Rate/Review Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore (HABF10)

[The Governor]

It certainly happend last year with Futur-drama where you wonder if the people that compare it to the classics actually remember what they were like.

Yeah, I remember 'classic'. Season 11 owned!

[Mira]

I liked all the MacGuyver stuff a lot, As for all the Indian stuff, I still don't know what the point of it all was. It didn't really even make any kind of point about outscourcing and I think they should stay away from political plots and jokes now, because the last time they actually had a funny one was Mr. Spritz goes to Washington. I thought there were actually plenty of funny parts like Moe accidentally shooting himself, Apu's cousin doing a Jamaican accent, "I told you so has a brother...", and Homer's attempt a speach... But there were just as many unfunny parts, Homer and that white cow was the worst part of the episode. A MacGuyver plot being better than the rest of the epsiode equals crap.

3/5 for at least having a good subplot. C

[That Jerk]

Huh? When did NHC suddenly decide that Future-Drama sucks?

[DotheBartman]

Yeah, I remember 'classic'. Season 11 owned!

No offense Jake, but that post doesn't make any sense. Homer_Thompson's been here a long time....you should know by now that he's not referring to season 11 by any means.

Huh? When did NHC suddenly decide that Future-Drama sucks?

It was always very polarizing....if you look back at the original review thread, it was either people loved it or hated it, almost no in-between. Among us essay nerds in particular, it was one of the most polarizing ever.

@Jammy: To be honest, I totally get your criticisms here, but I'm not sure how this is so qualitatively worse than a lot of episodes this year....I mean, worse than "Million Dollar Abie"? Yeah, that episode had ideas....but it never stuck to any of them for more than like two minutes. There's one line of dialogue justifying Grandpa becoming a matador, and then he's just a matador. I'm just not sure how that episode can be given credit for great ideas when none of them were used for long enough to be remotely interesting. This episode's plot was also pretty undercooked, but at least it made a little sense.

And to be fair, I agree with you about the Bollywood dance.

[Disgruntled Goat]

I agree that the Bollywood dance could have been miles better. To be honest, nothing can top the Bollywood dance from the end of an episode of Hustle (BBC show).

Anyway, this episode was decent, definitely better than last week's crapfest. There were quite a few decent jokes, nothing too terrible imo.

[John Jay Smith]

Was Patty's reference about being excited to go to jail referring to the fact that she is a lesbian?

[That Jerk]

Was Patty's reference about being excited to go to jail referring to the fact that she is a lesbian?

Sorta, and the fact that she's been characterized a a pretty tough and mannish woman. She wasn't excited about it though. She just said she could face it.

[TheFlandersMan]

"I told you so has a brother...",

I'm surprised at the number of people who liked this line. I thought it was kind of lame and simple writing. Well, it wasn't a horrible joke by any means, but it was just okay, imo.

[Cartoonnetwork]

Incidentally, now that some people had mentioned it could someone tell me where is the Future-Drama Rate and Review thread? I made a search and I find anything but it. It also had some divisive response in the spanish threads (most people liked it, me and a couple of others thought it was pretty meh) and I want to read again what you said about it.

[TheForbiddenDonut]

For my thoughts, read VeryJammy's posts. He got everything about right.

[Mike Scully]

Incidentally, now that some people had mentioned it could someone tell me where is the Future-Drama Rate and Review thread? I made a search and I find anything but it. It also had some divisive response in the spanish threads (most people liked it, me and a couple of others thought it was pretty meh) and I want to read again what you said about it.

The links to all the new episodes reviwed are in this thread from The Voting Booth.

[The Governor]

No offense Jake, but that post doesn't make any sense. Homer_Thompson's been here a long time....you should know by now that he's not referring to season 11 by any means.

I know, but to me, Future-Drama is about as classic as a bad Season 11 episode.

EDIT: My Late Review...

Well I finally saw 99% of it, but the final dance scene cut off just as Richard Dean Anderson was pushed into the snake basket, but the rest of the McGuyver stuff was hillarious, but a little more "We're Your Number One Fans!" by Pattie and Selma would've been better.

