Rate/Review "Springfield Up" (JABF07)

[vox]

So does anyone have a link for the episode? I missed it

willie hears ya. willie don't care

[JohnSmith1882]

Not bad at all. Was that the judge from Kickin' It in Homer Vs New York?

[JoshG]

Just downloaded it, and you're right, the episode just ends before the whole song. So strange. This version also doesn't have the opening credits/couch gag. Global had it.

So if the uncut version had a normal opening, then was Declan's intro moved to the start of act one? Cuz I liked it as the episode's intro w/ the “created/developed by” credits over the shot of the playground. Enhanced the uniqueness of the whole episode.

[caramelbart]

Meh 1/5

[TriforceBun]

That was an outstanding episode. It's quite late right now (and I'm equally late to the thread), so I'll keep it brief. This episode was unique, almost entirely character-based, and consistently funny (moments of humor I loved that haven't been mentioned much are Homer's looking at the "camera," his job as an open-casket caricature artist, and the dozens die in typing accident headline). The voice acting, pacing, and use of secondaries ranged from good to great. I truly felt that the episode didn't have any of the recent problems of S17 and 18--no overly-long gags, no sporadic, unfocused storyline, no generic plot contrivances, and no awful gags! The idea itself was excellent, and it was presented in a memorable way, making for a real fan-pleaser.

The only minor complaints I have are that I'd like to see more of the first act vignettes in the latter half, and...well, that's pretty much it. Maybe one or two gags didn't hit the mark, but whatever. Springfield Up was an original, compelling, memorable, funny, clever, fresh, and smartly-written show that had an outstanding use of comedic timing and atmosphere. There's no doubt that this'll be S18's Emmy nominee.

Up there with Moe Baby Blues and The Way We Weren't as one of the all-time best Jean episodes.

5/5 A

Meh 1/5

Care to clarify?

[Kiyosuki]

Lou has some incredible hair going there.

Oh, and some minor...minor trivia stuff. Stuff about ages. Lenny, Carl, Wiggum, and Homer are sort of around the same age. Its kind of been implied before but ages are always vague in this series. Its the most "solid" we've kind of gotten with it. In fact, Homer and Wiggum are pretty much said to be both 40 in this. (32+8). Another little instance of Homer's age jumping around. lol I'm not sure if Wiggum's age has ever been specifically said before though. Moe looks around CBG's age, and he's supposed to be 45. I'm not sure if Snake's age has ever been implied either but he looks to be around at least Homer and Wiggum's age too. At least for now.

Once again, nothing too anal or "concrete" here because you know how this series is with the little stuff. lol But it may be of mildly interesting note.

[MegaSvensk]

Man, this was a really good, original and funny episode.
One or two more eps of this quality and this won't be the worst season since season 11.

A / 5/5

[Jeff Vader]

the two beats that absolutely hammer in a deep cynicism about the rewards of ambition and genius are those of Frink and the Cat Lady, and those two choices reflect an anti-intellectualism rarely seen on this show.

I don't think the "cat lady" example represents an anti-intellectualism. She represents more of the anti-ambition streak that the show has. The writers seem to hate ambition, especially blind ambition. She seemed close to the Lindsay Nigel (i think that's her name) character who is bright and intelligent in a corporate/structured way, but is also the type of person that everyone hates because of her use of marketing lingo and belief that she is smarter than she is. Frank Grimes would probably be another example of the anti-ambition streak in the show.

As Homer has said, "If something's hard to do then it's not worth doing" and "You tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is: Never try."

[Disgruntled Goat]

Wow, a pretty decent episode! Not laugh-a-minute like an episode such as this ought to be heading towards, but solid with enough of the good stuff. Ending pun was lame as hell, as those always have been. But this episode was definitely a big step in the right direction.

In fact, Homer and Wiggum are pretty much said to be both 40 in this. (32+8).

^^^Yeah I noticed that this implied Homer was 40 - that'll be why they chose 8-year intervals instead of 7 (Homer would have to be 35 or 42). 6 or 9 could have worked - Homer would be 36 (which he has been before).

