Original airdate: October 11, 2020

The premise: Lisa stays home from school sick and tells some stories about famous artists: herself as Leonardo da Vinci, Bart as a generic French impressionist, and Marge and Homer as Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.

The reaction: Oh jeez, two of these in a row? Seriously, these fantasy episodes are so boring to watch, I barely have anything else to say about them. Treehouse of Horrors, at least in the classic era, felt like exceptions because the stories mostly took place in the “real world” of the show as horrific elements befell the characters. I asked last week, but seriously, does anybody like these episodes? Even looking at No Homers this morning, most of those diehard fans are giving it low scores. Hell, I don’t like it when any show does this fantasy episode shit. Futurama‘s “Naturama.” It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia‘s “The Gang Cracks the Liberty Bell.” I watch the show I’m watching because I like these characters in this setting, so when you change that, I don’t care as much. If they were to tell these stories about famous historical or fictional people, maybe it could be engaging, but that’s never the case. Act one has Lisa-nardo being very talented and sad. In act two, Bart leads an impressionist movement, and then the king likes his paintings. Act three has Homer/Diego and Marge/Frida more or less just straight retelling the story behind Rivera’s “Man at the Crossroads” commissioned mural at Rockefeller Plaza. Being an art major, this all should be appealing to me, but it just isn’t at all. It’s not taking these historical events and retelling them in unique or satirical ways, it just feels like an excuse to draw the characters in different costumes and give the other artists more work to do. Futurama‘s “The Duh-Vinci Code” featured a twist explaining da Vinci’s genius: he was actually a refugee from an alien world, but upon returning there, we see that he was actually one of the dumbest of his extremely advanced species. It was a unique episode, and also felt natural in-universe, as the premise is driven by Professor Farnsworth idolizing da Vinci as a great inventor. These episodes just suck. S’all I can say about it.

Two items of note:
– This episode features our next re-casted POC character: one line from Eric Lopez as the new Bumblebee Man. He doesn’t really sound much like Hank Azaria, but it really doesn’t matter. When was the last time Bumblebee Man had a line? On the Simpsons wiki, he’s made relatively sporadic appearances over the last decade, but I don’t know if they list appearances based on if the character actually speaks, or if they just make a silent cameo in a crowd or something. The only actually notable characters left to be dealt with are Apu, Dr. Hibbert, Lou the cop, and maybe Drederick Tatum, all of the others barely show up anymore and don’t really matter. Also, specifically about Bumblebee Man, why does he even still exist in 2020? The character was born out of one of the writers randomly coming upon a Mexican comedy show featuring a man in a red grasshopper suit, so they replicated it with Homer doing the same. Back in the early 90s, if you flipped your TV up to like channel 79, you could just watch Spanish television and be fascinated by “weird” shows like that. But in 2020, when nobody channel surfs and just watches streaming services, and with El Chapulín Colorado long removed from the air waves, what is Bumblebee Man supposed to represent on the show anymore?
– Marge/Frida mentions that a young man named Bernie Sanders has recently been born who will champion socialism, which is followed by a scene of baby Bernie vouching for free cootie shots on the playground, under the threat of his “Bernie Babies” bullies, who beat up another kid for no reason (“I disavow that, and welcome it!”) Now, a couple things with this. First, Diego Rivera’s Rockefeller Plaza commission was in the early 1930s, and Bernie Sanders was born in 1941, so the timeline doesn’t even come close to lining up. Second, this gag clearly feels like it was written a year ago when Bernie was the frontrunner leading up the primaries, so seeing this joke three weeks before the Trump/Biden election feels like another example of the show being woefully too late in making cultural references. And finally, it’s just a shitty gag. There’s plenty you can poke fun at Bernie about, but a Bernie Bros joke? Seriously? It also feels especially tone-deaf now to joke about someone demanding free healthcare when we’re still living in a pandemic with 200k Americans dead. But don’t worry, the majority of the show’s writers and producers have been working this cushy job for over a decade, and I’m sure they’ve never had any serious worries about their healthcare.

6. Itchy & Scratchy: The Movie

• “Star Trek XII: So Very Tired” was specifically mocking the seemingly endless string of Star Trek movies featuring the aging original cast (ironically, the last of these, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Colony, released in 1991, when this episode was being written), but watching it now, it reminds me of modern day reboots/reimaginings of movies and TV shows where they bring original cast members back to do the same schtick they did decades prior. I guess they’re a draw to get people to watch, but it really just makes me sad more than anything watching that kind of stuff. It’s a more minor example, but I had a similar reaction trying to watch the fifth season of Arrested Development. In addition to the show being total garbage, it felt so depressing seeing the cast look so incredibly old trying to recreate the chemistry they had fifteen years prior. Also, Arrested might rival The Simpsons in terms of the greatest drop in quality for a comedy from the start of its run to the end. Season 4 was mostly not great, but season 5 is a complete and utter shit show.
• “What if one of us has been good and one of us has been bad?” “Poison pizza.” “Oh no, I’m not making two stops!”
• The drawing of Homer wedged in the small classroom seat with a big dumb smile always makes me laugh.
  
• “Where did Bart stick the fireworks?” I kind of feel like this gag is too dark, but I’m still impressed they got away with it.
• Bang-Bang Bart. What a tragic vision of Bart’s future, especially by his own mother.
• I absolutely love how episodes can feature Homer as an authoritative parent, and others have him as a complete pushover, and both characterizations feel completely appropriate to the character. This episode perfectly illustrates his psyche: by default, he’s a lazy slob, but when pushed or motivated to do something, he’ll stick with it until the end, believing in his heart of hearts he’s doing the right thing.
• I just love the Itchy & Scratchy Movie billboard. I wish they would have recreated it in the Springfield section of the Universal Studios theme parks. They could position it in such a way on top of a building where the spurting “blood” could be collected and reused.
• Another great Homer drawing as the absolutely checked out father. I love that he mostly holds this pose for the entire scene as Marge is talking to him.
  
