LABF04 Written by Billy Kimball & Ian Maxtone-Graham
It’s obvious from the get-go what this episode is meant to be (heck, they even spell it out at the start), but for what it’s parodying, it does a good job of it, and gives a good goofy “fantasy” element that really hasn’t been seen since episodes like, say, "Homer the Great’ or “Raging Abe Simpson and His Grumbling Grandson in the Curse of the Fighting Hellfish.” I liked the whole bit poking fun at the old “river puzzle,” the history of the puzzle that mixes National Treasure with that other code thingy (especially the nun pirates and the “Join or Die” snake), and the whole mocking of how ridiculous and unsolvable the puzzles are (“Can you try and figure out the answer? We can’t.”) along with the gags in which it appears the characters are asking the audience directly but aren’t- it’s been done before, but I’m a sucker for that type of gag.
“The solar eclipse is like woman breastfeeding in a restaurant- it’s free, it’s beautiful, but under no circumstances should you look at it.”
Likewise. I laughed a lot at this one, and I laughed hard. The nun pirates, the exchange between Homer and the nun at the door… well, I guess I think nuns are funny. “Nissan Quest” was also very funny. I was wondering how they’d pull off a Da Vinci Code parody in 22 minutes, but they did, with a funny Ratatouille riff for good measure. Great stuff!
I was surprised that on her first time through the wall puzzle, when she read “One more time. Your hopeless. Try again, numbskull,” that Lisa didn’t notice the misspelling of “You’re” as “Your”. There must have been a mistake in the storyboard that got carried through to the animators.
The past four episodes have been in 16:9. Unfortunately, the 4:3 version shown on my TV cuts off strangely–like in this week’s intro, “Da V_nci Code Spoof” was cut to “Da V_nci Code S”, which I mentally added “ucks” to, which was misleading for the first few minutes.
“One more time. Your (sic) hopeless. Try again, numbskull.”
So, it was probably a mistake that wasn’t caught before animation. “Seek Your Springfield’s Hopeless” makes as little sense as “Seek You’re Springfield’s Hopeless,” but the latter would have made a more correct sentence-within-the-sentence.
I’m annoyed at my DVR this week - or, really, annoyed at Fox. Usually my recording starts in the middle of the credit sequence and I don’t mind, but this time the first few seconds of the episode actually got cut off because they started early (to fuck with TiVo, I guess). My recording starts with the O/solar eclipse icon fading into focus and Kent Brockman’s newscast beginning.
I’ve learned the hard way to allow some overlap in my DVR recordings where Fox is concerned. For the Simpsons, I start the recording 2 minutes before the scheduled start. Since I also DVR King of the Hill, which immediately follows it, I don’t worry so much about the end. If it gets cut off at the end, it’ll be at the start of the KOTH recording. But I also do the same for House. I’ll add 2 minutes to the start and extend the end by about 2 or 3 minutes more.