Being A Heel Is Cool

The Simpsons, S024E14

Homer's new interest in buying storage lockers at auctions led him to discover his father's collection of wrestling gear.  Thanks to Bart's interest and Mr. Burns' fondness for his persona Glamorous Godfrey, Abe was convinced to get into the ring again, despite having to play the part of a villain.

When I realized that this episode was going to be about Grandpa and another of his past occupations, I felt like Marge did when she found out that Abe wasn't gay at all.  We've already seen a few stories about hm this season and none of them have been really excellent.  This one wasn't bad (like the others), but I think I enjoyed the sentimental part of it better.  Under Burns' spell, Abe began to think that being a heel had its benefits, and as a bonus, his grandson started to admire him.  It's not often that you see Bart wanting to imitate someone in his family, so to see him taking after his grandfather was cute, even if it was encouraging him to be more of a jerk than usual.  This was an interesting way for Abe and Bart to have common ground--who would have thought that Grandpa used to wrestle as a vain, cheating show-boat?  Plus, Abe was able to reclaim Bart's soul without causing Bart to feel like his grandfather was uncool again.  It was just as fun for Bart to be Laddie Liberty and beat up on Burns as it was for him to be Beautiful Bart (his hair in the latter was strangely adorable).

This story also included a song, something we haven't heard in a while (unless you count those songs that Abe sang in that other story about him as a songwriter).  The melody and the lyrics for the most part were terrible, and Burns sang it pretty badly, I thought.  He's most famous for singing "See My Vest" from earlier seasons, so I don't know why his voice sounded so pitiful in this song.  What I did like was when Burns listed some villians that you love to hate, lining himself up with such notables as Eric Cartman, Megatron, Skeletor, and Voldemort.  Now that was pretty damn funny.  You could, of course, argue that all of these villains have varying levels of evil, but they are popularly hated characters nonetheless.  Him singing about that just makes me imagine all these guys hanging out having beers or something, boasting stories that try to top the others in bad deeds.  I really like the thought of that.  Otherwise, that song was pretty forgettable, and I wouldn't say that I thought it was essential.

One other thing that was funny to me was when Grandpa was recalling the negative side of playing a heel:

But there was a downside to being hated:  being hated.

I love when they have lines like this where they are a bit redundant.

This was an okay episode.  I'd want to watch it again to catch some of the little things I missed the first time.  It had a fairly cute story to it, and I enjoyed watching Bart look up to Abe instead of dreading the day he'd become his father's father.  It might have made a better story to have Abe end up being gay like Marge wanted, but changing details like that in this point of the game would probably be hard to swallow.  But I still like wondering how the story would have turned out if they did need to find Abe a man to love.  I'm sure it would have made a much more, albeit unbelievable, interesting story.

Homer's Dog

The Simpsons, S24E08

Homer lost sight of Santa's Little Helper after spending the day playing an online  game.  When Bart found him and questioned why Homer wasn't happy to see the dog again, Grandpa revealed the story about how Homer's childhood dog was forced to find a new home.

If you've ever wondered why Homer neglects his dog, this would be the story for you.  I find it hard to think that any fan of this show was wondering this.  Usually, I like stories about Homer as a kid because it's sort of interesting to see how the boy became the man today, but this time I found it hard to care.  I guess it's because I didn't really question Homer's attitude toward Santa's Little Helper.  I mean, there are times when Homer loves the dog, and there are times when the dog might as well be a lamp because he doesn't pay it much attention.  Still, I would have assumed that Homer just doesn't like anything that doesn't have to do with food and beer in general.  It's not really a mystery.  I guess besides seeing a young Homer, it was nice to see a young Abe (and less cranky) and a young Mr. Burns (a little less frail).

As for the jokes my favorite would have to be when Homer was watching a video on his tablet and said:

Man, that keyboard-playing cat is so cute.

But when you looked at his screen, it was just this guy playing like jazz piano or something.  That wasn't hilarious, but I enjoyed it still.

Another thing I liked was when Mr. Burns came out from behind a lawn flamingo.  Only someone as slim as him could have pulled that off.  A little later, I almost had a laugh when Abe tossed Homer to the second floor room, nearly missing.  That reckless treatment of kids must be something passed down from generation to generation for the Simpsons.

Other than that, I sort of just liked how much trouble Abe went through to protect Homer.  You sometimes forget that Abe was more than a grumpy, old man yelling about all of Homer's faults.  He sometimes sacrificed things (like his own home to pay for Homer's new home) for the sake of his son.  It's not often something we see, so I could enjoy the story just for that simple fact.

I don't have really anything to say about Mr. Burns explaining the "fiscal cliff."  If they had to fill in a few more minutes, it's too bad they couldn't had done something a little funnier.  This week's story was a little more "aww" than it was "haha."

This was a take-it-or-leave-it episode.  It had few jokes that worked for me, but it sort of balanced that out by being a story in the past (which I usually like) and being on the sweet side.  However, it's not really one that I see myself wanting to watch again.  I don't feel like anything significant was revealed or accomplished by Homer's back story, so  I feel mostly like it was a bit of a waste.

MyPad Is All You Need

The Simpsons, S24E06

After Homer was feeling down about his recent bad luck, he won a Mapple myPad and found happiness using it excessively in his daily life.  When he destroyed it from a myPad-distracted accident, Homer was depressed again until he found a message written on a tree in sap.

I think that in general stories about Homer using some kind of technology or sophisticated device is pretty good because everyone knows that Homer is an idiot and will use it in a funny way.  I can't help but be reminded of the episode where he bought a new computer and quickly tossed it in the trashcan after failing to master it within a few seconds.  Homer today can operate an iPad knock-off like a pro, using it to entertain as well as a working tool.  My favorite part was when Homer used the translating app to have a conversation with Mr. Burns:

[Mr. Burns] Simpson!  Unhand your Edison slate and bring your gold-brickery to a caesura![Translator] Put down your myPad and get back to work.[Homer] Sorry, boss.[Translator] Your remonstrances are a welcome boon and surely will redouble my diligence.[Mr. Burns] Excellent![Translator] Awesome![Homer] Woo hoo!
[Translator] Pip-pip! 

