At the peak of The Simpsons’ entertainment value, Bart proclaimed, “There’s just not enough time” to cover every fascinating narrative surrounding the title family and its hometown.
Even so, you cannot blame the writers for trying with that unique “22 Short Films about Springfield” episode. And it is easy to appreciate the sporadic occasions when the show has split one of its more normally structured episodes into two memorable plots.
Rather than reeking of insufficient material for a main plot, the best of these occasions exuded freshness and an appreciation for the audience’s attention span. As recent reruns have reaffirmed, the two-plot tomes from when The Simpsons was on top of its game satisfy as much today as they did at the time of their premiere.
Make no mistake, the show’s mid-’90s peak years had plenty of top-notch stories that consumed the full 30-minute window. But with a pair of alternating, and generally separate, storylines, a given episode ensured that there was never too much or too little of anything happening at once. Instead, the cast and crew capitalized on their chance to showcase their talents more broadly.
The best of the energizing breathers from an A-plot during that golden period are revisited as follows. For the sake of selectivity, and in honor of FXX’s ongoing “Simpsons 600” marathon, we have reduced this ranking to a top-six countdown.
(Photo by Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images)
6. Homer’s Enemy
Like father, like son.
Attentive devotees of The Simpsons surely appreciated the subtle parallels between the two storylines of this eighth-season gem. While Homer riles a bespectacled, harder-working new colleague in Frank Grimes, Bart takes advantage of serendipity, along with his bespectacled, harder-working friend in Milhouse.
Of course, the concomitant chronicles are not carbon copies. The key differences are Milhouse’s status as an impressionable child and as Bart’s established best friend. As such, he goes along with the operations at the dilapidated factory Bart had acquired for one dollar upon walking randomly into a tax-seizures auction before the structure crumbles beyond their control.
How about that? Fortune giveth, then fortune taketh away.
5. Team Homer
Overreaction was an evergreen element in numerous main plots throughout the program’s peak years. As this author’s brother has phrased it, the people of Springfield have a knee-jerk “mob mentality.”
That does not quite apply to the way the school district handles Bart’s “Down with Homework” T-shirt and the ensuing student hooliganism. Nonetheless, rather than rewrite the rulebook to merely outlaw inappropriate slogans on clothing, Principal Skinner introduces uniforms.
Naturally, the show hits the top shelf with its satirical scoring touch, as the uniforms waste no time stifling all propensities toward energetic behavior. That is until splashes of rain turn the lifeless attire into loud tie-dye. At that point, the next student riot is incited as instantaneously as Bart’s disruptive display had sparked the first.
With that, Skinner’s instant gratification was just as quick to evaporate. Not a bad way to take creative liberties and humorously illustrate an easy-come, easy-go cautionary tale against strict conformism.
Principal Skinner’s dress code rewrite brought instant behavior results, but those results were doomed by an equally instant washout. (Photo by FOX/Getty Images)
4. Lisa’s Date with Density
The varied responses to Homer’s telemarketing gambit underscore a deeper-digging brand of satire. The story’s jokes are hardly confined to Homer’s blatant ignorance when he picks up the machine a jail-bound criminal had just relinquished before him.
Town billionaire mogul Montgomery Burns contemplates aloud, “Eternal happiness for a dollar? I’d be happier with the dollar.” Conversely, neighbor Ned Flanders wearily and willingly answers every call on the off-chance that it will be his mother this time.
The latter approach to the peeving ploy makes this 1996 episode an amusing relic from the final years before caller ID and cell phones became the norm. Then again, people today are willing to give phishing e-mails and clickbait sidebars a careful look, so…
3. Lisa’s Rival
One had to realize that the show looping past its peak when, in the Season 10 premiere, “Lard of the Dance,” Homer devises a black-market grease scheme. That storyline essentially recycles his preceding short-lived sugar stash.
With that said, it was plenty fresh and funny four years prior, when Homer takes a finders-keepers approach to the contents of an overturned sugar truck. The subsequent slew of one-liners match the sweet flavor of the pilfered pile he takes to his backyard.
When he lets his new enterprise cut into his day job, Marge relays a warning that his failure to show up at the power plant on Friday means he is not expected in on Monday. Homer’s subtlety-missing response: “Woohoo! Four-day weekend!”
He even channels himself from his days as “Mr. Plow” by declaring his usurped commodity “white gold.”
Moe could only broaden his business horizons by disguising his not-so-family-friendly demeanor for so long. (Photo by Ryan Miller/Getty Images)
2. Bart Sells His Soul
“Ow, my freakin’ ears!”
Supporting character Todd Flanders’ single-best line in his existence culminates a string of scenes iced with top-notch one-liners. Case in point: Homer’s characteristic groan of “Forty seconds? I want it now!”
Moreover, the gasp-inducing exclamation punctuates the unravelling of Moe Syzslak’s family restaurant.
Even casual viewers of the show did not need hindsight to know that the bitter bartender would only be able to stretch his not-so-elastic horizons for so long. But it was fun watching him try and fail, and teach us in the process to think carefully about trying to be something you are not.
1. New Kid on the Block
The late voice-cast ringer Phil Hartman’s lovable loser of a lawyer, Lionel Hutz, was the healthy butt of many jokes. Healthy in the sense that we enjoyed teasing the guy because, deep down, we liked him.
On that note, the dog-having-his-day victory in Homer’s civil suit against seafood restaurateur Captain McAllister was memorable enough on its own. It was not Hutz’s only triumph in the series, but it was arguably his most decisive.
Moreover, the mere premise for the case is classic Homer. In the early stages of Season 4, the title family’s patriarch signaled that the series was in full bloom by taking the phrase “all you can eat” to heart.
When he is banished from the buffet with an unfulfilled stomach, he takes the sloganeers to court and wins over his peers on the jury. To make amends, McAllister delivers the bottomless bounty of food he had previously promised, only to exploit Homer’s ravenous habits for profit in the process.
To cap this storyline, an unseen observer at the new exhibit speaks the succulent verbal cherry, “I heard they shaved a gorilla.”
What better way to lighten us up for the final scene in Bart’s pursuit of his older crush?
Leave a Reply