Simpson Episodes That You Didnt Even Know That Exists

On Apr 19, 1987, Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie made their debut during a short on The Tracey Ullman Prove. Ii years later, Fox gave them their own program. In the three decades since, The Simpsons has become an American institution. To celebrate the 30th birthday of the greatest gear up of television characters of all time, let's expect back at the stories behind the 100 best Simpsons episodes.

To compile this list, I sought feedback from both hardcore Simpsons fans and one-time members of the show's creative staff. Nevertheless, it was an inherently subjective undertaking. "Y'all could cull every other episode from the starting time 200 episodes for your top 100 and you wouldn't be too far off," one Simpsons author told me. I don't claim to be a scientician, but I tried to be meticulous. So crack open a Duff and enjoy.

Below you'll find numbers 10 to 1 of our summit-100 ranking. Click here for the entire list.

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Fox

10. "Stark Raving Dad"

Season 3, Episode 1

Airdate: September xix, 1991

Written past: Al Jean and Mike Reiss

When the most famous person on earth asks to exist on your show, you pull out all the stops. That's what the staff of The Simpsons did for a certain music legend. "Michael Jackson once called [James L. Brooks] and said he wanted to do the testify and even write a hit song for Bart," Al Jean told The Hollywood Reporter in 2012. "Stark Raving Dad" manages to showcase the King of Pop'south talents, poke fun of his persona, and humanize him in a style that nothing has before or since. It's one of the most improbably funny TV episodes ever.

The story begins not with MJ, but rather with Homer, who one morning is distressed to observe that Bart's red hat has turned his shirts pink in the wash. "Everybody wears white shirts," Homer whines. "I'm not popular plenty to be different." The involuntary wardrobe modify results in Mr. Burns labeling Homer a "freethinking anarchist." Soon Homer is committed to the New Bedlam Rest Habitation for the Emotionally Interesting, where he meets a towering white guy who claims to be (and sounds exactly like) Michael Jackson. "If you ever find your marbles," Homer tells his new friend before existence released, "come visit us." As information technology turns out, the man is there voluntarily. "Back in 1979," he says, "I got real depressed when my Off the Wall album just got 1 lousy Grammy nomination."

Earlier Homer brings his new friend home to his family, Bart spreads the rumor that Michael Jackson is coming to Springfield. The town is angry to find out that the visitor, equally Bart puts information technology, is just a mental patient. "You lot'd be amazed how often I hear that," replies the man. He and then helps Bart write a vocal for Lisa, who felt neglected by her brother on her birthday. "Happy Birthday, Lisa" is past far the sweetest, catchiest song in the history of the show. Hell, information technology was written past Michael Jackson! Although he didn't actually sing it. Soundalike Kipp Lennon did. Jackson, who requested to be billed every bit John Jay Smith in the credits, pulled the switch to prank his brothers.

In the episode's terminal moments, the man reveals his true identity. His name is Leon Kompowsky, a New Jersey bricklayer who one day realized he could talk and sing just like Michael Jackson. "All of a sudden, everyone was smiling at me," he says, "and I was simply doing good on this world. So I kept on doing it. To make a tired point, which one of us is truly crazy?"

In that location are conflicting reports about his exact role in the process, simply Jackson contributed to making Bart'south hit single, "Do the Bartman." Leon was supposed to render to The Simpsons in a sequel to "Stark Raving Dad" written by Conan O'Brien, merely proposed guest star Prince rejected the script.

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Fox

nine. "Bart Sells His Soul"

Flavour 7, Episode 4

Airdate: October 8, 1995

Written by: Greg Daniels

Scarier than any of the "Treehouse of Horror" specials, this perfect bit of horror comedy delves into Bart's existential crisis. Greg Daniels blames the boredom of boarding schoolhouse for the idea. One night an abrasive classmate questions the existence of the human soul. To mess with him, Daniels takes out a piece of paper and wrote, "I sell my soul to Greg Daniels for the cost of l cents." The teen agrees to the terms, goes up to his room, so returns spooked. "I want my my soul back," he tells Daniels, who recalled driving up the resale price before realizing that making money off a soul was a fiddling too Satan-like to stomach.

