of her planned vacation is hilarious.
  
• “Dead serious about going to Itchy & Scratchy Land” is yet another shitposters dream. Hundreds of great memes have come from it.
• My only complaint this episode is that we never got to see what exactly recipe-related bumper cars are.
• Every single time I park at Disneyland, my first thought is always, “Remember, we’re in the Itchy lot.”
• I’m a big theme park nerd, so I love all the little touches in this episode. One of my favorites is the parade, where they remix the I&S theme to sort of sound like the Electrical Parade music. Also the underground tunnels that Bart and Homer are taken through are inspired by the utilidor system that runs underneath the Magic Kingdom in Orlando.
• Boy, good thing the Simpsons were those exact heights. I feel bad for whoever’s in the next log. I also love how the guests are expected to climb out of the way of the giant buzz saw and fall onto the mattresses below.
  
• The John Travolta bartender joke is pretty funny in hindsight as this episode aired less than two weeks before Pulp Fiction released in theaters, which completely revitalized Travolta’s career.
• The gift shops in the Springfield section of Universal Studios have plenty of vanity plates, and they’re always out of BORT ones, which I appreciate.
• I’d make another snide “THIS IS ON DISNEY+” comment in regards to Roger Meyers, Sr’s controversial “Nazi Supermen Are Our Superiors,” but I just did that with the last episode. The “Scratchtasia” and “Pinnitchio” segments are brilliant, of course.
• The “With a dry, cool wit like that, I could be an action hero” joke feels so unique, like I can’t think of a gag quite like it, where not only does Bart ignore Homer’s theft of his joke, but does so with a canned line talking about how great their vacation was in an attempt to just keep the story going. I love it.
• Like John Travolta, Euro Itchy & Scratchy Land is another antiquated reference. Disneyland Paris (formerly Euro Disneyland) was a financial failure in its first few years, but soon after became pretty successful.
• I love the meta ending with Bart explaining how violence is funny if it’s happening to someone else, catching even Marge in a giggle before she snaps back and punishes Lisa. Also, this episode has my favorite little ending motif over the executive producer credits. They’ve used it a handful of times, but something about it feels very satisfying to me.
• Simpsons Archive retro review: “This makes my Top 5 worst list of all time, easily. The racing form in the 1st 60 seconds of the show was the only thing that made me laugh out loud. After that, it was nothing but about 10 jillion stupid ‘Jurassic Park’ jokes. Killer robots? Puh-LEEZE.”

5. Sideshow Bob Roberts

• Springfield’s very own answer to Rush Limbaugh, Birch Barlow’s schtick in this episode feels so absolutely tame compared to the alt-right reactionary industry that exists today. Even modern Rush Limbaugh would eat this doughboy alive. As scathingly as this episode paints Barlow and Republicans, we also get some great commentary from the fence-sitting Lenny and Carl (“That Barlow’s a right-wing crackpot. He said Ted Kennedy lacked integrity! Can you believe that?” “I consider myself politically correct, and his views make me… uncomfortable.”)
• I’ve said a bunch of times at this point certain quotes and scenes I can’t believe they were able to get away with, but how in the hell were they able to show Quimby watering his pot plant?
• It’s odd that in Lisa’s helpful recap of Sideshow Bob, she specifically says Bart exposed Bob for framing Krusty in 1990. Four years later, everyone’s the same age. Why mention the year at all?
• I love that Bob puts his years as a buffoonish sidekick to use in showing up Quimby at the rally event at the school. He’s a clown whether he likes it or not, and he’s used his athletic prowess a couple times over the series for his own benefit.
• “Uncle Mayor was just saying that us kids are the most important natural resource we have!”  “More important than coal?!” Lisa manipulating the reporters by acting like a photo-friendly precocious kid is a great bit, and also one that would never work in the show today. Nowadays at Town Hall meetings, Lisa is practically a regular presenter regarding the town budget and other matters an eight-year-old would logically be privy to.
• Homer getting rejected by Archie and the gang is such a bizarre joke, which is only made stranger when we later see him angrily reading Archie Comics (“Stuck-up Riverdale punks. Think they’re too good for me!”) So are the comics based on the adventures of actual real-life, flesh-colored teenagers who exist in the Simpsons world? Just one of those things you shouldn’t worry about too much.
• Pamela Hayden’s “What’s happening?!” as a mummified Milhouse careens downhill is so damn funny. The absolute confusion and terror in his voice is great.
• The act two ending has the best Bob laugh of the entire series. It just keeps building and building. I just can’t imagine anyone but Kelsey Grammar doing his voice, who else could provide such a crazed, maniacal laugh like he can?
  
