The Simpsons: The Complete Ninth Season DVD Review
December 5, 2006
First a bit of continuation from the last ‘Simpsons’ season I reviewed over the summer, season eight, which I defined as the end of the “Golden Years”, those brilliant seasons during the early and mid ‘90’s that produced nary a bad joke, misdirected satire, or ill conceived plotline. In labeling season eight as the end of the run, I by no means discredit the years that followed, but merely meant to suggest that with the end of the two year stint of writers Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein as executive producers and show runners, and the addition of Mike Scully as the new show runner, the show no longer was in the hands of guys who had been there since the early years, thusly shifting focus away from, every so slightly, the kind of acutely observed and surrealistic family brand satire that gave the series its reputation, towards a more broader slapstick that often finds Homer getting maimed or acting stupider than ever. In these transitional years, namely seasons nine and ten, the series still produced 90% gems, unlike the most recent seasons which for the most part are a sad shadow of it’s once illustrious self, but that 10% is enough, certainly by the standards set by the previous eight seasons, to consider anything from season nine on less than perfect. Of course for most shows less than perfect is entirely acceptable, but for “The Simpsons”, following a season that had such highlights as the Bond spoof “You Only Move Twice”, and the psychedelic inventiveness of “The Mysterious Voyage of Our Homer”, following it up with unspectacular plotlines involving pee-wee football (“Bart Star”), kid news (“Girly Edition”), and a “Lord of the Flies” adventure involving the kids of Springfield Elementary (“Das Bus”), it remains that much more a disappointment. So, in sum, even though the remainder of this review of season nine, out on DVD in mid December in time for Christmas, will only highlight the 90% good material of the season, and as usual, that material is brilliantly funny and often warm hearted family comedy, it must be noted with sadness that all great runs must come to an end, and with the passing of the torch from vets Oakley and Weinstein to staff writer Scully (a staff writer since season six), Matt Groening’s long running comedy went from the best show on TV, to just another aging classic.
But that aging classic still found ways to put its familiar faces through the wringer without becoming too predictable or repetitive, usually by introducing new characters, like Apu’s bride Manjula in “The Two Mrs. Nahasapeemapetilons”, and featuring old favorites, like Moe (“Dumbbell Indemnity”), and Ralph Wiggum (“This Little Wiggy”). In this season we saw Homer attempt to climb Springfield’s highest mountain after getting in shape by eating applesauce flavored power bars in “King of the Hill”, while in an earlier episode he was so incredibly lazy he bought a helper monkey named Mojo to help him with his chores at home, only to ruin the monkey’s health (“pray for Mojo”) with constant eating and drinking. This was a particularly reckless season for Homer, beginning with a disastrous trip to New York City, a holdover from season eight, in “The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson”, and ending with his hedonistic fling with Marge in “Natural Born Kissers”, where the couple spice up their love life by risking exposure to peeping eyes while displaying affection in public places. Meanwhile, of the children, Lisa has the better season with standout storylines in “Lisa the Skeptic”, and “Lost Our Lisa”, while Bart’s best episode is as reluctant friend to Ralph, who steals his father’s all-access police master key to break into the rundown state penitentiary in “This Little Wiggy”, and as the boy who lied on Christmas morning in the sweet holiday ep “Miracle on Evergreen Terrace”. Some of the funnier plotlines of the season that aren’t featured in the following rundown of the season’s ten best episodes include Krusty’s failed attempt at stand-up comedy, with help from Jay Leno, in “The Last Temptation of Krust”, Moe’s wooing of guest star Helen Hunt in “Dumbbell Indemnity” which features Homer watching the classic movie “Hail to the Chimp”, a parade of idiotic Simpson family men in “Lisa the Simpson”, in which Lisa fears she’s inherited the dreaded Simpson dumbness gene, and Homer’s particularly careless attitude about handguns in the satire “The Cartridge Family”. I like all of these episodes, but the following ten were the obvious choices as the best of a mostly great, but sometimes-uneven season.