• “Do you want your son to become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, or a sleazy male stripper?” “Can’t he be both, like the late Earl Warren?” “Earl Warren wasn’t a stripper!” “Now who’s being naive?” One of those jokes I love but don’t really understand. Is there any actual explanation for this joke relating to Earl Warren, or is it just ridiculous for its own sake?
• I’ve mentioned it several times, but I’ll never get over that you can watch both “Steamboat Willie” and “Steamboat Itchy” on the same streaming service. Disney owning the show as it exists now I don’t really care about, but them having and controlling the library of older episodes? It kind of sucks, spiritually speaking.
• “We’ll be back with a real-life Itchy and Scratchy: a rabid mouse in Boston who attacked and killed a small cat.”
• I recall someone posting a comment a while back talking about how I complain about the show doing weird unrealistic stuff despite the classic era having plenty of crazy moments, using Maggie driving the car as an example of a joke I would balk at if it were done in the series now. I can’t speak to every moment like this, but besides the comedy being subjective (this scene is funny to me, unlike [insert dumbass joke from season 29 here]), I can say that the Maggie driving scene also works in acting as the final straw of Bart’s reckless and negligent ways. Homer has let increasingly rowdier behavior go unpunished: destroying Abe’s dentures, ripping up the carpet, and so forth. Everything ramps up to this really cartoony, but still potentially dangerous incident of Bart letting his baby sister get into danger, resulting in Homer finally laying down the ultimate punishment.
• Homer angrily shouting, “Don’t point that thing at me!” at Bart pulling his pants down demanding a spanking is such a great fucking line.
• I’d love to know which of the nine categories “The Itchy & Scratchy Movie” swept at the Academy Awards.
• I really love the ending. I for one find the futures where Bart actually gets his act together feel more believable and satisfying than the ones where he’s a total fuck-up. Seeing him bonding with his elderly dad finally getting to watch the movie he’d yearned for as a child is genuinely really sweet.
  

7. Marge Gets A Job

• “The Half-Assed Approach to Foundation Repair” might be Troy McClure’s only production that gives actual useful information, but I’d love to see the other two he cites: “Mothballing Your Battleship” and “Dig Your Own Grave and Save!”
• Homer dumbly asking, “Did you see the bubble?” after watching Surly Joe’s level slide to the ground and audibly break always makes me laugh.
• It’s simple, but I love the animation of Homer sliding down the couch and knocking the lamp over. It’s also great that Marge doesn’t even acknowledge the breaking lamp as she’s talking, this sort of slanty-shanty chaos having become normalized at this point.
  
• Smithers’ ode to Burns song is one of the many, many moments I was delighted to recognize upon finally watching Citizen Kane. It’s also a good illustration as to why this kind of reference works, and so many of the “parodies” this show has done in the last 10+ years doesn’t. The joke works even if you haven’t seen Kane, and it re-contextualizes the song from the original source material, with the misdirect of the song actually being about Burns, who is already a Charles Foster Kane figure himself. 
• The portrait of Burns behind Smithers in his office glaring down at him is great, but I also love in the reverse shot of Marge, we can see the picture of Burns meeting Elvis that Burns gifted to him when he left the plant in “Burns Verkaufen der Kraftwerk,” a pretty impressive callback.
• Bart’s daydream about the radioactive Curies is one of my favorite random cutaways. Despite it being a totally random joke, the likes of which would be picked up by Family Guy, pioneering a new comedic plague on our nation, I feel like it still feels true to what a boy like Bart would fantasize about learning that the Curies got radiation poisoning.
• I love the music over the pneumatic tube scene. It feels melodically similar to the music later used in “Last Exit to Springfield” when Burns and Smithers try to run the plant by themselves.
• “Think warm thoughts, boy, ‘cause this is mighty cold!” Not just any show can make a joke about an old man rectally probing his grandson.
• The staging of the start of this scene is really great, where as Marge keeps moving her head back and forth, we see Burns in the background get in closer and closer.
  
• I love the awful drawing of the portrait of Burns in the background. We see the normal-looking portrait in the following shot behind Smithers, but here, it’s like the background artist had to finish in thirty seconds and scribbled this masterpiece.
  
• Tom Jones really is a good sport of a guest star, getting repeatedly gassed, chained up and held at gunpoint, by Smithers of all people. I also love when the automatic door in Burns’ office closes, it conks him on the head on the way down.
• “I want you to show this woman the time of her life.” “Gotcha! Marge, we’re getting some drive-thru and we’re doing it twice!” I love that we cut to Marge’s smiling face as Homer says this. Despite their differences, Homer and Marge really are made for each other.

8. New Kid on the Block

• Upon hearing she’s moving, when Homer asks Mrs. Winfield, “Gonna run out the clock in Florida, eh?,” she replies with a quick, quieted, “Yes…”
• Captain McAllister’s joyous, crazed laugh after the dining woman quietly asks for more iced tea is so funny.
• “I actually had some doubts about moving to Springfield, especially after that TIME cover story, ‘America’s Worst City.’” “You can see our house in that photo!”
• Lots of great looping gifs to be had this episode.
  
• With Ruth only appearing two more times (the latter being in the awful “Strong Arms of the Ma,”) the Powers really are underutilized characters. I get they were voiced by guest stars, but Laura and Ruth could have been interesting recurring characters, with Ruth acting as a good foil for Marge, as we’d see in her re-appearance next season.
• Bart and Laura’s dream dance is really well animated.
  
