OTH: The Simpsons- "Lost Our Lisa" / "Natural Born Kissers"
Plus final thoughts on season 9!
Season 9, Episode 24
Aired May 10, 1998
Directed by Pete Michels
Written by Brian Scully
Synopsis: It’s the last day of the Isis exhibit at the Springfield Museum, and Lisa is excited for Marge to take her. Unfortunately, their plans are thwarted when Bart comes home with props superglued to his face, requiring an immediate trip to the ER. Lisa is bummed, doubly so when Marge refuses to allow her daughter to go on the bus alone. Although Marge isn’t her only parent, so she tries her luck with Homer, hiding the fact that Marge said no. Homer is reluctant, but Lisa is able to trick him to say yes. While her ride initially goes well, Lisa soon discovers that this isn’t the 22, which stops at the museum, but the 22-A, which alternates during the week and doesn’t go downtown at all. Lisa is dropped off in the middle of nowhere and tries to make her way back to Springfield. She goes through a Russian corner of town but struggles to make out what anyone is saying to her. While she eventually escapes it, she’s still lost, which happens to be perfectly timed to Homer realizing that he let his 8-year-old go on the bus by herself. He races out of work to find her, and like many things in life, it all eventually works out for Homer when he gets on a cherry picker and can see Lisa from the crowd. He drives it to her, but it rolls down to the town’s bridge, which is loaded up, and Homer gets his head stuck in between as Lisa tries to help. When he gets out, Homer is about to drive Lisa home, but stops in the middle of the road when Lisa says that she’s going to stop taking risks, which is a decision her father can’t abide to. He asks what she wants to do more than anything, which is to go to the museum, which has closed, which gives Homer the idea for them to break in. The father and daughter team wait until it’s dark as they sneak in through the museum’s top window and go inside to find the exhibit still in tact, despite today supposedly being the last day. Lisa is especially impressed with the long-lost Orb of Isis, which is behind a velvet rope. Homer insists that they go through the rope to touch it, causing the Orb to fall and reveal itself as a music box that they may be the only people to hear in four thousand years. A nice way to end a hectic day… as long as they can escape security!
I remember going to Paris with my family a few years back, and on our last full day, I made the decision to go to Disneyland Paris by myself rather than stick with their plans, partly as a big fan of the parks who figured that they may never have another opportunity, partly as an introvert who needed a day to themselves after over a week in Europe with family. My mother was concerned that I’d get lost on the shuttle, given that I don’t speak the language, but I researched the trip and decided that it was easy enough for me to pull off. The stops needed even had Mickey ears to designate where to go. Fortunately, I was right, I had a good time, and I made it back at our resort before my mom and sister, and even had time to get a drink across the street and check in on people back home for a moment.
Granted, I was three times Lisa’s age, but consider this additional handicap that I had to address that she didn’t, and you can see why the trip is comparable.
My initial response is that no eight-year-old should go on a non-school bus by themselves, but at the same time, both Lisa and I come from areas that don’t heavily rely on public transportation. This expectation may be different for a child from New York or in other countries, who has probably had to learn how to ride the bus or subway on their own. But Springfield is a small town (depending on the episode’s needs, anyway), and the Simpson children are rarely expected to go past a walkable part of town on their.
But I’m not here to moralize, and “Lost Our Lisa” makes it clear that she’s in the wrong for trying to go on her own, anyway. Instead, it’s a funny episode that allows for one of the show’s most underrated pairings, Lisa and Homer. I always like when we have daddy-daughter time, as they’re a good pair that work even beyond their contradicting nature. Sure, it’s fun to see the logical Lisa and irrational Homer contrast, but the two do share an emotional clause that has them act against their best intentions.
Bart and Marge are also emotionally charged people, but it’s fun to see how two people as different on the surface as Homer and Lisa can think so alike. What seals it for me is their differing intellects and expectations of life. Homer appreciates his daughter’s mind and her dedicated nature, while Lisa likes to occasionally let loose with her father and release her inhibitions with him. It’s cute to hear Yeardley Smith drop a “d’oh” and to see her sneak into the museum with her old man.
