"Husbands and Knives (The Simpsons)", 11-18-2007

I have absolutely no idea where the writers of "The Simpsons" were going with this episode, but parts of it were quite funny. It might be an episode I'll care to watch in reruns, which is a high honor for any episode of "The Simpsons" after the 15th season.

The "A" plot deals with Marge realizing that she has gained a few pounds, after noticing that her outline bulges beyond the outline of the stand-up Wonder Woman poster outside of The Android's Dungeon. (After Marge is made fun of by the bullies -- Dolph, Jimbo and Kearney, Dolph and Kearney get into a fight about whether or not Kearney's mom is fat or if it's just a side affect of her depression medication -- a very funny moment for anyone who has had to deal with the side effects of depression medication.)

Marge decides to go to the hip, cool Springfield gym, but Marge is embarrassed as she is unable to even use the walking treadmill without looking like a fool. She decides to create a brand new gym for women called "Shapes". This gym for ordinary-looking women is extremely successful, and soon Marge is on the fast track to fame and riches.

Homer enjoys accompanying Marge on her business trips -- after all, it's free lodging and food on Marge's money -- until he comes across a group of husbands of high-powered, successful women in Marge's new social circle. These buff Adonises reveal that they are second husbands, telling Homer that the first thing their wives did after they became successful was dump the old lardasses they had married. However, one of the Adonises has pity on Homer -- he secretly reveals that he is a first husband, who through strength of will, eating right, and exercising daily, managed to transform himself into the figure he is today.

Homer writes this down, taking it all in -- and then has stomach stapling surgery with the plastic surgeon from "Pygmoelian" and "Large Marge". The stomach surgery causes Homer to lose a lot of weight, even though as Homer put it "food tastes like barf". However, the surgery causes the excess skin to sag from Homer's body, forcing Homer to resort to chip clips and large rubber bands to hide it. Homer returns to the plastic surgeon and tells the surgeon to give Homer all of the other surgeries he's got.

When Marge gets an award from Mayor Quimby, Homer shows up at the ceremony -- the plastic surgery has made him into a dark-haired bodybuilder who looks as monstrous as most bodybuilders look. This freakish Homer is chased by a pitchfork-wielding mob and chased (along with Marge) to the top of Notre Dame de Springfield. At the top of the tower, Marge reveals she wants a trophy husband and pushes Homer from the belltower to his death.

Homer wakes up in the hospital. It seems that when the doctor called Marge to get permission after Homer went under, Marge cancelled the surgeries and had Homer's stomach band removed. Homer is back to his old, flabby self, but Marge still loves him.

In the "B" plot, when Milhouse is charged $25 by the Comic Book Guy for accidentally tearing a comic book guy, Comic Book Guy reminds his many customers that they can either go to his comic store or to one of the nonexistent comic book stores across the street. Unfortunately, a new comic store has just moved in, run by a cool customer named Milo (Jack Black). The store has video games, and the store owner has Japanese hard candy to give out to the kids. When Lisa tears the page of a Tintin book by accident, the cool store owner tells her that books are to be read, not stored.

The Comic Book Guy loses all his business to the new store. (Where do you think Marge got the space to start her new gym? From the Comic Book Guy's old store, soon to be closed.) During a signing by independent comic writers and artists Alan Moore, Art Spiegelman and Dan Clowes (all playing themselves), the Comic Book Guy tries to win his customers back by pointing that Cool Guy couldn't be a true comic geek -- he has a girlfriend! (Comic Book Guy is also selling ninja swords to win back the geeks.) When this ploy fails, Comic Book Guy attacks the store's displays with a kitana, but Moore, Spielgelman and Clowes form a muscled superteam and defeat the Comic Book Guy's rampage.

(* * *)

Immediately, I can hear the voice of the Comic Guy in my head. "Continuity, Mr. Bowman! Where, oh where, is the continuity?"