• “Hey, can your grandfather do this?” Also, is that a picture of Bea Simmons on the wall?
  
• “Good luck in your trumped-up lawsuit, Dad.” “Thanks. That means a lot to me.”
• Barney gets in a pretty funny retort after Moe loudly wonders why he can’t find “Amanda Huggenkiss” (“Maybe your standards are too high!”)
• One last looping gif of a crazed Moe at the window (yes, I know what it looks like.) Every time the show does an episode featuring Moe as sad and sympathetic, I think back to this episode where he was ready and eager to slice open a young boy with a giant rusty knife. Although to be fair, he didn’t actually go through with it.
  
• I like that as writer Conan O’Brien points out the absurdity of the ending on the commentary, as Bart exposes Jimbo as a coward… by showing him get scared and plead for his life when an insane stranger bursts down the door with a knife and threatens to kill him. What a wuss.

9. Mr. Plow

• “Take it easy out there, folks, it’s snow picnic out there!” “I snow what you mean!” “You’re dead weight, Marty.” God, I love the Bill & Marty moments where one of them just cracks. Those two pretty much disappeared after their only major plot-relevant in-person appearance in “Bart Gets An Elephant,” but I think they’re great sleeper characters who were so fantastic when they’d pop up randomly for a slam-dunk joke every now and again.
• Homer’s deadpan read of “It’s a pornography store. I was buying pornography” is just the best.
• Crazy Vaclav and his cries to “put it in H!” spawned an endless parade of phenomenal shitposts. Doing this rewatch now is just further illuminating how rich this show is, in seeing how almost every single episode has at least one still frame or scene or quote that’s been spun off into literally hundreds of different memes over the last few years. This scene was also fodder for one of my favorite Dankmus remixes (all of them are great, if you’ve never listened to them).
• “Pure. West.” RIP.
  
• Another great callback: Homer’s plow is manufactured by Kumatsu Motors, the auto company that took over Powell Motors at the end of “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?”
• Homer envisions himself mowing down protesters at the behest of President George H.W. Bush, which is kind of funny given this episode aired two weeks after the 1992 election where Bush Sr. lost. He was still President at the time, but I imagine when they wrote this joke, they assumed he would probably win re-election.
• “It might be on a lousy channel, but the Simpsons are on TV!”
• “Well, John Q. Driveway has our number.” As a kid, I had the two Simpsons CDs that featured the music from the first nine seasons, and included was the Mr. Plow commercial and jingle, which included the “waiting game” scene as a little tag. I listened to those CDs endlessly as a kid, and for all the times I heard that track, I could never fucking understand what Homer was saying. I knew he was saying “driveway,” but my brain merged “John Q” as one word and never could figure out what it was. I certainly didn’t know the expression “John Q. Public,” so it was understandably lost on me.
• Bart getting pelted with snowballs is another effective use of parody. The over dramatic scene of him writhing in anguish is funny in and of itself, but when you later realize it’s directly referencing Sonny Corleone getting killed in The Godfather, it makes it even better. Reframing a violent shooting as kids throwing snowballs adds on another comedic layer. Over a decade later in season 16’s “All’s Fair in Oven War,” James Caan would appear as himself, and the ending featured him getting shot to death at a toll booth by Cletus and his kin, literally just recreating the Godfather scene with no subversion.
  
• The flashback of Barney’s first beer is really funny by itself, but it’s kind of sour when shown as the ironic example Homer uses to hold up their great friendship (“How could you, Barney? After all I’ve done for you!”) Considering we’re meant to sympathize with Homer’s business being in trouble, it feels wrong to start act three showing how he actively helped ruin Barney’s life. And then since we also saw Barney shoot out Homer’s tires and start a slander campaign against him, it makes both of them kind of unlikable, which I guess is the point since they’re friends who take a rivalry too far and have to make amends, but it all feels less impactful being isolated in the final act.
• I felt it back then, but I still feel “Mr. Plow” is one of the most overrated classic episodes. I follow a Simpsons Shitposting group on Facebook (the only reason I even still have a Facebook), and remember being annoyed that “Mr. Plow” was sweeping a Best of Season 4 poll. I think its biggest failing is I didn’t really care about Homer’s plow business. He liked the idea of having a big truck, and revelled in the fame his business brought, but none of that felt very meaningful. Even the most unrealistic of Homer-gets-a-job episodes, “Deep Space Homer,” has the emotional through-line of Homer wanting to be treated with respect, where here, Homer cares about being Mr. Plow just because that’s what the episode is about. It has a good amount of funny moments, of course, but so does every other season 4 episode. I dunno, maybe it’s just me.

10. Lisa’s First Word

• The cover of Fretful Mother magazine feels straight out of a Life in Hell strip.
  
• The punchline for the Bart swinging on the clothesline gag always sticks out to me, since it’s clear they just created it in post, using the same looped animation but darkening the frame to make it look like it’s night, despite the obvious blue sky and clouds.
• Nancy Cartwright does such a great job as baby Bart, infantilizing the voice down to an adorable level. I love his attempt to mimic Ed McMahon’s “Hi-yo!” while watching Johnny Carson.
• “There’s going to be twice as much love in this house as there is now!” “We’re going to start doing it in the morning?”
• One of Homer and Marge’s prospective homes is right next to the rendering plant. Is that near the pony farm according to the pet shop owner in “Lisa’s Pony”?
• “Don’t forget to check out the galley! That’s real shag carpeting!”
  
