Homer will not stop until he has every job in Springfield. I loved that Homer was fascinated by being your own boss. He's only done it 3 or 4 times.

I guess you did it first since it was below mine but only by a couple seconds. Nevertheless, you win.

I really liked that episode even though it was another Homer job episode. A plot that continued for all 3 Acts. Action!Maggie. Family Togetherness and Non Squabble! Ending on a sweet note! And it was quotable!

"You work as a shillouette model for one day and it haunts you the rest of your life."

"With great power comes great responsibility."
"Who said that? I'll kill them with my power!"

"You'll never impound my spirit."

"If my life as a tow truck driver was a telepay, this would be the end of Act 2."

"Once upon a time there was an ogre named Shrek 3. He lived in medieval times but sometimes he'd say things from today times."

"If elected president of our small community, I will determine how far we can go without being gay."

One of my favorite moments tonight was Marge was cradling the sack of potatos, followed by the Maggie/Sack showdown! Heelarious!

A far better episode than last week. I enjoyed seeing the majority of the cast at least make a cameo. Loved Agenes calling out Mel. Like Agnes knows who Mel is? Awesome!

"Are there 2 "L's" in alluded?" Ha!!

Well it was a cute visual with Maggie riding Santa's Little Helper.

This and the crying over spilled milk were the two best throwaway gags.

For the third week in a row, the voice of the special guest star went over my head. I thought the tow truck driver's voice sounded a little familiar, but I didn't realize it was a guest star or that it was Matt Dillon until the credits.

Anyway, I liked the Act 2 meta and how Moe used Homer's tongue to determine the paint color, rather than using the remaining paint in the bottle.

Everything mentioned has already been said, except for Bart and Milhouse cutting swear words fromt the Bible, then Bart using them all in a sentence at Milhouse, which I can't remember, so someone please quote it. I think this is one of the better episodes in a long while. Everything was perfect and classic.

I agree, I laughed so hard at the simpleness of it. There were so many funny moments in the episode, I loved how Bart covered up the Bible with his comic book, like he shouldn't have been reading it. I enjoyed both clingy and independent Maggie

Bad words from the Bible cut out by Bart:
Whore, Damn, Hell, Ass, Levitcus.

That was a really strong episode. I laughed all the way through and both storylines were funny. I also thought the Guidoville and Maggie's Western Adventure (really liked the music on that one) sequences were really well done.

I believe it was "Shut the hell up, you damn ass whore."

I love Maggie plots. Maggie's my favorite Simpson.

He's well-known as Krusty's sidekick. Not really that awesome.

When was the last time anyone bought, or even saw, milk in a glass bottle?

Except the townspeople not getting theirs for what they did to Homer. Who was only doing his job. And correctly, for once. Except for the helicopter.

It was just hialrious for Agnes to be speaking directly to him, rather than one of the kids. At least that's why I laughed. Plus, it's usually Mel who is the one to scream out in the crowd to lead the charge for a lynching. (I've recently noticed this watching repeats.) For Mel to be on the side-line and not heading up the mob this time? Pretty funny.

The return of Arnie Pie! The sky is his domain.

I can't wait to use "Shut the hell up, you damn ass whore" in real life. It really optimizes the bang for your buck.

Reminds me of one of my favorites quotes, from the Das Bus episode:

It'll be just like the Swiss Family Robinson, only with more cursing! We'll live like kings! Damn hell ass kings!

Anyway, I thought it was a good ep. Although, I think Maggie branching out on her own isn't that different from what we've seen in the past few seasons, and even in the movie to a certain extent. It's not the first time she's saved Homer.

Good voice work by Matt Dillon, although I've already forgotten Bart and Lisa's storyline.

I kind of like Homer w/the job as a tow-truck man. I know he's had many, many, many, many, many, many, many,......well you get the point, jobs in the past, but this one I liked. Maybe it's time for a permanent job change for Homer, it's been done twice on FG and worked well. He could still hang w/Lenny and Carl at the bar, and Burns and Smithers are their own characters that will always interact w/our favorite family. What does anyone else think?

So, the Simpsons got funny again. Good on them. Hopefully they can keep it up.

This episode just had great bits all around. Cohesive plot and nice use of supporting characters. My favorite bit (if I'm not confusing it with the reairing of G.I.AnnoyedGrunt): New Dad: Carl or Lenny? Even if it's not this episode, that's still funny.

As was Agnes saying "I won't bite, but I might gum ya, and ya might like it." Three ex-husbands, all tow truck drivers, and the way it was phrased made it sound like she's had other ex's as well. When did Agnes turn into Phyllis Diller? I approve, very much.

Hopefully the lovely borough of Guidopolos appears again. Apparently, it, too, shares a border with Springfield, though you don't use it unless you want to trick somebody into stepping on Guidopolos turf.

I liked this episode!


I loved that Bart considered Leviticus a swear. We need to see more Bart plots, it's been 3-for-3 with Homer Gets A New Job!

Bart was...well, Bart in this one, from skateboarding behind the tow truck, to looking up swears in the bible, to being happy that Homer towed Skinner's car (apparantly he's finally paid off for all the meals Agnes gave him as a child). By the way, I loved the animation of Skinner being spun as a car passed by him as he was "Driving" to work on his chair.

Maggie, once again saving the day. I love Maggie when she does this, and proves that her leadership during the "Great Escape" moment from "A Streetcar Named Marge" wasn't a one-time ability.

Another freeze-frame moment: The incomprehensible vanity place was "I[heart]LVZX"


Love that Capt. McCallister was on his ship (which was on a flatbed), taking out the "Land Whale" that is the Duff Blimp. There was also the great randomness of the train appearing out of nowhere.


This was great. According to a few commentaries, Mel does this because the writers love writing stuff for Dan to speak in that loud, melodramatic way for anything mundane.

And Guidopolis...I wish we see this again, this is so freaking dead-on because I'm on Long Island...so I'm always thinking I'm living there.

Mook-E-Mart (damn, I loved that) Clerk: "*to the Guido chick* Get ova here! *they make out* This means nothing."

[b]ETA:[/b]

I'd say sometime around season 8. I'm pretty sure that she let out "Phyllis Diller-esque" laughter on quite a few occaisions

She totally got her Diller on when she was sleeping with Comic Book Guy! That was definitely one of her standout moments.

I also loved that Homer summed up Transformers. One of the things I love about shows like Simpsons and Futurama are the little throwaway gags that we only get the tip of the iceberg of. I'd like to hear Homer's other stories about movies he saw this summer.


Awesome line, and it was Pure Homer.

I can chain this with "Increase my killing power, eh?" to gain 500 points in this apparantly new game I just made up, with guidelines that we will discuss at this moment. (Also, I'm immediately trademarking this idea. I'll have it on the market when you'll still be having trouble with the Pickle Matrix...)

The Bible scene with Bart and Milhouse was my favorite bit. And I love when Maggie gets something to do. She's so cute.

Can't beat a line like Bart's, something to the effect of "for a while, Dad was getting more dumb every year but now he's reached a plateau," for meta value.

This was another episode that made me laugh. Yup. I laughed at most of the right times... and smiled at most of the rest.

Can anyone say they'll remember anything about this episode a week from now?

I wont.

Homer got a new job? Maggie had an adventure? Springfield had a new guest star?

Which new job? Which adventure? Which Dillon?

Funny... sure.

Can't say that I remembered all the jokes in an ep as soon as it aired even in the earlier seasons unless it was an obvious immediate classic like the Monorail song. I think it's the re-airing in syndication that makes you remember a joke or line more and more.

Ya, I agree. I didn't pick up on the "Barclay, Barry, Bert, Bort???" bit during the Itchy & Scratchy-land episode when it originally aired, but upon the 3rd or 4th rerun, I was all over it! Now, I probably mutter that line at least once a week.

Heh, this conversation reminds me of this:
Bart: Hey, I know it wasn't great, but what right do you have to complain?
CBG: As a loyal viewer, I feel they owe me.
Bart: What? They're giving you thousands of hours of entertainment for free. What could they possibly owe you? If anything, you owe them.
CBG: [pauses] Worst episode ever.
Back to the ep, I find it interesting that the producers consider tow truck drivers the glue that holds civilization together.

I respect your opinion but very much have to disagree. This is the first time in years that I remember bits from all of the new Simpsons episodes even this close to their debut. From 19-1: The First National Bank of Oprah, Harvard of the South, "flying planes is too dangerous, which is why I have to quit my new job", Freak fry, the whole Chicago sequence, "Hey you, beer me", etc. From 19-2: the motorcycle reveal gag, heat-vision opera glasses, "What's this movie about again?", shoving Mimi off the bed to sing his song, the french horn gag, and Homer bringing the dad back to life with his voice.

