268. CABF16 (SI-1216 / S12E20) Children of a Lesser Clod
Homer injures himself while playing basketball at the YMCA, and needs surgery. While recovering at home, he finds he is good at caring for pets and at babysitting the Flandereses' children, so much so that he starts a daycare center which gets him nominated for a Good Guy award for service to the community. But Bart and Lisa feel neglected through all of this, and are determined to thwart his award campaign. (originally in Pool 31)
295. DABF18 (SI-1318 / S14E04) Large Marge
Marge mistakenly thinks Homer is eyeing other women. In an effort to uplift her appeal, she decides to get plastic surgery to look younger. But the surgery goes awry when Marge receives breast implants that were meant for a younger patient. Meanwhile, Bart and Milhouse catch an episode of Batman where Batman and Robin battle Clown Man - who happens to look a lot like Krusty. (originally in Pool 20)
221. AABF14 (SI-1014 / S10E18) Simpsons Bible Stories
Reverend Lovejoy is showing his stuff with the latest in a series of uninteresting sermons. Bored so terribly are the Simpsons that each gradually doses off, dreaming that they're Adam and Eve, Moses and David facing Goliath. (originally in Pool 38)
238. BABF08 (SI-1108 / S11E12) The Mansion Family
After receiving an award for oldest citizen of Springfield, Mr. Burns checks into the Mayo Clinic, leaving The Simpsons in charge of his luxurious mansion. Guest starring Britney Spears as herself. (originally in Pool 42)
I've still never seen "Lesser Clod" but the relative ranking of the other three couldn't possibly be more obvious. That the worst of this bunch includes The Baha Men at the end of its "guest star" list is just icing.
Sometimes an episode is so bad it's tempting to think, "Why even continue? This is the obvious choice for rock-bottom." But then one realizes that a good handful of episodes all give that vibe -- and they'll try to outstink each other soon enough.
(NR. Children of a Lesser Clod)
1. The Mansion Family
2. Simpsons Bible Stories
WORST. Large Marge
1. Simpsons Bible Stories -- Wait, how did this get down here? In a vacuum, I would have pegged it at #4 at worst. There's a lot of classic lines in here. "Each man will receive -- death. I'll eat the pie", "Before she moved to Sodom, it was known for its pottery", and "I like you because you kill people" -- in fact, the whole last segment is gold. Really, what happened?
2. Mansion Family -- Also way better than a lot of the crap I've seen here. "Perhaps this foghorn will answer your question" still makes me giggle uncontrollably.
3. Large Marge -- Yeah.
NR. Children of a Lesser Clod -- This might be the only Simpsons episode I haven't seen so much as a minute of. Most others I've at least caught a part of, but I'm pretty sure I completely missed this one.
Re Paul: Bible Stories shared a pool with...
The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson
Homie the Clown
The Last Temptation of Krust
Bart vs. Lisa vs. 3rd Grade
Who Shot Mr. Burns? (Part One)
Mansion Family shared a pool with...
Boy-Scoutz N the Hood
Lost Our Lisa
Homer's Triple Bypass
Brawl in the Family
Saturdays of Thunder
Both came out #6 on the merits. I do have to confess that had we bothered carrying this exercise out for the random middle tiers, I had "The Mansion Family" bumped up to fifth tier, but then when we decided not to bother with 3-5, actually ranking an episode made more sense than attempting to rank the nebulous placeholder concept of "The worst episode that you'd ever still actually sit through."
Posted by: me at November 11, 2005 12:24 PM