Bart is often forced to reckon with the havoc that he wreaks, just never as agonizingly equally he does here. When Milhouse tells on Bart for swapping the calendar week'due south church hymn with "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida," Reverend Lovejoy makes them make clean the organ pipes. After Milhouse says that he snitched because he doesn't "desire hungry birds pecking [his] soul forever," Bart claims that at that place'southward no such thing as a soul and sells his to Milhouse for $5.

When Lisa warns Bart that his soul is "the symbol of everything fine inside us," he begins to realize that his shit-stirring spirit has been crushed. Not even Itchy & Scratchy makes him express mirth anymore. His low bespeak comes when in a nightmare he sees his classmates playing with their souls. Then they all hop in boats and anybody has a partner to help row except Bart, who notices his soul paddling for Milhouse. Daniels loves that scene, which might be the virtually painful in Simpsons history. Lisa eventually buys Bart'southward soul back, simply not before finally doing some serious introspection.

"Bart Sells His Soul" would be loftier on the list anyway, but an A-plus subplot gives it a boost. Moe turns his bar into the family-friendly Uncle Moe's Family Feedbag, a concatenation-style restaurant with "a whole lotta crazy crap on the walls." The experiment doesn't concluding.

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Fox

8. "Homer at the Bat"

Season iii, Episode 17

Airdate: February twenty, 1992

Written by: John Swartzwelder

"Homer at the Bat," as much as a half-hour cartoon could be, was an event. Nine major league All-Stars appear in the episode, which was the commencement installment of The Simpsons to crush The Cosby Show in the ratings. Just this is more than than simply a benchmark. Information technology'southward an extravaganza that John Swartzwelder, a fellow member of the writers' wing of the Simpsons Hall of Fame, blimp total of surreal moments and obscure references.

After using a magic bat (like in The Natural) to lead the Springfield Nuclear Power Constitute softball squad to the city championship against Shelbyville, Mr. Burns bets the possessor of the rival plant $one million on the game'south outcome. To ensure a victory, the malevolent billionaire asks Mr. Smithers to enlist a agglomeration of long-dead ringers such as Cap Anson and Mordecai "Three-Finger" Brownish. (Old-timey Americana is a Swartzwelder trademark.) Burns's toadie settles on recruiting a coiffure of current players.

The show uses its nine guests in uniquely Simpsonian means. At Moe's, Wade Boggs argues with Barney nigh which of England's prime ministers was the all-time. Ozzie Smith gets lost in the Springfield Mystery Spot. Ken Griffey Jr. drinks nervus tonic and his head swells grotesquely. Depressed that he's been supplanted by pro athletes, Homer finally gets his shot. With the score tied in the bottom of the ninth inning and a left-hander on the mound, Homer, a righty, pinch hits for Darryl Strawberry. "Information technology's called playing the percentages," says Burns, the manager.

The first pitch Homer sees hits him in the caput, plating the winning run and knocking him out common cold. A new cutting of Terry Cashman'south "Talkin' Baseball," with the names of the players in the episode replacing the originals, plays over the end credits. (Growing upwardly, I didn't know that the original version even existed.) Mayhap more than than any other, the episode brings on nostalgia in Simpsons fans.

"Even though it's rooted in a very specific era of baseball, at that place's something nigh it that is very timeless," said journalist Erik Malinowski, who for Deadspin wrote the definitive account of the making of "Homer at the Bat." "Anyone who'due south played any sport at any level have all had an feel like [Homer's]. We've all had to overcome people that are ameliorate than u.s.."

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Fox

seven. "Itchy & Scratchy & Marge"

Season 2, Episode 9

Airdate: December 20, 1990

Written by: John Swartzwelder

It's hard to imagine that a show big enough to take its own theme park allure ever could've been considered edgy. Simply dorsum in the early on '90s, The Simpsons was viewed as transgressive. Some considered a cartoon that starred an aggressively lazy oaf and his authority-defying son to be threatening. With "Itchy & Scratchy & Marge," the series took aim at the hypocritical backlash oftentimes directed at controversial pop culture phenomena.

