Episode 6: Pranks and Greens

So your episode airs the Sunday before Thanksgiving, what will your opening be? A parody of the 12 days of Christmas. I felt it was out of order to begin with, but considering that next week's couch gag involves Thanksgiving I really had to wonder if the production staff was on LSD or something. (Not much of an introduction I'm sorry). So let's begin our review.

The episode begins with Bart having a montage of his newest pranks at school as it ends with Bart destroying Skinner's car. Skinner then informs Bart that there was a better prankster than him but just leaves it at that for Bart to actually look him up himself. After that is our sub-plot about Marge having playdates with other mothers and babies, leading to Marge becoming such a conscious mother about what she provides as food. To be truthful I really, really hate this craze about how babies must eat certain foods, not drink out of certain cups and must be home educated a certain way.

How dare you bring milk and cookies as a snack?! You'll ruin our master plan!

As far as I'm concerned, having your 1 year old eat baby food with some milk from a plastic sippie cup will not prevent him from going to Harvard (I'd like to point out that I'm a National Merit Scholar who went to public school, drank out of BPA sippy cups, and gnawed on plastic toys. Just saying). We resume our main story with Bart finding out that the paper didn't publish for a week and spies Willie in the back of a picture showing an 'evil' Skinner. Bart then talks to Willie as he reveals he was a swim teacher and he taught the school the "Aberdeen Crawl" (I really don't care where he's from but here's a point towards Aberdeen).

Skinner felt that the kids should take a more serious interest in their summer reading projects

As Skinner takes his morning dip in the outdoor pool (Seriously that pool was better than my pool from high school and I really have to wonder how a school with budget troubles can afford an outdoor pool) he finds out the pool is filled with worms and then the prankster closes off the pool so Skinner can swim with the worms for the weekend *And Monday* (I guess Skinner never read "How to Eat Fried Worms"). After Willie frees him, Skinner tells him to "Shut this pool down Groundskeeper Willie". Willie then tells him it was Andy Hamilton and our search for him can now begin. We begin act two with Marge burning all the junk food because of the "Chemicals" and "Trans fats" (You know milk has chemicals in it to add Vitamin D. Food for thought) Homer being upset goes in and grabs Cool Whip which backfires because it's really propane in a spray can *nah it's Cool Whip but it'd have to have a high concentration of petroleum to be that flammable*.

Bart secretly replaced Homer's Cool Whip with propane let's watch

Bart and Milhouse go to Mr. Hamilton's house, and we get a gallery of his pranks outside and inside as Andy also shows off his pranks from school. When Bart tells Lisa about Andy, she calls him a loser in a rather annoying running gag (Although I did think that Lisa showing up both Bart and Homer was relatively funny). We then see the family *save Bart and Maggie* go to a health food store where the purpose is just to serve up lousy health food jokes (BTW at the beginning is Lisa having a petite mal seizure? Her head just keeps bobbing back and forth in a rhythmic pattern). We then get to see Bart tell Andy that he needs to straighten up and he can get him a job with Krusty (This leads into the running gag of Krusty never being able to remember Bart or Lisa which is established continuity so let's move on).

Her Facebook was down so she had to find a new way to update her status

Andy is then hired as a second assistant, which consists of him just driving erratically away from Krusty's enemies. The act ends with Bart and Lisa playing "Tiddly-Wank" as Bart berates Andy and Lisa calls him a loser. We begin act 3 with another playdate as Marge brings the guests Shit-cupcakes and sterile juice. But that's not good enough as Non-stick pans will be the deaths of us and the sippie cups with BPA will instantly stupify kids... excuse me a moment *Goes off to bang head against a cinder block* WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA!?!?!?! *returns* I'm sorry I just lost my sanity for a brief moment, let's continue. Bart gets Andy his job back as Andy promises to stay. We then see Marge find Homer's stash of junk food as they accept that society is stupid and it's better to live a short fulfilling life than a long miserable life (As much as I dislike the subplot, I like the moral. Of course, it's only implied...).

As the Mommy-and-me Nazi, I have to say: No fun for you!

We end the act with a delivery of worms being delivered to Andy which leads Bart to believe the worst. As Bart goes to find Andy we get a stage hand tell Bart that Andy's "20 years too late" of ruining the show (I think that was snuck in to admit what they are doing is crap.) Bart tries to save Krusty from jumping into the worms but fails and finds out that the worms were intentional as part of a bit. Andy goes to be with his new slutty girlfriend while Lisa calls him a loser for being a writer *as well as the producers*.

Final judgment: The main plot is actually written quite well but the sub-plot is where this episode falls flat of being considered a great. It has its ups and downs, but in the end it's a fairly good episode. This also teaches us that subplot needs to work as well as the main plot.

Final Grade: 5.2/10 Probably would have been higher if not for the subplot