The Simpsons: The Complete Sixth Season
August 7, 2005
The other day I was watching a repeat ‘Simpsons’ episode from a few seasons ago and was shocked to notice how little I was laughing. It was the 300th episode, and like many of the recent episodes, it featured way too many guest stars, for no apparent reason, the likes of Tony Hawk and Blink 182 appeared as themselves in a ridiculous story about Bart divorcing his parents and living in a huge flat by himself downtown. Most fans agree with my general assessment that the show is nothing like it used to be, and never is that more clear than with this months most recent DVD issue, from ’94-’95, the much acclaimed sixth season, a year that saw a respectable, and more importantly, bitterly funny use of guest stars (from the likes of Mel Brooks and Meryl Streep, to Patrick Stewart and Winona Ryder), while keeping the plots from stretching too far into the deep end. Granted, in previous seasons the show had gone beyond comprehension, with Homer floating around in space, with a bag of chips and an army of ants, and James Woods running the Quick E Mart while Apu and Homer traveled to India to confront the world’s most renowned convenience store employee, but season six, for the most part, stayed grounded in little old crazy Springfield- save for an all expenses paid governmental trip to Australia, after Bart’s curiosity about the Coriolis Effect somehow offends the Aussie prime minister- beginning with the simple, yet epic, plot line of the family building a swimming pool, and ending with an unusual cliffhanger that would have everybody (well, somebody anyway), talking about the who’s and why’s of Mr. Burns’ potential assassination. Turns out is was the baby (cough, cough), but that’s best left to Season Seven, whenever that will show up on DVD is anybody’s guess, but for now, let’s talk about Season Six, a year in which we found out the pride of Springfield is a lemon tree, Grandpa Simpson fathered Homer under the spell of a powerful aphrodisiac, Hans Moleman’s production of “Man Getting Hit By Football” is a smash hit at the Springfield Film Festival (in Homer’s dim eyes anyway), and the Stonecutters, very proudly, made Steve Guttenberg a star. Again, who makes Steve Guttenberg a star? We do, we do.
In as much as the fifth season was a transition at the executive producer role (David Mirkin, who stays on for the sixth, from Al Jean and Mike Reiss), Season Six saw a wealth of new staff writers added to the show, and the departure of David Stern, one of their best. The new writers included Jennifer Crittenden, a prolific TV comedy writer best known for her work on “Seinfeld”, who chimes in with a lovely script called “And Maggie Makes Three”, and longtime ‘Simpsons’ scribe Mike Scully, whose first script, “Lisa’s Rival”, features a complex game of celebrity anagram, and a glorious use of pre-packaged ‘Star Wars’ figurines. The new writers, though talented, still take a back seat to the greatest ‘Simpsons’ writer of all time, John Swartzwelder, who delivers four masterful scripts this season, including the classic “Itchy and Scratchy Land” episode, with its many satirical jibes at Disney World (Roger Meyers, Sr. modeled after old Walt himself gets into hot water with a 1938 short titled “Nazi Supermen Are Our Superiors”), and “Jurassic Park”. The directing duties fall primarily on seasoned veterans like Wes Archer, Jim Reardon, and Mark Kirkland, who weave in funny celebrity cameos seamlessly with the brilliant vocal work of the staff actors. The cameos range from the bizarre (Steve Allen as the inventor of the Pog), to the inspired (Patrick Stewart as Stonecutter # 1, the Exalted One, who initiates the Loyal Order of the No-Homers), and once again prove that in the golden age of the show, famous names like Michael Jackson, Dustin Hoffman, and Meryl Streep could be brought in not simply for their famous voices, but for the weight of the performance behind the voice. Somehow, guests Yao Ming and Tom Brady from last season hardly stack up to Streep’s performance as Jessica Lovejoy in the great episode “Bart’s Girlfriend”.