As Homer builds a spice rack in the basement, Maggie sneaks up on him and hits his head with a mallet. While wondering what gave her the idea to bop her daddy on the caput, Marge notices the babe watching an episode of ultraviolent testify-within-a-show Itchy & Scratchy. Right subsequently the mouse stabs the cat, Maggie swings a pencil in the direction of Homer. Horrified, Marge bans the cartoon in the house and writes Itchy & Scratchy International a letter imploring the studio to tone down its program's "psychotic violence." Sleazy CEO Roger Meyers Jr., who'southward voiced by character actor Alex Rocco, replies with a note proverb, amongst other things, "Our inquiry shows that 1 person cannot brand a difference, no affair how big a screwball she is."

Marge responds by founding Springfieldians for Non-Violence, Understanding and Helping. SNUH leads protests confronting Itchy & Scratchy, which lampoons Marge on the bear witness by turning her into a squirrel that the cat and mouse bash with baseball bats. Just the program is besieged by angry letters. At that point, Myers calls the screwball for ideas on how to make the cartoon less violent. With Marge's help, the show's hacky writers create an episode in which Itchy and Scratchy share a pitcher of lemonade. Naturally, Springfield's kids detest it and stage a protest of their own by turning off their TVs and playing outside.

The next twenty-four hour period, Helen Lovejoy and Maude Flemish region bear witness up with hopes that Marge's group volition join in a protestation of Michelangelo'south David, which is touring the United States. "It graphically portrays parts of the human trunk," Helen says, "which, practical equally they may be, are evil." Marge realizes she's painted herself into a corner. During an interview on news plan Smartline, on which she'd appeared earlier in the episode, Marge is called out for her selective censorship concerns. "I gauge one person can brand a departure," she says, "but about of the time they probably shouldn't."

Marge and Homer so get run across what the latter refers to as Michelangelo'southward "Dave." Later his wife expresses disappointment that the kids are at home watching "a cat and mouse disembowel each other," Homer laughs and says that they'll presently exist forced to come across it as part of a schoolhouse field trip.

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Fox

6. "Radio Bart"

Flavor 3, Episode 13

Airdate: January 9, 1992

Written by: Jon Vitti

"Radio Bart" has a terrifically silly premise: Afterward a crappy birthday party at Chuck East. Cheese's stand-in Wall East. Weasel'south, Bart discovers that the gift Homer gives him isn't so lame after all. Information technology's called the Superstar Celebrity Microphone and it allows Bart to pipe his vocalization into any nearby AM radio. He uses the gadget to pull pranks on just about everyone in his life. (He tells Rod and Todd Flanders that he'south God.)

"Tina Fey did an interview almost writing 30 Stone in which she said she wanted information technology to exist similar The Simpsons in that she wanted to be smart, but she also wanted to maintain the freedom to be really stupid when she felt similar it," writer Jon Vitti said. "It was such a happy matter that someone that great watched what nosotros did closely enough to run into that, and liked it enough to accept it inform her thinking near that great testify. And she understood u.s. perfectly."

Bart soon lowers a radio downward the well, calls out for help through his mic, and, when the boondocks mobilizes, claims that he's a 10-yr-old named Timmy O'Toole. As the media swarms and no one is able to save poor Timmy, Bart keeps up the ruse. Krusty is so moved that he enlists guest star Sting to tape a "We Are the World"–like tribute song chosen "Nosotros're Sending Our Love Down the Well." (Krusty has a solo.) "This isn't about show business concern," Sting says. "This is well-nigh some child downwardly a hole … or something." Said Vitti: "Krusty is doing typical celebrity posturing in this story, but it felt more than fun to make Sting terribly sincere."

