Fone Bone
Matt Zimmer
The Simpsons "Go Big Or Go Homer"
This review is probably going to be a bit longer and more involved than this episode warrants, but I want to sort of get across every reason the episode worked. I do a ton of long reviews describing how things on any given TV show went wrong. This episode hands me a golden opportunity to do a long review about what went right. Because there was a lot, and I'd kind of like to explore it in-depth.
To continue my review from last week, Al Jean did some things this summer that absolutely disgusted me, and the show sort of had to win me back. It didn't last week, but this was a good start. What did Al Jean do that was so offensive to me? He banned the episode Stark Raving Dad, because it turned out Michael Jackson was a pedophile. And that angered me for a lot of reasons, and since this IS going to be a long review, I might as well hash it out. First off, these kinds of rumors surrounded Jackson for years, even when he was hired back in season 3. If Jean really cared about that kind of thing, the show never would have cast him. But he didn't because nobody back in the early 90's did. Which is why I'm disgusted he's using 2019 standards to ban an episode. Nobody asked him to do that either. He just got a LOT of deserved crap for how badly he handled the Apu controversy and instead of actually learning from it, he tries to get ahead of the scandal by doing something nobody asked. I was on the side that Apu needed to go, but I and nobody else who wanted him dropped from the show ever wanted any episode he appeared in to be banned, or him edited out of ones that he could be. That's stupid, and Jean's way to give himself some unearned progressive bonafides after so badly botching how Apu was handled. Except this struck me as a controversy Jean himself sought out. It sets a bad precedent too. Recently it's been revealed Matt Groening himself was a "guest" of Jeffrey Epstein's. Does he want to ban every previous Simpsons episode now? This is something that is going to spin out of control, and hurt the show in the long run. And if Jean were truly concerned about victims, he never would have hired Julian Assange, a known rapist, to do a voice a few seasons ago. And the fact that Assange is a rapist is not disputable to me. What he's already admitted to is legally rape. Assange's defense boils down to "I don't agree that should be called rape." But he doesn't get to decide that. Society does. And knowing this, Jean hired him anyways. Basically, I'm pissed at Jean for taking advantage of the MeToo movement to give himself cover for being such a d-word about Apu. It was ugly, and in a career in which Jean has done a ton of ugly things in the name of the show, it offended me more than anything else.
So that's out there. Moving on to the compliments (and there are many). I think the episode had a great premise. Surprisingly, it was not a "can't miss", golden premise. If the show didn't stick the landing, it wouldn't have worked. But the show delivered a satisfying ending, when most shows would not be able to think of one.
Here is why I love the premise of Homer having a person who considers him a mentor. As the episode goes on, you realize the "kid" Mike is not misguided. Because in every way that matters, Homer is a superior person to him at work and at home. Him looking up to Homer is reasonable because he sucks so much himself. Do you know how hard it is to come up with a subtext that layered, and smart enough to be revealed a piece at a time? That is not easy at all. And then to have the ending that he becomes a success because of Homer's advice, simply by being corrupt criminal, and having Homer being impressed by that? That's smart, that's subversive. It's everything the show was celebrated for in its heyday. And maybe you can say that the show should be doing this every week because they did that every week during the best early seasons, but I think part of the problem is that they did SO much genius stuff in the early years, that it's understandable they have a hard time coming up with not only a fresh premise, but a good, solid ending for the premise. I repeat: That is not easy, and The Simpsons' biggest problem during the wilderness years was perhaps the fact that they simply may have used up all of their good ideas early on. But even if this premise is not as can't miss as Homer working for a Bond villain, or a conman selling Springfield a monorail, the fact that the premise cannot be distilled in a single sentence doesn't mean it isn't fresh and clever. It just had to be a little bit more complicated, and the subtext needed to be a little bit deeper to keep things fresh. It is an incredibly tough thing to navigate, especially for a show that seems to have already done it all, and the premise worked.
I mistakenly thought the best moment in the episode occurred near the beginning. But the episode kept giving us great moments after it so I was wrong. But the scene at the beginning that I loved was the look of disgust on Homer's face as everyone is celebrating at Lenny's party while he angrily stares at Mr. Burns' huge, vulgar signature and steams that he didn't pitch in. I like that moment because it shows a clear line of personal etiquette for Homer against a guy whose abuse he always puts up with without a word of complaint. As seen later in the episode, that's still true. I like that this crossed his line of moral decency and truly bothered him. And I love learning things about Homer at this late date. Believe it or not, it's one of the few things the later seasons have been completely successful about.
