OTH: The Simpsons- "I'm with Cupid" / "Marge Simpson in 'Screaming Yellow Honkers'"
Gonna be brief for good, but not great episodes.
Season 10, Episode 14
Aired February 14, 1999
Directed by Bob Anderson
Written by Dan Greaney
Synopsis: Apu invites Homer and Marge over to dinner to thank them for helping with his wedding to Manjula. The two couples have a good time, until Homer and Marge let the cat out of the bag, that Apu works way longer and harder than most Americans, and this almost disrupts his marriage. Rather than let a good thing wash away, Apu decides to course correct and dedicate the week leading up to Valentine’s Day to showering Manjula with affection. His cheap attempts at sentiment, like taking an ad out in the newspaper and covering their bed in wildflowers, do the trick. They impress Manjula so well that word reaches the town and soon, the women of Springfield are starting to feel neglected by their less sporadic spouses. Rather than try to improve their game, the men of Springfield decide that their only course of action is to stop Apu from keeping his love game going. Homer and a few of the other men trail Apu on Valentine’s Day, sneaking around town and waiting to see his next move, which takes them to the airport, where they run into a stuck Sir Elton John (Elton John). Even though Elton isn’t here for Apu, they trap him in a dog cage while finding out Apu’s true motive, which is him paying a skywriter to write a love letter for Manjula. Homer jumps up and tries to fight the skywriter, and is able to stop him from writing the whole love letter, turning “I ♥ U Manjula” into “I ♥ U *”, with most of the women in town recognizing the asterisk as some kind of affirmation for themselves. Except for Marge, but Homer makes it up for her by getting pushed into a rose garden and offering Marge a sticky bouquet.
You know, I don’t think we’ve seen Manjula, or at least heard from her since she and Apu were married. Thanks to “I’m with Cupid”, I think I know why- neither has Apu. He’s a classically neglectful husband.
At least he is until the episode starts kicking, which is a fun, if empty time. I do recall this one showing up fairly regularly in syndication- the breakfast at Tiffany’s bit has stood out to me even when I barely knew what Breakfast at Tiffany’s was- but there isn’t a whole lot to the episode other than the usual “haha, men can’t remember the most basic information about their partners” style of humor that I thought went out of date with The Flintstones. Oh, there’s also Hank Azaria and Jan Hooks’ problematic voicework, but I go off on that enough.
At least Elton John does a fine job with his performance, even recording a new version of “Your Song” at the end. We even get to see the secret Kwik-E-Mart garden that Paul and Linda McCartney appeared in back in “Lisa the Vegetarian”. As a fan of Reginald Dwight and the show’s lore, these please me, but there otherwise isn’t much to the episode.
Those and some solid gags, which the episode offers in spades as per usual, is enough to give “I’m with Cupid” a pass, especially compared to how light season 10 has felt. It’s a good time, but we can do better.
Season 10, Episode 15
Aired February 21, 1999
Directed by Mark Kirkland
Written by David S. Stern
Synopsis: After being impressed with Krusty’s Canyonero (recall the previous season’s “The Last Temptation of Krust”), Homer decides to blow his 401K to buy one. However, his enthusiasm dries out when Homer learns that the particular model Homer picked is “a girl’s car”, so he hot wires Marge’s car in hopes of not bruising his masculinity any further. Since Marge needs to buy groceries, she has no choice but to use the Canyonero, which it turns out she loves driving. Now, her personality is defined by the SUV, as she becomes filled with road rage, eventually causing a scene at a funeral procession. Chief Wiggum sentences Marge to a road rage course, which appears to work at first, but her instincts return when the rest of the students won’t excuse themselves out of the parkway first. Marge ends up crashing into the prison’s gates, where a few inmates escape, resulting in Wiggum tearing up her license. Now that she can’t drive, Marge stays at home while Homer takes the kids to the zoo, which starts off as a bust when most of the animals are asleep. Homer, being his dumbass self, wakes up one of the monkeys, which results in a rhino stampede. Chief Wiggum is nearby and decides that Marge’s road rage is the only one who can help, but she refuses to offer her assistance. She only changes her mind after seeing her husband and kids stuck on the top of their car on the news, and races over. Marge is able to scare away most of the rhinos and has the kids jump into her car from the hood, but Homer is too big, and is eventually picked up by the one remaining rhino, who takes him away to a construction zone. Marge drives down and is able to distract the rhino by having the Canyonero flip and burst into flames. And she learned that not only will SUVs do that, but rhinos will immediately stop to put out a fire thanks to
Besides wanting to give Marge an episode that doesn’t involve her relationship with Homer or giving her a job that she’ll leave at the end of the episode to rever to the status quo, the idea for “Marge Simpson in ‘Screaming Yellow Honkers’” (yeah. not going to type that all the way through again) came from an article stating that women are more likely to resort to road rage than men. Doing some digging on my own, I find those results inclusive- I’ve seen a couple of articles confirming this, but just as many, if not more, stating that men are more likely, and just as many calling this a gender-neutral affair.
But that’s okay, I do like seeing Marge get a fun episode like this, even if it’s not quite the show’s finest hour. David Stern has been able to deliver a couple of classic teleplays, including this season’s “Viva Ned Flanders”, but this one never fully cracks. As much as I don’t want to discredit the attempt to do more with Marge’s character, but it may be that this just isn’t the most solid story to go through.
The only thing that really bothers is the notion of a “girl’s car”, which just screams of tired misogyny, although not even The Simpsons is above this tired trope. Besides that, everything else appears in shape, but little excels aside from solid gags throughout.
Oh, I know what’s missing! The safety video shown in Marge’s class was supposed to feature Troy McClure, which for obvious reasons couldn’t happen. Tress MacNeille is an all-time voice actor, but it’s basically impossible to replace Phil Hartman. Maybe he’s the missing ingredient.
Homer’s Bar Tab:
I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but The Simpsons had a reunion of sorts with a picket outside of Fox’s studios this Friday, with writers from the past and present showing up, including Conan O’Brien! And you know what, now’s a good time to talk about this. For the most part, animation is not covered by the WGA, with Fox’s primetime series being one of the few exceptions, and it’s actually during the production of this season where this changed. Reportedly, a young Seth MacFarlane, whose Family Guy had yet to premiere at the time, teamed up with Matt Groening and Mike Judge to ensure that their shows were covered. Considering that various higher-ups in the WGA consider animation to not have the same level of writing contributed as your typical live-action project, it speaks to the quality of The Simpsons and King of the Hill how these passed as (seemingly) easily as they did.
Chalkboard Gag Wars: “Hillbillies are people too” vs. “Grammar is not a time of waste.”
Couch Gag Wars: The family changes their hairstyles vs. the couch turning into a roller coaster.
The album Apu pulls out is called Concert Against Bangladesh, and it consists of decent Sinatra covers. Go figure.
According to Homer, “Manjula” means some kind of spaceship.
“Successful mayor type desperately seeking open-minded discreet cheerleader type.”
The teacher’s talent show is a good idea in terms of laughs, but who greenlit Mrs. Crabappel doing a strip tease?
Okay, so Homer spent his 401K on the Canyonero, and he still has insane monthly payments. Additionally, it appears that he sold his previous car to get a few bucks off of it. How much does the damn car cost?
Instead of road rage, pick a fight on someone bigger than you, or write a threatening letter to a celebrity. I wonder how many people took this episode’s advice and sent a letter to Groening?
I like how we get references to Jumanji and Jurassic Park in a thirty second span. You can’t get more mid-to-late 90’s than that.
Next Week: Lisa has to become roommates with Bart, and Homer becomes a teamster, which sounds like his dream job when you think about it.