What If Bart Had Failed?

The Simpsons, S24E10

To cut costs, the school with the lowest standardized test scores would be shut down, and Springfield Elementary's only hope of staying open was determinate upon Bart's score on the test.  Homer also found a parking meter at the dump and was tricking people into paying it at various locations around town.

I actually would have liked to see what became of the kids if they were sent to different, horrible schools.  Although, since Springfield is the worst school in the state, it couldn't have been worse (at least academically).  I was sort of rooting for Bart to fail, which it looked like he was going to do because he didn't put an ounce of effort into studying.  It reminded me of that very earlier episode where Bart had to study really hard to stop himself from being held back.  He studied really hard and failed, but proved that he had learned something and got a little extra credit.  In this episode, he just had pure luck, and a bug happened to fill in the last question correctly for him.  I guess that's more likely than Bart doing well on a test through his own merits.  That, short of someone dressing up like Bart and taking the test for him, was one of the few ways it was going to work to keep the school open (status quo).  Again, though, I would have liked to see the kids at a different school for a brief moment.

This story wasn't really funny, but I did find myself laughing when Bart imagined that Groundskeeper Willie was lowering a dead Skinner from a flagpole and folding him into a triangle.  That was a little twisted, but for some reason I had to laugh.  I guess it was because it was such a serious moment for Bart and he was still thinking about screwing Skinner over.  No wonder they were ready to knock down the school as soon as the test was over--Bart was so freaking unreliable.

I also liked one line from the proctor concerning the kids' test results:

This place is worse than the elementary school in prison.  This student filled in everything but the ovals.

This story really reminded me of how dumb the kids are at that school.  With kids doing the direct opposite of what they're supposed to do in a test, I'm not entirely sure it's because of the lackluster staff that teach them that they can't even fill in circles.

Homer's story was sort of cute.  I mean, there's nothing like watching Homer going around trying to scam people for a quick buck, especially if it's in a way that seems more trouble than it's worth.  It reminds me of the time he had the telemarketing scam going on--he was right that this fake parking meter was his most successful business.  The thing that was dumb was that he went to spend the money at a bus station pay-TV.  He might as well have been tossing all the money he "worked" for down a well (which he did, in a disappointing conclusion).  Then again, I guess Homer couldn't very well go around town spending quarters like that when there was a news report about his illegal activities.  Still, it would have been nice to see him do something fun with that money before Marge found out and made him do the "right" thing.

Oh, I also thought the couch gag was nice.  Usually, I just ignore it and just wish the episode would start, but I liked seeing them make them sitting on the couch see like a dramatic, action-packed movie trailer.  The tagline "Don't get too comfortable" made me laugh.

This episode was a little better than some of the others just because it wasn't very annoying in any way really.  I tend to like the stories that revolve around the school, especially when the main character is going to be Bart.  He's shown that when push comes to shove, some kind of unbelievable luck will pull him through and never any kind of effort upon his part (at least where learning is concerned) will.  Homer and his parking meter were a great pair in business, but he barely even got to enjoy the fruits from his misdeeds.  I miss Homer trying all these bad ideas to get money outside of doing his own job properly--it feels like we don't get to see him doing nearly enough of that nowadays.