[Veryjammy]

There are two gutsy ideas at work in "Springfield Up": It's the first flashback show where the flashbacks are actively at play with the present (rather than relegating the present to wraparound status), and I would say it's the first format-bender where the bend is a setpiece rather than the true focus of the show's action ("Nuestro Jomer" is arguable, but hallucinatory subject matter notwithstanding, it's the visuals that are revolutionary, not the story). I'm not convinced that either succeeds, but "Springfield Up" plays its trump cards -- different character models, seventies jokes and in-jokes about the future -- as well as it can.

I suppose an episode like this has seemed inevitable since Mike Reiss spoke wistfully about the notion of a "Simpsons Babies" spinoff on some commentary track or other, but it's easy to see why a series like that wouldn't have worked: Like most of the more celebrated episodes from recent seasons, this one plays hard to its core audience at the expense of casual viewers. To be fair, the show's creators clearly seem aware of this problem, hence the extreme absurdity that is the .44 magnum massage. And this episode compensates by hitting all the show's best-honed comic notes -- particularly misdirection (Disco Sea Captain), the infectious extension (twelve o'clock) and Stan Daniels turns (the quick cut to kids) beautifully.*

It's good that the comedy works when it does, because flashback episodes and assaults on fluffy feature reporting are both well-trodden territory for "The Simpsons," and while both should have plenty of material left to mine, this episode doesn’t have much new to say about early Homer/Marge (inevitably the focus of the former plot) or documentarians. It was a credible reinvention of previous jabs, just as "Behind the Laughter" reinvented the "138th" and the spinoff show by means of dead-on style parody, and human-interest documentarians who screw their subjects are certainly topical. But since the show abandons its still-fertile concept pretty early on in terms of the action, it's forced to stand on its character-based satire, and there just wasn’t much of any.

New tableaux of brilliant, talented Marge sacrificing her dreams for Homer don't add much to the existing dozens of examples we have (though I was tickled by Homer's artistic pursuits, which ring true to anyone with a liberal arts education). And Eric Idle does a solid job, but by the end of the first act, even people who haven't seen him before well understand that he's venal, backbiting and a little poncey. These are all things we've seen from Brockman time and again, and like a "Simpson, eh?" eventually it's behavior that begs something new.

Since the show does finally acknowledge the link that tends to form between documentarian and subject, I would have been more interested to see that explored more fully than just basic friendship with Moe and the standard treacle ending (which, considering how easy it was to see coming, took us too long to arrive at). Compassion and internal conflict are things we've never seen from any of the newsmen or women on "The Simpsons," and considering how much Declan is in this episode, at least some of the time he spends snickering could have been better spent more fully realizing the dimension of his character that is tacked on as a third-act conversion here.

Besides its reminder that newsmen are people, too, this episode's particularly vitriolic assertion that family (and, to a lesser extent, friendship) trump career success is the point on which I'm most conflicted. True, it is the mantra that makes the show work, but just like in real life, it’s one that can only be emphasized so much before it starts sounding desperate and sad. Besides the required ending, the two beats that absolutely hammer in a deep cynicism about the rewards of ambition and genius are those of Frink and the Cat Lady, and those two choices reflect an anti-intellectualism rarely seen on this show. The time machine didn't drive me as nuts as I'm sure it did Matt Groening, but my stomach turned when I saw the most positive example of a successful woman ever to appear on “The Simpsons” reduced to "that crazy cat lady," and vehicular manslaughter of the lonely man who invented a time machine reinforced that discomfort. I have to admit I was surprised to see such despair on this point; most of the show's writers are old enough to know how well they have it.

These particularly bitter notes reinforce just how hollow this episode feels at its core. It's been punched up quite well, and it's worth acknowledging that while the show's comic notes are all seen here, it's not just in terms of the tired one-note character jokes that haunt episodes like "Little Big Mom." But style parodies like "Behind the Laughter," or, say, the X-Files Episode "X-Cops," work because they don't implode on themselves. I'm not going to argue that "X-Cops" had more to say than this episode, but I wouldn't have wanted to watch "Behind the Laughter" if one act of documentary was followed by two acts of the Simpsons running away from VH-1, either.

3/5.