• It’s interesting tracking Abe Simpson through the three years of flashback episodes. In “The Way We Was,” he was incredibly harsh and blunt with Homer. In “I Married Marge,” he acted similarly but with slightly less vigor, and now we see he’s definitely much softer, which I chalk up to good ol’ senility. Homer shoving him into the retirement home would continue to sand down his edges, surely.
• 80s Sideshow Bob with teal hair must be a coloring mistake, I never understood what that was about.
• The clown bed is a legendary moment, of course, but it never dawned on me just how preposterous it is that we’re to believe Homer actually built this seemingly well made piece of furniture.
  
• Following up Cartwright into the final act, Yeardley Smith as newborn Lisa is even cuter, with her little coos and giggles. Right after Bart triumphantly announces, “You can talk!,” she makes a little babbling noise right before we cut to the next scene, and it’s so goddamn fucking precious.
• It’s a pretty good gag to cast a legendary actress to be the “voice” of Maggie for just a single word of dialogue. It reminds me of the first season of South Park when they had George Clooney “guest star” as Stan’s dog and just had him bark and growl for a bit. I’m sure there was a big marketing push focused on Elizabeth Taylor and the big question: what will Maggie’s first word be? It could be anything! TUNE IN AND FIND OUT!! As someone who works in promo marketing, this feels really funny to me, like you make a big deal out of it, and then when it turns out to be “Daddy” and people feel tricked, it’s like, what the fuck did you think a baby’s first word would be? And what word could it have been to make you feel satisfied?

11. Homer’s Triple Bypass

• “COPS in Springfield” features the police tracking down cattle thief Snake at 742 Evergreen Terrace. Had that not been established as the Simpsons’ address at this point, or was this a goof?
• The music sting over Homer’s heart pangs leading up to his attack is so great. Combined with Homer’s painful groans, it really feels dramatic and really sets the stage for the inevitable climax.
• Homer’s heart attack is one of the more famous pieces of animation in the whole show, thanks to David Silverman’s great Homer poses as Burns chews him out. How can someone make cardiac arrest look so funny? I also love right before his heart gives out, the picture-in-picture flashes the different playing card suits. I assume that idea was also Silverman’s. It’s one of those things I don’t really know why it feels so great, but it just does.
  
• The waiting room of the hospital is another quick scene featuring a collection of familiar faces, illustrating how filled out the world of this series has gotten, and they’re all “amusing” injuries: Jasper’s beard caught up in a bike chain, Akira’s hand fractured against a piece of wood, and of course, Chief Wiggum’s locked jaw, complete with a reprise of the “COPS” music.
• “Woo-hoo! Look at that blubber fly!”
  
• “Don’t worry, Marge. America’s healthcare system is second only to Japan, Canada, Sweden, Great Britain… well, all of Europe. But you can thank your lucky stars that we don’t live in Paraguay!” Nearly thirty years later and this is still depressingly accurate.
• The entire scene at the insurance office is so damn funny, with Homer barely keeping his “scheme” together, breaking even before he gets the chance to sign, and when he finally does, his heart gives out once again. I love the camera turn from him signing back to the two-shot, that extra bit of motion really enhances the desperation of Homer and the insurance agent tugging the form back and forth.
• I can’t say I’m too familiar with the medical business, but how is Dr. Nick allowed to operate in Springfield General Hospital? Outside of him being grossly incompetent and a legal liability, he’s not a resident doctor. I think hospitals allow outside doctors to use their facilities, but only if it’s like a certain specialty or a certain type of procedure, I think. How does Dr. Nick keep his operation costs so low? Is he juiced in somehow? Also, have Dr. Nick and Dr. Hibbert ever had a scene together? I can’t recall at the top of my head, but I feel like I must be forgetting something. I imagine Hibbert would be low-key pissed by him being allowed to step foot in his hospital.
• I love the pantomime action by Krusty explaining why he has to do community service (“Glug glug, vroom vroom, thump thump!”) It feels like a more elaborate version of similar acting he did off-handedly talking about the exploits of a previous Li’l Miss Springfield winner in “Lisa the Beauty Queen.” Also, ”This ain’t makeup!!” is easily in the top three of best Krusty lines.
  
• The designs of the guests on the “People Who Look Like Things” segment are all fantastic. I also love the pumpkin head guy’s disgruntled face after the host jokes about him.
• There’s a lot of touching moments by the end of this episode, but Homer’s goodbyes to Bart and Lisa is my favorite. It doubles up as both a sweet Homer moment with the kids, and a sweet Bart-Lisa moment, as the two are basically making each other feel better through Homer’s words, reassuring that they’ll be there for each other in case anything goes wrong.

Original airdate: October 4, 2020

The premise: Homer and Marge’s squabbling at a museum prompts a curator to regale them with the tale of the Roman Obeseus, an ambitious slave who rose to greater and greater stations in life at the urgings of his power hungry wife.