And I like Homer and Lisa plots for another reason- they integrate Homer into the story in a natural way, instead of shoving a quirky b-plot in to ensure that he sticks around. As the show is afraid to not have Homer feature regularly, it’s a good call.
“Lost Our Lisa” is a cute episode that literally stays in the family- Mike Scully’s brother, Brian, wrote the episode and based it on their experiences going on the bus by themselves. I’m glad that Lisa got the opportunity to have her mindset humbled and this wasn’t shoved into another quick Bart episode, it makes this feel all the more memorable.
Season 9, Episode 25
Aired May 17, 1998
Directed by Klay Hall
Written by Matt Selman
Synopsis: It’s Homer and Marge’s eleventh wedding anniversary, and they plan a night out at a fancy restaurant, but their plans run astray when Grampa doesn’t arrive to watch the kids. They have no choice but to take them out to a tacky family restaurant instead, which kills the mood before it can even arrive. The pairing spend a passionless evening in bed, only to wake up to a broken fridge, as someone (Homer) forgot to close the freezer door overnight. Homer and Marge have no choice but to drive to the city limits to get a new motor for their fridge, but Homer misses an exit and gets stuck in a mud pile. The two run out to find someone who will help, and when it starts pouring down, they race into a barn. The farmer who owns said barn sees the door open and comes racing in with a shotgun, although Homer and Marge are able to hide from him. Excited from their near-death encounter, the two start making love on top of their haystack. The passion that was missing from their marriage has been found! They set up a bed and breakfast reservation for the following weekend, but the couple struggle to reignite that flame from last week. It hits them that what lights the two’s fire is the thrill of potentially getting caught, so now they keep looking for new places to make love with an alarming distance proximity to people. They soon make it back to where Bart was conceived- inside the windmill* at the minigolf course Homer used to work at- but the pair cause a problem when the Flanders lose a golf ball inside the windmill, which is stuck to Homer’s flab. Soon, everyone at the golf course try to get the ball at and pick at Homer’s flab, which forces the two to make a run for it. No one catches who the perpetrators are, but it’s clear what happens, as Homer left his underwear behind. Homer and Marge, as nude as the day they were born, try to find any place that can hide them, settling on stealing a hot air balloon at a car dealership. Unfortunately, they’re not able to navigate the balloon back to their house, and Homer ends up falling out of the balloon, which causes him to moon a megachurch built like a glass house. Homer asks Marge to control the balloon to scoot down, but they end up crashing into the town’s football stadium during the middle of a game. Homer and Marge have no choice but to come out and have their picture taken by practically everyone at the stadium, eventually making the front page. While they’re initially ashamed for everyone, including their children, to recognize them, Homer and Marge are soon turned on once again by their public display of affection, and decide to return to the golf course.
While Homer and Marge have been galivanting around, Bart and Lisa find Grampa’s old metal detector and use it to go treasure hunting around town. They mostly come up empty until they hit dirt outside the retirement home, when they discover a print of an alternate ending for Casablanca, which is a lot more hopeful and pleasant, ending with Ilsa returning to save Rick and the two getting hitched. One of the old folks at the house reveals that he was responsible for this awful ending and pays the kids to bury it, along with a “killing spree” ending of It’s a Wonderful Life.
This episode probably wouldn’t be made today. Post nipplegate (if you need a reminder), it became taboo for Homer’s bare, adult behind to be shown on TV, doubly so for Marge’s, which is show plentifully for the first time this week. According to Scully on the commentary, the episode almost didn’t get made at all, as the network was uncomfortable with the amount of nudity and sexual content. Despite proudly being the most risk-friendly of the four networks, Fox has a history of backing out of potentially risky episodes, as they pulled a Married… with Children episode a decade earlier where the Bundys and the Rhoades had their own love making recorded, and that episode showed much less of the process. The X-Files and Family Guy would later have their own controversial episodes challenged by the network. Ultimately, not only did “Natural Born Kissers” get made, but very little of the script had to change.
I’m glad it did, though. I like smarter humor as well, but sometimes a little smut is good for you. Additionally, it helps to shake up a show’s format, and adding some controversy is always a good thing to stay fresh.