As for the Homer in India, it seems like the really bad Scully Years Homer "adventure" theme, but it's a lot more tasteful. Homer thinking he's a god was a bit over the top, IMO. As someone else said, the funniest bit was the "American Made" shotgun gag.

Overall a 7/10, but I voted 4/5. Season 17 isn't classic by any means, but it's nothing hideous, IMO.

[Flimpson Tide]

I loved MacGyver's wacky contact escape, Homer naming the gods (Johnny Six-Arms, Poppa Smurf) and MacGyver's escape (gift certificate expiring in five minutes). Great episode.

[Channel Surfer]

and I think blaming its problems on typical vacation flaws is letting it off the hook a little.

If you're referring to me here (since TheFlandersMan made no such comment to you, but I did), then you missed the point of my comments.

[Ihaveblink]

The Patty And Selma sub-plot saved it.

C-

[90'sCartoonMan]

I thoroughly enjoyed the episode! Homer going to India was fun, and I like the look at the subject of outsourcing. Moe's gun backfiring, Apu's cousin, and Homer naming the gods were all great.

I REALLY loved the subplot, which made a lot of sense. The Simspons is guilty of having a lot of pointless guest stars, but Richard Dean Anderson was definitely not one of them. The Stargate convention was funny, as was Comic Book Guy's "What in the name of Steve Ditko?!" It was great to see Patty acting like a character and not a stereotype.

Four stars from me.

[Al Jean's Butt]

I gave it a 2/5 because of an underdeveloped plot, no lead up to anything, and it seemed to jump straight ahead without explaining things (family headed to India, Homer becoming corrupt, or not corrupt....)
With that said, I thought a lot of the jokes were hilarious, particularly from the B story, which probably should have been the 'A' story. If they just scrapped the main plot, which started with some pretty weak satire and seemed to just forget that it had a point to it, and just left it with the MacGuyver part, I'd give it a 4/5.

[Mike Scully]

As a vacation episode, it's practically expected that there would be little plot, like most every other season 17 episodes. I almost expect a skit show from these vacation episodes; as long as the events aren't completely random and nonsensical. Frankly, I'd rather the writers exert most of their energy on trying to research the country they're targeting to make sharp and non-obvious observations about the culture rather than focusing a whole lot on a plot which, even if coherent, isn't all that interesting anyway (like Blame It On Lisa and Goo Gai Pan). The lack of plot and conflict in this episode didn't bother me too much (though I think there should have been more buildup to why Homer would give the workers benefits), but there wasn't a whole lot of payoff in humor. The lesser vacation episodes feel like the writers just read a cheap brochure, made a checklist, and tried to force jokes about each item on the list. The Brazil episode was somewhat like this (everyone likes soccer! people walk in congo lines!), though it had some sharper humor like the colored mice. The Africa episode was extremely guilty of this. The Tokyo episode actually wasn't too bad; the humor nicely captured the quirkiness of the culture (the game show spoof was dead-on) and had more obscure references, with only Godzilla and the seizure robots being too cheap. And on to this episode...maybe it's because my family's from India, but it really came off as "easy". Arranged marriage, cows and monkeys and elephants, the Ganges, snake charming, and Bollywood; that's about as in-depth as it went. There was even the oh-so-obvious and overdone joke about how all Indian people have dark complexion and brown eyes! Burns as a snake and Homer kissing a cow were painfully bad jokes. The corpses in the Ganges, though not funny as a joke, was kind of relevant. Apu's cousin working for several American companies was actually one of the better jokes. The episode handled the idea of outsourcing pretty well, if too thinly, with the punchline of the workers learning about worker benefits a decent conclusion. Homer's iconoclasm of the Hindu gods was another sort of easy joke; there's funnier ways to show Homer disrespecting the gods (i.e. Homer the Heretic, Bye Bye Nerdie). For what it's worth I really liked the Bollywood ending. Best part of the episode. Not sure why everyone hated it. All the dance moves were pretty dead-on, with some funny little touches like the trippy shot of the Taj Mahal and Smithers joining in (which was a huge LOL moment for me). It kind of reminded me of the ending to Burns Baby Burns. But even the Bollywood parody was a bit easy; lately, it feels like everyone associates India first and foremost with Bollywood. Overall, I thought the 2 Mrs. Nahasapeemapetilons and I'm With Cupid had better and more culturally relevant India-themed humor than most of this episode. It wasn't terrible (mainly due to the ending and the subplot, some decent gags here and there, and the look at outsourcing), but the humor just seemed too simplistic and forced. It wassn't scathing or relevant enough. It didn't satirically nail any of the western's perceptions about India. It was too plotless, even by vacation episode standards. C+