That formula has been alive and well and was used quite often in Season 3 through 9. What you said about this episode applies to a good chunk of the series, but I don't know anyone who would say last night's new Simpsons was just "Homer gets a new job and Maggie went on an adventure and there was a guest voice." Almost every week has a guest voice, Maggie goes on an adventure at least once per season, and Homer/Marge/Bart have been getting new jobs for most of the series. They are all conceits of the series and the Springfield universe.


Me too, AimingforYoko.

I, for one, would die if they gave Homer a new job in each and every episode of season 19. Even if an episode was entirely about Lisa finding out that every single product sold in Springfield in the last 20 years has lead paint in it, I would stlll eagerly await the three second shot of Homer in a Joe's Exterminators uniform at the breakfast table even if that was the only mention of it.

You're assuming that people who have watched the early episodes, which most of us here have, can't find this episode funny in comparison, even if it did have some familiar plot points such as Homer getting a new job. At least with me, that assumption isn't true, because I found this episode very funny and I also enjoy the early episodes.

I loved many of the jokes. I especially liked the Maggie vignette in the beginning with her refusing to go to sleep and then flying through the air to cling for Marge. I like when Maggie gets things to do. They cheated us last year with the "Maggie goes on a rampage when she loses her pacifier" bit that ended up going nowhere, so this makes up for it.

I'll remember it only because I'm still smarting from how all of Springfield didn't get what was coming to them for what they all did to get Homer out of the way. That, and the bad guy apparently not getting his in the end, as well, for kidnapping and imprisoning him. Groening used to almost always make sure this happened. It really stinks that he didn't do it this time.

I don't get this. I've been this show since I was but a wee tot in short pants. I can quote episodes line by line. But that doesn't mean that I'm not allowed to find it funny. I'm not saying it's the level of Homer's Barbershop Quartet but if I laughed at moments I laughed. Within the world and comedy in that world, I laughed, hard, at several moments from this episode. And that makes it funny to me.

And it's comedy, it's not something you consciously analyze and compare as it is going on. Comedy is meant to strike you out of nowhere and that is what makes humor work. And I laughed. God help me, I laughed.

That bugged me too but not enough to hinder my enjoyment but maybe there are deleted scenes.

I agree that Springfield should have gotten some kind of comeuppance for what they did to Homer, and that guy should have gotten something for imprisoning all those guys, some of them apparently for years. Which begs the question - what did they eat and how did they take care of bodily functions, since there appeared to be evidence of neither.

Also, Marge said that Homer hadn't been home in FOUR days. Wouldn't she have called the police or something, and wouldn't Lenny or Carl have commented on his absence from work, or at least wouldn't she have called them and said he was missing? They are some of his closest friends, after all.

Have we seen Guidoville before? It seemed kind of odd, it seemed like he was driving on the one road, and passed Shelbyville, then Ogdenville, then Capital City, and THEN Guidoville. Unless he was driving in a big circle, it suggests that Guidoville is even further than Capital City, which was portrayed as a weekend getaway type of place in the episode with Mindy Simmons. Yet the prank pulled by the townspeople suggested that Guidoville bordered Springfield.

I guess nitpicking the Simpsons doesn't really work when the show doesn't even pay attention to continuity at all. But it's fun.

Actually Springfield did get their comeupatance for removing Home... in the form of the traffic chaos that was caused. (Complete with Wolfcastle rolling his Hummer over Carl's? (or someone's ) car. It was more similar to the Chaos caused when Marge went to jail and couldn't make her brownies for the bake sale.

Now, not punishing Guidoville's tower was an oversight and definitly missing. maybe they just figured it was just part of Guidoville's charm?

Have to comment. I was...I think 14 when the Simpsons first went on the air. While I doubt I've seen every episode, I've probably seen 98% of them. I enjoyed this one: it wasn't the best one ever but it made me smile. Virtually every long-running show out there has people griping that "Taint what she useda be". Oh well.

I think I was a little too on edge to see a lot of the humor in the beginning, since we had just gotten our baby to sleep after being too dependent on his mother, so the early Maggie stuff wasn't funny, though quite relevant. I did get some laughs out of it. I thought the guest star was the other Dillon as opposed to Matt, but I guess if you can't see them, they're kind of interchangeable.

