I liked this one. Reminded me a lot of the classic Simpsons style. The “Homer gets a new job” thing has been done a lot over the years, but in this case, it was well done. And Maggie really shined in a typical Maggie adventure. (Also, one gag compared to one edited out of Family Guy last week shows the bizarre standards of Fox’s censors: you can’t shoot the Simpsons offscreen, but shooting a Santa offscreen is OK.)
“I guess I’m more powerful than God now!”
“Remember, with great power comes great responsibility.”
“Who said that? I’ll crush him with my power!”
“If my life as a tow-truck driver were a teleplay, this would be the end of Act Two!”
“Take that, you towtalitarian!”
“Hey, isn’t that offensive towards totalitarians?”
“Yeah, my grandmother spent 20 years in one of Stalin’s labor camps.”
“…all the Transformers transformed back into cars and trucks. The end. Okay, there’s time for one more story: Once upon a time, there was a funny ogre named Shrek III. He lived in medieval times, but sometimes he said things from today times…”
“I’m worried about your father.”
“Well, he seems to get dumber each year, but he’s plateaued recently.”
A very uneven show, but the parts that were funny really worked and there were a lot of funny lines. Homer vs. Arnie Pie was hilarious, and I loved The Sea Captain harpooning the Duff Blimp. The Marge and Maggie story was good, but the tow truck plot was pretty weak. [Weak plot, really good jokes.] And “Guidopolis?” I know it’s a mild slur, but when did that become okay? If you’re spoofing somebody else’s humor or even a foreign country, or if it’s clever, I get it, but that was just a long string of bad Italian stereotypes.
I also liked Marge trying to deal with the computer while the kids told her everything she was doing wrong.
Another good line: “You’re infantilizing your baby.”
What about the Family Guy gag they showed this week, where Peter shoots himself in the mouth, then falls forward so you can see his blown out skull (complete with braaaiiiiinnnnnsss)? How’d that ever get past the censors? I mean, it got more airtime than an exposed boob at the Super Bowl!
I thought it was a fairly weak episode, though the parts with Maggie and Bart calling Milhouse an “ass whore” were pretty funny. What Westerns were they riffing on with Maggie on Santa’s Little Helper?