There was no use of the reset button in this episode. As far as we know, Marge still has her successful chain of gymnasiums. As far as we know, the Comic Book Guy has lost his store, to remain out of business forever. What will happen to him? He'll be poor! And penniless! And unloved! And...no different from before, really. However, at the end the three comic book writers/artists/heroes are about to stop a meteor from hitting Springfield -- until they fly off to a benefit for old comic book artists, as the meteor gets closer....

Therefore, I suspect that the reset button will be punched next episode. Like Homer's singing career with the Be Sharps, Marge would probably remind the viewers that there's a perfectly good explanation as to where Marge's money went and how the Comic Book Guy got his store back -- there's just no space for it in this episode.

This episode was written by Matt Selman, who knows a bit about continuity-setting precedent. He wrote the episodes "Eight Misbehavin'", as well as "Behind the Laughter" and one of the better episodes "Trilogy of Error" (where Homer temporarily loses his thumb). There were many great moments in this episode:

* Milhouse's whining that he was going to celebrate Greek Orthodox Easter with the $25 he owes the comic book guy.
* The Korean version of "What's New Pussycat" playing in the new comic store.
* The animated version of the Tintin book Lisa is reading.
* Of course, the fight with the bullies.
* The fan service with Moore, Spiegelman and Clowes! (If you're a comic book geek like me, this was heaven!)
* Clowes's complaining that he doesn't want to work in independent comics and has dreamed of drawing "Batman" instead. (He shows Lisa his sketches of Batman's utility belt.)
* "The Watchmen Babies in V for Vacation".
* Spiegelman puts on a mask that looks like the face of his protagonist in "Maus" before getting ready to kick Comic Book Guy's ass.
* Marge's humiliating public shower.
* Milo's girlfriend (Strawberry) has a purse which is a lunchbox!
* The sign closing the Android's Dungeon, which looks like an old Spider-Man cover.
* Homer's bizarre new appearance.

A good episode, and for once, actually better than the "Family Guy" episode that followed it.

NEXT AMAZING ISSUE: After bashing continuity's head in, the Simpsons return to worship at the great porcelain god of continuity, as Kelsey Grammer returns for his final appearance as Sideshow Bob in "Funeral for a Fiend"!

"I Don't Wanna Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (The Simpsons)", 10-14-2007

I have a confession to make about "The Simpsons". I'd say a good seventy percent of the reason I still watch "The Simpsons" comes from being a Simpsons completist. I was there at the beginning, and I expect to be there when the show finally (if ever) produces its last episode.

I realized this only last year. The local Atlanta network began running a hour of "The Simpsons", two episodes back to back. One would be an early episode, the other would be an episode originally aired about eight or nine years later. Much of the time, when my wife wanted us to get to get together to watch "The Simpsons", she'd warn "the last one's not a good one". With increasing frequency -- the "two-episode policy" of the local network had been in force for years -- we began to bail out on that final bookend.

One of the episodes last year -- in the 18th Glorious Season -- was so bad that I asked myself "why I am still watching this?" It was then that I realized the scope of my addiction.

"I Don't Wanna Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" is going to be one of those episodes that I suspect that people are going to skip when they're rerun somewhere in Cuba. (I also wonder who is going to buy those "The Complete Nineteenth Season" compilations. Probaby nerds like me with money.) This episode is a good example of why the later Simpsons is held in such disdain:

a) A recycled trope. I can name at least two "Marge/Prison" episodes before this one. There was the episode where Marge actually served time in prison for shoplifting. And there's the episode where Marge befriended parolee Michael Keaton -- well, that wasn't the name of the character, but he was a guest star. Now, in this episode Marge finds herself in a hostage situation, and ends up by promising to visit the bank robber while he is in prison -- but fails to.

For some bizarre reason, the writers seem to think that Marge + Prison = funny. And by God, they're determined to keep working on that equation until they get it right!