My daughter, now a couple days past one, has her clingy moments as well. She screams bloody murder if you leave the room (stepping over the baby gate) and she sees you do it. I actually think I found the whole Hugs are Drugs thing funnier because of the little screamapillar rather than in spite of her.

Pretty decent episode. The conversation of Marge, Bart and Lisa about the Internet was a hoot to me as I do Internet tech support and to say that there are people that are technophobes is an understatement....VAST understatement. Plus, it was the return of Maggie spelling out words with her blocks. Though I am a bit surprised that the writers decided she was that needy. She DID lead the freedom of the pacifiers at the day care center, after all.

However for Homer...another job where it involves driving a truck?

The first time I saw the "Homer mistakes paint as milk" gag, I thought that it was funnier when the Three Stooges did it....but then I watched it again, and I'll be damned if it wasn't funny--the whole matching shades, the bit about the pricing...HA! I also laughed myself stupid at Agnes's "gumming" line--for some reason, I knew after she mentioned "bite", she'd mention "gum". The thought of someone gumming someone in a sexual manner just makes me almost die laughing.

I didn't like the fact that Maggie was so clingy, simply because we've seen her re-enact The Great Escape, have an IQ equal or greater to Lisa's, and also play a saxophone as well as Lisa, (even though it wasn't for babies). To have her regress is a bit odd.

All of my nitpicks are of the B plot--Homer getting yet ANOTHER job driving a truck/car/ambulance didn't really phase me, although it was rather funny when Bart was skateboarding then fell flat on his face. Comedy gold!

How they got the "Tow Joes" line past the censors, I don't know--because my thinking was/is stuck in WWII, I'm thinking, "Whaaa?!"

The whole thing where Bart was on the ground and you think he is dead, then he and Homer both start laughing was hilarious. It reminded me of the part in the movie where Homer and Bart are on the roof and keep getting hurt and laughing at each other.

I like to think that I'm pretty up to speed on my dirty language, but what is "Tow Joes?"

"Tojos" was (is?) a slur against the Japanese, coming from the name of WWII prime minister Hideki Tojo.

My fave part of the episode was the gay hook.

Yeah, but it wasn't good enough for me since they didn't realize what was happening because of their stupid scheme.


I don't think Lenny and Carl cared, since they were in on the whole scheme to get Homer out of the way.

I didn't much care for this one. I don't generally enjoy Homer's new job of the week storylines, though, so that could be why. Overall, I just thought it was dull.

I did like the Maggie storyline, Bart and Milhouse cutting swears out of the Bible and Homer being towed through town "WHEE!"ing at each turn. (Dan Castellaneta has a way with a "whee.")

Skinner's chair spin and fall & Homer's hook ride & CLANGing made me laugh out loud. I guess I like slapstick more than I thought.

The funniest moment in this week's ep was Arnie Pie claiming the sky is his domain, and then Homer shooting down the chopper. Also, Agnes threatening to "gum" Sideshow Mel, "and you might like it!" Bart thinking Leviticus was a swear word, and "Shut the hell up, you damn ass whore" and Bart almost dying in a tow truck accident were great moments.

All in all, pretty solid ep. But I guess I should refill my order of insulin.

When Agnes came on to Mel, they should have had him reply along the lines of, "Hag, I say thee nay!!" Or something equally Shakespearian.

NJMark:



I buy milk in glass bottles sometimes; they're from a Texas dairy. I don't know if they're distributed in other states though.

Unfortunately I was really sick on Sunday and was drifting in and out of this episode, but what I saw I liked. However, I'm a sucker for any plot involving Homer driving anything as a job; even though I prefer him at the power plant, I still like the idea of him being so versatile (granted, when he was driving the 18-wheeler it was because of the autopilot).

That didn't bother me either, on top of the fact that glass bottles are still out there, the Simpsons has always used older style products to give their show a timeless quality. I mean Homer's car still has an 8-track player when a large population of the audience (based on the amount of kids I saw at the movie) probably have no idea what an 8-track is. Plus their TV still has dials and rabbit ears rather than buttons. Not to mention that the whole use of glass bottles was the set up for a joke.

True, but I've dropped a plastic half-gallon bottle of milk, and the milk goes flying out of the top of it just fine. You actually get a nastier spill, as the shock of the fall makes all of the milk concetrate in shooting out in the one direction that the spout is facing. Damn milk can go about 15 feet.