Lisa somewhen catches on to Bart's scheme. When he scoffs at the prospect of the police communicable him, she reminds her brother that he put a "Property of Bart Simpson" label on his radio. Then, while attempting to call up it in the eye of the nighttime, he falls down the well. When the town finds out it has a existent Babe Jessica state of affairs on its hands, its citizens aren't sympathetic. But even after learning that Bart was backside Timmy O'Toole, everyone — including Sting — joins together to dig Bart out. "You wanted to casually create complicated logical mistakes — only show Sting downward in the pit with a shovel without comment," Vitti said, "and let the viewers realize, Wait, that's stupid, the celebrities don't do that part of it."

It'due south a beautifully empty-headed catastrophe. "Nosotros never wanted to obligate ourselves to be smart all the time," Vitti said, "if for no other reason than we weren't smart plenty to be smart all the fourth dimension."

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Play tricks

5. "Homer the Heretic"

Flavor 4, Episode 3

Airdate: Oct 8, 1992

Written by: George Meyer

Homer Simpson's decision to surrender religion is less a thoughtfully considered choice than information technology is a rejection of tedious fearmongering. "I'grand not a bad guy!" he says when God visits him in a mid-episode dream. "I work difficult and I beloved my kids. And then why should I spend one-half my Sun hearing nearly how I'm going to hell?" In America, his view is not uncommon.

George Meyer, one of the greatest sitcom writers in the history of the format, was the perfect person to script "Homer the Heretic." In David Owen's excellent New Yorker profile from 2000, Meyer talked about his problems with his Catholic upbringing. "The main matter was that there was no sense of proportion," he said. "I would chew a piece of glue at school, and the nun would say, 'Jesus is very angry with you about that.'"

Information technology's only natural that Meyer has Homer determine to finish attending church with his family every week. He enjoys his free Sundays, watching football and staying in bed like, as he says, "a big toasty cinnamon bun." Pleas by Marge, Reverend Lovejoy, Ned Flemish region, and God himself (in a dream) practise nothing to sway Homer. Just in the climactic scene, after Homer falls asleep and the cigar he's smoking causes the firm to go up in flames, he's saved past none other than his pious neighbor Ned, who along with a grouping of volunteer firefighters comes to the rescue. In his kitchen after, Homer kneels and tries to repent. That leads to this:

Ned: Homer, God didn't gear up your firm on burn down.

Reverend Lovejoy: No, but He was working in the hearts of your friends and neighbors when they came to your help, be they Christian [Ned], Jew [Krusty], or miscellaneous [Apu].

Apu: Hindu! At that place are 700 one thousand thousand of us.

Reverend Lovejoy: Aw, that's super.

In his commodity, Owen cites this substitution every bit an instance of why The Simpsons was smart non to utilise a express joy track. Lovejoy'southward final line, he wrote, "would accept been also delicate to float above superimposed peals of laughter."

The side by side Sunday Homer returns to church, where he's seen snoring. (He visits heaven in his dream, again talking to God and this time besides seeing Ben Franklin and Jimi Hendrix play air hockey.) In classic Simpsons mode, he learns his lesson. Barely. His faith is still intact, even if Sunday-morning time services tin't keep him awake.

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Play tricks

iv. "Marge vs. the Monorail"

Season four, Episode 12

Airdate: January 14, 1993

Written by: Conan O'Brien

The Simpsons has long been celebrated as the first animated serial to be truly grounded in reality. But it'southward still a drawing, and thus not leap past the aforementioned rules as a live-action show. "If you had a strange idea for something in Mr. Burns's basement, or a monorail system snaking through the town of Springfield," former Simpsons writer and electric current late-nighttime host Conan O'Brien told Vanity Off-white in 2007, "it could happen." And information technology did.

Have, for instance, O'Brien'due south "Marge vs. the Monorail." Without animation, O'Brien's masterpiece probably would've been impossible to pull off. Afterward a Flintstones parody intro, the Music Human–inspired musical begins with the Environmental Protection Agency forcing Mr. Burns to pay a $3 million fine to Springfield. At the meeting held to decide how to spend the money, a man in a bowtie named Lyle Lanley — who's voiced past Phil Hartman — shows upwardly and proposes building a monorail. Over the objections of Marge, who wants Principal Street fixed, Lanley uses a song to convince the town to get for the newfangled transportation arrangement.

