Scullyfied Simpsons: “The Parent Rap” (Season 13, Episode 2)

“Don’t spit on my cupcake and tell me it’s frosting!” – Judge Harm. Arguably the mantra of some Simpsons fans, not that they’ve taken it up… for obvious reasons.

Airdate: November 11, 2001

Written By: George Meyer and, apropos, Mike Scully

Plot: Bart and Milhouse find themselves on the wrong side of the law after getting into Wiggum’s patrol car… and driving it around. And crashing it. Milhouse manages to escape punishment thanks to a very lenient Judge Snyder. However, Bart winds up on the wrong end of Judge Constance Harm, who throws Homer in the mix after finding out he dumped the kids out of his car en route to school. He orders the duo tethered together.

Review:

And now we face the final curtain.

For the past seven years, I have posted ramblings of varying lengths and quality regarding every episode of the Mike Scully era of The Simpsons. I have watched the greatest series of all time implode and settle into episodes that were generally mediocre at best, and downright odious at worst. Why did I do this?

Morbid curiosity, I guess. So much has been written about the general decline of The Simpsons, I figured a bit-by-bit analysis of the showrunner era said to have signaled the fall from grace would be an interesting project. Whether or not it was in execution, I’ll let you decide.

But for now, we have one more episode. One that I briefly withheld partially because it was the last production episode of Mike Scully’s tenure. “The Blunder Years” was the last aired, and “How I Spent My Strummer Vacation” was a one-off return at the end of Production Season 13. But here, we get a big one to finish us off – a Scully-penned episode at the end of Scully’s last production season.

By all accounts, this is the end of an era.

And I’m more than happy to not stall further. Let’s dive into “The Parent Rap”.

Scullyfied Simpsons: “The Computer Wore Menace Shoes” (Season 12, Episode 6)

Plot twist – this bottomless peanut bag makes more sense than anything else in the third act of this episode. At least Homer loves his peanuts.

Homer: I did it! I’ve changed the world! Now I know exactly how God feels.
Marge: You want turkey, sausage or ham?
Homer: Bring me two of every animal!
– The appropriate response to blogging, I assume?

Airdate: December 3rd, 2000.

Written By: John Swartzwelder.

Plot: After missing a day off of work because he didn’t receive the email explaining the closure, Homer decides to enter the world of the INTERNET! Some experimenting later, he sets up his own tacky website. Initial slowness is corrected when he begins to report on rumors regarding the events of Springfielders. Aiding his crusade is that he disguises himself as Mr. X. But his fame is fleeting, and when he tries to keep the hits going, he gets in trouble with mysterious forces.

Review:

Well, here it is. The Simpsons episode that caused me to review all 17 episodes of a cult 60s British Spy-Fi show.

Why did I decide to take on that little project? I mean, a lot of people who watched “Computer Wore Menace Shoes” have never seen an episode of The Prisoner before. Some fans, however, have and have expressed joy at The Prisoner. I figured that, as somebody that never watched the series before, I would be able to provide some sort of buildup to this particular episode, create some level of excitement, all while trying to decipher what Mike Scully was getting on about by writing a very direct parody of one of the most cult-like of cult hits in the history of television.

The effects? For one, I finally got to realize what Prisoner fans were banging on about, as the show really is one of the most brilliant that I have ever seen. Even with the passage of fifty years, the advances in storytelling and cinematography that have occurred, and the shifts in geopolitics that we have encountered, the show remains highly relevant, provocative, and downright ingenious. So in that regard, I have to thank Mike Scully for getting me to sit down and watch one of the greatest cult hits of all time.

So with that, we reach the effective (for now) denouement of my Prisoner analysis – the reason why I reviewed that show in the first place. Homer Simpson takes on the Internet!

Oh boy.

Scullyfied Simpsons: “A Tale of Two Springfields” (Season 12, Episode 2)

Out here in the fields, I fight for my meals
I get my back into my living
I don’t need to fight to prove I’m right
I don’t need to be forgiven
– “Baba O’Riley”, The Who.