10. Trash of the Titans: In season nine there are a few episodes featuring Homer in different, non-nuclear power plant jobs; episode 19, “Simpson Tide”, where he’s an officer in the Naval Reserve, where he promptly steers off course during a war games exercise and causes an international incident, and this episode where he wins election as Springfield’s new sanitation commissioner. Steve Martin guest stars as Ray Patterson, the former commissioner Homer sabotages to win the election, and U2 lends a lyric to Homer’s campaign song “The Garbage Man Can”. The song won an Emmy, and it’s the best scene in the episode, but the back-and-forth between Homer and Patterson at their debate is gold as well.
9. Miracle on Evergreen Terrace: Inspired partly on “It’s a Wonderful Life”, this Christmastime ep has the town residents donating 15,000 dollars to the family after Bart lies on TV saying a burglar stole their Christmas presents, including Little Lisa’s yellow sweater and Little Homer’s sausages. Says Krusty about the generous donation, “Fifteen thousand Mazzulians! Holy Shlamola! Whaddya gonna do with all that Kablingy?” When the town realizes it was all a hoax, they shun the family, but then ultimately forgive them, in the process of ransacking their house for all they’ve got, but in a sweet ending, Marge realizes all they need is themselves, and like season seven’s Christmas classic “Marge Be Not Proud”, everybody is happy in the end.
8. Bart Carney: One of three episodes of the season written by John Swartzwelder, the only original writer still with the show at this point, excluding Al Jean and Mike Reiss who contribute the early ep “Lisa’s Sax”, this carnival episode features Homer and Bart inviting a carney and his son to stay with the family after Homer fails to bribe the cops and save the carney’s ring toss game. “Carnies built this country, the carnival part of it anyway,” says Homer, reasoning his fondness for Cooder and Spud, “and though they may be ratlike in appearance, they are truly kings among men.” Jim Varney provides the voice of Cooder the carney in what is probably the season’s funniest guest performance.
7. Lost Our Lisa: There’s a scene in this episode where Homer gets mangled by a concrete bridge while riding on an out of control cherry picker that is typical of today’s ‘Simpsons’ where the writers tend to hurt our Homer to the extent where it isn’t funny anymore, and it’s kind of lame here as well, but what makes this episode so good is Homer’s desperate attempts to find Lisa after she takes the bus downtown and gets lost in Springfield’s Russian district. The conclusion, with Homer and Lisa opening an ancient music box at the Museum of Natural History is a classic Homer/Lisa moment, and only rivaled this season by the final scene of “Lisa the Skeptic”, which we’ll get to later.
6. The Principal and the Pauper: The second episode of the season, also a holdover from season eight, this improbable story flashes back to Skinner’s enlistment in Vietnam as young punk Armin Tamzarian, and his stealing the identity of his lost-in-combat sergeant, Seymour Skinner, who comes back to town demanding he have his life back. The ending of the story is particularly insane, with the judge shipping the real Skinner off on the rails, declaring that none of it ever happened (a convenient storytelling trick), but the Vietnam flashbacks are, as always, some of the funniest Skinner related material the show has ever done, and Martin Sheen’s performance as the boring real Skinner is perfect. “I must say,” he says upon his return, “in many ways Springfield really beats the old slave labor camp.” Of course considering the ending, the line is that much more ironic, and hilarious.
5. Lisa’s Sax: A lynchpin of the Golden Years was always the flashback episodes, like season two’s “The Way We Was”, or season four’s “Lisa’s First Word”, and this brilliant cut to Bart’s first day of school, and the origin of Lisa’s first saxophone, certainly belongs on the list of the show’s best flashbacks. Bart learns to fit in at school by being the class goof, Homer seeks to encourage Lisa’s talents with a musical instrument (“so, what do you like, vio-ma-lin, tuba-ma-ba, obo-mo-boe?”), Homer and Marge sing their version of Archie’s “Those Were the Days” with lyrics like “for no reason here’s Apu”, and Marge reads Bart a children’s book happily titled “Curious George and the Ebola Virus”. All great memories, circa 1985, in the evolution of our happily dysfunctional Simpson clan.
