OTH: The Simpsons- "They Saved Lisa's Brain" / "Thirty Minutes over Tokyo"
OTH: The Simpsons- "They Saved Lisa's Brain" / "Thirty Minutes over Tokyo"
Plus final thoughts on season 10 and one last farewell, but not goodbye.
Season 10, Episode 22
Aired May 9, 1999
Directed by Pete Michels
Written by Matt Selman
Synopsis: The people of Springfield enter a “gross out” contest, where the sickest individual wins a trip to Hawaii… or so they’re promised. When the judges give the contestants the slip, a riot starts and builds its way through the town, disturbing Lisa, who was forced to go to cheer on her family. She writes a strongly-worded editorial decrying Springfield’s increased depravity, but is disappointed when she can’t find anyone who seems to have read it. That’s what she thinks, anyway, until Lisa receives an invite from Springfield’s local Mensa division, which is ran by some of the smartest people in town, including Dr. Hibbert, Principal Skinner, Professor Frink and Comic Book Guy, for some reason. Skinner had hoped to induct Lisa for a while, and her beautifully-written editorial sealed the deal, so now she’s here to join Skinner and co. on their quest to make Springfield a better and more enlightened place. Unfortunately, there’s a problem here- the people of Springfield don’t want to live in a better and more enlightened place, so their efforts keep coming up short. Hoping to convince Mayor Quimby to look into some of their ideas, they storm into his office, but Quimby mistakes this for an expose on his corruption and he flees town. With the Mayor MIA, the Mensa members and Chief Wiggum pull up the town charter, which states that a council of Springfield’s “most learned citizens” will be asked to run the town if there isn’t an elected official. Who is more learned than the town’s members of Mensa? The members implement some of their ideas, which helps raises Springfield’s stake a little, but soon power comes to their head, and they start suggesting less popular ideas, causing the townspeople to riot. Before a brawl between the smart and stupid can occur, Stephen Hawking arrives, is disappointed in how the members of Mensa are handling things, and saves Lisa from being a part of the unruly mob. Go Hawking!
And since we can’t have an episode without Homer getting some kind of wacky storyline, he wins a free boudoir photoshoot, which he uses in hopes to appeal to Marge. Instead, she’s impressed with how Homer is able to rearrange the basement for some of his photos, which inspires her to redecorate it.
We’ve seen this before. Lisa being critical of the stupidity around her is a fairly common trope for the series, most notably in last season’s “Lisa the Simpson”. We’ve started with a riot similar to this one’s gross-out contest’s before, also last season with “The Cartridge Family”. And this isn’t the first time an elite group of citizens have a heavy hand in the town, as we saw back in season 6’s “Homer the Great”.
But whatever, repeats happen. Audiences expect characters to keep acting in similar fashions when they tune into their favorite shows- Lisa is self-righteous, Homer is dumb, this is how the world works, why mess with it? I don’t mind this too much if the material is strong enough to justify the repetition, and like many of this season’s episodes, enough works for “They Saved Lisa’s Brain” to receive a pass, although I wouldn’t give it the full seal of approval, either.
The idea of making the mentally elite of Springfield run the city is a concept that I’m surprised wasn’t offered earlier, and it’s one that results in a couple of good gags, but largely sticks out for the show’s first appearance of Stephen Hawking, a dedicated fan who will return a few times more, to the point that he’ll lament that audiences think that he’s a Simpsons character rather than his extensive research in quantum mechanics.
That said, I don’t think that “They Saved Lisa’s Brain” lives up to its full potential, and like many a recent episode, runs out of steam with the last act and results in a conflict that doesn’t quite work. Additionally, Homer’s boudoir subplot is surprisingly forgettable, although I do think the ending is a nice touch, with Marge less interested in Homer’s saucy pics than in how he redecorates the garage. While I’m usually in favor of a sweeter ending, I think this is a welcome change of pace.
Some good, some not-so-good, this feels like the tenth season to a tee. “They Saved Lisa’s Brain” has enough strong material to recommend, but I don’t see it making too many favorites lists.
Ranking Springfield ahead of East St. Louis upset the citizens of the city, who were further incensed when writer Matt Selman, rather than saying that the city was picked at random, responded to criticisms by jokingly calling it a “crack-ridden slum”. The episode’s commentary spends a lot of time discussing this controversy, more than it talks about the episode itself. Which sounds right.
