Bart Mangled Banner

An episode that Friedberg and Setlzer personally endorsed 

Special Thanks to Rosenhacker: http://rosenhacker.posterous.com/

"Hate Month" Margical History Tour

Kriken: Black
RBY: Purple
So yeah, another Brian Kelley episode. I'll admit I didn't remember this one being God-awful and thinking this was his best one. In reality, it could be argued that this is his least horrible work and that's as good of a compliment I'll ever give this guy.


And yet this would fit in just fine with the later episodes of the show, if you catch my drift.

Oh hi RBY, I see you got my message, clearly he was ahead of his time.

That sounds about right. So, let's skip the imprisoning/idle chatter/whatever, just get this over with. What are we starting with?

Well I'd assume the first segment, in my opinion, the framing device isn't worth talking about.

There's not much that can be said about it, I guess - it's too bland to really pick out anything to harp on (except the treatment of that one book, but I speak as a mild bibliophile). So, we're starting off with King Henry VIII, then. 

Well I feel that the King Henry segment more or less helps support my theory about Brian Kelley's sense of humor and how he always feels the need to insert meaningless sex jokes that aren't funny. Case in point, the opening scene where King Henry announces to the royal court that he just screwed his wife.

Keeping in mind the era, where open talk of sex was essentially forbidden, it's a bit jarring. Even more irksome, though, is the scene where Homer makes a sex joke and then has Wiggum explain it. 

Ah yes, the "Modern Simpsons School of Comedy"

1. Write an unfunny joke
2. Explain said joke
3. ???????
4. PROFIT!

See, it's funny because we referenced South Park in a Simpsons review! .....laugh, damn you!

I see you have taken a few courses there yourself. Anyways, the whole divorce bit and re-marrying scenes weren't funny. The whole "Splitting things in two" has been run into the ground by so many others shows and the "Sex in the church"? Ahahaha, not funny.

That could be said of a lot of jokes in this episode - the 'cannonizing', the pikes, the Agnes/Homer pairing (and Otto/Homer implications), the scene with Lisa (which will be touched on again later)....you get the idea. 

We could honestly go into great detail about how this segment ALONE was bad, but it's time to move on. The Sacajawea segment was there, after all.

This is another thing that'll have to come back up, and a lot of the complaints here are similar to the King Henry VIII issues (i.e. lack of humor and gags that went on for too long). That said, as bad as this may sound, who they chose for Lewis and Clark is also a tad problematic.

You mean the whole "Blacks were slaves back then"? I can understand that, and it probably could've been solved with a different male pairing (Burns/Smithers, Moe/Barney, Skinner/Chalmers (despite what I've been saying recently), you get the idea).

I'll be honest, when I can, I'll give the episode credit when we're reviewing. This, I can't find anything to give credit for.

Well since you didn't bring it up, the whole 'time period jokes' were just bad. Ranging from how Lewis and Clark knew names of landmarks despite minimal exploration of that land to that point, to Moe's Bar, to the exploration somehow getting back to Washington DC in 1806...

Honestly, I felt those fell under the same issues as King Henry VIII; the stories presented are mere scraps of the truth sewed together with inaccurate jokes. As I've made clear, it's outrageous how the writers seem unwilling to do any research on topics central to their plots. Still, there's one last thing that needs to be discussed: when 'Sacajawea' mentions how to scare off a mountain lion, without ANY reason to mention it. Maybe if they had heard a mountain lion's roar, and 'Lewis' or 'Clark' asked about it, then it'd make sense.

Ah yes the 'Painfully obvious foreshadowing'. How lazy can he be to not possibly put that in some form of context where it would make sense?

Don't you know? The jokes padding out each segment kept them from having enough time to create the necessary context! And we all know how good those jokes were! Weren't you rolling on the floor the whole time?

Yes I guess I was, when my brain tried to evacuate my skull, I had to cover my ears with the floor and my face with my hands, so I guess I needed to roll back and forth.

See, there we go! So, shall we move onto the 'Mozart' segment?

You know you can't throw in 'It's historically inaccurate' because Mr. Kelley beat you to the punch at the end of it.

So he KNEW it was bad and didn't feel like fixing it? That's somehow even WORSE!

Yeah ripping off (There's a difference between homage and ripping off) the historical inaccuracies of the movie perfectly justifies your crappy segment. Makes sense to me.

As usual, there are bad jokes abound here, but there's also a rather strange plot hole: when Lisa drugs the emperor, she only drugged ONE glass, with no apparent leftover liquid. How did she manage to also drink a drugged glass?

You expect a Brian Kelley episode to have continuity? Ahahahaha! *rolling on the floor*

Well, a LITTLE would be nice!

