After a few runs of different goofy premises, I love this one for its sheer brazen hackiness and level of fantasy – some rich old man just leaving you his enormous fortune is something every kid and most adults have … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Five, Episode Eighteen, “Burns’ Heir”

This show has become a pure absurdism machine, moving faster than I can keep up with and further than I keep expecting. It’s like watching a virtuoso guitar player, in that I can grasp how their fingers move and the … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Five, Episode Seventeen, “Bart Gets An Elephant”

The underlying self-awareness of this show has finally come to a boil, as we get a premise that makes its whole joke out of changing up a fundamental aspect of the series. First, Homer hated Flanders in a satire of … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Five, Episode Sixteen, “Homer Loves Flanders”

Well, here we are. When people talk about the wackiness of the Golden Age and season five in particular, this is the one they point to first: the one where Homer goes to space. On paper, I guess you could … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Five, Episode Fifteen, “Deep Space Homer”

Episodes like this are what I mean when I say that the show’s treatment of Apu is an embarrassing blindspot, because this showed how progressive the show could be. My anecdotal experience is that female fans of The Simpsons are … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Five, Episode Fourteen, “Lisa vs Malibu Stacy”

(I want to clarify in this essay on racial stereotypes that I’m white) Apu Nahasapeemapetilon is the most controversial aspect of The Simpsons here in 2018. Comedian Hari Kondabolu released a documentary in late 2017, The Problem With Apu, that … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Five, Episode Thirteen, “Homer And Apu”

I never remembered this episode as anything particularly special – it’s great, I just didn’t remember it as a particular favourite – and so I was delighted to find a really thoughtful half hour of television. In fact, not only … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Five, Episode Twelve, “Bart Gets Famous”

Let me tell you, I was looking forward to covering this little masterpiece, a genuine Top Ten, maybe even a Top Five; “Last Exit To Springfield” might be the most popular episode of the show, but I would argue “Homer … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Five, Episode Eleven “Homer The Vigilante”

Introducing legalised gambling is an all-time great concept for this show to play with. If The Simpsons’ strengths can be distilled down to a few elements, it would be the knack for absurdity, the big heart, the satirical view of … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Five, Episode Ten, “$pringfield (or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Legalized Gambling)”

The Simpsons, Season Five, Episode Nine, “The Last Temptation Of Homer”Homer’s most sympathetic trait is his passionate love for his family, and this episode is one of his best expressions of that by throwing in a challenge to it. Obviously, … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Five, Episode Nine, “The Last Temptation Of Homer”

This is one I’ve been waiting on a long time, because it factors heavily into a major Simpsons theory of mine: Jerkass Homer is neither a reason for nor symptom of the show’s eventual decline. Not only does the entire … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Five, Episode Eight, “Boy-Scoutz ‘N The Hood”

The show has long known the difference between superficial pleasure and genuine emotional or spiritual fulfillment for a very long time, and it’s always known the power of the angry mob; this is one of its best combinations of both, … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Five, Episode Seven, “Bart’s Inner Child”

We’re never gonna see Homer shape up and become a respectable husband and father, and we’re never gonna see Marge leave Homer. What we get instead are variations on the theme of a rocky marriage, where Marge and Homer always … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Five, Episode Six, “Marge On The Lam”

My approach with these essays is to connect disparate observations and feelings across the episode into a singular, unified whole, and that always fights with my instincts to follow the lead of the “Treehouse” episodes and divide the essay into … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Five, Episode Five, “Treehouse Of Horror IV”

My main takeaway from this episode is how uniquely Simpsons it feels. One big thing I personally value in a television show is a sense of identity; a sense that this is what we do, this is what we don’t … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Five, Episode Four, “Rosebud”

I’m beginning to see what you all mean when you divide the Golden Age into smaller units – this is one of the silliest episodes we’ve had so far without actually delving into a musical number or an all-star softball … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Five, Episode Three, “Homer Goes To College”

So, I’m big enough to admit when I’m wrong and handsome. Last week, I remarked that “Homer’s Barbershop Quartet” was the only full-episode parody I could think of, and right here, not only do we have an episode-long parody of … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Five, Episode Two, “Cape Feare”

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, … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Five, Episode One, “Homer’s Barbershop Quartet”

I have this idea that a great protagonist is someone caught between two completely contradictory drives, and from this perspective, Krusty is one of the best side characters on The Simpsons. On the one hand, he has a compulsive need … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Four, Episode Twenty-Two, “Krusty Gets Kancelled”

Part of the fun of this series is tracking the evolution of the show, and this deftly combines two things we’ve already discussed: the occasional forays into riff-heavy plotting, and the development of the town of Springfield. This episode finds … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Four, Episode Twenty-One, “Marge In Chains”

“Whacking Day” is the most direct and pointed satirical statement in the entire show. More accurately, it’s a pair of statements: ‘doing things out of a sense of tradition can lead to you committing evil’, and ‘mob justice is fickle’. … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Four, Episode Twenty, “Whacking Day”