The reaction: The non-Treehouse of Horror trilogy episodes are always pretty dull to me, even the earliest examples like “Bibles Stories” and “Tall Tales.” I just don’t really care that much about seeing these characters in fantasy scenarios, and it especially grows tiresome when it’s the length of the entire episode. I felt the same way here as I did with the season premiere a few years back “The Serfsons,” where despite the extra amount of work by the animation team to create a new reality for one episode, I’m just left wondering what I’m supposed to get out of it. Who cares about Homer and Marge’s Roman analogues? The episode certainly didn’t make me care. The fantasy is prompted by Marge complaining about Homer not going to a training seminar at work, rightfully upset that he’s been stuck in the same job for a decade and wishing he had greater ambition to better financially care for his family. An eavesdropping museum curator relates their argument to the famous Roman Obeseus (Homer), a slave-turned-gladiator who ends up impregnating, later marrying his master’s daughter Marjora (Marge). Through the episode, Marge acts as the worm in Homer’s ear, getting him to expand his business, become senator by killing one to earn himself a seat, and later taking it upon herself to murder the emperor, only to place their son Bartigula (Bart) in his place after Homer balks at her power-hungry ways. Marge is basically playing the Lady MacBeth role, a woman using her husband to commit awful deeds to advance herself, a dynamic we’ve already seen over a decade ago in season 20’s “Four Great Women and a Manicure” where Marge urged Homer to kill all the other actors so he could take the lead in a “MacBeth” play. The twist in that segment was sort of fresh, but here it’s just played straight in a new setting, and it’s just boring, as we see Homer and Marge rise to a new status, Marge gets greedy, and then they rise again, repeat. Also, this is supposed to be a story reflecting modern day Homer and Marge’s disagreement, so Marge wishing Homer take his job more seriously for the sake of the family’s financial security is mirrored with Marjora manipulating and murdering people to seek the highest position of power in the country. In the end, the Simpson family squabble about the moral of the story, leaving the curator to lament with the final line, “When will humanity ever learn to stop letting stupid people into museums?” But honestly, what’s the point of these episodes? Do people really like them? They feel like such pointless exercises, especially in this case given they’re redoing a story they already did over ten years ago, and in a third of the time.

Three items of note:
– One of Obeseus’ slaves, Carl has a couple lines in the third act, but he’s performed by Hank Azaria. This episode is actually right before “Undercover Burns” in production order, so maybe that’s when they made the official change, and I guess they didn’t feel like paying Alex Désert to loop a few lines.
– When Obeseus’ family moves to the richer side of Rome, we are treated to a musical montage set to the theme from The Jeffersons sung in Latin, complete with on-screen lyrics. It took me a couple lines to even get what they were going for. The Jeffersons has been off the air for 35 years now, and we’re doing a reference to it now? But I feel like I always make the same point when talking about the show’s approach to pop culture parodies. I complain if the reference is too dated and irrelevant, but in the case of something like The Avengers or Succession, it’s still coming too late after the Internet or other media content with quicker production cycles have gotten in all of their jokes on the subject. But regardless of all of that, these jokes would still work if they were funny, and the majority of the time, they’re not. Of course, this is all subjective, but what’s the big joke here? That they rewrote the lyrics to the song in Latin? Are there other jokes in there that I’d have to translate the words to find out? Who cares?
– Bartigula’s ruthless reign as emperor contains obvious allegories to Donald Trump’s presidency, with him stoking xenophobia, putting up a wall, refusing to cede power and some pretty obvious on-the-nose dialogue (“He’s just an entitled little psycho! Society must come to its sense and overthrow this madman!”) I mean, it’s not like Trump is the first leader in history to do these sorts of things, to be fair, but it’s all very clear what they’re doing. It reminded me of those short digital Trump shorts they’ve been putting out over the last three years or so. I’ve only seen two of them, and they are maybe the worst content this show’s ever produced. In addition to being poorly animated, as I assume most if not all of their production is done stateside, it’s on the level of Saturday Night Live-grade putrid neoliberal “satire” where it’s all just the most simplistic, softball jabs at Trump that every other late night show or other venues have been beating to death. I’m sure there’ll be some kind of election-related cold open before whatever episode airs November 1st, and I can’t wait to cringe myself out of existence watching it.

1. Kamp Krusty

• Bart’s locker combination 36-24-36 is yet another entry on the long, long list of jokes that flew by me as a kid. Also, the design of his filthy locker is just wonderful. I feel like this is an unintentional callback, but you can see his science experiment potato from “Dead Putting Society” in there.
  
• “Here are your final report cards. I have nothing left to say to any of you, so if nobody minds, let’s just quietly run out the clock.”
• My first go-around writing this blog was right when I finished college, where up to that point, the concept of summer vacation as a student was still fresh in my head. Now, almost ten years later, as the idea of summer break becomes even more of a distant and wistful memory, the big countdown to the final bell letting school out feels so pure, truly capturing the absolute joy of those wonderful three months every year where you could just do absolutely fuck all as a kid.
• Krusty slapping his cheek in astonishment at the fat kid’s magic transformation always makes me laugh. The single cheek slap has been used to hysterical effect two other times I can recall, once in a Troy McClure infomercial, and the other from Patty & Selma (“Five cents off wax paper.”)
• We set up the “conflict” that Bart’s bad grades might keep him from Kamp Krusty, but I love that not only is that concern eliminated by Homer immediately by the end of act one, but we get it through not one, but two solid jokes (“Now Bart, we made this deal because I thought it would help you get good grades. And you didn’t. But why should you pay for my mistake?” “You mean I can go?” “Yeah. I didn’t want you hangin’ around all summer anyway.”) These days, even dialogue that moves the story along is filled with great, memorable lines.
• “Image Enhancement Camp” (“Spare me your euphemisms! It’s fat camp for Daddy’s chubby little secret!”)
• “Gentlemen, to evil.”
  
• “I feel like I’m gonna die, Bart.” “We’re all gonna die, Lis.” “I meant soon.” “So did I.” I love this exchange so much, and it’s a great example of dialogue I feel wouldn’t really fly with live-action sitcom kids.
• Krusty enjoying his strawberries at Wimbledon is another heavily memed frame in the shitposting community. It’s especially great when paired with Darryl Strawberry.
  