While Homer is learning to be a monorail conductor, Marge learns that Lanley is a grifter who'due south ripped off several other towns. Past so it's likewise late to stop the first monorail ride. When the brakes neglect, Homer uses the "M" on the monorail sign to create an anchor, which wraps around a giant doughnut sign and stops the train.

"Well, my work is done here," guest star Leonard Nimoy says. When Barney replies, "You lot didn't do anything," Nimoy responds, "Didn't I?" And so he beams out. Something like that commonly would've been too fantastical for The Simpsons, but an exception was made for Spock.

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Play a trick on

3. "Mr. Turn"

Season 4, Episode nine

Airdate: November 19, 1992

Written by: Jon Vitti

"Mr. Turn" was the kind of idea that Jon Vitti loved. "What often worked best for me was to get the weirdest story I could and write it more than realistically than you'd call back," he said. The writer applied that arroyo to a madcap episode in which Homer and Barney each outset a snow-removal business and get bitter rivals.

Afterwards Homer totals both family cars in a snow tempest, the Simpsons nourish the Springfield Automobile Show, where a pushy salesman sells Homer a $20,000 truck equipped with a plow. (The family also meets '60s Batman star Adam West, with whom the kids aren't impressed.) The investment doesn't starting time paying off until Homer films a catchy Goggle box commercial. Vitti wrote the Mr. Plow jingle lyrics — "Phone call Mr. Turn / That's my name / That name again is Mr. Plow." — only as a placeholder. "But," he said, "my version was so terrible people thought it was funny and left it in."

Homer soon has bunches of customers. Mayor Quimby fifty-fifty gives him the key to the metropolis. And Marge finds his Mr. Plow jacket sexy. In awe of Homer's accomplishments, Barney tells his friend that he wishes he were a hero, too. Homer tells him he just needs to be the best damn Barney he tin exist. The sloppy drunk, who'd been dressing up in a giant diaper for his job at baby store, buys a truck and dubs himself the Plough King. He takes aim at Homer, even hiring Linda Ronstadt to tape a disparaging jingle. "Mr. Plough is a loser and I remember he is a drunkard," go the lyrics, which Jeff Martin wrote. "Then yous better brand that phone call to the Plow King." (Vitti attended Ronstadt'due south recording session in San Francisco. "Standing at the adjacent microphone and hearing that voice live was my favorite single experience equally a Simpsons writer," he said.)

Whether he knows it or not, Barney's resentment of Homer is deep-seated. Through a flashback to high schoolhouse, the audience finds out that the latter introduced the erstwhile to alcohol, and not vice versa. The quick scene is hilarious. It's also profoundly sad. "John Swartzwelder said a lot of smart things about The Simpsons," Vitti said, "and one of my favorites was, 'The Simpsons is not a one-act, The Simpsons is a drama done by stupid people.'"

With Barney cutting into his profits, Homer commissions a new avant-garde TV ad. It has no issue on business. And then during a blizzard, he anonymously calls Barney and tells him his driveway atop Widow's Top needs plowing. When an avalanche buries his rival, Homer feels guilty and drives up the mountain to save him. The old pals reconcile, vowing to go partners. "When ii all-time friends work together," Homer says, "not fifty-fifty God himself can stop them." God then surreally chimes in with "Oh, no?" and brings Springfield warm weather condition, which melts the snow and ruins both plow careers.

"Y'all virtually always wanted the peril to be real," Vitti said. "Just and then someone would come up with something funny enough that you would take to bend the rules."

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2. "Lisa's Substitute"

Season ii, Episode xix

Airdate: April 25, 1991

Written by: Jon Vitti

By late in the second season of The Simpsons, Vitti recalled, the show's creative staff had started to realize just how many layers of comedy information technology could jam into an episode. Then when executive producer James 50. Brooks came in with the idea of Lisa falling for her Dustin Hoffman–voiced substitute teacher, information technology made Vitti nervous.