I like and fear Mike right off the bat. His completely true and mean observations of his coworkers ridiculous surface faults suggest the character is insightful and smart. But again, the genius thing is that as the episode goes along, you realize his only gifts are insults and complaining.
I detest Bart Simpson. With every fiber of my being. So I had Lisa's reactions to Mike blowing up at him. I love that Marge and Homer are appalled, and Bart shows his true wuss colors and cries like a punk. Big man can dish it out but he can't take it. I repeat: I DETEST Bart Simpson.
After that Mike's rant against Mr. Burns didn't rate. He didn't say anything about Burns that hasn't been said before, and I like his Bart rant precisely because nobody ever says stuff like that to Bart. The last memorable moment of a character doing that was Ned Flanders making fun of his lame catch-phrases in "Hurricane Neddy". But Mike's insults were better because they made him cry, the poor, little snowflake that he is. I enjoyed his tears very much.
I love Homer saying the guy being 35 is a surprise because he has a job of a 20 year old, and talks like a 10 year old. Which summed up both Mike and the premise of the episode beautifully. Anyone wants further proof that Homer is secretly insightful, go to that scene.
I'm still mad at Jean. But I think I can look past it when watching the show week in and week out. To be honest, what Jean has done is obnoxious, but not unforgivable for me. I don't ever expect to ever truly enjoy another Pixar film again because of John Lasseter. This episode says I'll probably forgive Jean at some point. Besides this is not the first crappy thing he's done (his cheap shots at Family Guy come to mind, as does the entirety of the appalling The Critic) and it probably won't be the last. It will probably be better if I get over it now. And this great episode makes that easier. ****1/2.
Bob's Burgers "Boys Just Wanna Have Fungus"
When Bob says Gene is the perfect size to hunt for mushrooms, I am very aware he JUST said he was thinking about him with an apple in his mouth. I shuddered a bit.
Gene is Draco Malfoy because he's "Slitherin'". I would have been Snape. Snape is cool. Nobody likes Malfoy. I don't get why Gene owned that particular thing while he could have been Double-O Severus.
Bob says that he doesn't want to buy the mushrooms at that price because he's have to charge 20 dollars a burger: Here's an opinion: Even if he found the mushrooms himself he should still do that. That's what they are actually worth. Am I wrong in thinking that?
Tina's stuff was funny because Louise was funny, but Tina continues her recent trend of being too dumb to be either sympathetic or plausible. It's kind of annoying. It's only tolerable because Louise is throwing her unseen shade. If we didn't have Louise's sardonic insults at her expense, Tina would be super annoying.
That was an okay episode. ***1/2.
Family Guy "Bri-Da"
That was awkward, but a bit necessary. The show did SO wrong by Ida in her first appearance, that this is sort of a do-over for her. I appreciate Brian growing as a person, at least about this one thing, and I loved Quagmire actually trying and failing to stand Brian. It amazes me how badly Ida's first episode comes across in hindsight. It was only like five years ago. Which I think why the episode used the timeframe on that joke it did.
It also did a very interesting joke that I can't decide if it is true. But Ida is watching porn on her phone, the guy says she can't be watching that in here, Ida says she's transgendered, and the guy apologizes, and says she can do what she wants. I don't find that very true to life for how transgendered people are treated. On the other hand, I feel some behavior is given a LOT of slack because of liberal guilt, and trying to understand other cultures more than we should. A perfect example is Japanese rape culture, and the fetishizing and exploitation of young girls in anime. I find that abhorrent. But I'm not supposed to say that because putting down an entire culture is considered racist. But even if that's true, it's still abhorrent, whether I'm chastised for saying it or not. Same goes for how women and gays are subjugated in the Middle East. I don't believe I am under any obligations to understand or respect that idea. And even if I don't believe transgendered people ARE afforded that level of doubt, the joke interests me because there is some truth to it when applied to other scenarios.
Man, that previous paragraph might land me in trouble. Which is why the joke interested me in the first place.
The show has gotten so bad lately, that it amazes me what I'll accept and like and tolerate. It also tells me I am a much less picky viewer than some of my reviews would indicate. But I'll still give that a positive review, even though The Simpsons won the night on Fox. ***1/2.
