TVSquad

(S18E05)

Homer: I'm not gonna surrender. You've seen what the U.S. Army does to prisoners. How would you like to be stacked naked in a pile with a hillbilly girl pointin' at you and laughin'?

Cletus: That was our last Christmas card.

Homer: Yeah, Marge always loved your cards.

If you missed the premiere of the Simpsons Movie trailer, check it out here. July can't get here soon enough, and being in Minnesota, I mean that in more ways than one.

It looks like last week's Halloween episode wasn't going to be the last word on the Iraq debacle, and this episode doled out plenty of jabs. Looking for new approaches to recruitment, the Army decides to show the kids at Springfield Elementary a movie that makes the Army look like a fun, live-action video game:

Army recruiter: And we brought along the movie. Do you guys know where we can find some awesome kids to show it to?

Milhouse: Dearborn, Michigan?

Wooed by the idea of shooting down everything from Nazis to Bin Laden to Jason from Friday the 13th to a deadly hurricane, Bart decides to "pre-enlist" for the Army. Homer demands Bart's contract be torn up, but in the process ends up enlisting himself because, well, because he's an idiot. He soon becomes the leader of a platoon of dimwits meant to be used as target practice for the Army's war games, a plot not too dissimilar to "Simpson Tide" in which Homer becomes captain of a nuclear submarine after joining the Navy.

While seeing Homer as a military leader did bring back memories of that earlier episode, this episode was really about what happens when people are enticed by underhanded recruitment efforts and end up getting more than they bargained for. I think the entire episode can be summed up in the brief exchange between Principal Skinner and the Army recruiter. Skinner agrees that it's good to see the kids so interested in military service, but when the recruiter asks him to reenlist, Skinner answers, "how about you bite me?"

Favorite moments:

The Full Metal Jacket scene where the sarge makes Homer eat donuts while everyone else does push-ups. When Homer questions his "punishment," the sarge serves him Alaskan king salmon and gives him a foot rub.

Homer trying to imagine what a great leader would do, and after imagining Cap'n Crunch, tells his men to "stay crunchy."

The Looney Tunes-style chase scene where Homer tries to avoid the predator drone may have been a little hokey, but did anyone else catch the exchange between the two army men at the end, each of them using classic lines from Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam (i.e.: "This means war!" and "I hate you!")? Lovely.