"There's an insurance in doing jokes," said Vitti, who got the assignment. "You can write xl jokes, and, if 15 of them fail, there are however 25 jokes people can like. Simply if you invest completely in your story and people don't like it, you've probably written the worst Simpsons episode ever." Still, even knowing that he'd be writing for an Oscar winner (who'due south credited as Sam Etic), Vitti wanted to keep "Lisa's Substitute" equally small-scale as possible. That wasn't easy. First, Vitti'due south script needed to be chopped downwardly to broadcast length.

"John Swartzwelder happily volunteered," Vitti remembered. "[He said], 'I'll get some time out of information technology,' and started ripping pages out of the script and throwing them on the floor. The fact that he was immune to sentiment was function of what made Swartzwelder our best writer, but it was still pretty disheartening to see the best author react that fashion to your script."

The edit helped lead to an impeccable episode. It begins with Miss Hoover announcing that she has Lyme disease. Soon Mr. Bergstrom arrives dressed like an 1830 Texas cowboy. When he asks the course to name the 3 things incorrect with his costume, Lisa raises her hand and points out the historical inaccuracies. Despite being wrong almost Jewish cowboys not existing — "There were a few Jewish cowboys," the mensch of a substitute says, "big guys who were groovy shots and spent money freely" — Mr. Bergstrom accepts the answers and gives her his lid as a prize. Lisa is immediately smitten past the engaging young teacher, who reads the class Charlotte's Web and encourages the students to show off their talents.

At home, Lisa gushes about Mr. Bergstrom. When Marge tells her daughter that it sounds like the way she feels about Homer, Lisa scoffs. Dorsum at schoolhouse, Bart is making a spectacle out of himself while running for class president. "Oh, you'll never get bankrupt appealing to the lowest common denominator," Lisa says. Mr. Bergstrom then assures an embarrassed Lisa that she'll miss her brother's antics later, "when your life takes y'all places the rest of us accept only heard about."

"Places where my intelligence volition be an nugget and not a liability?" she asks.

"Yes," Mr. Bergstrom responds. "There is such a place."

For Lisa, whose gifts are never appreciated enough, it's a rare moment of validation. The bond betwixt the two characters was forged in a New York studio: Yeardley Smith and Hoffman recorded their parts together. "Once we did that," Brooks told USA Today in 2012, "it put a priority on the style we work with our actors, that nosotros're all in the aforementioned room at the same fourth dimension, whenever possible." The connexion of Lisa and Mr. Bergstrom can exist seen in their expressions. For that, Vitti credited director Rich Moore. "Rich'south calling carte was the perfection of his small touches," Vitti said of Moore, who'due south gone on to helm Wreck-It-Ralph and Zootopia. "The facial acting in his episodes was always the all-time."

While visiting the Springfield Museum of Natural History with Lisa and her male parent, Mr. Bergstrom tells Homer that his star pupil lacks a stiff male role model. Homer doesn't accept it well. Sensing Lisa's thwarting, Marge suggests having Mr. Bergstrom over for dinner. Before Lisa can invite him, nonetheless, Miss Hoover returns to school. Lisa then tracks down Mr. Bergstrom at the train station.

Brooks suggested the ensuing exchange, which remains the about emotional scene in Simpsons history. After telling Lisa that he's needed elsewhere, Mr. Bergstrom says, "Whenever you feel like you lot're alone, and there's nobody you can rely on, this is all you need to know." Then he hands her a note. It reads: "Y'all are Lisa Simpson."

At the dinner table that night, a mopey Lisa yells at her male parent for not understanding her sadness. She even calls him a birdie. "Did you hear that, Marge?" Homer responds. "She called me a baboon. The stupidest, ugliest, smelliest ape of them all." At the urging of his wife, Homer futily attempts to console Lisa. "At least I'm good at … monkey work," he says. "You know? Monkey?" Then he starts making monkey noises. Finally, Lisa starts laughing and apologizes for insulting him.

Afterward, when Marge asks how he smoothed things over, Homer cuts her off. "Let's just get to bed," he says. "I'm on the biggest coil of my life." The parenting clinic that Homer puts on proves what Simpsons fans have ever known: Even the stupidest, ugliest, smelliest ape of them all can exist a proficient father.