4. The Trouble with Trillions: Homer runs afoul of the IRS after hastily piecing together his tax return at the last moment and becomes a patsy for the government, who wants him to locate a trillion dollar bill Mr. Burns stole back in the ‘50’s. Homer, Burns, and Smithers wind up in exile, in Cuba of all places, and after Castro casually steals the bill from Burns, they paddle back home on a raft, with Burns giving the perfect summation of his patriotic morals: “If it’s a crime to love one’s country, then I’m guilty. And if it’s a crime to steal a trillion dollars from our government and hand it over to communist Cuba, then I’m guilty of that too. And if it’s a crime to bride a jury, then so help me, I’ll soon be guilty of that!”
3. Realty Bites: While elsewhere in the season Homer is working as sanitation commissioner and as a carnival barker, Marge gets a job as a real estate salesman in this wonderful episode, feature the final appearance of Phil Hartman as Lionel Hutz, and a subplot involving Homer and Snake fighting over a hotrod named L’il Bandit. This follows the same formula as last year’s Marge-gets-a-job ep “The Twisted World of Marge Simpson”, where Marge’s initial failure eventually leads to triumph and then to complete disaster (here it revolves around a haunted house she sells to Flanders), but the familiar plot doesn’t hinder the jokes, and the Homer/Snake subplot is one of the season’s funniest B stories. Plus we get more of Gil, Springfield’s saddest 9-to-5 Joe Punchclock, a character that shows up repeatedly throughout the following seasons whenever the story calls for a demeaned employee, or a put upon sack.
2. The Joy of Sect: Produced by former show runner David Mirkin, this classic episode has Springfield’s residents, including a dimwitted Homer, brainwashed by the shady Movementarian cult, a sect who worship an unseen “Leader”, and who demoralize their subjects with field work, lima beans, and polite intimidation. Homer falls for the scam, but Marge is too smart and wins back Homer’s heart and mind with the single drop of a good, tall Duff. “To think,” says Homer in the end, “I turned to a cult for mindless happiness when I had beer all along.” In the philosophy of Homer Simpson, it’s not religion, the love of his family, or the hoax of a fake cult movement, that can make him see the light, yet it’s the taste of his beloved brew and he’s enlightened once again. If that doesn’t speak to all the beer swilling tube jockey’s of the working world, than I don’t know what will.
1. Lisa the Skeptic: The better of the two episodes this season written by soon-to-be “Futurama” co-creator David X. Cohen (the other being “Das Bus”), this legendary ep, in which Lisa discovers what appears to be a skeleton with the bones of wings, an angel perhaps, is a textbook Simpsonian theological study of the often outlandishness of religious hype, and the derisive debate of faith vs. logical science. Everyone in the town believes the finding to be proof that angels exist, including Marge, who has always had a strong tie to the Church, but Lisa, the smartest, and most cynical eight year old in town, doesn’t believe it and sets out to prove everybody wrong, but finds it impossible when the ominous skeleton disappears and reemerges with an apocalyptic warning, “the end will come at sundown.” This isn’t the first (“Bart’s Comet”), or the last (season ten’s “Simpson Bible Stories”) time the show deals with the possible apocalypse and the kind of frenzy it puts in the townspeople, but it is the only time where religion takes the sharpest satirical hit, concluding as it does as a compete hoax to drum up money by the builders of a new mall complex (“prepare for the end…of high prices!”), suggesting, just like those duped by the Movementarians in “The Joy of Sect”, that mindless devotion to one being is a recipe for letdown. In the end, after all the theological ramifications of the story are taken care of, we’re left with the season’s most touching moment, as Lisa and Marge reconcile after being at opposite ends of the faith spectrum throughout the episode. Their exchange after the hoax is revealed, with Lisa expressing thanks to her mother for holding her hand tightly when the fake skeleton started talking, and Marge’s kind reply, “any time, my angel”, is “The Simpsons” at it’s emotional best, no jokes or cynicism needed, just a mother and her beloved daughter, two characters who love each other, and two we love just as much. I’m a sucker for these moments, and it’s one of the reasons why this is the best episode of a transitional year for the greatest television show of all time.
“The Simpsons: The Complete Ninth Season” will be available on DVD on December 19th.
by Adam Suraf