Granted I haven’t been a religious watcher of the Simpsons in my life, but when it comes to the individual shows/seasons I don’t really compare one to another. Whether it is season 1, 8, 10, 29, whatever…Regardless if it is way too “Family Guy”, or a bad parody or whatever. If it makes me laugh, I’ll watch it. And throughout everything, Simpsons makes me laugh.
That episode’s actually got my favourite single line from any Simpsons episode. Right at the end, Homer is musing over what he should do with his money:
Lisa: “You know Dad, there are an awful lot of poor people out there…”
Homer: “I see what you’re saying, Lisa! I … should … buy a… gun.”
Caught me completely by surprise when I first saw it, and it still makes me laugh now.
Can someone explain to me why the Panda Rape episode was so squirmingly bad? I found it hilarious. The situations that Homer gets into being Mr. Burns’ “Prank Monkey” didn’t seem especially cruel or forced to induce any squeamishness from me. Off the top of my head, I remember Mr. Burns made Homer:
- Throw pudding or something at Lenny’s eye. Funny, and funnier when he does it to Carl and Burns goes to comfort him and gives him a dirty look
- Homer in a diaper in the men’s room, making that lady faint in shock. Nothing so bad about that, interesting visual gag followed by unexpected lady
- Panda rape. Come on, its not like Homer abused an animal. Homer in a panda suit = hilarious. Screaming for help = even more so
The episode I hated was the one where Homer gets into this chili eating contest at the chili fair, then eats a chili so hot he has to drink beer to wash out the taste (after promising Marge he wouldnt drink). He ends up wandering off and having a hallucination where a fox tells him to find his soulmate, which ends up to be Marge after all. Hated the whole Salvador Dali dreamscape thing. Not funny, pointless, and had an ending we all knew was coming anyway
“El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer” is a great episode. And it wasn’t a fox, it was a coyote, as in “Take that, space coyote!” The whole episode had a Central American theme: the “Guatemalan insanity peppers,” Homer’s vision quest through the desert, the magic pyramid, and the coyote trickster god were all part of that.
The coyote’s voice was that of Johnny Cash, which is pretty cool.
I don’t understand why I seem to be the single voice of dislike of this one episode, but “Missionary: Impossible” had NOTHING to be entertained by. If only one episode of The Simpsons deserves to be marked “Grade: (F)” it’s that one. Why? Here are some of the many reasons why:
[ol]
[li]There’s too much Homer and nowhere near enough Lisa (my favourite character). (And no, an ersatz “Lisa Jr.” does not count for me.)[/li][li]Homer takes a wacky new job (missionary) and it ends in predictable failure (his casino turns them into fistfighting drunks? If they’d sent Flanders to that island and he turned them into fistfighting drunks, it would have been a lot funnier.[/li][li]Yet another useless chase scene. God, thinking about the PBS people running Homer out of town boils my brain.[/li][li]Yet another guest star whose part is unfunny and out of their usual character (Betty White hates you if you don’t support PBS? Where the hell did THAT come from?).[/li][li]Homer leaves his job to Bart while he stays sequestered in the South Pacific paradise and drugs himself with the local amphibians, and nobody at SNPP notices the difference in physique between father and son. Lenny and Carl think because Bart parked where Homer’s car is supposed to be, he must be Homer; Mr. Burns makes Bart take the rap for Homer’s incompetence. Boring.[/li][li]Cop-out ending to a scene that would have made for a far better beginning. Homer deserved to get hurt for his destruction of the islanders’ culture, but then we get cut to a FOX telethon! Cream something, 'cause I am certain Homer at risk of being lit on fire after being doused in propane and knocked out with a bucket of loose bolts would have been WAY funnier than lasers and high-frequency cellos.[/li][li]Homer’s fanboydom of Do Shut Up should have been active in the main plot, not a throwaway preclude to the puke that succeeded it.[/li][/ol]
Season 22’s not off to a good start, but “Missionary: Impossible” will always get my vote for “Worst Episode Ever”.