That's the best joke I've ever heard involving Brian Kelley. Anyways, yeah that was stupid and two jokes in particular I want to bitch talk about: the Jackson 5 joke and the 'Musical fruits' opera *Cries*

*puts on Literary Analysis glasses* It does bring up one question: just where did the Jackson Five come from? Did they travel through time? Or is it a sign in-story that Marge knows absolutely nothing about the era?

*Breaks glasses* For me, the problem was the joke had NO buildup and made no sense. The opera joke... it's an opera about farting... I'll let that sink in *Sobs in corner*

*picking up shards and the frame* Despite what people claim about opera, it's mostly reserved for epic tales, usually of a romantic nature. Again, given the era, the joke makes no sense given how people felt about bodily functions. 

I'll say one thing about the epilogue and then we'll be just about done. It was very stupid and a piss-poor attempt to re-integrate 'real Homer' (Although the real Homer has been dead for a while) and the jokes at the end were just stupid and not funny. We get it, Homer likes Animal House, you though are not worthy to mention Animal House.

Now, then, Kriken, I just have one final thing to say. As I mentioned earlier, I wanted to talk about Lisa's scene in King Henry VIII, her treatment as Sacajawea, and (though I actually didn't mention this) her treatment in Mozart.

Aw, crap, everyone take cover. 

Hardy-har-har. Anyhow, in each segment, Lisa is, at best, brushed off and humiliated. At worst, she's just degraded, with no sense of how her character - or even the characters she represents - works. In the King Henry VIII segment, it's BARELY justified considering the king's desire for a son, and even then, the scene was just clearly meant to be 'comedy' by humiliating Lisa. 

Ugh, please never bring up the 'Grow a penis' joke again.

Then, as Sacajawea, despite the help she did offer and accounts that have portrayed her as the explorers' greatest asset, whether for guiding, negotiating peace with angry tribes, or simply showing that the explorers meant no harm. All of this runs contrary to the portrayal shown by Brian Kelley, who only shows her as a know-it-all bitch, if you'll pardon my language. It's just frustrating. Lastly has to be Lisa in the role of Salieri, who is ignored and pushed aside at every possible turn until they push her into the madhouse. I could see this happening to Lisa in the show as well, given how Brian Kelley has her written every time! I can't tell if Brian Kelley just hates Lisa, or if he has issues with women in general (though, given other episodes he's written, it's easy to believe the latter is the correct theory).

Okay, and that's the end of our discussion about this episode, next week won't be fun at all, will it?

We're finally going to do 'Lisa the Dra

*Points gun* NO.

Bad Christmas Memories: 'Tis the Fifteenth Season

December's almost at an end so I thought I'd give one last shout out to why Christmas on this show does not work at all (With a few exceptions). Honestly, there's always some hope that the show could put a decent Christmas episode outside the first two so you could have something to watch on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning, but alas, they've failed to do that eve thought they've had a lot of attempts at it (Each getting worse than the previous I might add). Today we go to see a weird little story of Homer going from greedy bastard to Grinch and ending with a religious service (I'd like to see the storyboard for this one).

The episode begins with the family eating dinner while watching a Krusty Christmas special (No bearing on the plot so let's move forward). We then cut to a montage of the family getting ready for Christmas (Goody) next we see Homer at the Power Plant where Carl gives Homer a DVD player and Magnum PI as his Secret Santa (Wow, all I ever got from that were $5 gift cards). We then find out that Homer was Lenny's Secret Santa and he forgot to get him a present, so Homer goes to the vending machine and gives Lenny a package of gum (Wow, what an asshole, I mean the writers not Homer). I want to call timeout for a second to get on my soapbox here, I know that Homer's is selfish and I know he can be thoughtless at times, but this is just grossly out of character for him and just too over the top selfish and I don't like it one bit (Okay, I'm off my soapbox, let's continue). After Carl calls Homer the most selfish man he knows, Homer tries to deflect that statement towards Mr. Burns and wouldn't you know it, Mr. Burns just happens to enter the room (That's not a good argument, it's like trying to defend Stalin by saying Hitler was an eviler man, they were both evil).

Homer, why are you so out of character?

Mr. Burns then hands out the Christmas bonuses which is a $5 meal voucher. Burns then gives Homer a Joe DiMaggio rookie card for... um... I don't know he just gives it to him, no rhyme or reason (Oh yeah remember this whole "Christmas bonus" thing here, I'll mention it later on and why the writers screwed this up too). After we see a female Burns (Brain bleach! I need brain bleach!) Homer sells the card to Comic Book Guy for a lot of money (No specified amount, just a  lot). After a stupid Christmas special (That last for 40 seconds, I know it seems like I'm nitpicking, but it's just a bunch of these pointless scenes all add up to quite a large amount in the end) Homer gets home and tells the family that they're going to shop at the "Springfield Heights Promenade" which happens to be a high class mall. Homer then gives some money to everyone as we see a few scenes of Marge, Bart and Lisa shopping around getting assorted gifts. We then cut back to Homer as we see that he's spent the bare minimum for his family but decides to spend the rest of his money on a gift for himself.