This review is probably going to be a bit longer and more involved than this episode warrants, but I want to sort of get across every reason the episode worked. I do a ton of long reviews describing how things on any given TV show went wrong. This episode hands me a golden opportunity to do a long review about what went right. Because there was a lot, and I'd kind of like to explore it in-depth.
To continue my review from last week, Al Jean did some things this summer that absolutely disgusted me, and the show sort of had to win me back. It didn't last week, but this was a good start. What did Al Jean do that was so offensive to me? He banned the episode Stark Raving Dad, because it turned out Michael Jackson was a pedophile. And that angered me for a lot of reasons, and since this IS going to be a long review, I might as well hash it out. First off, these kinds of rumors surrounded Jackson for years, even when he was hired back in season 3. If Jean really cared about that kind of thing, the show never would have cast him. But he didn't because nobody back in the early 90's did. Which is why I'm disgusted he's using 2019 standards to ban an episode. Nobody asked him to do that either. He just got a LOT of deserved crap for how badly he handled the Apu controversy and instead of actually learning from it, he tries to get ahead of the scandal by doing something nobody asked. I was on the side that Apu needed to go, but I and nobody else who wanted him dropped from the show ever wanted any episode he appeared in to be banned, or him edited out of ones that he could be. That's stupid, and Jean's way to give himself some unearned progressive bonafides after so badly botching how Apu was handled. Except this struck me as a controversy Jean himself sought out. It sets a bad precedent too. Recently it's been revealed Matt Groening himself was a "guest" of Jeffrey Epstein's. Does he want to ban every previous Simpsons episode now? This is something that is going to spin out of control, and hurt the show in the long run. And if Jean were truly concerned about victims, he never would have hired Julian Assange, a known rapist, to do a voice a few seasons ago. And the fact that Assange is a rapist is not disputable to me. What he's already admitted to is legally rape. Assange's defense boils down to "I don't agree that should be called rape." But he doesn't get to decide that. Society does. And knowing this, Jean hired him anyways. Basically, I'm pissed at Jean for taking advantage of the MeToo movement to give himself cover for being such a d-word about Apu. It was ugly, and in a career in which Jean has done a ton of ugly things in the name of the show, it offended me more than anything else.
So that's out there. Moving on to the compliments (and there are many). I think the episode had a great premise. Surprisingly, it was not a "can't miss", golden premise. If the show didn't stick the landing, it wouldn't have worked. But the show delivered a satisfying ending, when most shows would not be able to think of one.
Here is why I love the premise of Homer having a person who considers him a mentor. As the episode goes on, you realize the "kid" Mike is not misguided. Because in every way that matters, Homer is a superior person to him at work and at home. Him looking up to Homer is reasonable because he sucks so much himself. Do you know how hard it is to come up with a subtext that layered, and smart enough to be revealed a piece at a time? That is not easy at all. And then to have the ending that he becomes a success because of Homer's advice, simply by being corrupt criminal, and having Homer being impressed by that? That's smart, that's subversive. It's everything the show was celebrated for in its heyday. And maybe you can say that the show should be doing this every week because they did that every week during the best early seasons, but I think part of the problem is that they did SO much genius stuff in the early years, that it's understandable they have a hard time coming up with not only a fresh premise, but a good, solid ending for the premise. I repeat: That is not easy, and The Simpsons' biggest problem during the wilderness years was perhaps the fact that they simply may have used up all of their good ideas early on. But even if this premise is not as can't miss as Homer working for a Bond villain, or a conman selling Springfield a monorail, the fact that the premise cannot be distilled in a single sentence doesn't mean it isn't fresh and clever. It just had to be a little bit more complicated, and the subtext needed to be a little bit deeper to keep things fresh. It is an incredibly tough thing to navigate, especially for a show that seems to have already done it all, and the premise worked.
I mistakenly thought the best moment in the episode occurred near the beginning. But the episode kept giving us great moments after it so I was wrong. But the scene at the beginning that I loved was the look of disgust on Homer's face as everyone is celebrating at Lenny's party while he angrily stares at Mr. Burns' huge, vulgar signature and steams that he didn't pitch in. I like that moment because it shows a clear line of personal etiquette for Homer against a guy whose abuse he always puts up with without a word of complaint. As seen later in the episode, that's still true. I like that this crossed his line of moral decency and truly bothered him. And I love learning things about Homer at this late date. Believe it or not, it's one of the few things the later seasons have been completely successful about.
