Rate & Review: "Barting Over" (EABF05)

[Goty]

Just saw Barting Over today (thanks to Fox for airing it out of production order). Funny, solid episode in two first acts. Highlights were the Michael Jackson reference, "man sobbing", Lisa's heart tatoo, Bart's Butterfinger and Casablanca scene. Bart missing his family at the loft was quick but a sweet, nice touch. The x-tremely long and unfunny skate duel in third act didn't help my final impression. Still, gets a good 4/5 for be much better than i expected.

[kane]

5/5 - Great Ep

[Glumplich]

I saw the episode again last night. I give it B- or 4/5 on the poll.

[y2dave2004]

good 4/5

[greendaypunklover]

*gasp* is the the episode with blink 182 and TH!? o0o0oo0o0o0hh yay!!! i love it!! Well i love Blink182...they shouldve been in there more. All bands should be in the simpsons more think about it when bands are on, therye only on for like 5 seconds examples:
*metallica
*Big Fish (or something like that)
*Quiet Riot
*The Who
*Smashing Pumpkins
and so on!!!

"Dude, lets trash this place!!"
"After we get paid."
"Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice!!"
XD

[Capt Hammer]

A Mix of both good and bad, There was finally a chalkboard gag i liked, There were a lot of good gags (SLH and Homer Cleaning, Marge and Homer get dirty video, Butterfinger gag, Homer's Pictures, The Bart Dummy, Blink 182's conversation, the dia-betty thing, Martin's Tatto, The floating Gag and Homer's Ad) and it had some lines I really liked, (Don't you like being a dude!?, Yeah I make up words too.)

But with all the good things there was some bad things too, Tony Hawk's Buisness card was a small joke but it wasn't funny and wasn't needed, Kirk's crying was just strange, Milhouse's Plush Dog was just a sad sad joke, The druggo was boring and a board that can skateboard itself was a crappy way out of the episode. But all the bad things were minor and i still enjoyed the episode alot.

So i'm going to give it a high 4/5. Well Done writers!

[Nauru-1]

Some decent humourous moments although the story is a bit of a stretch. 3/5

[Simpsonsfan1981]

Oh dear. This is one of the few examples of an episode where an absolutely horrible, appalling, atrocious third act manages to destroy what was otherwise promising to be an excellent, solid episode. Up until the whole skateboarding thing, I had thoroughly enjoyed this episode -it had an engaging and intriguing plot, some good quality jokes (particularly loved the spiritual entity arising as Lisa read from the spell book, the Michael Jackson reference etc) and great potential for the episode to actually be going somewhere positive. I even liked the twist where Bart, alone and scared in his apartment, went up in the lift and found the party with Tony Hawk and Blink 182. Up to that point, this episode was well on the way to perhaps earning a 5/5 from me. But the final act just ruined the whole thing for me and dragged the quality down significantly. I'll be generous and give this a 3/5 but actually the last act alone deserves for a lower ranking than that

[zitro]

2/5

One of the episodes that made me stop watching the Simpsons. Using "Jerkass Homer" for the plot was a terrible idea. I think the plot could have worked with Homer making bad mistakes rather than "when you're 17, I'll work you like a dog" and use all that fist shaking. It seemed like his characterization was improving since Bart left (plus, I loved the "crying man" street gag) but only to show mindless anger again and finally fight in the air with a guest star.

The episode seemed too much like a Scully episode. Having a terrible characterization of Homer, annoying guest stars, and a few very good jokes here and there. Homer's commercial was very funny for example.

[Nauru-1]

The Tony Hawk parts really bring this episode down, but the beginning and very end stuff are enjoyable. 3/5

[Moe Nopoly]

pretty forgettable episode for me. Especially because of the confuse and boring story and tony hawk

C-

[bartyboy]

2/5, though I like the ending.

[Green Man]

Well, I for one like it.

It did go a bit downhill near the end, but that wasn't too bad. Even the guest starts were somewhat good. 4/5

[J Dog]

I liked the episode when it premiered, but now I consider it to be a badly-made episode. I mean, the whole focus of the episode is around Jerkass Homer, who put an unsuspecting baby Bart into a dumb commercial and used all of the money just to buy back pictures of Homer doing something incredibly stupid. The courtroom scene didn't help, and I hated the "battle" between Homer and Tony Hawk (some say it's a Matrix parody, but the setup is actually from Dragon Ball Z, given that a good portion of the fights in that installment are aerial battles). Also, factor in needless guest stars (Blink 182), non-sequiters (Homer somehow watching Bart in Tony Hawk's place), and lame jokes, and its just another post-Classic trainwreck.

1/5

[Uosdwis R. Jewoh]

4/5 pretty damn good

[Fox Executive]

Oh god, this one sucks shit. A disgrace for the series. Why is there no 0/5 option?