An entire episode of "South Park" was dedicated to the fact that "The Simpsons" had figuratively done every plot there was to do in wacky animated comedy. I suppose even the writing staff at "The Simpsons" is recognizing that now. Either that, or Dana Gould didn't catch any of those episodes.

b) Writers who don't pass the laugh test. See Gould, Dana, who wrote five post-2000 episodes, none of them particularly funny. From now on, I might want to know who the writer is before I invest 30 minutes of time. At least, I can be prepared for the worst.

c) Voice performers who don't pass the laugh test. I can tell you one thing about Steve Buscemi -- he ain't no Albert Brooks. "But CINCGREEN!" you might cry, "Buscemi played comedic roles in all of those Adam Sandler movies -- "Billy Madison!" "The Wedding Singer"! "Mr. Deeds!"" To which I answer, "I rest my case."

Then again, it's hard to be funny as a voice performer. Some people get it and some don't. I don't think Buscemi got it. But then again, I can't imagine anything but disaster from Steve Buscemi trying to read Dana Gould's line in an obstensible animated comedy. There must be a room in Hell for that, next to Sartre's.

d) Shameless fan service. Bits of Simpsons trivia left for those still obsessively collecting it (like me). When I'm in my decaying nursing home, I'll probably be sitting in a wheelchair muttering to myself that the list of people Marge has permitted Homer to marry if she dies consists of Lindsey Naegle (a minor Simpsons character), Boobaraella (another one), and Blythe Danner (possibly a Simpsons character). Marge gets points for Naegle, but Cookie Kwan should also be on the list!

There are also voiceovers from Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Ted Nugent. Nugent's is wasted, playing himself on an in-episode radio commercial. Since Nugent is also a cartoon character in real life, he should be given a future chance to shine.

At least we have "Treehouse of Horror XVIII" on next week. Just a warning -- that middle act is the weakest of the three stories. "The Simpsons" warned you about that six years ago. I know.

"Midnight Towboy (The Simpsons)", 10-07-2007

Reviewing "The Simpsons" might be the biggest waste of time on the planet, but then again, that's what the Internet is for.

There's a lot of fol-de-rol about how "The Simpsons" is no longer cool, no longer funny, no longer relevant, whatever. I'll let these same very loud five people continue to argue about it. (I suspect they are the same five people who are desperately trying to bring "The Rat Pack" culture of swingers and martinis back -- they try to bring it back every three years or so; but the American public soundly rejects it.)

The acid test of any current Simpsons episode is "if you knew absolutely nothing about the characters, would you find this funny?" And for "Midnight Towboy", the answer is yes.

The A-plot is that Homer finds his car about to be towed away to the nearby (and heretofore unmentioned) city of Guidopolis. Homer gets into the tow truck and finds out that the hitch operator is self-employed. Homer falls for the mystique of the "Midnight Towboy", riding his tow truck and hitching cars, making money hand over fist in all quarters, and becomes Springfield's tow-truck operator.

For once, the B-plot is quite good : Maggie has gotten too clingy and Marge can't find any peace. Through the help of the intertubes, she finds a counselor who tells her that Maggie tears when separated are actually tears of independence. Marge needs to let Maggie self-actualize her self-itude. Or something. However, with Maggie now running her own life, what is left for Marge to dote upon?

Some great gags:

* Maggie's clinginess leads a bottle of milk to be dropped on the kitchen floor, and Homer cries over it, putting a lie to the old saying.
* Homer's futile quest for finding milk in Springfield.
* Homer ends up drinking a glass of white paint at Moe's Tavern. Moe charges him for the paint, but first has to match price with color of the paint. Good thing Moe has swatches.
* Marge trying to navigate the internet and buying two refrigerators by accident.
* Homer learning why you never should have your tow-hook facing in.
* Bart and Homer, and their dangerous fun.
* The townspeople set Homer up for the fall, as the power goes right to Homer's head.
* Homer and the other tow-jockeys trapped in the basement.
* Maggie riding Santa's Little Helper to rescue her dad.
* Maggie's showdown with the sack of potatoes that Marge has been forced to dote on in Maggie's absence.

There is more than enough here to find funny. As a matter of fact, I suspect this episode will provide more than a few lines for those nerds that speak entirely in phrases from "The Simpsons". "The Simpsons" might indeed collapse under its own weight, but sad tidings to the tragically hip -- it won't be this week.