I like and fear Mike right off the bat. His completely true and mean observations of his coworkers ridiculous surface faults suggest the character is insightful and smart. But again, the genius thing is that as the episode goes along, you realize his only gifts are insults and complaining.
I detest Bart Simpson. With every fiber of my being. So I had Lisa's reactions to Mike blowing up at him. I love that Marge and Homer are appalled, and Bart shows his true wuss colors and cries like a punk. Big man can dish it out but he can't take it. I repeat: I DETEST Bart Simpson.
After that Mike's rant against Mr. Burns didn't rate. He didn't say anything about Burns that hasn't been said before, and I like his Bart rant precisely because nobody ever says stuff like that to Bart. The last memorable moment of a character doing that was Ned Flanders making fun of his lame catch-phrases in "Hurricane Neddy". But Mike's insults were better because they made him cry, the poor, little snowflake that he is. I enjoyed his tears very much.
I love Homer saying the guy being 35 is a surprise because he has a job of a 20 year old, and talks like a 10 year old. Which summed up both Mike and the premise of the episode beautifully. Anyone wants further proof that Homer is secretly insightful, go to that scene.
I'm still mad at Jean. But I think I can look past it when watching the show week in and week out. To be honest, what Jean has done is obnoxious, but not unforgivable for me. I don't ever expect to ever truly enjoy another Pixar film again because of John Lasseter. This episode says I'll probably forgive Jean at some point. Besides this is not the first crappy thing he's done (his cheap shots at Family Guy come to mind, as does the entirety of the appalling The Critic) and it probably won't be the last. It will probably be better if I get over it now. And this great episode makes that easier. ****1/2.
Bob's Burgers "Boys Just Wanna Have Fungus"
When Bob says Gene is the perfect size to hunt for mushrooms, I am very aware he JUST said he was thinking about him with an apple in his mouth. I shuddered a bit.
Gene is Draco Malfoy because he's "Slitherin'". I would have been Snape. Snape is cool. Nobody likes Malfoy. I don't get why Gene owned that particular thing while he could have been Double-O Severus.
Bob says that he doesn't want to buy the mushrooms at that price because he's have to charge 20 dollars a burger: Here's an opinion: Even if he found the mushrooms himself he should still do that. That's what they are actually worth. Am I wrong in thinking that?
Tina's stuff was funny because Louise was funny, but Tina continues her recent trend of being too dumb to be either sympathetic or plausible. It's kind of annoying. It's only tolerable because Louise is throwing her unseen shade. If we didn't have Louise's sardonic insults at her expense, Tina would be super annoying.
That was an okay episode. ***1/2.
Family Guy "Bri-Da"
That was awkward, but a bit necessary. The show did SO wrong by Ida in her first appearance, that this is sort of a do-over for her. I appreciate Brian growing as a person, at least about this one thing, and I loved Quagmire actually trying and failing to stand Brian. It amazes me how badly Ida's first episode comes across in hindsight. It was only like five years ago. Which I think why the episode used the timeframe on that joke it did.
It also did a very interesting joke that I can't decide if it is true. But Ida is watching porn on her phone, the guy says she can't be watching that in here, Ida says she's transgendered, and the guy apologizes, and says she can do what she wants. I don't find that very true to life for how transgendered people are treated. On the other hand, I feel some behavior is given a LOT of slack because of liberal guilt, and trying to understand other cultures more than we should. A perfect example is Japanese rape culture, and the fetishizing and exploitation of young girls in anime. I find that abhorrent. But I'm not supposed to say that because putting down an entire culture is considered racist. But even if that's true, it's still abhorrent, whether I'm chastised for saying it or not. Same goes for how women and gays are subjugated in the Middle East. I don't believe I am under any obligations to understand or respect that idea. And even if I don't believe transgendered people ARE afforded that level of doubt, the joke interests me because there is some truth to it when applied to other scenarios.
Man, that previous paragraph might land me in trouble. Which is why the joke interested me in the first place.
The show has gotten so bad lately, that it amazes me what I'll accept and like and tolerate. It also tells me I am a much less picky viewer than some of my reviews would indicate. But I'll still give that a positive review, even though The Simpsons won the night on Fox. ***1/2.
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