Does that mean that I find “Natural Born Kissers” to be a good episode? Yes, I do, it’s a highly enjoyable season finale, and its relatively raunchy subject matter- Homer and Marge get turned on having sex in public- helps to make it a memorable episode. It’s one rife with classic sight gags, like the cow looking through the peep hole of the barn and its surprised reaction to Homer and Marge’s love making, and the script matches that energy.
“Natural Born Kissers” is Klay Hall’s only directorial work for The Simpsons, but his career is vast and varied, which includes him working with Don Bluth and later becoming a supervising director for King of the Hill. Hall does terrific work and keeps the action frantic, while succeeding at showing different sides of Springfield, like the megachurch and football stadium.
This is also Matt Selman’s first teleplay for the show, although he’ll stick around much longer- contributing as recently to the show as this current season’s Treehouse of Horror. Right away, he gets a feel for the show, wisely basing Homer and Marge’s relationship on his parent’s own (failed) marriage. While past episodes have explored Homer and Marge’s dwindling relationship, they traditionally square the blame on Homer and his obnoxious personality, so I like how Selman has this week’s dilemma being a little more equal, as it’s just the two letting time take away their passion. It’s sad, doubly so when you remember that Homer and Marge are only supposed to be in their mid-30’s, but I think it makes for a more fair and fun watch than Homer fucking everything up once again.
At the same time, the show is just as good at reminding us of why Homer and Marge work so well- they’re perfect yin to each other’s yang. Marge may be frustrated by Homer when he acts out in public, but she’s turned onto his reckless behavior, while he enjoys seeing Marge’s bad girl come out when the moment arrives. Opposites usually repel, but this attraction has never seemed to go away.
And this is how we end the season with Homer and Marge flashing their goods in front of a full-capacity football stadium. It’s funny, honest, and kind of hot, if you’re into weird yellow drawings.
Season 9 Overview:
I noted that during the eighth season that The Simpsons wasn’t the only hot cartoon in town for older audiences any more, and lo and behold, King of the Hill did surpass The Simpsons in the ratings this season, landing at an impressive fifteenth place in the ratings, versus a still mighty but weaker eighteenth for The Simpsons. Granted, King of the Hill may have benefitted from airing immediately before the network’s true #1 show of the season, The X-Files, which landed at eleventh place. And to be fair, KOTH never ranked that high in the ratings again, dropping off when its prime 8:30 slot on Sundays was swapped with That ‘70s Show that following season, but also note that The X-Files did additionally drop in ratings after that switch. Still, enough people stuck around to see the Hill clan and their relatable, if uniquely southern trials and tribulations to prove that Homer and Bart didn’t hog the market for older-skewing animation.
But the real shock to the system aired a good month before either show started their seasons. Over on cable, the fledging Comedy Network renamed itself into Comedy Central and showed off its own animated program, an initially cutout-styled work that turned into a computerized version of this process starring a group of fowl-mouthed third graders who live in always snowy Colorado. Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s popular The Spirit of Christmas short was an internet sensation before “going viral” was a thing and was initially optioned by Fox to become a series on their own channel, but was ultimately passed on when it became apparent that Stone and Parker’s sense of humor couldn’t work for network TV. Comedy Central had no problem with dropping F-bombs, talking pieces of shit, or racially-charged humor, however, and South Park soon found an audience that clamored for a different kind of humor. It’s honestly kind of weird to see the earliest episodes of South Park today, knowing what the show would become today. These earliest episodes are quaint and almost kind of tame compared to later controversies, and its social commentary isn’t very profound. A lot of it is just swearing, fart jokes and edgy humor, which is exactly why the show became a sensation. It would be hard to make the show as it was in live-action, yet there’s no mistaking that children shouldn’t be watching it… yet, they did.
So nine seasons in, and how do Homer, Marge and the kids compare to jokes about narrow uretrhas and Kenny being killed on a daily basis? There may not be very much new or different with The Simpsons at this point, but it still succeeds at getting most of its strengths across, most of all its rapid-fire wit and strong dynamics among the family.