[Mira]

I'm surprised at the number of people who liked this line. I thought it was kind of lame and simple writing. Well, it wasn't a horrible joke by any means, but it was just okay, imo.

It was pretty simple, not the funniest thing in the episode at all, but it did make me laugh.

[Veryjammy]

If you're referring to me here (since TheFlandersMan made no such comment to you, but I did), then you missed the point of my comments.

Well what I meant is that, while the faults of the episode may not exactly be new, there was no reason for them to be there at all. The episode wasn't typical sight-seeing fare, they didn't go to India on a whim and are almost forced into seeing all the sights to fill up time. There was an opportunity for a strong satire or a good character story or heck even both, and we ended up with nothing. That the episode ended up being as illogical and slapdash as a regular vacation episode is entirely the fault of the writers because it didn't have to be. Like Goo Goo Gai Pan before it, there was strong premise that was very poorly carried out through taking the route of least resistance and falling back on tired cultural gags and general silliness.

I don't know if I'm still missing the point of what you were saying, but it seemed that you were saying the faults were nothing new even if the episode was slightly atypical as a vacation episode. And my beef is that there was no excuse for it to even be a vacation episode and hence have similar flaws in the first place.

[Imperciph]

It sucks that all of you american and english people have actually completely missed what a dead-on parody the bollywood ending was.The real jokes lie within the lyrics, which no one without knowledge of the hindi language won't understand.

In old bollywood movies, there is a convention of everybody bursting into a song in a festive atmosphere after the main conflict of the movie has been resolved, no matter how ridiculous and inconclusive it seems. Think of a situation like a character dying tragically and the very next scene you see are everybody dancing happily. That bollywood stereotype was parodied here, with the main plot abruptly ended have a song near the end. And the lyrics were absolutely irrevelant to the story of the episode, so that was even funnier.

The scene with Burns letting Smithers join the festivities parody the instances in bollywood movies where the cold-hearted elderly guy finally does the right thing.

The song was basically referencing the kawali genre of Indian music.

I'll try to point out the good references and the dumb stereotype jokes :

- Homer kissing a cow :dumb stereotype. Cows are sacred, but people don't go around kissing them to show respect.
- all indians lookin the same- dumb stereotype. There is much variety in the physical appearances of indians.
- the market shot behind Homer - good reference. Indian markes are small and include variety of substances.
- Burns as snake - dumb stereotype. ;-/
- plant outsourced to Bangalore - good reference. Bangalore is India's technological capital : that's why Burns chose it.
- traffic jam shot - good reference. It wasn't exaggarated at all. Much of India's traffic jam results due to all sorts of vehicles making their ay to the main road.
-contrasting modern building with traditional ones - good reference. it is a recent trend in India to break down old buildings and build high-rise apartments.
-shot of Burns' new office- good reference. includes two swords in a wall which a tradition among rich Indian businessmen. Burns' chair is of authentic indian design
- the paintings of Indian gods - good reference.
- elpehant and monkey fighting - dumb stereotype. Haha, "evil" indian authority figures make animals fight. ;-/
- Burns floating among corpses in Ganges. Eh, undecided. It is hindu tradition to dump corpses in The Ganges for which they can't afford a funeral.
- the thing on which homer's face was painted is similar in shape of the object that Indians use to represent their God Shiva.
- "God" Homer was similar in appearance to evil priests or magicians from campy bollywood movies.


