(S18E10)
Homer and Bart are trapped on a sinking boat:
Homer: [to captain, whispering loudly] Should I hit him with a shovel to spare him the pain of drowning?
Captain: [also whispering] Not yet.
Homer: [whispering] What's the code word?
Damn you, football. You almost made me miss this episode. Luckily, I also Tivoed American Dad, so I was able to catch the last half of this episode, which aired during the time American Dad would have normally started. That's one of the dangers of recording everything I watch.
I thought this was one of the best episodes of The Simpsons I had seen in a long time. It was funny, had some great action sequences, and it even tugged at the ol' heartstrings a little bit. I really felt for Marge as she pined for the idealistic island she remembered from her youth, and was on the edge of my seat when Bart and Homer were trapped in the midst of a "perfect storm," which, oddly enough, was not unlike the movie A Perfect Storm. Fancy that.
Okay, here's a question for anyone reading this: am I correct in assuming that the home movie of Marge as a little girl and the music that went with it was lifted from The Prince of Tides? It's obviously a spoof of something, and that's the only connection I could make, but I haven't seen The Prince of Tides since it came out and I'm pretty sure my brain erased most of it so as not to drive me to suicide.
Some of you may recall that the season thirteen episode "Blame it on Lisa" caught some flak for not portraying Brazil in a positive light, a little fact that made this exchange between Bart and Lisa even more funny as they approach the island and find it's now a smelly trash heap:
Lisa: This is the most disgusting place we've ever gone.
Bart: What about Brazil?
Lisa: After Brazil.
I still say The Simpsons showed Japan in a much more negative light, but I digress.
Two questions: Are Kurt and Luanne back together? I know they got back together in "Milhouse of Sand and Fog," but did that stick? Also, is this the first we've seen of Patty's baby since she was first adopted in the season sixteen episode "Goo Goo Gai Pan?" Hey, I'm a fan, but I don't have a photographic memory.
Lastly, how many of you caught the joke about a young Marge naming the seahorse on the Merry-Go-Round "Mr. Funny Good Feeling?" That was the biggest laugh of the episode for me.
Other great moments:
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Flanders religious pamphlets that read, "You will die in sin."
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The silent film shown at the beginning, and the card within it that read, "Twa-hooooooot!" just in case you didn't know what a whistle sounds like.
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Homer hanging upside down with a hook in his nose, and smiling as people have their picture taken with him.
- Homer gleefully clubbing a pile of fish in slow motion.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
1-08-2007 @ 11:28AM
BillS said...
Mr. Funny good feeling was a winner. I thought Flanders sounded weird though, less like Ned and more just like regular Harry Shearer.
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1-08-2007 @ 11:34AM
kerry said...
Can you fill us in on the ending? I was one of the unlucky souls that wasn't recording American Dad (though I do have the Simpsons go 5 minutes long just in case) and missed everything after they ran the boat directly into the really big wave. What happened to all the fish? I must know!
Also, the "Mr. Funny Good Feeling" had me cracking up pretty hard, too.
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1-08-2007 @ 11:37AM
Robert said...
I thought the music came from "The Ring" which explains the scenes involving the copying of the home movie to dvd. And when the fish disappear, it was like when the horses disappear in The Ring as well.
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1-08-2007 @ 12:01PM
Wild Bill said...
Didn't Marge have a childhood memory that turned out to be "The Prince of Tides" in an old episode? It'd be lame if they did the same joke twice.
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1-08-2007 @ 9:00PM
Chris W said...
Definitely the best episodes in a long time. The music was great, but I couldn't place it. I kept thinking M. Night Shyamalan but I don't think that's it. The horse joke was brilliant, just brilliant. Inocuous enough, until you think about it.
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1-08-2007 @ 12:14PM
Cat said...
My boyfriend and I thought the music was from Beauty and the Beast-- it sounded so familiar! But I'm not 100% sure; it was driving me nuts last night.
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1-08-2007 @ 7:46PM
Urgh said...
That music was driving me insane too. I could not place it. I thought it might have come from some classic Hitchcock flick or something. The Ring is a good guess though. I'll have to check it.
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1-08-2007 @ 1:36PM
Sam McConnell said...