[Snaked]

It would have worked out quite well had it not been for the Cancerous Tumor that was Jerkass Homer (even though this episode is watchable compared to some others).

2/5 (scrape off the bad bits such as the extraction of the Jerkass Tumor and you got a decent episode between 3.5-4/5, IMO).

[miletich]

I found this episode to be really epic, when Bart gets his revenge on his own father!

[BGod84]

I do not like this episode at all. There were just so many problems with it. The useless appearances by Tony Hawk and Blink-182 for starters, not to mention Judge Constance's appearance, which completely lacked humor. And I also think Bart was a bit too hard on Homer. Most of the jokes were very hard to swallow. In fact, even if this were the actual 300th episode, it would still fall flat on it's ass. 1/5

[alex_on_ice]

Barting Over (3/5):

I've always considered this episode to be a decent one. It's not too special but it does have some good moments.

The beginning of the episode is quite amusing with Lisa's dream and I also liked the way the writers played with the words "Bart Sad" and "Bart's Ad". I also laugh a little bit each time I see Bart in the dining room destroying his food in the shape of a Homer head.

The scene where Homer repeats the words "Why you little..." to everyone is pretty funny as well. Everyone has said it already but I also enjoyed the "300" "302" thing. The ending is entertaining but how many times do we see Nelson as a grown man coughing on someone's grave while saying "Ha! Ha!

[Oh, that's raspberry!]

Season 14 continues when Bart is emancipated! This occurs after learning Homer spent all the money from his acting in commercials as an infant. He meets Blink 182 and Tony Hawk and Homer fights Hawk on skateboards. He then does a commercial of his own to repay Bart.

Yeah I always liked this one, but I found it a bit worse than I remembered on this re-watch. The reference to it being episode 302 was nice and something I remember enjoying even as a child. Isolated gags work fine as well. These include Martin's tattoo and subsequent beating, the nipple rings and Marge's reaction, Homer's "Why you little!" multiple times in the court, and his line about the audience not even being good enough for the Army. There were several other nice bits as well.

The story itself is lacking though. I think I found Bart's rage at his father unnatural here. I mean he literally just learns of these commercials and is immediately pissed. Cut your father some slack here....at least that's how I feel but then I dunno Homer does have an extensive resume of screwing over his kids by now and Bart is only 10, but the Homer fails and pisses of his son angle was done much better many times. Brother From the Same Planet most immediately comes to mind as feeling so much more natural.

The other thing that bothered me here was Homer, at times, felt Saturday morning-cartoon esque. This was brief, but a line or two he had just felt way too corny for me. Then though maybe that was because they needed to cater to Tony Hawk. I liked the animation of Homer on the skateboard, but otherwise wish they hadn't used that plot at all. The commercial with baby Bart was also cool to look at and I noticed the old woman in it is the same one from Homer's commercial in Poppa's Got A Brand New Badge. Overall though I guess I'll give this a 3.5/5, but a mere 3 on the poll which is less than I expected to give it before the re-watch.

[Prune Tracy]

Some of the jokes were really, really stupid in this one. What the hell was the point of the "Uwa" thing? Such a cringeworthy joke. Nevertheless, the plot was decent enough, although it was lacking in humour. 3/5, I guess.

[Bella Drape 'er]

Poor excuse for a 300th episode.

2/5

[cinco]

Again a missed chance for a jubileum-episode.
Like most of the times in the non-classic era the appearance of the guest-stars felt forced and once they start appearing, the story really starts to suffer.
I mean... airbattle between Homer and Tony Hawk?!? What is this, Dragonball Z?!?

Also, I learned from this episode that Milhouse's doggie (first seen in "Lisa's Date With Density") is just some kind of toy I'm not familiar with.



And me thinking it was a real one all the time.

[Handsome B. Wonderful]

That dog was in The Food Wife wasn't it?

[Oh, that's raspberry!]

The dog in Lisa's Date With Density was real, the end even has Milhouse letting it out in the morning. This one was a toy though, I dunno why they changed it.

[Blobulle]

3/5 Very weird ending.

[cinco]

The dog in Lisa's Date With Density was real, the end even has Milhouse letting it out in the morning. This one was a toy though, I dunno why they changed it.

Oh, then it wasn't my misinterpretation. Weird, very weird of them to turn a real-life dog into a toy.

[The Duke of Insomnia]

4/5
This was a hard one to rate as almost all the jokes were great epically the Bart dummy. The only joke that that REALLY fell flat was tony hawks business card thing, it was just dumb. And the plot was actually pretty good except for the last act, the stupid self skating skate board was just plain lazy writing. But again the episode was Consistently funny.

[Zombies Rise from the Sea]

Barting Over

Technically "Strong Arms of the Ma" is the true 300th episode but I don't want to review another bad episode and technically this was shown and promoted as the 300th (for good reason, Fox made a good move here.) so yeah; this is the 300th episode and it's a milestone episode...