In seasons two through five, it’s nearly impossible to find a clunky moment or stale joke in the priceless 23-episode seasons, but Season Six can be seen as the year in which the show, very slightly, began to slip. While every episode still has its charms and laugh out loud situations (the ratio is still about 3:2), some moments in various episodes, like Lisa’s beyond the grave encounter with Bleeding Gums Murphy in “Round Springfield”, Burns going on about Rory Calhoun in “Two Dozen and One Greyhounds”, and the hit-or-miss futuristic comedy in the otherwise sweet natured “Lisa’s Wedding” don’t play as funny as they once did. But this season still rates as one of the best, and of the countless classic bits, here are just a few to remember, before I lay out my picks as the seasons top episodes. There is the entire flashback structure of “And Maggie Makes Three”, recounting the birth of Maggie, and why Homer has no pictures of her at home (in a trademark ‘Simpsons’ heart-tugger, it’s revealed that all of the photos are at work, where he needs cheering up the most, covering up a negative Burns-inspired plaque- Don’t Forget, You’re Here Forever- to reveal the words, “Do It For Her”. Excuse me; I have something in my eye.) Grandpa and Homer selling sex tonic to the hicks, and fleeing when they uncover the scam (“they didn’t start chasing us until you turned on that getaway music”) in “Grandpa vs. Sexual Inadequacy”; Lisa knocking out Milhouse’s teeth, and Marge refusing to give them back in “Lisa on Ice”; Reverend Lovejoy’s panicking “It’s all over people, we don’t have a prayer,” in “Bart’s Comet”; Homer playing Mr. Burns’ head like a bongo in “And Maggie Makes Three”; the classic ‘Shining’ parody in the annual ‘Tree house of Horror’ episode; and finally, one of the all time great ‘Simpsons’ songs- the Stonecutters anthem, followed by spare ribs, and ping pong. Who keeps the Martians under wraps? Who rigs every Oscar night? We do, we do.
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Now, before I start my list of the season’s ten best episodes, I have to say how difficult it was widdling down 25 seemingly brilliant shows to just ten, and the exclusion of such renowned classics like “Homer the Great”, “Itchy and Scratchy Land”, and “Bart vs. Australia” pains me as much as it does you. So by way of apology, I can only hope the following ten mini-reviews are adequate enough to forgive the snubs. That being said, here are ten episodes from the season I wouldn’t mind being stranded on a desert island with.
10. The Springfield Connection: Marge becomes a cop, Herman stages an illegal counterfeit jeans ring in Homer’s garage, Marge arrests a petulant Homer for buying beer for Springfield minors, and is discouraged to see a horse without a diaper on, a blatant police code violation. This episode, written by newcomer Jonathan Collier is notable for its position that it’s Marge, not Homer, that is really the head of the family (most knew that anyway), and whenever the fact rears it’s head, Homer acts like an obnoxious brat. “Marge, you being a cop makes you the man, which makes me the woman,” he says in a rant, “and I have no interest in that, besides occasionally wearing the underwear, which, as we discussed, is strictly a comfort thing.”
9. Homie the Clown: Classic Swartzwelder episode in which Homer attends clown college to become a Krusty impersonator, but runs afoul of the mob when Krusty flees after betting all of his money on the Generals to beat the Globetrotters; “they were do,” is his rationalizing. There are many great gags here, but my favorite is Homer constructing a circus tent out of his mashed potatoes, ala Richard Dreyfuss in ‘Close Encounters’, and storming off, “that’s it, I’m going to clown college.” Bart’s spot on response: “I don’t think any of us expected him to say that.”
8. Fear of Flying: Another Marge episode, this time dealing with her psychological fears of flying, stemming from the shame of having a father who was a stewardess. Or maybe it was the German attack plane that runs her down while picking beans as a child. “It’s all a rich tapestry,” says Anne Bancroft as her psychologist, Dr. Zweig, who puts the far greater blame on Homer, to which the big guy protests, “there’s no need to make her into some kind of super woman.” This episode begins with Homer searching for a new bar after he’s kicked out of Moe’s, and his favorite song, “It’s Raining Men” is pulled from the jukebox, and then only becomes a Marge episode after he somehow destroys a 747, a problem in cohesion that is common on today’s ‘Simpsons’ episodes, but was rare in the golden days. But still, this is a great little episode, featuring Marge’s classic “Lost in Space” dream, which invariably infringes on any number of copyrights.
7. Lisa’s Rival: Winona Ryder guests as Allison, a gifted new student who threatens Lisa’s status as Springfield’s smartest child. When Lisa sabotages Allison’s ‘Telltale Heart’ diorama, the beating of the hideous heart drives her mad with shame and guilt. The Lisa plot is sweet, and the Diorama-rama capper is classic, but the best thing about this episode is when Homer and Bart find a mountain of sugar on the side of the road (“black gold, Texas tea…sweetener”), and sell it for a dollar a bag, much more than it goes for at the grocery store, but with added roadside bonuses like glass shards and blasting caps. “It’s okay Marge, I’ve learned my lesson. A Mountain of sugar is too much for one man,” says Homer, after the disaster, “It’s clear now why God portions it out in those tiny packets, and why he lives on a plantation in Hawaii.” Nobody learns a lesson quite like Homer Simpson.
6. Homer vs. Patty and Selma: When Homer sees his pumpkin stock rise at Halloween, he figures on selling at its peak, sometime around Christmas, thus ensuring his financial ruin. He borrows money from Marge’s sisters, takes a job as a limo driver, and in one funny sequence, picks up a scared Mel Brooks from the airport. Bart’s ballet dance subplot is kind of weak, but this one belongs to Homer and his bitter hatred for Patty and Selma. “Marge, we had a deal,” he says, “your sisters don’t come here after six, and I stop eating your lipstick.” With Homer, who eats flower soaps in Season Five, and Play Dough in Season Seven, that’s hardly a joke.
