The Simpsons: The Complete Season Ten DVD Review
August 8, 2007
It’s my general train of thought, as a ‘Simpsons’ obsessive, that the “Golden Age” of the series was lost somewhere in the middle of season nine, and with the promotion of staff writer Mike Scully to exec producer from the genius team of Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein, it would never be the same again. I’m surely not the only one who agrees with this statement, it’s become widely agreed upon that the late 90’s (more specifically, 1998 on) was where the greatest television show of all time suddenly became just another funny animated satire, no more remarkable than “King of the Hill”, “South Park”, or the great Simpsonian masterwork, “Futurama”. So, having stated that anything post 1997 is second tier, it would seem fruitless to keep celebrating the annual DVD releases of these B-minus seasons, but I’m still a fan, and of course I still know each episode by heart, so conceding that the newest release, 1998-1999’s season 10, has nothing on Oakley and Weinstein’s brilliant seasons seven and eight, I’m still presenting my picks of the season’s ten best episodes. They may not be masterpieces anymore, but I still proudly mouth the lines to each of these episodes.
10. Homer to the Max: The best of the season’s five John Swartzwelder episodes, with Homer changing his name to Max Power after the moniker Homer Simpson is sullied by an idiot character on a dumb police show. Says Homer to Marge after the name change, “Nobody snuggles with Max Power, you strap yourself in and feel the G’s.”
9. Make Room for Lisa: Homer inadvertently destroys Lisa’s room with a cell phone tower, causing a rift in their already fractured relationship, but like all the previous classic Lisa-Homer episodes, the reconciliation at the end is endearingly sweet.
8. Mayored to the Mob: Homer becomes the personal bodyguard to Mayor Quimby while Fat Tony schemes to have him eliminated, in a funny episode featuring guest voice Mark Hamill and a ton of “Star Wars” jokes. Homer as a bodyguard is mildly entertaining, as when he jumps mid-air to test Quimby’s potatoes and steak for poison, but the best of this episode is the early comic book convention, a satire the nerdy, Sci-Fi loving writing staff knows all too well, I’m sure.
7. Lard of the Dance: The first episode of the season is primarily a Lonely Lisa episode, as the cool new girl at school (voiced by Lisa Kudrow) steals Lisa’s thunder, but the B-story, Homer and Bart working as grease collectors, and their run in with Willy over his “retirement grease”, is one of the season’s funniest runs.
6. 30 Minutes Over Tokyo: The last episode of the season, and by far the craziest (maybe even of the entire first ten years), finds the Simpson’s in Tokyo competing on a sadistic game show to earn tickets back home, after spending all their money on Homer’s bail. Says Homer in satire, “Games shows aren’t about cruelty, they’re about greed and wonderful prizes like poorly built catamarans.” If the cruel game show and the Simpson’s working in a fish gutting plant wasn’t enough, there’s an appearance by Woody Allen, the Emperor of Japan, a bin of sumo wrestler’s thongs, a square watermelon, Flanders in a kimono, and Godzilla to sweeten the deal.
5. Simpsons Bible Stories: It seems when the writers run out of original ideas they throw together an anthology episode, usually involving the family in famous books or historical situations, and though it smacks of laziness, they’re often some of the funniest stories of the year, and this one involving three biblical themed pieces is no exception. Homer and Marge play Adam and Eve to Flanders’ vengeful God, Bart plays David to Nelson’s Goliath, and Milhouse plays Moses freeing his people from Skinner’s Pharaoh in three smart stories that doesn’t so much satirize religious conventions (like the show has always done), but playfully reinvents them on their own terms.
4. Mom and Pop Art: Homer becomes a modernist hero to the art community, after accidentally passing off his wrecked barbeque pit as a piece of destructive art, in an episode that not so subtly suggests the pretentiousness of art snobs. “I’m gonna be an outsider artist,” says Homer, “that way I can turn all these old baseball cards, Disney memorabilia, and antiques into something valuable.” Earlier in the season Homer tried to become an inventor, worshiping Thomas Edison to disastrous results in “The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace”, and his experiment as a modernist sculptor here ends equally in ruin, suggesting that show to show, season to season, Homer Simpson never learns from previous mistakes, and isn’t that what makes him so lovable?
3. Bart the Mother: Bart accidentally kills a bird with Nelson’s BB gun and hatches the left behind eggs himself, but instead of chicks, he hatches Bolivian tree lizards in a hilarious and sweet episode written by upcoming “Futurama” co-creator David X. Cohen. The episode has a good Bart-Marge dynamic that hadn’t been explored this tenderly since she caught him shoplifting in season seven’s “Marge Be Not Proud”, and also features, sadly, Phil Hartman’s final appearance as Troy McClure. For that reason alone, this one’s a classic.
2. Wild Barts Can’t Be Broken: After the kids of Springfield are blamed for destroying the school (it was really Homer and his drunken friends after the Isotopes win the championship), Wiggum issues a citywide children’s curfew, which doesn’t sit well with the authority averse Bart Simpson. This episode, written by Larry Doyle (perhaps the best new writer of the Scully years), features at least three brilliant pop culture references; the black and white drive in movie “The Bloodening” is a direct descendent of “Village of the Damned” and “Children of the Corn”, the musical number “Kids” is a complete reworking of the famous song from “Bye Bye Birdie”, and the closing shot, of Springfield’s elderly roughhousing on Evergreen Terrace, after yet another curfew is enforced, comes from the ‘Twilight Zone’ episode “Kick the Can”, as well as Steven Spielberg’s big screen adaptation.
1. D’Oh-in’ in the Wind: “The Simpsons” have had their counterculture moments in the past, especially in season seven’s “Mother Simpson”, when Homer’s ‘60’s radical mom shows up, running from the law, or Lisa’s “Yellow Submarine” inspired dream sequence in season four’s “Last Exit to Springfield”, but nothing had been, or would be, as trippy as this episode which finds Homer working with two hippies (Martin Mull and George Carlin) to “freak out” the Springfield establishment. In Homer’s delusional mind his protest against conformity is a way to connect with his absent-again mother (in a sweet moment we learn Homer’s middle name, Jay, painted on one of his mother’s mural’s), but really the ex-hippies are now businessmen with little time for Homer’s nostalgia trip, making his enthusiasm at finding spiritual enlightenment kind of pathetic. That his counterculture anthem is Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl” doesn’t help either. In an episode filled with remarkably bizarre, acid-drenched moments, especially near the end when Homer somehow spikes the entire town’s fruit drink supply with peyote (says Lou, “the electric yellow has got me by the brain banana”), it’s Homer’s naïve protest against capitalization and government, and his embracing the culture of the mother he’s missed his entire life, that still stands out, making this trippy and often touching episode the best in an uneven, post “Golden Age” season.
by Adam Suraf