Season 10, Episode 23
Aired May 16, 1999
Directed by Jim Reardon
Written by Donick Cary, Dan Greaney
Synopsis: The family’s trust fund is stolen when Snake robs Homer at an internet café, and now they can’t afford to go on vacation. Despondent, Homer robs the Flanders house in hopes to earn a few bucks, but Ned suggests instead that he checks out a professional penny-pincher’s seminar. After stealing his tickets, Homer and Marge are inspired to cut as many corners as possible to pay for a vacation, and they have just enough to potentially pay for extra seats on a random flight, one of the most valuable tips. Because of this suggestion, they’re able to score a trip to Japan. Unfortunately, the family didn’t anticipate how expensive Japan would be, especially for tourists, and they soon blow through a big chunk of their travel money. They lose even more when Homer and Bart are arrested after causing a scene at a sumo wrestling show with the Emperor and require bail money. To please a disappointed Lisa, who wanted to do at least one exclusively Japanese thing, Homer turns their last million yen bill into an origami swan, which flies away from the wind, leaving them with no travel money. Unfortunately, the American Embassy is no help beyond telling them to get a job, so the family is forced to carve out fish guts just to earn enough to fly home. However, their fortunes turn when they discover The Happy Smile Super Challenge Family Wish Show, a game show that offers families their dream prize if they go through insane stunts. The Simpsons are able to score an appearance on it and convinces Wink, the host (George Takei) to offer them a flight back home to Springfield. After a few embarrassing performances, they’re able to get their tickets… if the family can make their way through a crickety bridge on top of a volcano. While it’s too weak to handle everyone, Lisa is able to make it through and gets the tickets, although the family eventually falls through the “volcano”… which instead of lava, consists of sponsored pudding, filled with wasabi. The family can now go home! Also, Godzilla shows up. And Gamera too, if you ever wanted a crossover between them.
We’ve had plenty of traveling episodes before on The Simpsons. The family has been to D.C., Australia and New York, not to mention individual trips to France, Cuba and Scotland, just from the top of my head over this first decade. For your basic American family, they sure do get to see different parts of the country and world on a somewhat regular basis.
But for the most part, these trips had something more to them than just traveling for traveling’s sake. Lisa has a presentation in D.C., Bart gets in trouble with the Australian government, Homer’s car is stuck in New York. These scenarios allow for plenty of locale jokes, but there’s a solid story to the bone of each of these experiences.
That’s what makes “Thirty Minutes over Tokyo” a little different, that there isn’t a strong reason to bring them over to Japan, just that they want to travel. This will more or less start a popular series of episodes for future seasons, “The Simpsons are going to ______”, where they go to some random place and the brunt of the episode comes from poorly-conceived impressions of said location.
I’d say that compared to other episodes in this vein, “Thirty Minutes over Tokyo” (really twenty-two, since that’s how long a usual Simpsons episode lasts) isn’t so bad, partly since it has the decency to hire real Japanese actors to voice some of the locals, like Simpsons favorite George Takei, alongside other game performers like Keone Young, Denice Kumagi, Karen Maruyama and Gedde Watanabe. However, there is a bit of white people trying to play Japanese, with Hank Azaria trying his hand at representing Emperor Akihito, but at least his representation is brief.
The episode spends more time having the family going through or acknowledging various aspects of Japanese culture, referencing everything from origami to anime to the 47 ronin throughout, ending in an entertaining take on bizarre Japanese game shows at the end. While the results won’t surprise viewers- of course the family will win their tickets one way or another, the status quo can’t change and leave them stranded in Japan forever- this still results in one of the most enjoyable final acts in a while, a well-paced spoof of their cruel, yet undeniably engrossing takes on game shows which punishes ignorance instead of rewarding intellect like ours. For that, the episode deserves a pass.
Getting two of the show’s best (then)current writers to tackle the script helps to keep it memorable, but Jim Reardon is arguably the MVP here, making his take on a Simpsons-fied Japan look as authentic as the show can as possible, while still being dynamic enough to justify the change of pace. I think it looks great.
Maybe it’s nostalgia for the episode and show as a whole (I remember seeing this one a LOT more in syndication than “They Saved Lisa’s Brain”) or appreciating that my last episode for this phase of my reviews is about the family at large, but I think that I may be rating “Thirty Minutes over Tokyo” higher than I should be. At worst, it can feel a little ignorant, and a couple of particular jokes flat out do not work. But I think in terms of the show’s soon-to-be-upcoming spot gag episodes, this is still pretty fun.
“Thirty Minutes over Tokyo” is banned in not just Japan, but many southeast Asian countries, presumedly due to the scene where Homer throws the Japanese Emperor into a hamper full of used sumo thongs. Honestly, I don’t blame them.
Season 10 Final Thoughts:
You’ve probably noticed this when watching the episodes, or at least when reading my reviews, but during the Mike Scully era, we’ve hit a certain wall where most episodes tend to be rather frontloaded. Even the episodes with the strongest starts tend to run out of ideas by the final act. This isn’t an uncommon concern, with many fans noting that this period is loaded with strong act ones that lead into weak act threes.