5. Two Dozen and One Greyhounds: The dog has a “Lady and the Tramp” style love affair that produces 25 puppies who wreak havoc on the Simpson household until Burns comes along and steals them to make a greyhound fur tuxedo. Burns’ “See My Vest” musical number is one of the funniest Burns moments in the shows long run, and rivals the Stonecutter’s anthem as the season’s catchiest musical. Credit new writer Mike Scully with the brilliant lyrics.
4. Sideshow Bob Roberts: The fifth episode of the season, written by regulars Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein, and directed by Mark Kirkland, this showcase for Kelsey Grammer’s demented villain is a political satire of the highest order, with Bob’s “Citizen Kane” like campaign for Mayor thwarted by Bart and Lisa. This episode is filled with cinematic references, from ‘Kane’ and “All the President’s Men”, to Bob’s great Nicholson parody, “You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth! Bah, I deride your truth handling abilities.” The Larry King moderated debate with Bob and a doped up Mayor Quimby is a classic, as is the Rush Limbaugh inspired character Birch Barlow, an ultra conservative right wing radio host responsible for Bob’s campaign. When Bart and Lisa trap Bob on the witness stand at his fraud trial, playing up his incompetence as Barlow’s puppet, they run a blue streak of second acts as comedic fodder: “You were just Barlow’s lackey; Ronnie to his Nancy; Sonny to his Cher; Ringo to his rest of the Beatles!” That’s all in good fun, Ringo appeared in season two, but still, you know it don’t come easy.
3. A Star is Burns: When Springfield is voted dead last in a culture poll, Marge stages a film festival and invites guest critic Jay Sherman to host. The crossover of Sherman from Al Jean and Mike Reiss’ “The Critic” is a gimmick, but John Lovitz is hilarious as Sherman, and the entire final act at the festival is a masterpiece. In the end, Barney’s beautiful, drunken elegy, unfortunately titled “Pukahontas” defeats Moleman’s football-in-the-groin comedy (Homer: “Barney’s movie has heart, but football-in-the-groin has a football-in-the-groin”), and Burns’ epic “A Burns For All Seasons”, directed by Senor Spielbergo, the non-union Mexican equivalent to Spielberg, but the lesson’s of the tragedy are lost on Barney and Homer. “The Critic” wouldn’t last much longer on Fox, and is hardly talked about today, but this episode will always be a classic, despite the cheap cartoon crossover.
2. Bart of Darkness: In a spoof of “Rear Window”, Bart breaks his leg diving into the Simpson’s new pool, and is saddled to a wheelchair with a telescope for the summer, where he thinks he witnesses Flanders murdering his wife. In his second season with the show, writer Dan McGrath fashions a tense and hilarious mystery around the Flanders subplot, and creates one of the all time great Bart episodes. The classic joke at the end is that Flanders didn’t murder Maude, but her watered down ficus plant, causing him to scream and faint like a woman, a joke revisited in “Bart’s Girlfriend”, when it’s Flanders, not Jessica, singing Soprano with the church coir. Says Bart, shuddering, “that’s very disturbing.”
1. Homer Badman: Written by Greg Daniels and directed by Jeff Lynch, this truly gut-busting episode, usually ranked as one of the series ten best episodes of all time, is one of those shows that I could probably recite line for line I’ve seen it so many times. And it never gets stale, with a sexual harassment plot featuring a slovenly Homer ripping a gummy Venus di Milo from the backside of the kid’s babysitter and pleasingly thanking her, little knowing the furor he just unleashed. When the scandal breaks on the TV rag mag “Rock Bottom”, edited in a hilarious jumble of pauses and misquotes (“So Homer, you admit you grabbed her can?”), Homer becomes public enemy number one, hounded by Kent Brockman’s news helicopter, and feminist protest groups alike. His only escape is watching “Evening at the Improv”, which, as he notes, is always at least ten years dated. The final shot of the episode is about as sweetly satirical as the show got about the post modern act of watching, and being one with your television in the brilliant early seasons, with Homer hugging his TV and apologizing, “let’s never fight again.” In years to come, the show would struggle to equal the heights of this episode, so cherish this DVD set and all its comedic glory, and maybe when you’re all through with it, when nobody is looking, give the yellow box a hug, like Homer, and thank Matt Groening and company for such a seriously good run of priceless comedy. I already have, many, many times over.
“The Simpsons: The Complete Sixth Season” will be released this Tuesday, featuring the usual array of creator commentary and visual storyboards. The greatest television show of all time doesn’t get much better than this.
by Adam Suraf