• I like Bob’s petty act of revenge of sending Bart back to kindergarten, which of course backfires as Bart loves it. Also, that’s one damn accurate Fred Flintstone voice on the Flintstone phone (I think it’s Hank Azaria?)
• “I can’t believe a convicted felon would get so many votes and another convicted felon would get so few.”
• The quick callback to the bats in the library is fantastic. It’s a good gag on its own, but as a reference of one of the first jokes in the episode, it’s even funnier that it cuts away so quickly, since they’re relying on you remembering the joke from the beginning.
• Homer and Marge fending off construction workers aiming to demolish their house to make room for an expressway must be an intentional Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy reference, right?
• “You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth! No truth-handler, you! Bah! I deride your truth-handling abilities!” Again, Kelsey Grammer just nails it.
• “Your guilty conscience may force you to vote Democratic, but deep down inside, you secretly long for a coldhearted Republican to lower taxes, brutalize criminals, and rule you like a king.” More political commentary that feels even more potent in 2020 than when it was written.
• Simpsons Archive retro review: “The really sad thing is that the episode had no humor value, and was a blatant attack on political views…in a cartoon! Welcome to sleazy politics in the nineties.”
  

6. Treehouse of Horror V

• Unlike Paint Your Wagon, 200 Miles to Oregon is not a real film. This is also the first instance of live action used on the show, right? There’s only two times they actually shot live footage in the first 10 seasons, and they were both in Halloween shows: the ending of Homer³ and the Regis & Kathy Lee segment. Am I forgetting something?
• The intro to this special is pretty disturbing, with Moe’s eyes bugging open after being hung, and Skinner giving the thumbs up before getting decapitated. Good stuff.
• This is the first time I’m watching this having actually seen The Shining in its entirety, and once again, it’s a credit to how expertly they used to write these parodies that “The Shinning” plays great without having seen the source material, and it plays even better if you have.
• I love the idea that just by his own accord, Willie has designated a personal hour to himself to have dirty thoughts.
• Homer initially going crazy is a classic sequence in terms of his manic animation, but I also love his crazed pleading to Marge walking up the stairs.
  
• The ending of the first segment with the Tony Awards on TV playing “One” is a great gag by itself, but even better when it comes back around in the very ending.
• “I’m the first non-Brazilian person to travel backwards through time!” I don’t know if anyone knows the meaning behind this joke. The Simpsons Archive theorizes this might be referring to the work of author Carlos Castaneda, but I don’t know if that’s true. The commentary reveals the original line was “I’m the first non-fictional character,” which I think is much better. David X. Cohen says that they pitched on the joke for hours and the line might have just been a result of laughing at it because it made no sense and they were tired. I can see that. Also, regarding Mr. Peabody and Sherman’s appearance, it’s funny that we get two cameos in a row by other comic/cartoon characters with flesh-toned skin instead of yellow.
• “I’ve gone back to the time when dinosaurs weren’t just confined to zoos!”
• I love when the Simpson floor morphs into the screen with Ned on it, there’s a little music sting that sounds reminiscent of the Terminator score, since the floor morphing kind of feels like the liquid metal T-1000.
• I never noticed this before, but in the rich Simpsons alternate universe, the kitchen curtains have blue corn cobs on them, as opposed to the normal yellow ones.
• “Nightmare Cafeteria” has got to be the most genuinely disturbing segment in Treehouse of Horror history. The speed at which Skinner and the teachers are just a-OK with not only killing students, but serving and eating them for lunch (which they also laugh at!) is actually pretty chilling, leading up to the end where they’re all completely addicted and crave the succulent flesh of youth.
• Great performance by Harry Shearer as Skinner soothing Lisa’s worries about Uter, before he realizes he’s said too much (“You might even say we just ate Uter and he’s in our stomachs right now! Wait… scratch that one.”)
• Willie getting killed in all three segments is a solid running gag (“Ah, I’m bad at this.”) Good use of rule of threes, or a hat trick, as I learned from the Simpsons complete guide as a kid. You guys read that thing, right? It was like my Bible when I was younger. I could write a whole other blog about my absolutely meaningless, incredibly specific remembrances on that one book alone.
• The kids falling into the giant blender is pretty horrifying by itself, even before the grotesque look on their faces as they’re seconds from an instant, bloody death.
  
