Thursday, October 25, 2018

Episodes 11, 12, and 13

We've reached the final three episodes of season one, starting with The Crepes of Wrath, which itself starts on the 15th of August, 1990, with Bart getting home from school. After his mess causes Homer to fall down the stairs, Bart has to tidy his room, eading to his finding a long-forgotten cherry bomb. He takes it to school the next day, flushing it down the toilet and causing significant distress to Agnes Skinner, making her first appearance. Principal Skinner goes to the Simpson house and suggests using an exchange program to temporarily "deport" Bart and give everyone a break for a few months. In return, the Simpsons have to take in an Albanian child. Also, Bart has a pet frog in this episode, who seems to exist purely so he can deliver the line "Ah, the life of a frog... That's the life for me!"

There's no indication that more time has passed between scenes, so we'll assume that Bart's plane leaves the very next day, on the 17th. Bart finds himself living as a slave for two sleazy winemakers who sell all his stuff, while his Albanian counterpart Adil seems to be having a nice enough time meeting the Simpsons, and being patronised by Seymour. Best of all, Homer delivers the line "Maybe Adil is right about the machinery of capitalism being oiled with the blood of the workers." As Bart continues to suffer under the yoke of servitude in France (literally, they have him carrying buckets on a yoke), Adil puts his plan to steal nuclear secrets into motion. When Cesar and Ugolin tell Bart to sleep on the floor, that appears to be his first night in France, so the next night, as he reads a letter from Marge in his now tattered and torn clothes, I'll assume that's the 18th. What fast international mail they had in the early 90s!

The next day, the crooked viniers (if that is a real word) make Bart test their adulterated wine, before sending him into town. Well, it seems to be the next day, but when Bart starts speaking fluent french, he says he's been there two months, so I guess it's now the 18th of October, 1990? Meanwhile, the US government is on Adil's tail. Cesar and Ugolin go to prison, while Adil is deported a free boy in exchange for the release of a similarly youthful American spy. We'll be generous and assume his homecoming is the next day, ending the episode on the 19th of October. The next episode, Krusty gets Busted starts on what must be the afternoon of the 20th, with Bart and Lisa watching Krusty's show, during which the eponymous clown has a cultlike hold over his audience, both at home and in the studio. Sideshow Bob's first appearance has him getting shot out of an actual cannon, too! No wonder he's so angry.


Homer goes to the Kwik-E-Mart get ice cream to take the edge off of having to sit through Patty and Selma, while Apu is still strangely distant towards him, and someone appearing to be Krusty robs the place! As a witness, Homer is instrumental in getting Krusty arrested, luckily missing out on the slideshows. As the story is relayed on the local news, we learn that, at this time, Kent Brockman and Krusty work for rival stations, with Kent's station having "the Emmy award-winning Hobo Hank" as its children's entertainer. I'm pretty sure that changes (or more likely, gets forgotten) in later episodes. A biography of Krusty, airs the next night, revealing that the surly, unpleasant clown we know came about after a heart attack. Also, as Krusty's taken to court, it's revealed that he doesn't actually have pale skin or a red nose, another point that's contradicted in future seasons. Presumably, the big court case starts day after that, on the 21st, with the town centre Krusty bonfire happening that very night.

On the second day of the case, we learn that Krusty is illiterate, and that it's apparently a crime in America to bet on sporting events? Weird, though I can't say I disapprove of this particular legislative overstep. That night, we also see the first night of Sideshow Bob's pretentious usurpment of Krusty's show. Bart and Lisa go to the scene of the crime and find a multitude of clues pointing to Krusty's innocence. As an aside, there's a lot of talk about Apu recently, and in these early episodes, he stands out as being especially egregious in being an awful stereotype played with vocal brownface. The next day (the 23rd, by my count), Bart and Lisa go to meet Bob and ask him a few questions. I think this, as well as being the first Sideshow Bob episode, is also the first "Bart and Lisa: Mystery Kids" episode.

Anyway, Bart gets on Bob's show during and agony uncle segment, where he spells out the case for Krusty's innocence live on TV, during which he also comes to the realisation that Bob was the real culprit all along! Bob and Krusty trade places that night, and Bart goes to bed in his Krusty-decorated room. So the final episode of season one, One Enchanted Evening, starts on the 24th of October, 1990. First point of interest is that Marge calls the radio station to talk to Dr. Marvin Monroe, and gives her age as 34. That actually matches up what we learned back in Life on the Fast Lane, so well done! As Homer drowns his sorrows in Moe's Tavern, Barney is creepily over-animated as he talks to Homer. Also, Moe gives Homer some marital advice, conflicting with his later character of being a completely irredeemible disgusting loser. That's right, it's another marriage trouble episode, but other people have done much more in-depth work looking at how unhealthy Marge and Homer's relationship has been over the years, so I'll say no more on the subject for now.

Anyway, this all leads to a date at Le Chez Paris and a night at the Offramp Inn, so obviously, a babysitter is needed. The highlight of them getting ready for their big night is the first of Homer's instantly regenerating facial stubble. For some reason, as soon as the babysitter arrives and Homer and Marge leave, the quality of animation at home takes a sudden nosedive, though things at the restaurant look fine. Bart gets bored watching the Happy Little Elves (which Lisa seems to love despite already being established at this point as a cultured intellectual), and switches over to America's Most Armed and Dangerous, which features the case of the Babysitter Bandit, who coincidentally, is Lucille Butsokowski, their babysitter, who immediately arrives, rope in hand, ready to tie them up and clean the house out. Bart unsuccessfully tries to kill Lucille by dropping a bowling ball on her head, but ultimately the kids all get tied up and left to finish watching the Happy Little Elves. Also, it's apparently, not Homer and Marge's first night at the Offramp Inn, as they reminisce about going there one time eleven years ago (which was, of course, 1979, though I'll assume this isn't coincidentally the exact anniversary).

Bart does actually manage to inflict sports equipment-based violence after Maggie unties him and Lisa and he manages to knock Lucille out with a baseball bat. They tie her up and go to find a payphone to grass her up. Unfortunately, Homer and Marge come home early, ignorantly untie her and let her loose jsut before the cops and the TV cameras turn up. Anyway, this entire episode takes place on one day, the 24th of October, 1990. So late that night is where the episode, and the first season, ends. And in case you were wondering, this episode originally aired in the US on the 13th of May that same year.