Fancy Store-Bought Dirt

Simpson Playoff Pool #6-16

The ones that are left (so no need for pseudorandomness)...

156. 4F03 (SI-803 / S08E03) The Homer They Fall
Moe turns Homer into a successful boxer after discovering Homer can absorb massive blows to the head, but Marge is worried that won't save Homer in the upcoming match with Dreaderick Tatum, the heavyweight champion. Michael Buffer and Paul Winfield guest star. (originally in Pool 41)

271. CABF22 (SI-1222 / S13E02) The Parent Rap
Bart appears in court to pay for an embarrassing joy ride in the police chief's patrol car. But just before he is set free, a second, vindictive judge named Constance Harm assumes the case and sentences him to the worst kind of detention imagineable: being tethered to Homer around the clock. Guest stars Jane Kaczmarek as Judge Harm. (originally in Pool 25)

301. EABF06 (SI-1406 / S14E10) Pray Anything
When Flanders wins a half-time money shot during a WNBA game, Homer decides his neighbor's secret to success is praying. Homer starts praying to get his way with everything...and it works. He even prays himself into an injury lawsuit against the Church and is awarded with the deed to the property. Homer promptly moves the family in, while Helen and the Reverend have been relocated to the Flanders and reduced to preaching at the Bowl-A-Rama. It can only take a miracle to make Homer see the error of his ways. (originally in Pool 12)

334. FABF17 (SI-1517 / S15E21) Bart-Mangled Banner
While trying to avoid an inoculation at Dr. Hibbert's office, Bart's wriggling causes a side-effect and he suffers a temporary loss of hearing, which Bart milks for all that it is worth. Bart participates in the annual Springfield Elementary Donkey Basketball tournament. During the playing of the national anthem, Bart feeds his shorts to the donkey, leaving him bare-assed for all to see. But when Bart's bare-bum appears in a photo, the Simpson family becomes portrayed as unpatriotic and un-American, getting them thrown into "re-education" therapy, where they escape and migrate to France. But the Simpsons decide France isn't for them (perhaps Bart had forgotten all the French he learned in Season One?) so they return home as illegal immigrants. (originally in Pool 56)

The latest instance of Keith Olbermann being an idiot (he usually quite insightful but now and then he's so wrong and so sanctimonious despite being so wrong that it hurts to watch/read): He's apparently disappointed that the current Simpsons season projects to be light on the political spoofing.

Now, they used to do political satire just brilliantly (see also "Sideshow Bob Roberts" and even "Much Apu About Nothing"), but Bart-Mangled Banner was so amateurish that from that point on even if you didn't believe the series itself was toast, this was at least the handwriting on the wall for their ever doing politics and actually being funny (as opposed to bludgeoning you with the same hammer repeatedly). For this episode you'd think they'd hired old Murphy Brown writers and gotten them drunk.

As always of course, your mileage may vary. Even unrelated to the politics, "Banner" commits two unforgiveable sins: Crossing the line on "that would never happen" plot devices of escalating absurdity (it's hard to define where this line is, but you know "over it" when you see it), and disrespecting (by ignoring) the series' own heritage.

Now that this rant is over with: Should "Parent Rap" get added demerits for being (as far as I can tell) the debut of Judge Harm? I can buy it as a bottom-16 episode, though a bottom 16 without it wouldn't seem like a glaring omission.

"The Homer They Fall" doesn't really possess badness so much as lack goodness. That said, badness is here: Building the physical comedy around Homer getting hit in the head so much is a sharp dropoff in quality from the highlights of season 8.

You'd think "Pray Anything" would flunk my above-mentioned, sometimes pedantic "that would never happen" test, except that you can suspend your disbelief just enough (since literal deus ex machina is involved) and appreciate the surprisingly well-executed theological message. That is to say, I think I'd never seen this when it was first ranked, but then subsequently saw it in syndication and absolutely loved it. "The dog thinks he's Papal!"

1. Pray Anything
2. The Homer They Fall
3. The Parent Trap
WORST. Bart-Mangled Banner

Posted by Matt Bruce at November 15, 2005 10:10 AM