Actual review coming later, but I hope maybe some of you will appreciate these DYNs .

[User 1.0]

- Homer kissing a cow :dumb stereotype. Cows are sacred, but people don't go around kissing them to show respect.

Well, that was the joke, that Homer took the "showing the cow he adores it" too far.
But thanks for the info.

[grissom]

"Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore"

This was an odd episode to say the least. Again, the plot felt like something coming out of "Family Guy", especially Homer thinking he was a god. However, it didn't bother me quite as much as it did last week with the downright idiotic matador plot. This was implausible, but not to the point where it really aggravated me. There were a lot of awkward jokes/moments throughout this whole episode. Mr. Burns and the snake dancing entrance, pretty much all of the Smithers/Burns dialogue (aside from " 'I told you so' has a brother, his name is 'shut the hell up' "), Lenny and Carl with the tigers, and the Bollywood parody ending (which I'll go into more later) were all pretty awful. The main plot wasn't bad, but not the strongest either. The outsourcing video at the beginning was quite funny, although the bouquet throw deciding who would be the last worker kept at the power plant was idiotic, and easily could've been replaced with something slightly better. Homer being corrupted by power could've (and should've) been a much more developed plot point. Instead it was turned into a rather strange twist involving Homer losing his mind and thinking he's some kind of god. I really did like the "Apocalypse Now" parody, but overall the whole plot felt really out of place. Homer just suddenly coming back to his senses and saying, "Well I'm just glad I'm not a god anymore" made it seem even less realistic. The one thing I did like about the ending of the god plot was all the Indians having worshipped Homer because of all the things he told them about jobs in America, and their chant being "Vote union" in their language. I also liked how that tied into Burns deciding to move the plant back to Springfield. It just wrapped up the episode really well. In retrospect, the episode should've just ended there. The Indian musical parody at the end was the definition of terrible. It lasted far, far too long and wasn't funny to begin with. Comparing this with the brilliant parody of Indian movies in one of the deleted scenes from season 5's "Homer and Apu" is like comparing night and day. Moving on to the subplot, I thought it was a fair amount better than the main plot. Richard Dean Anderson was a really well used guest star, easily the best in a long time playing themselves. The biggest laugh in the whole episode was the "MacGyver" parody where Anderson escapes Patty and Selma's apartment using a contact lens. The "Stargate SG-1" convention was hilarious too. Nice to see a funny line from Comic Book Guy again. This episode wasn't terrible, although I was a little disappointed. It just felt like it had the potential to be something more. B-

[Jayrayman]

Kiss Kiss was packed with a lot of jokes, and unfortunately most of them just didn’t work. That said there was still some funny moments (most of which were in the first ten minutes) like the outsourcing video, Mr Burns throwing the bouquet into the crowd and the commotion which followed from it and of course the introduction of macgyver.

Macgyver getting kidnapped by Patty and Selma was probably the strongest subplot The Simpsons have had in a long while, and each scene he was in was entertaining to watch and therefore increased my enjoyment of what would have been a mediocre episode (slightly like Charles in the Ricky Gervais episode).

But overall I just couldn’t ignore the bad jokes because for me there was too many of them. Some examples include the scene with Lenny and Carl selecting a door (which was a terrible excuse for a joke), the five minutes Homer was attempting to give a motivational speech to the crowd was slightly bland and Bart getting tormented by a new bully was partically bad.

Save the whole Macgyver thing and some other funny moments, I would say this episode could have been much better. B-

[Nameless]

^ it wasn't mcbain, it was macgyver.

[shhbly]

well .... I thought it was very funny ... even though (or maybe because)
this is my life. My job is being transferred to India.
I loved where Apu's cousin was answering all the phone lines
for the different companies. I honestly would not be surprised if that
is what it's really like at a call center there!

I loved the Macgyver subplot. A guest star hasn't been used that much in a long
time.

I didn't really like the dancing at the end.

overall .... 4.5/5 for me.

