Well, it wasn’t the greatest but it is the first new episode to give me more than a few laughs in awhile. Hopefully the quality is starting to come back.
“Mmmmmm…caramel balogna”
“(Can I lick your fingers? Meet me at the mail slot.)”
Tonight’s episode restored some of my faith.
stv
I meant, “bologna.” Shoot, I shoulda just said “Baloney.”
stv
Brahma Queen. Hehehehhe.
“Mahatama-hatama-hatama…”
And “I hope there are no awkward double entendres.”
It was good…it would have been cool to have more about “the other woman.” But I’m glad they are back together. Boy, the octuplets sure are large, hm?
Homer’s bit with the walking backwards and with the ladder at the end just cracked me up for some reason.
Did I miss something after Barney drank the beer? He drank it, said something like “Hey, I can drink just one beer!”, and then…? Was there a payoff later on?
Would this be the first example of a Simpsons character aging? Seems weird to have them getting older while everyone else seemingly stays the same.
I was thinking the same thing about the octuplets.
And I loved Bart and Lisa’s comments on “My Fair Lady.” 
Homer’s ladder walknig reminded me of John Belushi in “Animal House.”
The punchline was simply that, contrary to what he had thought, one beer did not get him drinking again. I guess you could say that the joke was that there was no joke. I loved that one.
I thought it was a hilarious episode. The Civil War re-enactment was great.
I think the Simpsons is relying on some “new” recurring jokes. Such as, in the old days, Barney just WAS the drunken alcoholic, and now he’s so completely on the wagon it’s funny. (Yeah, I’m used to non drunk Barney now…weird.) Or, another “new” joke- making fun of Kirk Van Houten’s pathetic nature. And now of course, it seems to be the fact that Manjula and Apu will never separate, no matter how many obstacles get in their way, be it not wanting to get married in the first place, eight kids, long work hours, or another woman.
About the octuplets…I’m remembering the episode where Homer opens a day care center and Apu drops them off, and they’re pretty big. So I guess this is a permanent thing. It does seem to be the first I’ve seen of a character aging. It’s kind of freaky, because they’re bigger than Maggie (walking and speaking and in their destructive stage), yet she was born first, and actually inspired Apu and Manjula to have kids.
I just loved how the Squishee lady managed to tie a licorice stick into “Do Me” in her mouth. It was so reminiscent of Twin Peaks, yet even more insane.
I laughed when Maggie was in the elephant head.
I guess they wanted to fool people into thinking they were going to go for the joke they used in the episode where Homer goes into space. Barney got sober for astronaut training but when he celebrated his victory with non-alcoholic champagne he immediately fell off the wagon and went beserk.
I thought the joke was that he drank it all in one gulp.
I don’t know what it was about Barney, but it was pretty darn funny. Let’s hope the Simpsons keeps this up.
My favorite part was when bart wrote “I will not lie about being cancelled” (or something to that effect) on the chalkboard at the beginning.
I thought the whole episode was good. I’ve actually thought that this was a pretty good season all in all though (I realise I’m in the minority)
Huh. Although it redeemed itself somewhat, (I thought Homer’s “shocked” act was funny, but not as funny as the writers did, apparently) I actually- for the first time- considered turning it off during the first segment. So many utterly failed gags, it was almost like watching everything else on TV that’s supposed to be funny.
I didn’t like it. Not at all. So many of the jokes just fell flat. I thought the “double entendres” part was ridiculously lame, and so was the gag about Apu’s fake signature. Homer’s behavior was out of character for much of the episode (that’s been happening quite a bit lately). And their starting to recycle old concepts. They’ve done Civil War reenactments before. Ok, so the giant mechanical spider was funny, but how many people have seen Wild Wild West, anyway?
Well, it was a fairly popular TV Show in its time. And a lot more people have heard about it with that Wil Smith movie that came out a couple years ago (although that was pretty bad.)
I’m actually with you mayberrydan; I like the original stuff, too, but the newer Simpsons stuff gets me laughing too. I just think that this episode was a lot more in the style of seasons 6 and 7.