Archives for August 2014

S2, E6: “Dead Putting Society”

August 30, 2014 by Jim Connelly

“Homer, I couldn’t help overhearing you warp Bart’s mind.” – Marge.

Written by: Jeff Martin

The simmering tension between Homer and his perfect neighbor Ned Flanders boils over into all-out war. Well, kinda: the war is actually played out via a miniature golf tournament pitting Bart against Todd Flanders.

The father of the boy who doesn’t win has to mow his law wearing his wife’s best Sunday dress. Bart and Todd, who aren’t enemies, though they aren’t really friends, either, decide to call it a draw rather than cope with the pressure put on them by their fathers.

Don’t have a whole lot to say about this episode, other than during the mini-golf montage one of the holes as Itchy & Scratchy, which is to be expected, but for some reason, Scratchy is hurting Itchy, instead of the other way around.

Don’t know if this is an animation error or reflection that maybe originally Scratchy was going to inflict as much carnage as Itchy, and then they decided it was funnier to make Scratchy the Washington Generals.

In any event, the Flanders family wasn’t yet quite the comedic goldmine they would be in future episodes – hell, Ned was even drinking microbrew and had a game room – but you could see the writers figuring out who they were.

S2, E5: “Dancin’ Homer”

August 27, 2014 by Jim Connelly

“Bart was strangely quiet. Later he would explain he was confused by feelings of respect for me.” – Homer.

Written by: Ken Levine, David Isaacs.

“Dancin’ Homer” takes its place in The Simpsons pantheon because it’s the first of the “Homer gets another job” episodes, which would eventually become a staple – if not the primary guiding engine – of the entire series.

Given that the list of jobs that Homer Simpson has had over the years is massive, it’s kind of ironic that the writers felt have him request a leave of absence prior to becoming Dancin’ Homer in Capital City.

Another sign that they weren’t sure the audience would go for it: Homer tells the whole tale in flashback, sitting with the other regulars at Moe’s. In the future, of course, they didn’t really worry about any kind of verisimilitude when it came to Homer’s escapades.

In the meantime, the story of Homer inadvertently becoming the good luck charm and mascot of the Springfield Isotopes by dancing on the dugout after sharing a few tubs of beer with Mr. Burns (who, continuity nerds might remember, had vowed to destroy Homer’s life the previous week) is fun throughout.

That said, despite loads of funny jokes and references, the ending – where the cynical Capital City crowd didn’t really go for Homer’s antics – felt a bit flat, like it was there because of course The Simpsons belong in Springfield, no matter how much Tony Bennett might extol the charms of Capital City.

Which is just a quibble: “Dancin’ Homer” definitely deserves its status as a much-beloved and iconic early episode.

Oh, and I found this amazing artifact here:

S2, E4: “Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish”

August 25, 2014 by Jim Connelly

“Lisa, you’re learning many lessons tonight, and one of them is to always give your mother the benefit of the doubt.” – Marge.

Written by: John Swartzwelder, Sam Simon.

Matt Groening, of course, made his bones with “Life in Hell,” an alt-weekly cartoon that was deeply political and would still discussed and beloved had The Simpsons never existed.

So when The Simpsons finally delved hardcore into politics with the brilliant “Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish,” it was no surprise to anyone who had read Groening’s strip where the show stood: proudly to the Left. It’s a simplification, but true: long before The Daily Show or The Colbert Report, we had The Simpsons going hard at all of the right targets.

In this case, the target was rich political dilettantes who run for office for no other reason than to change the laws to be more favorable to them, all the while spouting populist generalities against easy targets like “bureaucrats” and “taxes.”

What spurred Mr. Burns to run for Governor of [REDACTED] was a combination of bad publicity surrounding the discovery by Bart of a mutant three-eyed fish – Blinky! – and the estimated $56,000,000 it would cost to bring his nuclear power plant up to code.

So he runs, starting with a paid political ad featuring a Charles Darwin impersonator (which is funny on several levels) explaining that Blinky’s mutation is actually an improvement and he has “a taste that can’t be beat.”

