Scullyfied Simpsons: “How I Spent My Strummer Vacation” (Season 14, Episode 2)

“Cheer up, Homer. It’s only Rock and Roll Camp.” – Mick Jagger.

Airdate: November 10th, 2002

Written By: Mike Scully

Plot: Homer’s drunken rant expressing resentment about his lot in life is caught on camera for a reality TV show. While initially offended by his swipes at his loved ones, the family concludes that Homer needs to indulge his fantasies and sends him to a Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp run by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

Review:

Well, uh, we’re in Season 14. Mike Scully actually got an episode credited to him as showrunner after the end of his “era”. And it’s not like an episode held over from his production run – this episode was the last stand for the DABF production run, whereas Scully ended in the CABF era.

Even better, Scully wrote this episode! So for our penultimate 22-minute review of The Simpsons, we have a two-for-one special. In a way, we’re going out with a bit of a bang.

“How I Spent My Strummer Vacation”. This episode has received a surprising amount of praise. At the very least, it’s been cited as one of the better “post-classic” episodes in some circles. Entertainment Weekly ranked it as the 22nd best Simpsons episode. New York magazine argued that it ranked alongside the early classics. A columnist for The Times – arguably the UK’s Newspaper of Record – called the guest performances here one of the show’s 33 greatest. So this episode does have at least some cultural recognition attached to it/

But it feels like there is a bit of a divide between the press and fandom when it comes to the path The Simpsons took after the single-digit seasons. Hell, there’s a divide in the fandom. The “Dead Homer Society” section of the fandom, which dismisses almost everything the franchise made after the 90s as mediocre at best (and which I am a part of, admittedly), is certainly vocal, but is it the dominant sector? Almost certainly not. There are tons of casual fans, tons of devotees who love episodes aired to this day, people in between… Simpsons fandom encompasses many ideas and takes.

Who knows? Maybe this episode will be a surprisingly good outing? Maybe the press got it right, and that the guest stars will be used to full comedic effect.

HA HA HA, NOPE.

This is not bad Simpsons. Oh, no. This is an astonishing disaster of a script. There is a difference. One could possibly work in a totally different show (sort of), the other would be used in a “what not to do” scenario for Screenwriting 101. This episode fits the latter category.