Airdate: November 5th, 2000

Written By: John Swartzwelder.

Plot: Attempting to dial an exterminator to remove a badger from his property, Homer finds out that the town has split into two separate area codes. This continues to frustrate him, and he finally loses his patience when he misses out on Who tickets. At a town hall meeting, he concludes that the working-class side of town was stuck with memorizing the new area code, and proposes the town split. He is appointed mayor, where his tenure rapidly goes off the rails.

Review:

Well, we’ve done it. Season 12 of The Simpsons. We’ve passed the 75% mark.

While we officially entered Season 12 with the last episode, this episode, by not being a Treehouse of Horror, really kicks proceedings off for really real. This is a nice way of saying that the countdown to the end is starting. Yup, from this point forward, we are all but counting down to the bitter end of this series of reviews chronicling what might be the greatest collapse of a TV series in history.

I am not enthused, as you can probably tell. Three seasons of watching the series decay will do that to a man.

Anyway, Season 12 begins with the show ripping itself off, as is tradition. This time, the show decides to revisit a plot element from earlier in the Scully era (make of that what you will). Remember back in “Trash of the Titans”, when Homer rode a wave of insolence based off his selfish desires to the office of sanitation commissioner, destroying the town in the process.

So, let’s now make him mayor of half the town because of his insolence, fueled by his own selfish desires, and have him lay waste to half the town in the process!

SEASON 12, AHOY!

Scullyfied Simpsons: “Kill the Alligator and Run” (Season 11, Episode 19)

“This family has hit a new low! We’re on the run from the law, totally lost, no car, no money, no clean clothes, and it’s all your fault.” – Marge. Spoiler alert – the word “divorce” is not mentioned once in this episode.

Airdate: April 30th, 2000.

Written By: John Swartzwelder

Plot: After taking a test in a book of self-improvement quizzes, Homer begins to fear that he only has three years left on his lifespan. Emotionally disturbed, he goes off the deep end, to a point where a psychiatrist recommends that he takes a vacation down in Palm Corners, Florida.

OOPS, SPRING BREAK TIME! It sends Homer insane, to the point where he commits a couple of misdemeanors in the process, but gets off easily thanks to the town sheriff. After Spring Break, he is so excited, that in the midst of his party, he runs over the town’s mascot, the alligator Captain Jack. With the whole family facing arrest for something Homer has done, they decide to hide out in plain sight as workers at a diner in the middle of nowhere.

Review:

For the past five and a half years, I have been taking a look at the Mike Scully era of The Simpsons. In many ways, it is the dorkier equivalent to the study of the implosion of the Roman Empire. Everybody has their theories – some rational, others more theoretical, a scant few completely insane and rooted in somewhat odious rationales. What I ultimately am looking at in terms of analyzing the collapse of The Simpsons is what the symptoms reflect.

Right now, what I’m sensing is that the show collapsed due to a fatal combination of arrogance, inexperience, and the limitations of the traditional story engine, sourced from the writers’ room and the FOX Network executives, at war with both increasingly disillusioned fans and worn-down staff (animators and voice actors, respectively.) Sometimes, the writers thought they could go to war with fans. Other times, they thought they could juggle an ability to tell an emotionally moving story with revenge against an errant voice actor and the quest for ratings. As you can probably gather, the writers didn’t do a good job at many of these forays, because even in normal episodes, the show was becoming increasingly outlandish instead of silly, callous instead of merely cynical, and downright incompetent in terms of framing a story, characters, et cetera.

With around 60 Scully-era episodes under my belt, I’ve mulled over quite a few contenders for the show’s event horizon, the moment when the show’s collapse was cemented forever. And I’m not going to restate my arguments here, since it would be a waste of time for all involved.