*Just as importantly in terms of what "The Simpsons" really does well, the adults acting (for the most part) quite credibly as kids does a decent job of compensating for the complete lack of child perspective from the usual sources, which would otherwise have cut the legs out from underneath this conceit.

Anyone else feel incredibly dumb reading this post?

[Tomacco]

So if the uncut version had a normal opening, then was Declan's intro moved to the start of act one? Cuz I liked it as the episode's intro w/ the “created/developed by” credits over the shot of the playground. Enhanced the uniqueness of the whole episode.

Yep, it was at the start of act one. The couch gag, for those who wanna know, was a repeat of the Simpsons as cockroaches running off when the light turns on.

[JM1878]

I don't think the "cat lady" example represents an anti-intellectualism. She represents more of the anti-ambition streak that the show has. The writers seem to hate ambition, especially blind ambition. She seemed close to the Lindsay Nigel (i think that's her name) character who is bright and intelligent in a corporate/structured way, but is also the type of person that everyone hates because of her use of marketing lingo and belief that she is smarter than she is. Frank Grimes would probably be another example of the anti-ambition streak in the show.

As Homer has said, "If something's hard to do then it's not worth doing" and "You tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is: Never try."

I love lines like those two, but I think they're often misinterpreted as the show's actual editorial viewpoint rather than a self-conscious attack on the sitcom conventions at the heart of the show.

Frank Grimes is probably the best example of the show's take on this divide between the mythology of a producer culture full of Horatio Algers and the reality of a consumer culture full of Homer Simpsons, but Grimes isn't the one being criticized the most harshly in "Homer's Enemy." Like Malvolio in Twelfth Night, Sir Topas in the Canterbury Tales or pretty much anybody in Tamburlaine, he is an attack on the foundation of the world into which he has been thrown.

Grimes is the epitome of the notion that an American can pull himself up by his bootstraps, regardless of crippling silo explosions. When he sinks into the ground, the Puritan work ethic sinks along with him (to riotous laughter). But that's a criticism of the sheer insanity that lies at the heart of most of my favorite episodes of "The Simpsons": The notion that Homer is the hero, that we laugh with him and not at him. The tacit ridiculousness of this idea is at the heart of perhaps the best argument Chris Turner makes in Planet Simpson -- that Homer is the antithesis of every ideal our frontiersmen- and cowboy-loving society claims to hold dear.

To be fair (and I think Turner takes note of this, too), it's not just Homer's consumerism that we identify with -- it's his defiance of authority. But I would argue that we identify with Homer more when he is TRYING to do things -- to help his kids, to romance his wife, to get a job he likes better -- than we do when he’s chewing on Grimey’s pencils or eating his lunch. The brilliance of “Homer’s Enemy” is that we may go back to rooting for Homer when his next caper comes around, but we can’t help but recognize our own hypocrisy as we cheer him on. That adds an entire level to every subsequent “Simpsons” adventure and every message that comes with them.

The devolution of the Cat Lady, however, is not John Swartzwelder raging against the machine he helped build. Nor is it Lindsay Naegel, who exemplifies the machine against which Swartzwelder raged decades ago as an advertising copywriter. Naegel represents the engine of consumer culture that victimizes people like Grimes. She is consistently in thrall to a corporate master, and her only apparent desires are rooted in the consumerism she espouses. But that’s not what we see in the Cat Lady -- a hyperbolically brilliant woman at her peak reduced to a gibbering lunatic because she worked too hard to have time for a family by age 30.

[Kiyosuki]

I don't think the "cat lady" example represents an anti-intellectualism. She represents more of the anti-ambition streak that the show has. The writers seem to hate ambition, especially blind ambition. She seemed close to the Lindsay Nigel (i think that's her name) character who is bright and intelligent in a corporate/structured way, but is also the type of person that everyone hates because of her use of marketing lingo and belief that she is smarter than she is. Frank Grimes would probably be another example of the anti-ambition streak in the show.

As Homer has said, "If something's hard to do then it's not worth doing" and "You tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is: Never try."