The show is still good, but at the same time, something seems off, doesn’t it? Age is a strong factor, not many programs stay fresh after nine years on the air. But I think more than that is the man in charge. Mike Scully’s track record prior to becoming showrunner is fairly impressive- “Lisa on Ice”, “Team Homer”, “Marge Be Not Proud”, these are high-tier episodes that are funny and emotionally resonant. The show still has episodes that match or surpass these highs, like with these last two episodes, but it’s starting to feel like The Simpsons at its smartest and most emotionally satisfying is depleting for more cheap gags. Almost, but we’re not quite there yet.
I would give season 9 a solid B. It’s the weakest season since the third, when the show had largely found its voice but still had some of its rougher tendencies attached to it, although I think ultimately we have the reverse situation here. The Simpsons still has one of the best writer’s rooms at this point, but their well of great ideas may be starting to dry up. The fact that it’s still as entertaining as it is by the ninth season, and there are a few all-timers worth considering here, however, is nothing short of astonishing. A B for The Simpsons would be at least an A for many other shows.
As a reminder, I’m going to take a hiatus on Simpsons reviews once I finish the upcoming tenth season. It’s a nice, numerical place to count for time, most of all since it’s a halfway point from the show’s DVD availability- Fox stopped releasing sets after the 19th season’s surprise release in 2019 (the 20th came out as a then-fresh bare bones release to commemorate the show’s 20th anniversary in 2009). I did consider stopping with season 12, as that’s the end of the Scully era and when the show won its TCA Heritage Award, but now seems like the right time to pause and move onto other things. Other things being The Sopranos… although I will return to cover the next decade of Simpsons at some point.
The ninth season is generally considered a turning point for the worse to Simpsons fans, with season ten even less well-received. I recall more than a couple of good episodes here, but I do think that it will have a lower grade than this season did. And it will take a little less time to go through, as there are only 23 episodes versus the past couple of seasons having up to 25.
Additionally, I want to note just how much I love the season 9 DVD set. It’s loaded with references to rock royalty- you can note nods to The Beatles’ Abbey Road, Nirvana’s Nevermind, and two different Bruce Springsteen covers, not to mention Moe looking like Frank Sinatra on that fourth disc (reflecting Ol Blue Eye’s In the Wee Small Hours cover), or how the first disc looks like a Casablanca Records LP (home of KISS and Donna Summer).
Homer’s Bar Tab:
Chalkboard Gag Wars- “I am not the new Dalai Llama” vs. “I was not the inspiration for Kramer.” I’ll go with the latter, but also note that “The Seinfeld Chronicles” aired five months before “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire”. But also, also, The Tracey Ullman Show premiered over two years before Seinfeld…
Couch Gag Wars- Nelson pushes the couch back vs. the family as frogs. I like frogs- they remind me of my grandma- but I have to go with Nelson, just because seeing characters outside of the core family in the couch sequences is still a new and exciting phenomenon.
We see Lionel Hutz for the last time (in Phil Hartman’s lifetime, anyway) on the bus. We still have at least one Troy McClure performance to go, however.
Yakov Smirnoff, of all people, helped with the Russian translation for the Little Russia sequence. The show was able to get Smirnoff as Scully used to write jokes for him.
“Mom, Lisa’s making me feel bad!” “Stop it, Lisa!” “That shut her up.”
The two bits that always stuck out to me in this episode are the cow’s reaction to seeing Homer and Marge hook up, and Homer hiding his nipples with tea cups, which feels like it belongs in some kind of cheeky British comedy.
*I’m pretty sure that Homer and Marge hooked up in a castle, not a windmill, but whatever.
I am here for Moe stealing Helen Lovejoy’s catchphrase. And he’s right, won’t someone please think of the children?
“Now quickly! Gaze down at God’s parquet floor.”
It definitely feels like 1998, because now every day is camera day! If a naked couple flew down into the middle of a packed football stadium, everyone with a smart phone would grab it to take pictures.
Meme Time:
This classic is evergreen in the hopes to get weirdos to back off. Usually they double down instead, though! Funny how life works. Next Week: Double digits! We start the tenth season out with Lisa obtaining a new rival at school, followed by Homer’s attempt to become a great inventor. That’ll go over well.