Which is a shame, because the crew is still loaded with talent, and the tenth season has surprisingly few misses, even if I don’t think any episode here would rank on my all-time favorites list. A tear was noticeable starting with the eighth season in my eyes, with the following year a step down, and this one even further, unfortunately.
I think that I’d rank the tenth season with a C…+. We’re still at the point where even the weakest episodes still have plenty to offer in terms of gags, but struggle when watched as full narratives. It’s not exactly a compliment if you can get nearly as much entertainment from watching a best of compilation on YouTube than you would from watching the full episode, but I still think that the show could have been considered essential viewing at this point. Especially when paired with the more exciting X-Files or Fox’s newer cartoons. Of the three that premiered during this season, The PJs, Eddie Murphy’s stop-motion project, had the least cultural impact, we also had the start of Futurama, Matt Groening’s other show, and Family Guy, the first of Seth MacFarlane’s impressive empire, also made their debuts by this point.
With these three arguably more daring cartoons, along with King of the Hill still making waves, did The Simpsons start to falter? Not really, although the ratings did take a slight dip this season. Still, The Simpsons is the only of these five shows to consistently stay in production in the past 25 years, with Family Guy having a three year hiatus, and Futurama and King of the Hill only recently planning new seasons after years off. That has to mean something, right? If anything, this just shows how The Simpsons improved the status of the cartoon watcher in our culture. At this point, not only would it be reasonable for a fully grown adult to laugh themselves silly at Homer strangling Bart, but you wouldn’t bat an eye if that same adult said that they also enjoyed Dexter’s Laboratory over on Cartoon Network. Animation has proven to be an all-ages endeavor, as it always has been.
These first ten seasons, maybe just the first nine, give or take the earliest episodes, remain an institution for fans decades on, and will continue to do so. Even in this last batch of episodes, some classic material still shines through, like Homer’s Rashomon joke in the finale. When we come back to tackle season 11, Scully will eschew the earlier tradition of showrunners leaving after two seasons and shepherd the series into the new millennium. And if you thought that we were getting low with this year’s batch of episodes, you haven’t seen anything yet.
Part of me is looking forward to that, but I think for consistency’s sake and my own interests in this series, we need to put a pin on the family here. Maybe after The Sopranos, The Wire, and the start of ER, I’ll get to the next ten seasons. Until then, I hope these next series interest you. I’m excited to get to them, anyway.
Homer’s Bar Tab (Time to pay up):
Chalkboard Gag Wars: “No one wants to hear from my armpits” vs. “I’m so very tired”. The former is definitely a repeat, and I am so very tired.
Couch Gag Wars: The family sinking after getting hit by an iceberg vs. the couch turning into a shredder. I’ll almost miss how quaint these earlier couch gags are.
A top gag this week has to be Homer looking up “boudoir” in the dictionary, then “photography”, and follows that up by checking “boudoir” once again.
“Larry Flynt is right, you guys stink!”
In the commentary, it’s mentioned that The X-Files creator Chris Carter came into the show’s recording booth, put an X-Files hat on Stephen Hawking and took a picture with him. I can’t find this, but here is Hawking with Brent Spiner in full Data makeup.
I know that the show likes to clown on Fox on the regular, but News Corp is actually a pretty smart investment.
Sigh, both episodes have transphobic jokes in them. I hate how common it is to laugh at “she-males” during the late 90’s.
I wanted to find the Woody Allen gag on YouTube, but it’s only available as part of a larger video or in Spanish.
Credit for Dan Castellaneta, who is doing Barney’s voice, trying to do a Homer impression but landing on Hank Hill by saying “That boy ain’t right”. Although speaking of King of the Hill, that show has a much better Japanese episode (a two-parter, no less), and maybe some day I’ll cover that on here.
Something I loved from the commentary- at this point, Mike Scully lived near George Takei, who would wear his Starfleet uniform every Halloween. Imagine trick or treating and receiving candy from Mr. Sulu!
New Character Column: Kind of fitting that our last Simpsons review will feature one final column, but also a part of Springfield’s Mensa division is Lindsey Naegle, the sharp-tongued business woman played effortlessly by Tress MacNeille. MacNeille had sampled the character’s voice in earlier episodes, even a few episodes prior in “Make Room for Lisa”, but this is her proper debut.
Next Week: Nothing! From The Simpsons anyway, I’m done with the show for the time being. But The West Wing will continue on Wednesdays, and I will start with another family on Sundays. Stick around for The Sopranos! If you’re curious, the next episode of The Simpsons will feature… oh no, Mel Gibson.