Episode 447, LABF18, written by Jeff Westbrook, directed by Chuck Sheetz
Not a great episode - in fact the opening “12 Days of Christmas” sequence might have been the best part - but it did get me to do something I hadn’t done before: enjoy Jonah Hill. I’ve never been a fan. Overall I found it an odd episode. Bart going out of his way to help someone was a little too Marge-like for me, and I saw the ending coming from a mile away.
On the other hand I liked the B-plot, with Marge trying to keep the family eating healthy (okay, we’ve seen that before) and keep up with the latest baby health panic fads. The Whole Foods parody was a bullseye. I especially enjoyed the resolution to that story, both with Marge finding Homer’s stash and the line “From now on, we’ll just make the kids eat healthy.” “Hard pour corn” was also clever.
As for Andy’s ultimate prank? Brutal, but I think Bart’s done better. I love the pranks we’ve seen in recent years, and this episode reminded me that I’d really like to see Topher Grace’s Donny character come back some time.
Other than “nine Lennys leaping,” the highlight of the episode for me was Lisa riding past Bart and Andy with the ‘L’ symbol on her forehead.
No argument there, but I did enjoy the episode. The overall storyline wasn’t brilliant, but it wasn’t bad, and there were enough fun little bits (beginning with the “Upcoming Pranks” (“Night of a Thousand Skunks,” “Operation Gumbo Drop”)) that made it worth watching.
Who?
Am I getting to be an out-of-touch old fart when the Simpsons guest star is someone I’ve never heard of? Or did that happen when Weird Al started parodying songs I’d never heard?
oh you know him… the fat jew-froed kid making the rounds in all the comedy flicks lately. he was trying to buy shoes from the ebay store in 40yo viring? he had period blood stain his pants in Superbad? He was the aspiring singer/waiter in Forgetting Sarah Marshall…
what threw you off was probably the fact that a) NOBODY seems to remember his name, and b) the character did not resemble his real life figure at all.
He’s been in some Judd Apatow-clan movies, like The Forty Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up and Superbad.
Uh… she did. She didn’t do it for the entire credit sequence, but she did it over Al Jean’s credit and Matt Groening/Sam Simon/James L. Brooks’ credit.
I’ll admit that I was helped out by the ads this week in remembering this, and most of my non-IMDB/Wikipedia addict friends tell me I have strange actor-remembering powers, but he’s got a fairly distinct voice and attitude.
That’s actually from an earlier episode this season (“Homer the Whopper” - I think it was the season premiere). But that was a good one and I liked that ending, too.