[Jayrayman]

^ it wasn't mcbain, it was macgyver.

Thanks for pointing that out, i cant believe i mixed those two up :-$

[sean]

It sucks that all of you american and english people have actually completely missed what a dead-on parody the bollywood ending was.The real jokes lie within the lyrics, which no one without knowledge of the hindi language won't understand.

i'm tired of people insisting "you just don't get it" whenever someone else thinks a parody fell flat. parodies don't always work. sometimes, whether one’s familiar with the source or not, they just aren't funny. this wasn't funny. we all got the gist of the parody (and, frankly, if you have to actually understand Hindi for it to be funny, then what's the point?) and yet many of us still didn't find it amusing. that doesn't make us ignorant or idiots, it just means we didn't think the joke was funny.

[That Jerk]

Even though I disagreed with bob earlier about the episode in general, I gotta side with him on this. In some cases, understanding the source doesn't make the joke any funnier. The cow joke - case in point. Actually, the fact that I knew how sacred the cow is to them made the joke was even more clumsy, offensive, and just plain unfunny.

I do give the episode credit for doing their homework and bringing plenty of culture into the details, but when a joke is bad, it's bad.

Also, I don't see why you are using "it's parody" to defend against what some people are saying "annoying randomness".
I didn't think the dance at the end held up the plot at all. It was sudden, yeah, but it wasn't a "dues ex" ending. It was just a bit of fun and shouldn't have to be excused.

[Imperciph]

i'm tired of people insisting "you just don't get it" whenever someone else thinks a parody fell flat. parodies don't always work. sometimes, whether one’s familiar with the source or not, they just aren't funny. this wasn't funny. we all got the gist of the parody (and, frankly, if you have to actually understand Hindi for it to be funny, then what's the point?) and yet many of us still didn't find it amusing. that doesn't make us ignorant or idiots, it just means we didn't think the joke was funny.

When did I ever imply those who complained about the gag were idiots ? I just tried to provide an explanation for the gag as some people complained the parody was "easy". If you understood the gag and still found it unfunny that doesn''t make you an idiot. I just pointing out that there are some gags and plot twists in certain episodes which people doesn't get at all if they are unfamiliar with the source material such as "the island" stuff in The Computer Wore Menace Shoes and I thought I can get some people to appreciate the joke by explaining its context. I would even argue the bollywood ending is much less baffling as a plot twist than Homer concluding he's a god.

As for the episode I found it underwhelming. There was very limited satire on outsourcing with just the film at the beginning and the revelation that Homer actually gave the workers all benefits instead utilizing their talent cheaply in the end. The rest of the plot sort of rambled on with some pointless bunch of skits with references about India (some of which were great but some were just dumb stereotype) and some scenes of Homer "managing". Burns wasn't overly senile and anatomy jokes were non-existent but he was still far from good form. He seemed much less of his own evil meglomaniac self rather appeared as a caricature of the hapless exasperated cartoon boss who deals with his employee's "wacky" antics. Homer was fine until the whole "god" business kicked in. That was a illogical plot twist that developed out of nowhere : we didn't even have any scenes of him being such a good manager, just some dialogues of him reading from the cereal book.

However, The Mcguyver subplot was hilarious with a great performance by Richard Dean Anderson. I would compare this guest appearance with that of Stan Lee : both characters appear initially skeptical to what made them famous, but goes semi-insane near the end and their fans actually have to get rid of them.

Humour was inconsistent as usual. Some references were good jabs at the Indian culture (the untouchables, the bollywood references) but some were exceptionally lame (Burns as snake, Homer making out with cow) and some were just easy racist stereotype (all Indians looking the same, haha). The Stargate convention was hilarious as was Homer confusing India as Indiana. Some gags like Lenny exposed to radiation and Lenny and Carl and the tiger joke just bombed.

Another underwhelming episode that failed to capitalise on its great premise by being too lightweight on the actual issue. C+

edit :

maybe it's because my family's from India

Wow, never knew that. Is that why your username once used to be The Jolly Bengali ?