You know, thinking about it, this is one of the few times the show has ever done a full-episode parody of something. We’ve seen individual jokes, of course, and certain characters like Wolfcastle are parodies of specific people or characters, and individual scenes that are shot-for-shot parodies, and the Treehouse episodes make parody their bread-and-butter, but this kind of beat-for-beat parody taking over an entire twenty minute episode is extremely rare. It makes sense that one of the few stories the show thought was worth this kind of sustained effort was the story of The Beatles, and not just because of the uncanny creative parallels that beloved commentor Ruck Cohlchez noted.

The Beatles’ ten year career gives us two things: a plethora of iconic moments from “Pete forever, Ringo never!” to “Bigger than Jesus” to the rooftop concert, and an emotional arc that’s complex enough to recognise but simple enough to riff on, and these two things are like catnip to the show’s crew. All that has to be done is to plug our characters into the Beatles formula, and we even get one extra little dose of absurdity: Homer’s band is a barbershop quartet. From there, it’s just a series of simple questions. How would Chief Wiggum react to being the Pete Best of the group? What kind of songs would Homer write? How would Springfielders react to the Be Sharps?

So structurally, this episode is a denser version of “Marge In Chains”; the intensity of riffing on one idea per act sacrificed for a much wider scope, and personally I find that closer to my taste. And what makes this a great parody is that we never lose sight of our characters – of course Homer would write a song about Mr T, and of course he’d be sad about missing out on his family. The popularity of an idea waxes and wanes – my understanding is that there was a wave of “actually, the Beatles were overrated” articles in the 80s before a 90s Beatlemania resurgence, and I’ve noticed that theme popping up again the last couple of years, tied partially into a rise of an anti-Baby Boomer mentality – but characters like Homer will last forever.

Speaking of, there’s lots of little examples of the show’s dedication to going the extra mile to make this show last. I already brought up the absurd specificness of barbershop, but there’s a lot of little details crammed into this episode – my favourite is how the barbershop is actually used. The crew uses a real barbershop band, the Dapper Dans, as the singing voices of the Be Sharps, except for snatches where the regular voice actors fill in, usually when a character is coming in before the beat (like when a single character sings “With my” just before they all come together for “Baby on board”). And Chief Wiggum is always played by Hank Azaria, as if to indicate to us “yeah, he doesn’t fit in” long before he’s kicked out. I also enjoy the effort they go to in order to have a story in the wraparound itself. Ordinarily, the storytelling episodes are just the family sitting around in the lounge room talking, but this is actually set off by Lisa finding a Be Sharps album in a swap meet, and we get the story of the family going to the swap meet, busting a tire, and getting home to find old Be Sharps merch in the cupboards (this also gives us the chance to see the town’s various attempts to sell their wares).

The interesting thing about the episode’s Beatlemania is how little nostalgia or criticism it seems to have for the Beatles themselves, beyond, you know, wanting to talk about the Beatles at all – even the appearance of a genuine Beatle is deliberately undercut by a joke (“Well, what a nice fellow!”). The closest it really comes to a sincere sense of nostalgia is Homer picking up his Be Sharps record and thinking before calling his old bandmates (and even then it has a parody of the back of the Sgt Pepper’s album). I’ve said before that part of this show’s voice is the pleasure of knowing something for its own sake, with this episode in particular taking pleasure in Beatles trivia; the flipside of that is that the pleasure of knowing things is always used as fuel for jokes, and never overpowers that goal.

Chalkboard Gag: I will never win an Emmy.
Couch Gag: Three takes! One of the family crashing into each other and shattering, one of the family forming a gelatinous sludge, and one of the family just exploding.

This episode was written by Jeff Martin, the show’s resident Beatles nerd writer, and directed by Mark Kirkland, the show’s resident Beatles nerd director. The lesson here is that, when telling a comedic story, write down a whole lot of things you love and filter them through the process of jokes. Once again, this premier is actually a holdover from the previous season, and I consider it notable that this time I didn’t even notice.

Last week, I noted that we end on the theme song played on an accordion. This week, we come back from an act break with a lick of it played on a banjo. I always love when a series has one theme, played on many different instruments depending on the context, as if we’re always in the same universe but always in a different part of it.

We get another appearance by “Just stamp the ticket” guy (“I doubt my son or daughter is that stupid.”)!

George Harrison and David Crosby cameo. There are a few references to some Sixties band. Mayor Quimby drops a reference to JFK’s famous Cold War quote “Ich bin ein Berliner”. Homer goes through a five cent bin, finding the US Declaration of Independence, a copy of Action Comics #1, a block of Inverted Jenny misprint stamps, and a Stradivarius violin, dismissing them all as junk (“Stradawhovius?”). Principal Skinner’s prison mask has the same number as Jean Valjean in Les Miserables. Homer buying his dad a pink Cadillac is a reference to Elvis doing the same thing for his mother, and Chief Wiggum shooting his TV is also an Elvis reference (“Clancy! Use the remote!”), and he happens to be watching Johnny Carson. Homer references Joe Piscopo leaving Saturday Night Live and “Achy Breaky Heart” in his opening monologue. Moe sells oyster shells resembling Lucille Ball. Spinal Tap, Leon Kompowsky, and MC Hammer are at the Grammys. The Be Sharps beat out Dexys Midnight Runners (“You haven’t heard the last of them!”). There’s a parody of Alvin And The Chipmunks, part of the Rodent Invasion of the early Sixties (parodying the British Invasion). Ronald and Nancy Reagan see the Be Sharps.

Iconic Moments: “This enormous woman will devour us all!”
Biggest Laugh: