OTH: The Simpsons- "Sunday, Cruddy Sunday" / "Homer to the Max"
Better than the Renaissance,
Season 10, Episode 12
Aired January 31, 1999
Directed by Steven Dean Moore
Written by Tom Martin, George Meyer, Brian Scully, Mike Scully
Synopsis: Homer is tricked into getting a new set of tires, when he meets up with Wally Kogen (Fred Willard), a former co-pyramid schemer, and the two decide to get a beer together while waiting for their tires. While drinking at Moe’s, they spot a Superbowl ad, which Homer expresses interest in attending at some point. Wally just so happens to be a travel agent who’s able to secure a party bus to Miami for the game, and offers to take Homer for free if he can fill it up. He takes the offer up and succeeds (I assume he also got Bart in for free) and while the drive to is a grand old time, full of beer drinkers and hell raisers, when they make it to the stadium, the crew runs into a problem- Wally’s tickets are bootlegs. To make matters worse, Homer pisses off the one scalper they run into, so he comes up with another way to get everyone in- just ambush one of the exits. The whole crew is stuck in Superbowl jail, where they’re doomed to miss the game. However, their luck changes when one of the Halftime performers, Dolly Parton, stops by their jailcell and frees the gang. They make their way to find any kind of place to see the game and find some box seats, but it turns out that this is Rupert Murdoch’s space (played by the real Murdoch), who insists that they get the hell out of his area. They run away again and finally found the ground, but the crew has missed the game and are pushed into the winning team’s locker room where they celebrate. So yeah, not a bad day.
It’s a perfect fit that the Super Bowl-themed Simpsons episode aired after the actual Super Bowl on Fox, alongside the premiere of a new cartoon, something called Family Guy. That’ll never work.
Just like the biggest event on American television, this is a super-packed episode to boot. Besides Fred Willard, Dolly Parton, and Rupert Murdoch as mentioned in the synopsis, “Sunday Cruddy Sunday'“ is loaded with guest stars largely connected to football- Troy Aikman, Rosey Grier, John Madden, Dan Marino and Pat Summerall all appear at one point or another, a real who’s-who of the football industry in the late 90’s.
Of all of the episode’s guest stars, Willard gets the meatiest material, which is no surprise given his pedigree. If you want a memorable comedic performance, he’s a perfect candidate. No one embarrasses themselves, however, even the athletes, although aside from Dan Castellaneta’s killer Vincent Price impression, I’d say that Madden and Summerall’s commentary at the end is a solid runner-up.
It’s also worth noting that for this packed episode, you have an impressive stack of writers to bring it to life, including showrunner Mike Scully. Even his brother Brian contributed the bit where Homer gets swindled at the car shop, lifting from his own experience at a Firestone. While this isn’t the best possible episode of the series (it’s a little unfocused, particularly on Marge and Lisa’s end with their dashed-together side plot), it doesn’t feel like too many cooks are in the kitchen, either. “Sunday, Cruddy Sunday” is a fun time, and would make for perfect post-game entertainment.
If anything, it’s worth noting how seriously Rupert Murdoch wanted his fourth broadcast network to succeed, and how he was able to pull it off over a decade after it hit the airwaves. At this point, its most successful program of all time (give or take American Idol) was in its tenth season, and the network was able to secure serious NFL broadcast rights, including for the freaking Super Bowl. Murdoch is likely on my mind due to the Succession finale, but still, The WB could never.
Season 10, Episode 13
Aired February 7, 1999
Directed by Pete Michels
Written by John Swartzwelder
Synopsis: Homer is excited when a new show, Police Cops, has a suave leading man with the same name as him. Or at least he was in the pilot. When the show starts airing proper, Homer Simpson the TV character is revealed to be a clumsy dumbass, which makes Homer Simpson the cartoon character even more of a laughing stock than usual. A distraught Homer meets with the producers and attempts to convince them to change his character back to his earlier interpretation, which not only doesn’t happen, but in the next episode to air, TV’s Homer Simpson has similar quirks to our TV’s Homer Simpson. He takes the show to court and loses, which leads Homer to resort to plan B and requests a name change, which the judge grants. Introducing Max Power. With a new name, Homer (er, Max) attempts to reinvent his image and meets a business man named Trent Steel, who is impressed with Ho…Max and invites him to a party filled with various people of influence, including President Clinton and Ed Begley Jr (actually played by himself). Max actually holds his own at the party, but things change when Trent commands his party goers to prevent a local redwood forest from being cut down. Max, along with Marge, reluctantly tags along as they tie themselves to the various trees of the forest. Chief Wiggum arrives and attempts to fight the protestors, threatening Max with mace. He tries to run away while still chained to a tree, and ends up cutting the tree off with the chain he’s attached to, which causes all of the other trees of the forest to fall down in a domino effect. Now that he’s removed from this circle of power, Homer returns to his old name. And that’s the end of that chapter.