The way I saw Eleanor/CCL's little descent into maddness wasn't necessarilly promoting a total lack of ambition. To me it was about being level with yourself. You know, taking things in stride, pacing yourself, taking in the good with the bad, and not pushing yourself so much that it makes you self destruct.

No effort or ambition at all's also been poked at in this series many times too. Lazyness and falling to complacency is really one of the most destructive forces in the universe if you think about it. lol And this series hasn't denied that either. In general I think the show goes more towards avoiding extremes of yourself and keeping things balanced.

Thats really what this episode was all about. Taking life as it is, and not constantly as what you wish it to be. As I said what I liked about this episode is how every segment was fun, and in some cases really humorous...but many of them had a point too. They all went together to help further the point made with Homer and Marge in the end.

-Wiggum did what he could and acomplished what he wanted. You may be able to critisize his ability, but you can't critisize that he at least got there. He may not have pants that fit (lol) or be perfect at what he does but still he's a...for the most part nice guy who can't really ignore that he did alright for himself.
-Frink did quite a bit with his life. He wanted to get his hands on a lady of course (didn't he have a kid? lol small details.) and never did, but still he didn't do so bad. But I guess he had trouble seeing that. Whats ironic is that he could probably find easier ways of finding love than a time machine. lol He's only looking at what he wants.
-Eleanor had big dreams and did them all, but the thing is...is she self destructed from how much she did at once. We all have our limits and commiting yourself to too much expectation is really rarely a good thing. You'll kind of miss life.
-Nautical Stu was just awsome fluff. lol

-It all boils down to the end with Homer and Marge. Homer tried his usual get rich quick schemes and experiments to make it big but he never did. And Marge wanted to become a photographer/photo journalist but didn't get the chance too. The big kick here though thats supported by all the other segments, is Declan mocks Homer and as Homer pretty sympathetically puts, makes him out to be the guy "that makes others look good". But as Marge plainly sees herself despite her life not ending up how she wanted it, and how imperfect it may be...that their life isn't all that bad either. They've done quite a bit, and some around Springfield even like/envy something about them.

If Homer had never tried...anything he wouldn't of gotten Marge, his family, and what life he does have. But as he says in the end, if you always pay attention to what you don't have and how you wished things were you'll miss whats going on in the now.

Thats how I saw this episode's little subtle message. It uses Homer in a vaguely similar manner to how he's used in Homer's Enemy.

[D DEBBS]

Uh, guys...I don't think this is a new episode: I seem to remember that it aired last year: I do remember Eric Idle as a guest voice and his character was making a documentary.

[That Jerk]

That was in 2003. He's reprising his role from that episode.

[Magnum]

someone give that JM1878 guy his stars, quick.

Frank Grimes is probably the best example of the show's take on this divide between the mythology of a producer culture full of Horatio Algers and the reality of a consumer culture full of Homer Simpsons, but Grimes isn't the one being criticized the most harshly in "Homer's Enemy." Like Malvolio in Twelfth Night, Sir Topas in the Canterbury Tales or pretty much anybody in Tamburlaine, he is an attack on the foundation of the world into which he has been thrown.

hahaha

classic sig'ed

[Jeff Vader]

Anyone else feel incredibly dumb reading this post?

No, but I did after his reply to my post
(to be fair, I can't really contemplate it or come up with a decent reply while I'm supposed to be working...stupid job )

[Jeff Vader]

The way I saw Eleanor/CCL's little descent into maddness wasn't necessarilly promoting a total lack of ambition. To me it was about being level with yourself. You know, taking things in stride, pacing yourself, taking in the good with the bad, and not pushing yourself so much that it makes you self destruct.

No effort or ambition at all's also been poked at in this series many times too. Lazyness and falling to complacency is really one of the most destructive forces in the universe if you think about it. lol And this series hasn't denied that either. In general I think the show goes more towards avoiding extremes of yourself and keeping things balanced.

Thanks, I'm not always the most coherent at presenting my own argument. I did intend to say that the show pokes fun at the extremely or overly ambitious, rather than the simply ambitious. My main point, though, was that I didn't feel that it was an anti-intellectual message.

If Homer had never tried...anything he wouldn't of gotten Marge, his family, and what life he does have. But as he says in the end, if you always pay attention to what you don't have and how you wished things were you'll miss whats going on in the now.