All I know is that this time, I have watched a Simpsons episode that I sincerely believe would’ve been better off if it was penned and edited by a room full of cocaine users. It is so insane, so incoherent, so mad, and so incompetent that, for the first time in my years of reviewing this show, I have to question the sanity of Mr. Michael Scully.

I don’t know how else to guess the thought process that was behind “Kill the Alligator and Run”.

Scullyfied Simpsons: “Alone Again, Natura-Diddily” (Season 11, Episode 14)

“Homer? You are the worst human being I have ever met.” – Ned Flanders, “Hurricane Neddy”. Give it three seasons, Flanders.

Airdate: February 13th, 2000.

Written By: Ian Maxtone Graham.

Plot: A trip to the nature preserve results in the Simpson clan encroaching on a racetrack. At a race later that day, they meet the Flandereses on the top deck of the bleachers. Unfortunately, a rather tragic series of events unfurl, and Maude winds up knocked off the stands to her death. Ned has to cope with the loss of his beloved… which he does with the help of a man.

A certain man.

That caused his wife’s death.

Review:

The debate over the decline of The Simpsons has often lied in the sentiments and degree of said decline? Not only is it often debated how long the show entered the rough spot (if it hit said spot at all), but there’s also the debate of how far the show sank. As I mentioned in my review of “Saddlesore Galactica”, there are plenty of fans who do watch the show to this day and argue that while there has been a decline, the fans that call for the show’s cancellation rely on hyperbolic sentiment.

They argue that the golden years were so illustrious, that nothing, short of nothing, could match them. These fans argue that the Dead Homer Society faction of fans – in effect, the #WengerOut of the Simpsons fandom (and that’s neither a complaint nor a compliment) – are either relying on rose-colored glasses or have such impossible standards as to ruin a perfectly good show for themselves and others.

And you know what?

That’s fine by me!

If you want to enjoy new episodes of The Simpsons, that is absolutely cool. I disagree with your argument that it’s particularly good (or even watchable) television, but again, that’s my opinion. Even Dead Homer Society – a blog with probably the most thorough and partisan analysis of the show’s decline out on the internet – argues that their visceral reaction to the show’s current state is only exacerbated because the golden years (seasons 1-7, according to them) were, in their eyes, so brilliant as to be part of the American canon.

To a cynical select few, it might come off as being part of the #WengerOut-esque bandwagon, this idea that we should kill off this institution of American television because a few nerds on the internet are angry. Which, alright. It’s the internet. You don’t have to go far to find insolent jackasses.

To those few, I want to disclose that what I am about to say, and my rationale thereof, is only a very slightly hyperbolic take on my own personal beliefs. Very slightly, in fact. Yes, I know this is just a show, but it revolves around my all-time favorite TV show. And therefore, where I am coming from is pretty clear.

Here we go…

“Alone Again, Natura-Diddily” is the single most infuriating piece of fiction that I have covered or very likely will ever cover on The Review Nebula.

Scullyfied Simpsons: “Make Room For Lisa” (Season 10, Episode 16)

“Cellular service is all about communication and unity. Community!” – Omnitouch Executive, trying to convince Lisa that having a cellular tower in her room is a good idea. She’s not the most infuriating character in that scene.

Airdate: February 28th, 1999.

Written By: Brian Scully.

Plot: Lisa undergoes a day from hell when her trip to a traveling history exhibit goes sour. All thanks to Homer, who manages to damage the Constitution, because comedy. To pay for it, he has to put a cellular tower on top of the roof – taking out Lisa’s bedroom for the machinery. (Turns out the government privatized our nation’s treasures.) And it all goes down for her from there…

Review:

Wow, it’s been a while since I took a look at the start collapse of The Simpsons. Now that we’re in the depth of the show’s decline, may as well come back to see if it’s still falling over…

…yup. Still falling over. Alright, everybody – tuck your pants into your socks, cos this is gonna be a whopper of an episode. And by whopper, I mean my god, is this one a trainwreck.