• “We want Krunchy! We want Krunchy!”
• It’s great that they gave Krusty three identifying marks on his body for the purposes of the ending, but outside of “Bart the Fink,” have they ever been mentioned ever again? Certainly not in the other instances we see Krusty shirtless. But whatever.
• Another great shot from the writers at FOX’s excessive merchandising of the show (“How could you, Krusty? I’d never lend my name to an inferior product.”)

2. A Streetcar Named Marge

• I love the dissonance of the beauty pageant contestants earnestly singing “Seventeen.” It actually bookends really nicely with the final song of the play, “You Can Always Depend on the Kindness of Strangers,” another upbeat number that humorously clashes with its context.
• One of the many times we see Bart and Lisa on the couch in the opening, we see them lying down kicking their legs back and forth against each other. This is another one of those incredibly sweet, human acting touches. They could have just been sitting there normally, but someone decided to have them doing this, and considering they’re little kids who’ve been watching a beauty pageant for a few hours, it makes perfect sense they’d be a little restless on the couch.
  
• Llewellyn Sinclair is my favorite Jon Lovitz performance in the series, hands down. His bravado, his heightened sense of passion and importance laid upon this community play of a ridiculous musical performed by complete amateurs, Sinclair gives his absolute all, as does Lovitz to this boisterous and forceful character. Almost all of his lines are so memorable (“Mrs. Simpson, if you set out to push the bile to the tip of my throat, mission accomplished!”) And that wardrobe!
  
• It’s never addressed, but it’s a great touch that we see several bullet wounds in Apu’s chest when he’s shirtless.
• The scene of Homer asking Marge in bed about coming to the play is the quintessential example of writing Homer callously insensitive, but still genuine. He’s pretty rude to Marge through the whole episode, which of course is the point, but his actions are always born out of either obliviousness or stupidity (or oftentimes both). He openly admits he’s never had an interest in any of Marge’s “kooky projects” (“The painting class, the first aid course, the whole Lamaze thing…”), but when pressed as to why he never told her that, he earnestly replies, “You know I’d never say anything to hurt your feelings.” It’s a tremendous line, but it also perfectly exemplifies Homer: he doesn’t know what he’s saying and doing is hurtful, and it’s incredibly clear to the audience that we know that. Later characterizations of Homer would depict him being too self-aware of the irritation or hurt his actions cause his wife and kids, despite continuing to do them anyway, and the tone would be much more sour and harder to swallow.
• Ayn Rand’s School for Tots is a great set piece (the sign “Helping is Futile” is a particularly brilliant touch.) Watching Maggie’s great pacifier liberation made me think back to the “Longest Daycare” short that took place in the same location, and to a lesser extent, the more recent “Playdate with Destiny.” All three are extended nonverbal stories featuring Maggie, but within this episode, it’s an enjoyable little side story that doesn’t overstay its welcome, is filled with good jokes and actually feels like it’s about something important. As silly as it may be, the babies recovering their confiscated pacifiers as a story definitely holds more narrative weight than Maggie saving a caterpillar or her little playground romance or whatever. Those theatrical shorts are just so treacly and empty-feeling, especially “Playdate.”
• Herman is inexplicably in the chorus of the musical, and it’s a great touch that in the opening number, at one point as the cast is gesturing to the audience with their right hands, we see Herman perfectly mimic them, just with no arm to do it with.
• “Oh, Streetcar!” is fucking brilliant. I’m sure I gushed about it enough in my initial review, but I just love it so much. The Planet of the Apes musical is a close second, but “Streetcar” has more songs, the added charm of seeing our favorite Springfielders act and sing their hearts out, and the added narrative dissonance of making a bright and peppy musical out of such a dark story, most evident in the final number, which is just so, so, soooo goddamn good.

3. Homer the Heretic

• I love the gleeful enthusiasm Homer gets out of being able to freely swear in the house (“You bet your sweet… ass!”)
• The animation in this episode is really outstanding. Even from the start, there were so many great moments that felt like they had extra care put into them, and the way the characters moved and reacted seemed even more pronounced than usual. Homer assembling his special “moon waffles” is a particularly lovely piece of animation.
  
• Homer mispronouncing “These Things I Believe” as “This” when he’s looking right at the record jacket is so great, as is Bill’s hushed, “Can we accept that?” before awarding him the winner.
• The “Stand By” card for the Public Affairs show might be the best one of the entire series.
  
• I love that act two starts with Marge attempting to scrape the remnants of Homer’s indulgent breakfast off the waffle iron. These little callbacks are great because they make the world feel more tangible, where a character’s actions feel more “real” because we see the outcome. It also adds an extra layer of frustration on top of Marge’s already frazzled state at her husband rejecting his faith. And on top of that, it shows the downside to Homer’s newfound hedonism, that it’s all fun and games until someone has to clean up the mess afterwards. All of this communicated by the first five seconds of act two.
• “And what if we picked the wrong religion? Every week, we’re just making God madder and madder!” I feel like this line was one of the early instigators of my future agnosticism.
• God having five fingers was a touch I always enjoyed as a kid, but what are the implications of this? If He made the Simpsons in His own image, why would he leave off a finger? Or is this God actually the real God, visiting his animated creations? But then why would he be yellow? Of course, then we have to remember that this is just God as represented in Homer’s dream, which only raises further questions about his appearance. It’s just interesting to think about. I also love that Harry Shearer voices both God and Satan. And Hitler.
• I’ve always loved that the thing that cinches Homer’s rejection of faith after Marge pleads with him for one last time is “Coming up next: make your own ladder.” The most banal thing ever that Homer should have next to no interest in.
• I don’t know if I ever really processed that the Kwik-E-Mart “employee lounge” Apu refers to is just a dingy old closet. I guess I was always focused on Homer reacting to Ganeesha and didn’t really register that as a joke. Is that just me? Another example of how jam-packed these scripts were back then, without ever feeling bloated.
• I previously gushed about how pretty the fire in “Flaming Moe’s” looked, and the third act with the Simpson house on fire just turns that up to eleven. The whole episode looks amazing, but the ending is really gorgeous. Ned saving Homer from the ravaging flames is actually pretty intense given how amazing everything looks. But the best moment, of course, is Homer being shoved off the second story and bouncing back through the window. The gag is executed just perfectly, and I loved Ned’s “Okay…” In one word, Harry Shearer perfectly communicates his discouragement, but it’s clear he’s not giving up.
  