As Burns gains popularity with all of the Joe The Plumbers and Holly the Housewives he is exalting in public and deriding in private, his cynical campaign manager tells him that the final stunt to put him over the top as a regular guy is to have a home-cooked dinner at the house of one of his employees. And they choose Homer, of course.

Enter Marge Simpson.

Now I know that they often wrote Marge as a moralizing scold, especially when sex was involved, she was pitch-perfect here. As a supporter of Burns’ opponent, Mary Bailey, she wants nothing to do with the stunt, but when Homer mansplains that one of the ways she can express herself is with her cooking, it resonates.

The climax, when the home-cooked dinner Marge serves Burns is three-eyed fish (“All right!!” exclaims Bart, “three-eyed fish!!”) and he is forced to eat and then spit out his words, is an absolute masterpiece of comeuppance.

His hopes of ever running for political office dashed forever, Burns presumably turns to doing what the rest of his billionaire friends do these days: donating to PACs.

S2 E3: “The Simpsons Halloween Special”

August 24, 2014 by Jim Connelly

“Anyone from a species that has mastered intergalactic travel, raise your hand.” – Kodos.

Written by: John Swartzwelder, Jay Kogen, Wallace Wolodarsky and Sam Simon.

It’s a measure of the confidence that The Simpsons writers had in the universe they were building that they could completely subvert those rules this early on for the “Simpsons Halloween Special,” which like the album The Beatles is the actual proper name for this episode.

Held together by a framing device – Bart & Lisa telling scary stories in the treehouse – that led the subsequent series its name, this first Halloween special was a masterpiece, chock full of spot-on references (“Kodos” and “Kang”), hilarious lines (“Quit throwing your garbage into our dimension”), and new takes on classic horror tropes (“Quoth the Raven, ‘Eat my shorts’”).

No wonder this obvious experiment became an beloved institution. Once the writers realized they could do this every year, they went full bore, and in subsequent years, it only got weirder, and for awhile, because of FOX’s domination (and near ruination) of post-season MLB, they often started the whole season with the “Treehouse of Horror,” knowing it was a natural hook for a new season.

I’ll betcha that people who have long given up tuning into The Simpsons every week still check out the yearly Treehouses of Horror, if for no other reason than to see how they’re going to shoehorn in Kang and Kodos that year.

S2, E2: “Simpson and Delilah”

August 21, 2014 by Jim Connelly

“Wait, who is that young go-getter?” – Mr. Burns.

Written by: Jon Vitti.

After committing insurance fraud to get a miracle hair tonic, Homer gets a brand-new hair, a promotion and an assistant who mentors him.

Thematically, this is another instance of one of the Simpsons being mentored by a person who is more worldly-wise than they are. It’s already happened with Marge & Jacques, and will reach its apotheosis later in the season with “Lisa’s Substitute.”

In this case, Karl the assistant – voiced by then-icon, now “who in the hell has that voice” Harvey Fierstein – teaches Homer the valuable lesson that confidence comes from within, not from a gorgeous hairpiece.

(One of my favorite unacknowledged – and hitherfore unnoticed – running gags in this excellent episode is that Homer’s hair is different in every scene.)

Which is just as well, because not only does Smithers – jealous because Homer is coming in between him and his one true love – dig up the dirt on Homer’s insurance fraud, Bart spills the hair tonic, causing Homer to lose his assistant, his promotion and his hair all at the same time.

As Karl leaves – having taken the fall for the insurance fraud – he gives Homer a big smooch, which I guess felt a little controversial, unless you grew up watching Bugs Bunny kissing Elmer Fudd every Saturday morning.

S2, E1: “Bart Gets an F”

August 19, 2014 by Jim Connelly

“As God is my witness, I can pass the 4th grade!” – Bart.

Written by: David M. Stern.

A few changes in the first episode of the second season of The Simpsons: the bus stop gag in the opening has been banished forever to a vague memory, replaced by Bart skateboarding through various secondary & tertiary characters, the animation is less shaky and Homer finally sounds like Homer.