Thats how I saw this episode's little subtle message. It uses Homer in a vaguely similar manner to how he's used in Homer's Enemy.

I think that was what sold the episode for me. It had a very subtle message. They didn't hammer it over the head. They let the story tell itself, rather than completely force it with bad/unnecessary dialogue.

[JM1878]

In terms of the show's commentary on ambition, I think both of you are right on (see any number of Lisa episodes). But the two intellectuals profiled in the episode both meet tragic ends while everyone else remains content (not to mention alive and in the present). That's a message I find particularly jarring because it seems to insist on a certain mutual exclusivity, rather than the balance that the show tends to suggest.

[Gibbles]

Ha Ha Writers...you...suck???? Wha?!! They actually did it, they actually made an episode with no flaws, no bad puns, no lame gags, no forced dialog...It was...Perfect!

Ok I have nothing to really say now, I've always wrote reviews threw the power of bitching, and picking on the negative aspects no matter how much I liked an episode, but there simply were non...dam what to write about now.

Well starters, the whole plot idea and the way it was worked was brilliant, they took this some what uninteresting one off character who has nothing going for him other then being voiced by Eric Idol, and made him interesting and funny, and for the first time ever since her first (and what I would have earlier said, should have been only appearance) I laughed at the Cat lady.

I'm sure if I spent a little time I could probably find some stuff I didn't like, but why try and ruin it. 5/5, Please hit that standard bar more often guys, the fans will thank you...yeah I'm in a bit of a preachy mood today, sue me.

[bobservo]

The way I saw Eleanor/CCL's little descent into maddness wasn't necessarilly promoting a total lack of ambition. To me it was about being level with yourself. You know, taking things in stride, pacing yourself, taking in the good with the bad, and not pushing yourself so much that it makes you self destruct.

I saw it as a rather bleak look at how investing yourself in an education and career (over things that are more "fun") can cause you to go crazy. It's a critique of the demands of work and education, two things The Simpsons writers know very well.

[Kiyosuki]

I saw it as a rather bleak look at how investing yourself in an education and career (over things that are more "fun") can cause you to go crazy. It's a critique of the demands of work and education, two things The Simpsons writers know very well.

Of course it can make you go crazy. But her whole reason for doing all that was because "girl's can do anything!". I mean...delivering babies while going to court at the same time? Its one thing to really have an ambition and push yourself to do the best you can, its another thing to do things that'll blatantly drive you into madness. lol

Maybe she pushed herself so hard, she didn't even know what she was doing it for anymore. Now thats something very real we all have to remind ourselves of. Yeah, you can get your grand education...make lots of money...get great jobs. But then what does it all matter if you don't even know what you're doing it for? Its all just endless, aimless busy work at that point. Thats another thing Homer had going for him ironically that he just didn't realize. At least he had a tangible life instead of an aimless pursuit.

[General Jack D. Ripper]

Wow, this is getting into a serious conversation. I just wanted to add that I loved Frink's segment. The "activate cloaking device!" part was funny, and I love the way these too lines were said:

"I've spent all my life in the lab, and never talked to a girl."
and
"So I can meet a female WOMAN of the girlier variety."

Just the way they're read cracks me up.

[vox]

i think you're looking too far into the cat lady bit, JM1878. it was merely a cleverly constructed mislead, with the intent of playing on the viewer's ignorance as to the identity of elanor. the doctor/lawyer bit was merely to further the mislead, pushing expectations further in the direction of elanor not turning out to be a demented lunatic. the intent was humor, not commentary, and what you have gleamed from it simply did not exist in the writer's minds as they penned that segment.