• My one criticism of the episode is that after Homer is saved from the burning house, we don’t really need the four or five joke moments with the firefighters, the insurance agent, Kent Brockman and such. We already had the emotional climax of Homer’s story, and then we have to go through a bunch of disconnected gags to get to the final resolution.

4. Lisa the Beauty Queen

• Skinner beating the snot out of vulturous Disney lawyers is another example of both how much better Skinner was when he had a spine, and of how truly bizarre it is this show is now streaming on Disney+. What once was mocking Disney’s brutal stranglehold on copyright law is now owned by that very company.
• I love that Milhouse is inexplicably wearing a scout’s uniform before he goes into Jimbo’s Spookhouse. I don’t know if it’s a remnant of a cut scene, but it makes him look even more naive and impressionable at the start, which strengthens the joke.
• “If I could gouge out somebody else’s eyes and shove them into my sockets I would, but to me, she’s beautiful!” This episode is another crowning example on how best to write Homer: entering Lisa into the beauty pageant is maybe the worst thing he could have done for her (and telling her he submitted the caricature with the application is like pouring salt into the wound), but Homer’s intentions are 100% genuine.
• Child beauty pageants really are perverse and bizarre. This episode felt really ahead of its time, given ensuing hit shows like Toddlers & Tiaras and Dance Moms.
• “Taping your swimsuit to your butt, petroleum jelly on your teeth for that frictionless smile, and the ancient art of padding.” Bart’s extensive knowledge of beauty pageants is a bit odd, but as a curious little boy starting to get interested in girls, I guess I’ll buy that he’s interested in watching pageants (he literally watched one two episodes ago.) His adeptness of walking in heels is another story…
• “My name is Lisa Simpson, and I want to be Li’l Miss Springfield so I can make our town a better place!” “Yeah! Clean up this stinkhole!”
• Introducing her dance act, Lisa talks about how some folks think being patriotic is uncool, “real Melvin.” What the hell is that expression? Google searching it, the first hit is someone asking the same question, referring to this episode, and then several different posts about guys named Melvin. Has anybody heard this saying? Anyway, I’ve always loved the frantic animation of Lisa dancing.
  
• Not just any show can make an eight-year-old girl getting struck by lightning funny, but this show finds a way (“Doctor, what is Amber’s condition?” “Oh, she’ll be fine. In fact, she already won the Little Miss Intensive Care pageant.”)
• “Love that chewing gum walk.” “Very Wrigley!” Bless these two little perverts.
  
• Tremendous poster design. I also never noticed that when Lisa looks out horrified at the crowd of smoking children holding cigarettes, there’s a pregnant woman smoking too. It goes by really quick, but I’m surprised they got away with that.
  
• Invigorated, Lisa pledges to use her newfound powers to expose society’s ills, from dog napping to cigarettes. Her example of dog napping always struck me as odd. Thinking of indiscretions that would be of interest to children, and not major enough that she could actually do something about, I guess it sort of makes sense.
• I feel I have the opposite issue with this ending as I did with “Homer the Heretic,” it wraps up too quickly. I could have gone for one or two more scenes of Lisa as Li’l Miss Springfield trying to make a difference before we get to Quimby desperately trying to silence her.

5. Treehouse of Horror III

• Now that we’re at our third Halloween special, the warning at the open feels appropriately snarky, like you should know what you’re getting yourselves into by now and we don’t care if you get upset by it. Swapping Marge for Homer feels like the right move (“You see, there are some cry babies out there, religious types mostly, who might be offended. If you are one of them, I advise you to turn off your set now.”)
• The famous “That’s good” ”That’s bad” back-and-forth always feels off to me just because the lip sync is all wrong, since the bit was clearly written after the animation was completed and they retrofit the shots as best they could to match. I can forgive when they do this for a one-off line, but for an entire exchange, it just looks too weird.
• The evil shopkeeper gives Homer the Krusty doll loose, but when he gifts it to Bart, we see that it’s in its original packaging! Boy, I hope somebody was fired for that blunder.
• “And in environmental news, scientists have announced that Springfield’s air is now only dangerous to children and the elderly.”
• “There goes the last lingering thread of my heterosexuality.” It’s hard hearing this line not thinking about Patty’s eventual reveal as a lesbian, but I think it functions a lot better considering we know her at this point to be non-romantic, with the line acting as a swearing off of men rather than her sexuality. I wonder if someone on staff in the 2000s recalled this line and was like, “Hey! I know who we can make gay!” I’d rather not remember that episode any further though…
• Ah, nothing beats getting a perfectly looping gif.
  
• “King Homer” is a really beautiful segment, with great visual cues taken from the classic film. Speaking of cues, Alf Clausen’s music is just lovely as well. There’s a lot of great animated moments, but my particular favorite is when King Homer busts out of his torso chain, with his huge belly bulging out to break the lock. It goes by so quick but feels so wonderfully cartoony.
  