Another quote that I liked was a little later was when Marge was getting concerned about him using his myPad for anything that he could:

[Marge] Homie… it looks like you’re putting all your eggs in one basket.
[Homer] What would you have me do?  One basket for each egg?
[Marge] Hmm, I guess you’re right.  I guess I’ll have to scratch that off the list of things I say.

That part made me rethink that phrase.  Haha.

Some other scenes that that worked for me was when Homer threw Bart back into the lion's den after Bart had tricked him, Homer playing a distracted driver game, and Steve Mobbs scaring Homer into submission by bring up Hewlett-Packard products.  The last one was a little clever.  I mean, I hate HP stuff (although I stay clear of Apple stuff because it's a little cult-ish nowadays), so if someone were to bring up that point to me, I might jump to push the submit button as well.

The last thing that I liked was a quote from Dr. Hibbert:

This is the part of the job I hate most.  Talking to crazy people.

I feel like any job that has some level of customer service, you'll feel that way.  There's always some crazy people that come along.

I don't know how I feel about that little segment at the end where all the ads and products from the Simpsons World were alive.  It wasn't bad, but it was just weird.  Obviously they had to fill in a few more minutes, so they threw that in.  I would have preferred something that was related to the previous story.  But it was a little interesting to try and catch all those ads like Buzz Cola and Mister Sparkle that were shown over the years in this show.

This wasn't a bad episode.  I was surprised that the message on the tree was done by a sleepwalking Homer and not Flanders, though.  I mostly enjoyed Homer overusing his myPad to the point of destroying it.  Plus, he was able to overcome the funk he was in without having to rely on an electronic distraction.  That was a good message I could appreciate.  It's not the strongest commentary on the issue of people"s reliance on technology nowadays, but I still liked that they gave an effort.

There Aren't Enough Robots To Make Homer A Good Employee

The Simpsons, S23E17

Old Man Burns finally "cuts out the fat" (not literally because Homer isn't eliminated) from his power plant by firing everyone at the plant, basically, and implementing robots.  This is brought on by all the costs Burns will have to pay to cover all the health issues his employees have after their last checkup.  I will say that I'm amazed that the plant lasted a day with only robots and Homer Simpson around.  Homer isn't the best person to be left by himself.  Have you learned nothing from the time you let him house sit, Mr. Burns??

 I liked a lot of the jokes in this episode.  I won't really detail each of them.  It was pretty funny when Homer tried to get off alcohol and was unintentionally drinking and eating things that contained it including mimosas, Mike's Hard Lemonade, and cherries jubilee.  I'm kinda glad they took it down that road, rather than him going murderously deranged (like in the The Shining Halloween parody) after going a few days (minutes, really) without his favorite beverage.

Probably what I liked the best was when Homer was trying to chat up the robots as if they were humans with office humor like "Working hard, or hardly working?" but was getting no response.  His anger and increasingly loud voice had me chuckling.  I love how mad Homer sometimes gets over his inability to notice that he is pretty much angry at nothing (or just his own stupidity). 

Besides the laughs, I had quite a few moments of surprise and wonder.  One of such was when it was revealed that Moe is so ugly ("pug fugly"--haha) because he got stomped on by an elephant Mr. Burns was riding the first day he came into town (isn't he originally from Springfield?  Never knew he moved there).  It was also nice how Moe said he would have to grow to be beautiful on the inside, but Marge remarks that he never did, and they return to the present where Moe is being his usual unpleasant self.  Gotta love Moe.

I was surprised, too, that Homer could actually get the robots to communicate.  Of course, he did mess up several times before he had success, but I would imagine that he would just give up after a while, despite having a manual right in front of him.  I guess Homer isn't as useless as he appears.  I was further surprised that he chose to play a baseball game with the robots when he changed their movement paths.  I really thought he was going to send them all to Moe's so they could be his drinking buddies (since all of his unemployed friends wanted nothing to do with him anymore).   Huh.  We haven't really seen Homer care about baseball in a while.  We certainly haven't seen him play in a while (remember that classic episode where all those famous players guest starred?).

It was classic Homer when he decided to drill holes into the robots heads, in order to make them a little more human-like.  Now, I would have figured he would have done that in the beginning to get them to communicate, rather than read a book.  Homer threw me for a loop again when he ran to Mr. Burns for help when the robots revolted.  Granted that Mr. Burns, as the owner of the robots, might have had the information to stop them from destroying Homer, Mr. Burns has never really come to anyone's rescue when his doorbell has been randomly rung.  Despite me thinking that Homer was crazy for thinking Mr. Burns would help, I liked this scene for one reason:  the hounds.  When one of them came charging at the army of the robots, they sent that little animal flying!  I'm not one who enjoys animal cruelty, but nothing tickles my funny bone more than seeing a animal getting flung or thrown someplace like that hound.  He was just smacked away like he was some kind of bug.  Good stuff.

I think this was a rather good episode that sort of echoes the unemployment problem in the United States.  I can't say that it's because everyone's jobs are being replaced by robots (such a freaky future where there are nothing but robot workers sounds frightening), but definitely there are more people fighting to get the lowest of jobs after being laid off nowadays.  If only this was a world where Homer Simpson-like employees could show the company or boss that it's more costly to get rid of your employees than replace them (if you're going to leave it up to technology for the most part), we Americans would be better suited to turn the economy around.  Get to work, Homer Simpsons of all parts!!