as for the whole message of homer's true wealth coming from his close bonds with family and friends, i didn't percieve that to be a dismissal of ambition, but rather an affirmation of those elements of life, stating their importance as being equal to traditional success. if there was any commentative gravity to the cat lady or frink's plights, it's that their lives had no balance. their pursuits (the cat lady's especially) seemed to have the intent of merely satifying superficial needs such as intellectual recognition. and they weren't supplemented with the tender aspects of existence that cater to humanity at it's core such as family, so those two sought to replicate this with booze, cats and time machines. this is fully in alignment with the show's overall philosophy. lisa, the show's staple intellectual, is often met with failure, but always keeps trying, because her ambition is not based on a need for recognition, but rather a genuine satisfaction derived from her every pursuit. that's what makes her admirable, and why, even when she fails, we still root for her, because she succeeds in the most relevant way: never sacrificing her moral and personal goals. and she has the other end of the spectrum covered, with a loving and supporting family adding substance to her life. this is the type of intelectualism that the show has always been behind, while casting derision on the somewhat phony overacheivers like the cat lady who do for the sake of doing.

and d debbs, you're thinking of either scuse me while i miss the sky or possibly a short scene in fat man and little boy. this was definitely new.

[Kiyosuki]

Hey... I don't have all the answers. In life, to be honest, I have failed as much as I have succeeded. But I love my life. I love my wife. And I wish you my kind of success.

i think you're looking too far into the cat lady bit, JM1878. it was merely a cleverly constructed mislead, with the intent of playing on the viewer's ignorance as to the identity of elanor. the doctor/lawyer bit was merely to further the mislead, pushing expectations further in the direction of elanor not turning out to be a demented lunatic. the intent was humor, not commentary, and what you have gleamed from it simply did not exist in the writer's minds as they penned that segment.

as for the whole message of homer's true wealth coming from his close bonds with family and friends, i didn't percieve that to be a dismissal of ambition, but rather an affirmation of those elements of life, stating their importance as being equal to traditional success. if there was any commentative gravity to the cat lady or frink's plights, it's that their lives had no balance. their pursuits (the cat lady's especially) seemed to have the intent of merely satifying superficial needs such as intellectual recognition. and they weren't supplemented with the tender aspects of existence that cater to humanity at it's core such as family, so those two sought to replicate this with booze, cats and time machines. this is fully in alignment with the show's overall philosophy. lisa, the show's staple intellectual, is often met with failure, but always keeps trying, because her ambition is not based on a need for recognition, but rather a genuine satisfaction derived from her every pursuit. that's what makes her admirable, and why, even when she fails, we still root for her, because she succeeds in the most relevant way: never sacrificing her moral and personal goals. and she has the other end of the spectrum covered, with a loving and supporting family adding substance to her life. this is the type of intelectualism that the show has always been behind, while casting derision on the somewhat phony overacheivers like the cat lady who do for the sake of doing.

and d debbs, you're thinking of either scuse me while i miss the sky or possibly a short scene in fat man and little boy. this was definitely new.

Thats a pretty way of putting it. You know when we were talking about Eleanor's failure here, I couldn't help but think of Lisa too. Being the overachiever just for the sake of showing her individuality and her well, ability...it sounded almost errilly similar to Eleanor's thing. Just...overachieving for the sake of overachieving. You know whats cool about that though? I like to think that Homer's influence on his daughter, his bizzare and occasionally pretty surprising wisdom about some things (whether he knows about it himself or not. lol) and how he handles life will help her to keep things in check so that when she does get older, she'll be more grounded and know what she's doing it all for. Yet another small little cool point in Homer's favor. I could see her going down a similar way if it weren't for him.

You see this is why this episode was awsome. It can be taken both superficially, and maybe a little more deeply all depending on you. Its the sort of thing this show was built on.

[Imperciph]

I finally got around to seeing this (haven't seen The Wife Aquatic and Little Big Girl yet) and well, it turned out to be every bit as good as the reviews it has received here suggest. In fact, I may probably rate it higher than last seasons TSNES because while TSNES had greater cohesive storytelling going for it, it was plagued slightly by certain misfired gags and this episode worked perfectly both storywise and gagwise. Also, this one was something that was not only great if only taken at surface value, but also could be taken to have deeper, subtler interpretations, and this made the episode even better.