While The Simpsons may believe milestones are meaningless, I think they should of took the extra time to make an episode extra special; I mean we've had two episodes in their respective milestones be good, why can't those ones be? Granted their presentation isn't as extravagant but it still showed that the people cared for the show. This episode is better then the 250th Scully Milestone episode that came before but it even though it's better then that episode, it still manages to be pretty boring and stale. Episodes like this one are evident of the changes of the Jean era compared to the eras before it; even the Scully era. (which Jean was a small supporter of.) While the plots may progress more coherently and the moments are less zany than before, it's still got the things that don't work well in the Simpsons; things like overly obvious guest stars and stuff that doesn't exactly work out well. I will say that compared to the newer seasons, they appear in a lesser form here as Al Jean does seem somewhat into his role as a Showrunner at the time; even though The Simpsons has fallen into a lesser form of what it was.

The plot of Bart being emancipated does have potential but it's wasted. Part of that reason has to do with Homer's inconsistent personality. While Homer was known to be a bad dad, there was something in him deep down that show that he cared; this Homer switches between overly mean, overly depressive and overly determined within the span of a few seconds and while those moments where he is depressive save the episode, it doesn't excuse the fact that it isn't 100% consistent and it doesn't excuse the fact that the behavior in the first part of the episode drags the episode down. Some of the stuff he does is understandable but most of the stuff he does is not like him and it doesn't help the episode except for a few parts. The star of the show Bart does serve his role well and there are a few times where he actually acts like a child but for most of the time he acts like a mini-adult, that is to say out of character. There is barely any sense of tone or authority within his voice and that gives the impression that Nancy is just reading her lines while trying to feel the emotion that Bart's supposed to feel; it doesn't help much that he just becomes a background character in the middle part of the episode. The relationship between Bart and Homer had stuff that could of been explored but instead it was just wasted and all because of the writer's idea to insert something off-handed.

Other characters do serve well; Marge and Lisa are good in this and they play some of the best roles in the episode. I especially like Marge in this one; she was emotional, she was herself and despite a few bad spots, I could definitely feel the mother in her. Same could be said to Lisa but she suffers more bad moments them Marge; the moment where she lists off something as if she knew it (despite her radically different personality.) definitely strikes me as off. Lisa is this smart girl with different interest and she's sprouting off an event (a extreme sports event no less) as if she knew about it; what the hell? There is also an extreme sports theme mixed into the episode; that works for the first few minutes it's shown but as it goes on it ultimately becomes pretentious and something that's needed just because the writer had to have something relevant to today's culture going on in the episode. Not helping matters much is the fact that guest star Tony Hawk is constantly everywhere that Bart is, to the point that it makes Bart a stand in rather then a human being; I disagree with the critics when they say that Tony Hawk is a good guest star appearance, though I can see where they'd get the praise. The moments involving Homer and Tony Hawk are decent and they could of been something more; (if both Tony Hawk and Homer just acted a bit better instead of falling pray to a joke.) he did have fun with it though but what's the point if it doesn't help the episode.

There are a number of jokes that are in this episode; jokes that don't exactly land. One of the problems with the Jean era is that it showcases an odd style of humor (people bumping together, people doing wacky stuff (not overly wacky but excitable wacky) and people just sprouting out nonsense) who's likeability is dependent on taste; personally I think those types of jokes aren't well suited to the Simpsons as they just feel out of place and odd but to all his own. Additionally, there are moments where they try to replicate the Classic Simpsons but it doesn't necessarily work out; I mean the stuff is there but the delivery is off and the energy isn't there; and that's a major problem here. There are also jokes that go on for too long and moments which seem out of place (like the moments where Homer repeats D'oh, couldn't get the voice actor to say it three times?) but they're found in a lesser form here, which is good... I did like the fact that they did try to follow a plot and they did try to make it work but again that plot becomes marred due to Homer's abrasive personality and the invasion of the extreme sports stuff. The skateboard battle at the end could of been good stuff but it's not as good as I remember it; maybe I was remembering it without the out of place music and without the kicks but the one I misremembered was better then what we got here. Homer trying to win his son's affection is nice but it just seems so sudden and it would of worked had it included Homer and Marge instead of having an awkward focus on Bart.

This 300th episode is better then the previous 250th episode but it still has problems. This episode doesn't know where it wants to go; having it's characters change moods on the dime to fit the situation. It does have some potential but that is wasted due to the awkward plotting and the direction they decided to take the episode in, which mares the potential emotional core with extreme sports and Tony Hawk. There is a scene in which Marge and Lisa count how many adventures he was in that was hastily animated and that scene alone further reinforces that Fox made a good call; still doesn't negate the fact that it's boring.

4.5/10