While “Missionary: Impossible” has all the trademark flaws of mid-late Simpsons episodes (increasingly far-fetched plots, lame Deus-ex-machina ending), it’s nowhere near the nadir of the series. This episode coined the word Jeebus for Jeebus sakes! (Googling Jeebus results in 248,000 hits.)
Also, the Pledge Enforcement Van, and “Do Shut Up”: “If they’re not having a go with the birds, they’re having a row with the wankers.”
If this is the worst episode, I’ll eat my hat.
There was one where Marge got her breasts enlarged which was basically just a half hour of boob jokes. And no Dr Nick Riviera which pissed me off.
The travel ones are getting lamer and lamer. The Simpsons go to Canada was the worst, although “Why should we go to America Junior?” was a funny line.
I haven’t seen it in a long time, but if for nothing else, it’s unworthy for Marge as a character. She can be silly, but I still think she overall has a lot of integrity.
Same here, sorta.
Any Lisa episode where she’s true to her character as a smug, pretentious, know-it-all, more-“politically correct”-than-thou, obnoxious twat? Great.
Any episode where she’s the only sane character in a world of losers? Insta-suck.
Seems like half the Simpsons writers get it: Lisa is just as much of an obnoxious attention whore as Bart–she just does it by being the outsider. The rebel. If she were true to her character, if everyone in Springfield became Buddhist, lefty vegans, she’d become a carnivorous, right-wing fundy just to maintain her “differentness”.
Unfortunately, the other half of the Simpsons writers look at Lisa and say "OMG!! Poor Lisa’s so alone and soooooo misunderstood cuz she’s SO MUCH SMARTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE! THAT’S why she has no friends! I WAS JUST LIKE THAT! < sob > " and then produce a “Lisa gets to be smug about being correct in a world that JUST DOESN’T GET IT!” episode.
Also, any episode that’s even remotely topical invariably sucks. The gun-control episode. the Proposition Whatever-Number one (down with immigrants) sucked, etc.
The sad thing is, these two can be combined where Lisa is the ONLY ONE WHO GETS it about a then-current political issue and you can have a perfect storm of suck.
The last 5 halloween episodes have sucked, especially when compared to the first 15. I used to look foward to the Treehouse of Horror episodes, but now I couldn’t care less.
Yep. There was a musical episode which is unwatchable IMO: All Singing, All Dancing. Oh, and it’s a clip show.
There’s only one series that does funny songs, in my view, and that’s south park </controversial>
I think, as others have mentioned, the travel episodes tend to suck.
One hundred repetitions of:
“You know there’s a stereotype about people from here”
“Oh, that’s not true”
<cue proof of stereotype taken to zany proportions>
NM
this is sure a dilly of a melon scratcher.
i agree that many of the above mentioned episodes were weak overall. yet each had a few really good jokes of some sort in the way of a sight gag, funny line or cultural reference.
There have been a few good segments here and there; I rather liked the Great Pumpkin parody from 2008.
Nelson: “One more step, and I’ll carve her!”
Great Pumpkin: “What do I care? That’s a yellow pumpkin.”
Nelson: “You’re racist!”
Great Pumpkin: “All pumpkins are racist, at least I admit it.”
My “worst” vote goes to the death of Bleeding Gums Murphy. Neither funny nor entertaining.
I don’t quite agree with your assessment. I do think a part of her enjoys being high and mighty, it comes with the True Nerd territory. But I’m not as convinced that she’s all radical for the sake of it. A bit, yes, but not entirely. Her politcal stances do seem to follow a consistent logic and they make sense with her character.
What is more interesting with Lisa, is that she, like Charlie Brown, is mostly an intellectual adult in a child’s body. But sometimes we see glimpses of her child self, for example when she’s playing with Bart. That helps in making her more three dimensional and human.
The one where the Simpsons get a tennis court. The one where Bart is sent to a military academy and Lisa demands to go too and is ostracized.
ugh, the other day the local station ran E Pluribus Wiggum again. I changed the channel and watched Happy Days instead.
A million irony points to you if it was the episode where Fonzie jumps the shark
Eh, too much funny stuff in that one for me to dislike it. Homer licking frogs, the villagers following Homer’s lead and falling to the ground shouting “OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD,” and “SAVE ME, JEBUS” crack me up every time.