It did everything right : used the whole cast as an ensemble, integrated them perfectly in the story, didn't use only their basic traits for humour, expanded on the back story of several characters, every character was written well and felt organic throughout, the main premise of Homer trying to impress Declan Desmond was efficiently written to work in stories or appearances of other characters and was used to make a subtle yet strong statement of how even with lacking well-paid career and wealth and never achieving his many goals (unlike say Frink or CCL, as displayed by this very episode) Homer Simpson has achieved success by by simply living life for what it is and thus finding himself friends, family and the love of his life (which is something I've always seen as of being the central statement made by the show).

[Disgruntled Goat]

Ha Ha Writers...you...suck???? Wha?!! They actually did it, they actually made an episode with no flaws, no bad puns, no lame gags, no forced dialog...It was...Perfect!

Um...did you miss this:
"Marge, you're my dream, and I get to live you every day" (something like that anyway)

[Gibbles]

Not too forced, I'm sure someone has said that at some point in real life to their lover or whatever. Any rate I can say that most lovey dovey crap that we say to our significant others through out our life's are just as lame and maybe even more so, its sweet but dumb.

[Colonel_Cool]

4/5, Great episode, i love to see Moe younger

[Roger Myers III]

DYN

This is the first ep to “cold open” to a narrator addressing the audience directly since “Spinoff Showcase”, which also used an appropriate recurring (comic genius) guest-star’s character for that purpose.

In the playground together 32 years ago, at age 8, are CBG (who reads a Radioactive Man, drinks a Squishee, and has a Squishee -muzzle where he will one day have a real one), Mel (who already has a bone in his hair?!), Wiggum (who has a “badge” emblem on his shirt), Barney (who appears with the ‘drunk’ look he didn’t get again until Homer gave him a beer in High School), Marge, Homer, Kent, Lenny, Carl, Smithers, and Moe. At the school table, Frink and Hibbert (with a small afro) are seen as well. At age 16, we see Edna and Snake (who is then known as “Detention-bird” rather than Jailbird), at S.H.S. too. When Frink is 8, we see Fat Tony, Louie and Legs in the play yard. When Wiggum is seen at 32, Lou is on the police force too – he has long dreadlocks.

It is now “established” that the following are in the same age group – 40ish “today”: Homer, Marge, Moe, Cat Lady, Moe, Wiggum and Frink.

The S.H.S.’s team is the “Wildcats”, and its newspaper is “the Sentinel”;

Wiggum has a photo of Ralph on his desk;

Homer drives his manure car past Smitty. It looks like he gets his manure (“loamiest in town!”) at the family farm. He has a stolen street sign from ‘Main Street’ hanging in the garage.

Homer reveals that DD has filmed 5 takes of a “surprise” scene – which is a no-no for authentic documentarians (no staging of scenes);

Frink’s “Eight-month-after” pill is, basically, a (usually illegal) late-term abortion;

In DD’s amazing 32-year-old footage of young Frink being visited by his future-present-day-self, (the show’s great “elastic reality” stretched pretty long with this scene,) in the background, young Carl gets on Frink’s time machine and goes who-knows-where

CCLady Eleanor Abernathy graduated Harvard Medical and Yale Law schools;

This ep revisits Marge’s photojournalism aspirations as a student;

Before the surprise twist… Disco Stu called himself ‘Nautical Stu”;

Two of Burns’ hounds are named Shadow and Winston… and Homer is acquainted with Winston by name;

Burns once worked on behalf of the Kremlin (implying another instance of his disloyalty to the US to make a buck);

8-yo Homer thinks DD is a genie; 40-y-o Homer thinks he is a Xmas spirit;

Moe doesn’t get his own “Pontiff No Return” title: it’s a play on the term “Point of No Return” (the Pontiff is the Pope).