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Flim-flam

ane. "Last Go out to Springfield"

Flavour four, Episode 17

Airdate: March eleven, 1993

Written by: Jay Kogen and Wallace Wolodarsky

Homer Simpson represents the supremely disempowered employee in all of usa. But sometimes a homo like Homer must take a stand up.

When it comes to picking the best Simpsons episode, there is no consensus. Just to me, the prove peaked with "Last Exit to Springfield." It's a perfectly baked layer cake of popular culture references, absurd jokes, middle-form angst, and family drama.

The episode, which Jay Kogen and Wallace Wolodarsky wrote off of an idea conceived past so-showrunner Mike Reiss, kicks off with Bart and Homer watching the latest McBain picture show. When Bart comments on the evilness of the action flick's villain, Homer says, "It's merely a picture show, son. There's nobody that evil in real life." The camera and then cuts to a cackling Mr. Burns, who has decided that his employees' marriage contract is too bloated.

We presently meet dentist Dr. Wolfe, who scares Ralph Wiggum into brushing by showing him The Big Book of British Smiles. Later on examining Lisa'south teeth, the doctor tells her that she needs braces. "Oh, no," she says. "I'll be socially unpopular. More then." When Marge breaks the news to Homer, he's not worried. After all, the marriage won a dental programme in the strike of '88. (While his coworkers were demanding equitable handling, he was at the luncheon truck yelling, "Where'due south my burrito?")

At the next gathering of the Local 643 (the International Brotherhood of Jazz Dancers, Pastry Chefs, and Nuclear Technicians), Carl tells the members that the new contract is basically unchanged except that the dental programme has been cut in substitution for gratis beer at meetings. "Then long, dental plan!" Lenny says as he pours himself a cold ane. And then comes an all-time swell Simpsons moment: the boring scale of Homer's brain. For one-half a minute, Lenny'due south and Marge's voices echo in his head. Later on hearing "dental plan" and "Lisa needs braces" enough times, he has a necessary epiphany. "If we give up our dental program," he says, "I'll have to pay for Lisa's braces!"

His dismay reminds me of something that John Swartzwelder once told boyfriend Simpsons writer Ron Hauge well-nigh Homer: "He loves his food. He loves his sex. He'south completely stupid. And he will defend his family to the death." Homer may be an idiot, but his wife and kids are his world. Even if it doesn't always seem that way, he'south driven to exercise right past them.

Homer quickly persuades his brethren to rip up the contract. They proper noun him matrimony president, and he takes on Mr. Burns. With Homer facing a crisis, the episode pops with memorable sequences. While basking in the celebrity of his new position, Homer imagines himself as a Don Fanucci–esque mob dominate. And while getting her cheap, primitive braces put on, Lisa drifts off into a nitrous-induced Yellow Submarine–like dream.

Meanwhile, Mr. Burns attempts to pause Homer. (During negotiations at his mansion, Burns shows Homer his room with a thousand monkeys on a m typewriters working on the greatest novel known to man.) Intimidation doesn't work, mostly because Homer doesn't understand his boss'due south tactics. Homer and so calls a strike. On the picket line, Lisa even belts out a supportive folk anthem. Burns eventually turns off the town's ability, but when he hears his aggrieved workers united in song, he gives in to Homer's need on the condition that he resign as spousal relationship president. He agrees and then spins around on the floor like Curly from The Three Stooges. "Smithers," Burns says, "I'grand beginning to think that Homer Simpson was not the brilliant tactician I thought he was." With dental covered again, Lisa gets fancy braces.

In America, an unremarkable schmo doesn't ordinarily stand a chance against a ruthless plutocrat. But every then often, the sometime turns the tables on the latter, says "Woo-hoo!," and becomes a hero.

An earlier version of this piece misquoted Homer; the correct line is "Where's my burrito?"

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Return to The Ringer'due south 100 All-time 'Simpsons' Episodes.

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Source: https://www.theringer.com/tv/2017/8/18/16157978/the-best-simpsons-episodes-10-1

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