The plot, however, centers around a familiar theme: everybody – including the boy himself – thinks that Bart is an idiot, until he demonstrates that that he isn’t, and raises his grade from an F to a D-.

In between, we get funny stuff as Bart and Martin teach each other how to be each other, with – of course – Martin enjoying being bad more than Bart enjoying being good.

But, Bart does get good enough to actually – eventually – study a snow day that he prayed for despite being the greatest snow day in the history of the world.

In October 1990, it made sense for The Simpsons to start the second season with a small story in the and concentrate on their breakout character – the ratings were surprisingly good in the first season, and I’m sure that FOX was nervous about the deep satire that was waiting in the wings.

S1, E13: “Some Enchanted Evening”

August 14, 2014 by Jim Connelly

“Garcon, another bottle of your second-least-expensive champagne!” – Homer.

Written by: Matt Groening, Sam Simon.

I don’t remember if I thought that “Some Enchanted Evening” was a step back from the glories of the previous two episodes back in 1990, but upon any subsequent rewatch, it’s completely obvious. Good reason though: it was the first one produced for the series, but was pushed to the season finale due to production problems.

And while it has a rare Matt Groening writing credit and a lot of funny lines, “Some Enchanted Evening” doesn’t really add anything to the universe of The Simpsons.

That said, it might have been a better first episode than “Simpsons Roasting Over an Open Fire,” but I guess we’ll never know.

I do remember this: at the time, I was really glad that I had taped all of the episodes of The Simpsons, and was definitely looking forward to more. That said, it didn’t yet feel like an all-time world changer: in May 1990, Twin Peaks – halfway through a first season that I made every person I came into contact with watch – was the first TV show that felt like it was coming from a future where television would routinely produce greater art than any other medium.

But, of course, I had no way of knowing is that Twin Peaks had already peaked and The Simpsons hadn’t even really started.

S1, E12: “Krusty Gets Busted”

August 12, 2014 by Jim Connelly

“Don’t blame me, I didn’t do it! – Krusty.

Written by: Jay Kogen & Wallace Wolodarsky

Occasionally, an episode has a joke so brilliantly specific to that episode, I almost wonder if the entire episode wasn’t constructed around that joke. I’m still convinced that Newsradio did the entire ”in space" episode just to make the “space heater” joke.

In the case of “Krusty Gets Busted,” it’s the moment where Homer – who has witnessed Krusty The Clown rob a convenience store – is down at police HQ to ID Krusty in a lineup. And Wiggum says: “Send in the clowns.”

That just kills me. And the reason that it’s funnier than Bart yelling “Say it ain’t so, Krusty!” or Sideshow Bob observing that he would have “gotten away with it if it wasn’t for those meddling kids” is that “send in the clowns” is a joke that advances the actual plot, as opposed to a crammed-in pop culture reference.

Those other references are funny, of course, but they aren’t beautiful.

Of course, it wasn’t Krusty what robbed the Kwik-E-Mart, but rather Sideshow Bob, his long-suffering sidekick, voiced by Kelsey Grammer. Grammer, of course, was the perfect choice for the role, and totally knocks it out of the park, especially in the “Sideshow Bob’s Cavalcade of Whimsy” sequence.

Still, at the time, nobody knew that they’d come up with a lifelong nemesis (I mean our lives, cos we’re the ones who age) for Bart – and that’s proven by the fact that Sideshow Bob doesn’t come back until near the end of the third season

For the second straight episode, the climax comes when Bart has a revelation just when all seems lost, which has inspired me to have my own revelation: Bart is secretly smart, he just hides it within a wall of of disinterest, slackerdom and cool.

Whether or not that is “true,” I’m going to be watching future episodes for more evidence of this theory.

35 Great Robyn Hitchcock Songs in 35 Years

August 11, 2014 by Jim Connelly

For absolutely no reason whatsoever, I’ve been listening to nothing but Robyn Hitchcock during my commute for the past couple of weeks, inspiring this list.