• “Wow! Look at the size of that platform!” never fails to make me laugh.
• “He’s not dead!” “No, but his career is. I remember when Al Jolson ran amok at the Winter Garden and climbed the Chrysler building. After that, he couldn’t get arrested in this town.”
• “Find Waldo Yet Again.” I love the little kid standing and pointing at him. For some reason, he reminds me of a Life in Hell drawing.
  
• Great Easter eggs in the pet cemetery featuring headstones of the numerous primetime animated shows that tried to ape off the show’s early success, all failing within one year on the air (Capitol Critters, Fish Police, Family Dog). I’m sure they’re all awful, but I’d be curious to watch at least one episode of these shows one day. Family Dog was actually created by Brad Bird, who I imagine took this jab with good humor. The Wikipedia page for the show intrigues me more. Here’s one choice quote, “Delayed for years and panned by critics, the show has been called one of the biggest fiascos in television animation history, on both a creative and commercial level, in spite (but, in many ways, because of) the high-powered talent behind the project.”
• Mrs. Krabappel is oddly one of the first zombies shown in the crowd at the school, and the very first one that Homer shoots dead. I imagine Bart had no complaints.
• “Excuse me, I’m John Smith.” “John Smith, 1882?” “My mistake!”

Original airdate: September 27, 2020

The premise: Discouraged when he discovers his employees don’t like him, Mr. Burns goes undercover in the plant as an average Joe named Fred thanks to a robotic body suit, and ends up reveling in his newfound friendship with Homer and his chums.

The reaction: Any episode featuring Mr. Burns actually caring about what normal people think about him is a non-starter for me. The man relishes in being in an elevated position from lowly commoners, barely treating them like fellow human beings. Despite that, I think it’s possible to craft a story that believably shows Burns appealing for actual human connection, but from “Monty Can’t Buy Me Love” to this latest outing, these episodes ain’t it, chief. The inciting incident setting Burns off is finding unflattering graffiti of himself in the dirty men’s bathroom, which shocks him (“They hate me!” he gasps). To rectify this, he does what any normal person would do: put on an expensive robotic suit and ingratiate himself within the plant, posing as normal employee Fred Kranepool. Homer, Lenny and Carl quickly take a liking to him, and Burns quickly finds himself swept up in the new sensation known as friendship. But as usual with this show, none of it actually feels impactful. The guys become best buddies with Fred because that needs to happen for the story to continue, not for anything he really does to connect with them. But I guess that’s not the point, it’s about Burns experiencing friendship for the first time, which we see mostly over a montage, and then through turning the plant into a worker’s paradise, with health benefits, lunchroom options and extraneous benefits abound, running the company at the brink of bankruptcy, much to Smithers’ chagrin. Like I said before, an episode where Burns learns to be a decent person might work in another context. Perhaps he hears that creating a more comfortable work environment leads to happier workers, leading to greater efficiency, so Burns becomes more personable and giving only because the plant will be more profitable, but then grapples with having actual human emotion for once. Instead, Burns loses himself in his alter ego (“There is no Mr. Burns. Only Fred!“) and ends up having to battle with its fractured exoskeleton like out of a Terminator movie or something. It’s pretty darn stupid. In the end, Burns still laments, “Why can’t I be loved and feared?,” but I still don’t buy it. Again, Burns wakes up with a smile on his face each and every morning because he’s in a position of ultimate power above the average man. It’s a core part of his character’s DNA, and if you’re going to tweak it, you need to give me a compelling motivation, not because he saw some scribblings on the bathroom stall that made him go cry cry. A sad whimper of a premiere.

Three items of note:
– Over the summer it was announced that the show would no longer use white actors to portray non-white characters, so here in the season premiere, we have our first replacement, Alex Désert as the new voice of Carl. It’s not perfect, but he definitely captures the basic essence of the character, and presumably will get even stronger as he makes more and more appearances. I don’t really want to talk a whole bunch about the larger issue of performers voicing outside their own races, but just like the Apu “controversy,” this whole thing shines a strong light on this series being really out-of-place still being around in 2020. I’d see people making lists of characters needing to be recast, and they were either incredibly short or padded with characters we haven’t seen in over a decade. Of the hundred or so majority recurring characters on this series, maybe seven of them are non-white? And that makes perfect sense, this is a show from the 1990s that’s still creaking and scraping along three decades later. I guess recasting is a nice gesture… I guess? But at this point, in season 32, really, what does it matter? Outside of maybe Apu, the other major POC characters are secondary at best, and they don’t appear all that often, would it matter that much if Hank Azaria and Harry Shearer just kept doing the voices? For brand new shows like Big Mouth or Central Park having main black characters voiced by white actors, I get the problem, but in this case, it feels a bit more pointless, just because The Simpsons is an ancient dinosaur that no one really cares about outside of the few diehard fans still clinging to this show until the end, and dopes like me that have blogs bitching and complaining about it.
– Speaking of voices, I got incredibly sad hearing Marge speak for the first time. Julie Kavner’s voice has been on the downward spiral, but she just sounds so grated and tired here. I don’t know if this is a result of her recording from home rather than a studio, or maybe it feels “worse” because I’ve been watching the first couple seasons of the show lately, but it’s just a real bummer to hear. Having just turned 70 this year, Kavner’s been an absolute trooper through the entire series, and presumably she’s still in pretty good shape for her age, but Marge really is sounding more and more like her mother with each passing season.
– Mr. Burns finally breaks from his Fred character due to Lenny openly mocking and insulting Burns in front of him, but there’s two issues with this. First, in all the time they’ve all spent together paling around, there’s no way the guys haven’t shit talked the boss in front of their new “friend.” Second, this all happens after Burns has given the employees everything they’ve ever asked for and more, so Lenny and everyone else should be loving him at this point.