I'll take it! I mean, I hate my family and would hate to get them good gifts

Okay my argument comes full circle, this is just stupid, if you remember Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire, Homer didn't get his Christmas bonus but he still tried his hardest to get decent presents for his family and didn't at one moment think about himself first. Yeah I know it was the first episode and Homer's not quite the same afterwards, but it was clear that he never wants to disappoint his family and he'll try his hardest, something the writers here don't understand. Okay back to the review, in the car Bart asks for Homer to go get the tree and Homer then realizes he can't afford the tree because of the present he bought. Homer decides to take his family to the bad part of town and buy a worthless dry tree that makes the Charlie Brown tree look like the Rockefeller tree. Back home, the family finds out about Homer's gift and they decide to leave him because he was just being a selfish asshole. Later that night, Homer tries to get Marge to reconcile with him, but because this is post-season 10 Homer, he doesn't understand what he did wrong and ends up sleeping on the couch that night (This writing is truly awful). While downstairs, Homer decides to watch a Christmas special (Which he changes to Mr McGroow Christmas Carol) and he starts to realize that he's a lot like Ebenezer Scrooge. At the end he sees his own name on the tombstone with "Unloved by all" under it (Trust me the more he acts this way, the more that becomes true).

Why do I get the feeling that this will be the show's own grave soon?

The next morning, Homer tells his family about the story but Lisa and Bart tell Homer that it's an old story that everyone has their own version of (With the help of the disappearing TV, seriously it's not on the counter for part of the scene). Homer then tells his family that he'll stop being selfish and become the nicest man in Springfield (That sounds familiar, but I can't put my finger on it). We then cut to Ned Flanders and his kids delivering clothes and food to hobos where we find out that Homer's already done that. Ned's a bit shocked but happy to see Homer doing good (As we will soon see that'll all change). We then cut to Homer going up to apologize to Lenny and give him a picture cube with pictures of Lenny, Homer and Carl together (They also put in a joke with Lenny's eye, please tell me that they weren't trying to reference Homer Vs. Dignity). We then see Homer decide to give Marge the last pork chop as she goes a little insane while eating it (Do these scenes have any point? Or is it just "Homer's a nice guy, don't believe us? Then see this") After Homer gets a lot of money by being an usher for the church we see Ned start to harbor feelings of jealousy towards Homer. Back home, Marge is very proud of Homer and Homer thanks her and reveals that he created an entire skating rink for the whole town... that was random.

Have you heard the good news Seymour?

After Ned tries to give some food for the homeless shelter, he finds out that they all went to Homer's skating rink and Nelson decides to tell the audience that Ned's role of "Nice guy" has been usurped by Homer (Who could have possibly seen this coming?) After a news report that's only purpose is to increase Homer's "Nice guy persona" Ned decides that he's going to take back that persona by giving everyone in town a Christmas present (Ah yes, materialistic, commercial USA; where you can buy people's love). After Homer sees that everyone loves Flanders again, he thinks about one-upping him but is told not to by Lisa. Lisa then tells Homer that he needs to remind people about the spirit of Christmas and how everyone's forgotten that it's not presents and they would  be happier without presents(Oh yeah, is it just me or does she sound like a female Linus while doing this speech?) Homer then decides to become the Grinch by stealing everyone's presents on Christmas Eve through a montage (Yippe). The next morning he expects to hear joy but is shocked to hear people upset that their presents are gone (Gee I wonder why? Maybe if I go to your house and steal something you'd understand you nimrod).

You're poorly written, Mr. Homer

Homer then sees an angry mob head towards him and they pelt him to the ground with snowballs. Ned comes to save him but then gets hit with snowballs himself, the mob then stops when Homer points out what seems to be a bright star in the sky (But it's really a flare shot off by Moleman, no real point other than to show what it really was). After that, Ned reads from the Bible but is told by Mayor Quimby to stop, Homer then decides to give back all the gifts as we see that Moe's attempting suicide by jumping off the City Hall building. After he slips and lives, the town all sings "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" (Please stop it)

Final Verdict: This episode sucks, the story as a whole makes no sense and the flow is just a huge headscratcher, the writing is piss-poor, the jokes aren't funny and the characterization of Homer sucks. In short this is a lousy Christmas episode and deserves to be left in obscurity where it belongs. Well we're done and I hope you all enjoyed it much better than I did.

Final Grade: 3.6/10 Just pitiful, see you all next year