Like most cult artists who have been around forever, he did his best work – or at least my favorite – when we were younger. So I did this list in chronological order, as it seems a fools errand to try and figure out whether I love “Madonna of the Wasps,” more than “Underwater Moonlight” more than “Chinese Bones” more than “Airscape” and so forth.

“I Wanna Destroy You” – Underwater Moonlight (1980)
“Queen of Eyes” – Underwater Moonlight (1980)
“Underwater Moonlight” – Underwater Moonlight (1980)
“The Man Who Invented Himself” – Black Snake Diamond Role (1981)
“Eaten By Her Own Dinner” – Single (1982)
“Uncorrected Personality Traits” – I Often Dream of Trains (1984)
“Autumn is Your Last Chance” – I Often Dream of Trains (1984)
“I Often Dream of Trains” – I Often Dream of Trains (1984)
“Goodnight I Say” – Fegmania! (1985)
“Sometimes I Wish I Was a Pretty Girl (Live)” – Gotta Let This Hen Out! (1985)
“Kingdom of Love (Live) – Gotta Let This Hen Out! (1985)
"Heaven (Live)” – Gotta Let This Hen Out! (1985)
“Listening to the Higsons (Live)” – Gotta Let This Hen Out! (1985)
“If You Were a Priest” – Element of Light (1986)
“Airscape" – Element of Light (1986)
"Tell Me About Your Drugs" – Element of Light Bonus Track (1986)
"Unsettled” – Globe of Frogs (1988)
“Chinese Bones" – Globe of Frogs (1988)
"Madonna of the Wasps” – Queen Elvis (1989)
“Raining Twilight Coast” – Eye (1990)
“Transparent Lover” – Eye (1990)
“Oceanside” – Perspex Island (1991)
“Arms of Love” – Respect (1992)
“Serpent at the Gates of Wisdom" – Respect (1992)
"Heliotrope" – Moss Elixir (1996)
"I Am Not Me’ – Moss Elixir (1996)
"Viva! Sea-Tac” – Jewels For Sophia (1999)
“I Feel Beautiful” – Jewels For Sophia (1999)
“Mr Kennedy” – Nextdoorland (2002)
“Underground Sun” – Ole Tarantula (2006)
“Belltown Ramble” – Ole Tarantula (2006)
“(A Man’s Gotta Know His Limitations) Briggs” – Ole Tarantula (2006)
“I’m Falling” – Goodnight Oslo (2009)
“The Afterlight” – Propellor Time (2010)
“End of Time” – Love From London (2013)

Oh, and while I realize that the Soft Boys were technically a different artist, given that most of the Soft Boys were also in the Egyptians, and Robyn is clearly the mastermind there as well (sorry Kimberly Rew, but you’ll just have to live off the royalties to “Walking on Sunshine” & “Going Down to Liverpool”), i’ve jumbled it all together.

S1, E11: “The Crepes of Wrath”

August 7, 2014 by Jim Connelly

“What can I say? I got a weakness for the classics!” – Bart

Written by: George Meyer, Sam Simon, John Swartzwelder & Jon Vitti.

As do I, Bart. And I say this is one of those, packed with tons and tons of great jokes, right down to the (freeze frame gag) “French Birth Control Device” as part of the souvenirs Bart brings back from France.

Bart’s in France, of course, because he flushed a cherry bomb down the toilet, and Skinner proposes that he participate in a Foreign Exchange program that sends Bart to France and brings to Springfield a sweet-tempered Albanian boy, Adil.

Who is also a nuclear spy, no doubt an inspiration for the character of Ahnyong (Ahnyong!) many years later in Arrested Development.

Meanwhile, Bart is fostered by a pair of ill-tempered winemakers who mistreat him and (even worse!) are putting anti-freeze into their wine. The climax, where Bart suddenly discovers he’s learned French and rats them out, is one of the more satisfying plot resolutions in Simpsons history, and pretty damn funny, to boot.