The idea for this episode comes from the not-unheard-of phenomenon of real world people sharing names with fictional characters of notable personality, and the effects that might have on their psyche. Mike Scully mentions that he had a friend from childhood whose name was Don Adams, and he grew up hearing references to Get Smart for much of his life (a celebrity’s name, sure, but the point stands), while I worked with a guy whose name is Ricky Bobby, and he’s went from being sick of Will Ferrell comparisons to embracing it.
I can’t imagine how a real-life Homer Simpson would feel about sharing a name with such a nationally-recognized dimwit, but it’s within the realm of possibility that he exists. Our Homer Simpson, meanwhile, experiences the phenomenon first-hand, and we see a character who may be even more dimwitted than the one we know and love. It makes for a good time, but that’s only part of the episode’s fun.
After finding his previous teleplay to be a step down from his best work, it’s nice to get a Swartzwelder script that’s a treat from beginning to end. I’ll admit that “Homer to the Max” isn’t exactly perfect- it takes until the end of the second act to change Homer’s name, after all- but even some surprisingly awkward pacing can be forgiven with a plethora of memorable gags. If The Simpsons is going to tone down its emotional core, it can at least replace that element with worthwhile jokes, which we get plenty of here.
It helps that Max Power is a funny name, one that rolls off the tongue, and sounds so weirdly contradictory to Homer’s mindset. Or so we think, as it turns out that he’s surprisingly adapt at playing elite. We’ve seen Marge try to hold her own with a higher clientele before, and the reversal works out here. Or maybe I like the joes about Clinton’s infidelity or Woody Harrelson’s hemp pants enough to give it all a pass.
However you spin it, “Homer to the Max” is a highlight of the tenth season thus far, not necessarily the show at its finest, but proof that there’s still enough gas in the tank to keep going into double digit seasons despite some shakier moments beforehand. And I’ll take it.
Homer’s Bar Tab:
Chalkboard Gag Wars- “I will not do the dirty bird” vs. “No one wants to hear about my sciatica”. They’re both alright.
Couch Gag Wars- The couch is the Titanic and it sinks from a floating iceberg vs. Marge hanging the family out to dry. The Titanic reference feels more timely and somehow timeless.
“What has Fatty Arbuckle done that I haven’t done?” If you’re going to make a joke about him killing that lady, he was acquitted.
So why are there “no dames”? Plenty of women love football.
I would not expect Marge to be a fan of The Abominable Dr. Phibes, but she has good taste in Vincent Price.
In case you were wondering, the NFL players you could “take a leak” with were Ricky Watters and Jim Plunkett.
I’d go to EuroDollywood in Alabama. Although now that I’m thinking about it, I still haven’t been to the real Dollywood, even though it’s a day trip for me. But speaking of Dolly, her teaming up with Rob Lowe and Stomp and flying off to her performance in a Snoopy costume represents the kind of wackier Halftime performances that Super Bowls would largely enlist before the 2000’s focused on having particular artists give (largely) gimmick-less sets. Michael Jackson was an early example of something like what we’ve recently seen from Rihanna or The Weeknd, but we were still a couple of years away from this being the norm.
“Now I’ll tell you- that doesn’t make a lick of sense!” “No dating!”
I’m seriously curious about Marge’s taste in movies. How is Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now comic relief?
“Who’s Jeremy Piven?” “We don’t know.” This aired a few years before Entourage, and a good while before his allegations.
Bill Clinton appears in both episodes, which would be interesting if he was actually voiced by the man himself.
Next Week: Apu’s dedication to Manjula makes the men in town look bad, and then Marge becomes the Queen of road rage when she gets an SUV.