Wonderful episonde. But yah, it was Beuty and the beast. . . which actually isnt' really appropriate, but yet again fit the mood.
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1-08-2007 @ 1:57PM
Adam said...
Kerry:
Basically, in the end everyone assumes the crew if the ship, including Bart and Homer, were killed. But then they return and Homer tells everyone how he was saved by mermaids, which was really just a hallucination from lack of oxygen. That's it in a nutshell.
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1-08-2007 @ 2:01PM
Adam said...
Wild Bill:
The show has referenced Prince of Tides at least a couple times before this. I know there was an episode that spoofed the underwater hand-holding scene from the movie (don't recall which one), and I just watched "Fear of Flying" today from Season Six, in which Marge whispers "Lowenstein, Lowenstein" even though that's not her psychiatrist's real name.
Anyway, it's not like it's that odd for the show to reference a movie more than once. They've done it before with other movies. I don't consider it using the same joke.
Bite me,
Adam
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1-08-2007 @ 4:16PM
shawn said...
I got the 6th season of the Simpsons for Christmas (i'm behind, i now need 7,8,9 to complete) and after watching this episode last night I decided to continue watching "classic Simpsons episode" like have been all weekend.
AND I WATCHED FEAR OF FLYING AS WELL! it was just the next one on the list of episodes to see.
Isn't that weird?
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1-08-2007 @ 7:17PM
gottacook said...
The music is "Aquarium" from Camille Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals and also is used in the 1992 documentary Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography.
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1-08-2007 @ 9:28PM
NovaTheCat said...
I think the music was from Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.
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1-08-2007 @ 9:25PM
John said...
"Lastly, how many of you caught the joke about a young Marge naming the seahorse on the Merry-Go-Round "Mr. Funny Good Feeling?""
OMG. I nearly swallowed my tongue laughing at that. One of those 'I feel really dirty for laughing so hard at this' moments.
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1-08-2007 @ 8:33PM
Adam said...
There's a good chance the music is actually a "spoof" of some other work and not the work itself. That's typically how The Simpsons does things like that. I could be wrong, though. I listened to a sample of "Aquarium" on Amazon, but I don't think it's the same song. Again, I could be wrong.
Adam (the guy who wrote the review)
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1-08-2007 @ 10:35PM
dgbellak said...
Nope; the music is definitely "Aquarium". Appropriate, no? I only remember that music because Disneyland's Space Mountain uses it set to a surf-rock beat. Strange.
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1-09-2007 @ 12:10AM
GhaleonQ said...
First of all, it was definitely "The Aquarium." It is fairly famous, after all.
As for the episode itself, well, I thought that it was the worst ever. Sure, it wasn't funny, butchered the characters, and had awful writing like the others, but this time, there was worse-than-usual animation (the fish were drawn in a completely different style than the characters), the timing was atrocious, there was environmentalism preaching (even a genuinely tragic ending) and Christian demonizing, and the accompanying drawings were pathetic.
So, yeah, a new low for "The Simpsons."
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1-09-2007 @ 1:27AM
Paul said...
GhaleonQ: Why on earth would you continue to watch a show you think is awful? It's baffling to me. If I don't like a show, I will not watch it again.
And "Christian demonizing"? Please. I didn't feel I was demonized at all.
Finally, there was an episode that I felt stands up to some of the classic seasons. I've actually quite enjoyed many of the recent seasons (if not as much as the "classic" years, certainly more than other shows), but this episode was really solid.
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1-09-2007 @ 2:23AM
RR said...
Worst Simpsons episode ever. I've been watching for 17 years and have never encountered an unfunny episode. This one was totally devoid of any humor at all. It was like they fired all the comedy writers and got someone from the fox drama department to write it. I hope this isn't a trend - taking the humour OUT of the simpsons.
@Paul #18 - what kind of idiotic question is that? GhaleonQ and myself are FANS of the simpsons, but not fanboys like you. We can like a show and still call out a totally garbage episode if it happens.
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1-09-2007 @ 5:59PM
amy said...
Was a good episode, had some old Simpsons feel to it.
I've seen much worst episodes from the last 3 seasons. This one actually had some laughs.
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