REF (Relatively few for an ep)

The entire ep is a parody in form of Michael Apted’s “Seven Up” series of documentaries, in which he has filmed the same 5 U.K. citizens over the course of their lives, checking in every 7 years. Declan Desmond stands in for Apted. (Readers of the Title Parody Guide knew this a few months ago…)

Homer’s “Play-Doh” Theater features the climactic scene of Shaffer’s play “Equus”;
DD’s “shutterbuggery” is a rude play on words: a “shutterbug” is old slang for a photographer, and “buggery” is a British legal term for homosexual relations;

“Bull Moose Elbow Salve” features a pic of US President Teddy Roosevelt, who founded the “Bull Moose” political party;
DD’s “boil this bunny” means ‘create a climactic scene’, alluding to the boiled-bunny scene in Lyne’s film “Fatal Attraction”;

The painting of Burns in a wheat field that OFF has covered with a family portrait is a parody of Andrew Wyeth’s “Christina;

Homer’s scene in the editing bay in which he thinks DD is a ‘spirit from the future’ is a riff on Scrooge’s morning-after scene in Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”;


IMO

I have to admit that part of why I ranted last week pretty raggedly* was that I strongly suspected that this out-of-the-box ep would be bowling everyone over across-the-board, making it atypical to the new shows. And it looks like it has. Which is cool.

But I also thought that there would be a bigger field of complaints about 3 things:
1) the further exposition on Eleanor Abernathy as CC Lady (which imo was fantastic). About 8 months ago, MG said in an interview that the current favorite secondaries were CCLady, Agnes, and, suddenly, Cletus and Snake, but that he thought that they had just reached the funny-apex of the CCLady in a new script. This is the one he was indicating.
2) There was just about no Bart – 2 lines.
3) The “plot-related closing sentiments” that close the ep, which are not only a staple of the show since S2, but are as “cutsie” and overly-sentimental as the show as the show ever allows itself to get.

4) This ep plays extremely fast and loose with the show’s previous continuity:

- Homer and Marge played in the same group as 8-y-olds, but they didn’t meet until 10 or so (in “Weren’t”), and didn’t really meet until High School. It’s a strain, but they weren’t shown playing together, and I suppose they might not remember each other when that young, but it could have been fixed if they remembered that…
-Marge has always been portrayed as 3-4 years younger than Homer. Homer is now 40 – which is all good; they have only slowly aged him 36 to 40 over 18 years, and are aware of it. But they should have made Marge a bit younger and still revisited her every 8 years too, or they could have left it ambiguous had they left off her age-captions, but they didn’t
-Kent has usually been portrayed as much older than the others in the group – he was already a local reporter in the 1970s (“Kenny Brockelstein”), and think of his spa treatment in “Louse”;
- Moe is older that the rest of them too – he was a child in the 30s, in his film days;
- Wiggum is at least 10 years older than the rest – he was a college security guard while Homer was a still a child;
- Edna didn’t arrive in Springfield until later, as an adult and a teacher (from ‘Neverending’ – a recent ep), here she’s in SHS.

Not being an overbearing continuity hound, I can deal with it… but we might as well acknowledge all the stuff that the wizards have done.

The ep features a really interesting twist on the form: Declan’s film itself, from the opening titles through Marge’s “Cut!”, is ‘Growing Up Springfield’. From the first “32-years-ago” scenes with Homer talking about being rich, the seed of the ‘present-day’ conflict is planted. After Marge’s “Cut”, we are then seeing a “meta-plot”, of the ‘reaction’ Declan and OFF have to the film, or, really, Declan’s film of his continuing pursuit of the story (which he still has a cameraman for, and which he has narrated). It’s sort of like a typical DVD Special Feature documentary on “The Reaction to the Film” (which Apted also does for his 7 Up docs). Or, you can view the ep as a single “Declan Desmond documentary film” in its entirety, with DD deciding to make Homer the entire focus of his film and make himself an “involved player” in the documentary itself – like Warner Herzog has, Michael Moore does habitually, and other less-traditional documentarians do. Pretty mind-bending stuff.

[Note to JoshG: Thanks for catching my embarrassing brain-fart on last week’s list – I meant to say that “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” not only closed “Little Big Girl”, but also opened the just-previous “Revenge” – it was the music cue as OFF was being scissored into ‘paper dolls’ in the couch gag. (I made a note –‘prev ep’- , and thought of ‘Gil’ for some reason.)]

*I was also in a foul temper, after losing it and twisting up an ankle real bad. Now that I’m hepped up on goofballs and supposed to stay immobile, I’m going to soak up time by going skipping through all the GD threads that I rarely take time to check out these days. If anyone wants to yell at me personally, this is a good chance to do it IRT…