• I love the ending so much. The inside-out fog is bizarre enough before it leads into a song-and-dance number, because why not? And then Willie returns and he’s no worse for wear… except for the inside-part, I suppose.
• Simpsons Archive retro review: “I have to say this weekend’s Hallowe’en show was not funny but disturbing. Creepy, even. I suppose that’s the point, since it’s a Hallowe’en show and all, but the Sloppy Jimbo et al. scenes were all too realistic, if that can be said about a cartoon.”

Original airdate: November 22, 2020

The premise: Three tales of minor misfortune: Comic Book Guy fulfills his dream of coming to San Diego Comicalooza, but blows his chance to get a job at Marvel, Lisa’s newest crush ends up screwing her out of first chair saxophone, and Bart gets a voice acting gig, but is shocked to find out he’s voicing a princess character.

The reaction: This isn’t one of those my most dreaded anthology episodes, but merely three different stories that don’t intersect or mirror each other thematically in any meaningful way. It’s like someone took a bunch of undeveloped story scraps and crammed them into one episode. The title “Three Dreams Deferred” implies the episode involves three characters having their most desired dreams dashed, but that’s not really the case. Story one has Comic Book Guy get the cash he needs to finally go to San Diego Comic-Con… errr, I mean, Comicpalooza, but his actual  dream is getting the chance to work at Marvel. He believes if he asks the perfect question at a Hall H panel, he’ll get the job, but sadly, he loses the card he wrote it down on and ends up humiliating himself. This is definitely the most promising of the three stories; Comic Book Guy at Comic-Con feels like a no-brainer of an idea that you could tell a multitude of different stories out of, but what little we have here, having to share screen time with two other dull plot lines, it’s not enough to develop into anything interesting. Story two features Lisa crushing on a new boy who plays the saxophone, who later turns out to be a double crosser who sabotages her out of her first chair. Blake is a non-character, so his dramatic reveal as a backstabber (he literally takes out his bright blue contacts to show his evil red eyes) means nothing. But what was Lisa’s denied dream? I guess being first chair forever? Story three has Bart becoming friends with the man running the Android’s Dungeon in Comic Book Guy’s absence, a voice actor who invites Bart to the studio and ends up getting a part. Remember Bart’s series-long dream to do voice acting? It’s hard to get any investment of a goal we never knew a character had. Bart is teased when it’s revealed the character he voices is a princess, then Lisa gives him a pep talk that he should be proud for being woke, then he’s publicly vindicated when the princess character becomes a violent badass who gores people with her unicorn. Whatever. An episode with three independent stories might work if they were some significant connection between them, but this was just a bunch of fractured nonsense.

Three items of note:
– Blake is voiced by Broadway performer Ben Platt. This show has had many guest stars who voice new classmates of Bart and Lisa’s, and many of them sound pretty jarring since they’re basically doing their adult voices as children. Of all of the worst examples of this, Blake may be the worst of all. His voice is so deep, he’s a literal adult man that Lisa is just fawning over, and it’s kind of uncomfortable.
– Comic Book Guy spends two seconds lamenting that his beloved wife Kumiko won’t be able to go to Comicpalooza with him, as we see a letter saying she’s visiting her sick father. But of course she’s not in the episode. Just like Selma’s daughter Ling, the writers have shown they have absolutely no interest in further developing these seemingly “important” characters after they’ve been introduced. Why did they bother giving Comic Book Guy a wife and then proceed to do nothing with her? Her only other moment of note I can recall is in the “Sad Girl” episode where she finds Lisa’s discarded graphic novel and decides to publish it in her husband’s store. And regarding CBG going to a convention, there was an episode a few seasons back, “101 Mitigations” that ended with CBG taking Homer to Comic-Con. Like the actual Comic-Con. So he’s already been to the biggest convention ever, and just like this time, he didn’t take his beloved wife.
– Bart’s subplot gets so little screen  time that I don’t even feel like complaining about how little sense it makes. Bart gets the voice over job on the spot, and the cartoon instantly goes on the air? (they make a joke about it, but come on.) The opening credits show it’s a cast full of A-list actors, but a nobody child like Bart gets a solo billing card. Bart gets a check from Warner Bros. Animation, but why are they recording in Springfield? Who gives a shit, who gives a fuck.