Ultimately, “‘Tis the Fifteenth Season” acts as a tribute to Christmas specials of the past, which inspire Homer to change his greedy ways. The bulk of “Beyond Blunderdome” is about Hollywood as an idea, a dream factory where the Lethal Weapon star whisks the Simpsons away by private jet after Homer is the only member of a test-screening audience to speak his mind about Mr. Smith. The episode never aired in Japan, thanks in part to the scene in which Homer throws the emperor, Akihito, into a pile of unwashed sumo thongs. Rate. D&D Beyond To be fair, Job never had to live next to Homer, as Ned is confronted with the spectacle of Homer doing nude Slip ’N Slide runs during Bible study. Follow him on Twitter @bobservo. All in all, “Marge Be Not Proud” makes for a fantastic Simpsons episode that doesn’t let its heartfelt moments get in the way of telling great jokes. “Bart ruins Christmas” seems to be a common thread throughout these holiday Simpsons episodes. This is another example of a future prediction that now lies firmly in the real-life … [Danette Chavez], Although its plot hangs on the flimsiest of premises—Flanders is 60 years old, apparently, and regretful of his hyper-cautious life—“Viva Ned Flanders” gets a lot of mileage from Flanders seeking Homer’s help to live in “the Impulse Zone.” Homer takes him to Vegas for a lost weekend, which naturally segues to the duo drunkenly marrying a pair of waitresses. McGrew’s Christmas Carol”—a not-so-subtle parody of a similar Mr. Magoo cartoon—Homer vows to be the nicest guy in Springfield, putting even Ned Flanders to shame. Ever. Home. To be fair, the animators’ rendering of a dozen or so varieties of po’ boy are pretty satisfying, as far as empty comedy calories go. Socialism gets a bit of a drubbing in both cases (“In Denmark, we have socialized tattooing. Mr Plow – Season four, episode nine. Simpson, shush: Disparaging the boot is a bootable offense!” In failing to restore U.S.-Australian relations (to the chagrin of a slimy diplomat played by Phil Hartman), “Bart Vs. Australia” tweaked “ugly American” conventions and permanently established the show’s foreign policy. [Sean O’Neal], The entire Simpsons family doesn’t visit France in this season-one episode—just Bart, sent on an exchange program as punishment for a cherry-bomb-in-the-toilet prank that ran afoul of Agnes Skinner (making her first appearance). While most year-long TV series typically produce an annual holiday episode, The Simpsons tends to be much choosier when it comes to Christmas content. [Erik Adams], This season-17 episode hits a trifecta of moth-eaten Simpsons premises: Not only does Homer fall ass-backwards into a trip abroad (to Italy) and a new-ish job (driver/courier for Mr. Burns), but Sideshow Bob returns (along with Kelsey Grammer, who voices the character). [Kyle Ryan], Ultimately, season 11’s “Missionary Impossible” cares less about the culture of Micronesia than it does the distinguished television of Great Britain (“If they’re not having a go with a bird, they’re having a row with a wanker!”), and the plotline of Homer fleeing to the Pacific Islands to escape a horde of pissed-off PBS celebrities counts as one of the show’s flimsiest travel premises. Rate. [Kyle Ryan], Sometimes, a destination imprints itself on the characters of The Simpsons, rather than the other way around. The Simpsons Movie, a feature-length film, was released in theaters worldwide on July 26 and 27, 2007 and grossed US$526.2 million worldwide. As ever in a travelogue episode, the family tours the local hot spots, although there’s a delicately clever care taken in the animation and jokes here that bumps the episode up a notch, as when Homer, attempting to make things up to the affectingly neglected Marge, takes her on a silly, speckled tour of Paris’ “pointillism district.” [Dennis Perkins], The show’s second trip to Brazil is a twofer on top of a twofer: It’s a “Homer gets a new job” episode as well as a “The Simpsons are going to…,” and the running-of-the-bulls setup in the couch gag means twice the international travel. As those fields of bullfrogs attest, once The Simpsons visits your country, things will never be the same. Episode. Take your favorite fandoms with you and never miss a beat. “‘Tis the Fifteenth Season” “‘Tis the Fifteenth Season” shows Homer at both his worst and his best in … After over 30 years on the air, the anarchic animated family comedy The Simpsons has somehow only aired five Thanksgiving specials throughout its 700+ episodes. But, to be fair, Bart’s Christmas-ruining in “Miracle on Evergreen Terrace” comes about as a complete accident—though one fueled by selfishness. You'll also be able to enter into our new quarterly competition, with the chance to win a holiday. Disillusioned, she pens a savagely cynical new essay, “Cesspool On The Potomac,” which fails to win the contest but quickly spreads through D.C. and costs the dirty congressman his job. With Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith. ), You’d think that an episode about Lisa’s crisis of musical faith being cured by a family trip to New Orleans and an inspirational appearance of the jazzman nephew of Lisa’s late mentor Bleeding Gums Murphy would carry some emotional weight. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on December 11, 2011. There’s not much barb to the regional humor (“Did you know that candles are made by losers?” is as pointed as it gets), but at least “Moe’N’a Lisa” abounds with classy literati guest voices, including Tom Wolfe, Gore Vidal, and a petty grudge match between Michael Chabon and Jonathan Franzen that’s worth the trip alone. [Dennis Perkins], The Simpsons has been to France a few times now, from Bart’s legendary misadventures in the exchange student program to that time when Carl wound up having sex with French first lady Carla Bruni. Random takedown of Canadians’ inferior basketball skills, check. Iiiiit happened. [Sean O’Neal], As filled with endlessly quotable lines as Knoxville’s Sunsphere is with 16,000 boxes of unsold wigs, the season-seven classic “Bart On The Road” takes a freewheeling journey into the heart of America to see all the wonders and spring break-squandering disappointments it contains. 2002 among Simpsons fans, who deride it for its sloppy, frenetic storytelling and totally illogical premise. Rate. The Simpsons. (See: the Logan’s Run lifeclock on an MTV VJ; Homer hallucinating Charlie Rose and Robert Evans threatening to kill him.) Though launching with a Christmas special seems ingenious in retrospect, Fox originally planned to premiere the first season in the fall of 1989. But in this season-27 episode, writer Bill Odenkirk strikes an admirable balance between the expected “rude French” and “ugly Americans” stereotypes and unassumingly sweet character comedy. Play 9 days left to view this episode. It’s tough to riff on a location whose most famous renowned denizens zoom in and out of town every January, so “Any Given Sundance” makes the mountain retreat a physical stand-in for the independent film culture that had sold the last scraps of its soul by 2008, just as Lisa nearly does when she turns her family’s most humiliating and intimate moments into the documentary Capturing The Simpsons. A great family game is now a great family movie,” she exclaims before walking in on a scene of two people shooting up. Considering the current controversy surrounding The Simpsons’ depiction of Apu, this scattered season-17 trip to India at least brings in an actual native speaker, Indian journalist Meher Tatna, to voice “various Indian women,” according to IMDB. [Dennis Perkins], This extended flashback episode, about a predictably disastrous Grand Canyon trip taken by the combined Simpson and Flanders clans, gets lost more in cruel, cheap gags and some misguided characterizations than do Homer and Ned once their donkey-riding guide plummets to his death. 'Tis the 30th Season" — Season 30. Bart’s road trip—facilitated by a fake driver’s license, bullish soy futures, and an airtight “grammar rodeo” alibi—takes him, Milhouse, Nelson, and Martin through the “vast cornfields of Canada” to the remnants of the 1982 World’s Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee with a brief stopover in Branson, Missouri to catch the great Andy Williams (and finally, a detour into Hong Kong). If things hadn’t worked out in The Simpsons’ favor, the show would span 22 seasons, neatly bookended by two Christmas episodes. 4. This being the show’s first trip up north, it had 11 seasons’ worth of jokes about what Homer calls “America Junior” to unload: Rush song in soundtrack, check. Many shows have done the “presents don’t matter” holiday message before, but only The Simpsons would deploy this moral using mob justice. Rate. Episodes of the show in which either at least one member of the family travels to another country or the focus on the episode is on a trip to a different city. This Citizen Kane homage gets into the backstory of Mr. Burns, recalling his beloved childhood teddy bear, Bobo, that he discarded in exchange for ascension to a life of wealth — and his lifelong quest to recover the treasured object. And with that, we are out of money.”), as does the Simpsons’ country of origin (“Foreigners are no longer welcome”). The Simpsons' most ambitious Thanksgiving episode yet (and the only fully holiday-focused special since season 2), "Thanksgiving of Horror" cribs the "Treehouse of Horror" setup to tell a trio of terrifying seasonal tales centered around the eponymous holiday. [Erik Adams], Multiple faraway locales are featured in “Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo,” including the Chuck Garabedian Mega-Savings Seminar those fat cats in Washington don’t want you to hear about. As such, we’re about to get in the holiday mood, Disney+ style. Bart’s attempt to win his mom over again gives “Marge Be Not Proud” the most heartwarming ending of any Christmas episode—one the writers aren’t afraid to immediately undercut afterwards with a look at the lousy (unbeknownst to her) video game she bought him. Now as summer looms, The A.V. Unless you caught Fox’s famous cartoon family in their interstitial The Tracey Ullman Show shorts, they first entered your life in the form of a Christmas special. Episodes. Surprisingly, “Holidays of Future Passed” could very well have been The Simpsons series finale when it aired in 2011. “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire” isn’t just the first Simpsons episode to air; it also helped save the show. (In season four’s “Marge In Chains,” Apu notes that Kwik-E-Mart’s parent company is the very American-sounding Nordyne Defense Dynamics, but The Simpsons only sporadically cares about continuity.) He also hosts the weekly podcasts Retronauts and Talking Simpsons. Thirty years in the future the Simpsons get together for Christmas. “East Boston” and “Freckle Bog”) as both the “land of poetry and the land of bad poetry,” where U2 moves your belongings in mysterious ways and there’s boiled cabbage on tap. Starts seeing dollar signs other way around Someone dishonoring their marriage vows memorable... As those fields of bullfrogs attest, once the Simpsons visits your country, things will be... Kyle Ryan ], Lisa becomes popular, while Bart is left out ’. 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