12 replies to this topic

[InvaderNorbert]

From SNPP:

A tornado leads Homer and Marge to look for potential guardians for their kids (including Homer's half-brother Herb) should something happen to themselves, but the couple that Bart and Lisa want them to choose doesn't quite fit right with Marge

ETA: Flanders as an angel ascending to heaven! Really liked the couch gag, too.

Really liked the short riff on Settlers of Catan. Not even Lisa likes it, even the kids on the box look bored.

“If this tornado must take me tonight, please let it take me to Oz. But DON’T let Flanders be the Scarecrow!” Aww man, I wish we could see this.

“Help me God! What is it I’m payin’ you for every Sunday?!”

Yeah, who else was shocked that NO ONE wanted to become guardians to Bart, Lisa, and Maggie? Grampa was already out, Cletus & Brandine didn’t want even more kids, and everyone else fled in terror. Even a DINK couple was turned down because of their accents. Good to see Ling again. No shock she’s been Tiger Mothered by the gruesome twosome. And hey, we got an update on Unky Herb: He’s poor again. Not that surprised, they haven’t checked up on him for 20 years. That whole recession must’ve done him in.

Moe was going to drown a bag of kittens? And Homer about to shoot up a donut like heroin? Umm…Yeah.

Ann Perkins, umm, I mean Rashida Jones was Portia, the potential mom of Lisa’s dreams. A pro surfer and an environmental lawyer would definitely be “perfect” parents for Bart and Lisa. They even went to their little league games and recitals.

It’s good to know Homer and I share the same bucket list. I could really go for a bucket of tartar sauce right now.

All in all, this episode was allright, if pointless. Rashida Jones was fun, but not used enough.

Edited by InvaderNorbert, Jan 27, 2013 @ 8:53 PM.

[futurechemist]

There's a fine line between the show honoring its continuity and completely ripping it off. Uncle Herb's cameo was a nice reminder that he exists. The first act ripping off the hurricane not so much. And the final act just reminded me of the episode where child protective services gives the kids to the Flanders, and that episode had much more emotion to it.

But I could have forgiven the blatant ripoffs if the episode's storyline had some emotional resonance, or was very funny. And the middle of the episode was neither. It's a relatable concern that Homer and Marge would want to make sure the kids are taken care of if something happens to them. There could be a whole episode about them searching through their family and friends to find people. But very quickly the show blew past that and went for the much more farfetched route of the family finding total strangers and asking them to be the kids' potential legal guardians. I can't imagine any real people behaving like that. And what's worse, it wasn't very funny. The town jumps down a sewer to get away from Homer and Marge? Homer is distracted and drives into a walrus? It just didn't work for me.

On the bright side, the couch gag was less than 2 minutes long, which is a massive improvement.

[InvaderNorbert]

There's a fine line between the show honoring its continuity and completely ripping it off. Uncle Herb's cameo was a nice reminder that he exists. The first act ripping off the hurricane not so much. And the final act just reminded me of the episode where child protective services gives the kids to the Flanders, and that episode had much more emotion to it.

Yes, this episode broke the unwritten rule of "Don't reference better episodes in your terrible one." They even bring up Homer's stint in another theme park jail at one point! Quite frankly, I was quite shocked that Flanders, or their whole experience with CPS, never came up.

The CPS episode had the state take the kids because a series of coincidences proved they were bad parents and were willing to go through a parenting class to redeem themselves to get them back. This episode, Homer says He and Marge decide not to name guardians because, well, they made them and that was that. And they just assume that the strangers just want to steal their kids. And while they were right, nothing really much happened with that. The kids say they want to stay with Homer and Marge, and other couple just decided to leave. Nothing felt earned.

Edited by InvaderNorbert, Jan 27, 2013 @ 10:25 PM.

[Pin]

Color me SHOCKED that at least some kids seem to be aging. Last I saw little Ling, she was still a baby. Now she's a speaking toddler? While Maggie remains a baby?

While I can totally understand that no one wants to take in Bart or Lisa (I'd already understood with Bart, but only in recent seasons did I come to understand with Lisa), what's Maggie ever done to anyone?

[Scade]

Remember that time she shot Mr. Burns?

[JTMacc99]

Homer: "Yeah, but will you want to go to every little league game, every recital? Will you?"
Couple: "We did every day this week! And we loved it!"
Homer: "Well, at least somebody went..."

Heh.

Poor Santa's Little Helper. Not only did he get blown away, but he had to have Homer come into his home and say after looking around, "You live like this?"

At least he got to eat the frog.

[Junkyard Dog]

Color me SHOCKED that at least some kids seem to be aging. Last I saw little Ling, she was still a baby. Now she's a speaking toddler? While Maggie remains a baby?

This bothered me as well. I realize the Simpsons' current showrunners really aren't concerned with internal consistency anymore, but this was a pretty blatant breach in the show's internal logic. It came off as bizarre, especially being in such a crappy episode.

I'm not usually one to bemoan how the Simpsons has gone downhill over the years. I mean, obviously it has, but Classic Simpsons and Modern Simpsons are pretty much different programs by this point, and the latter has its own level of quality, good/bad/mediocre episodes, etc. The premise for this one had potential. It could have been quite effective, or at the very least interesting, but the best the writers could do was having people run away whenever Marge and Homer physically approached them? Seriously?

Why didn't Marge think of Flanders as a possibility, or any of the Simpsons' other relatives that we've seen once or twice over the years? The women in the family would have been responsible guardians.

[peeayebee]

Loved Chief Wiggum shooting at the glass and then saying, "Bulletproof, just as I somewhat expected."

[Phoenix B]

Why didn't they ask Lenny & Carl? That would have been a funny episode.

[cmh1981]

It's funny, just the other week one of the reruns was the first brother Herb episode, and it made me think that it was time to revisit Homer's brother, and then this episode happened. My partner brought up that fact when we heard Danny Devito's voice on the phone. It wasn't much of a cameo, but it was enough for me.

Was Rashida Jones and Danny Devito the only two guest voices? I wasn't sure if the surfer husband was anybody famous or not.

I also thought that it would be Ned and Edna as the new guardians of Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. I hate that now baby Ling joins the list along the lines Apu's gaggle of of infants born after Maggie that have aged, yet our Maggie still remains the same...

Edited by cmh1981, Jan 29, 2013 @ 11:39 AM.

[TVspectator]

I liked that idea that Homer and Marge wanted to find guardians for their kids and we also got to see Ling (and I don't know why the writers would age her faster than Maggie? The first episode that Ling was in, her and Maggie were about the same age, or at least I thought they were) and that Patty and Selma are now tiger moms. I also liked that they mentioned Herb, but after that I thought that they should have Homer and Marge go and visit weirder relatives than having them looking for total strangers to raise their kids.

Edited by TVspectator, Feb 1, 2013 @ 4:55 PM.

[Kel Varnsen]

Kind of a weird episode. I mean it seemed all over the place and I think just doing an episode with Lenny, Carl and Homer as storm chasers would have been funnier. I was also kind of disappointed that there wasn't at least a mention or an appearance by Flanders who you know would have been happy to be the kids guardian, but you know homer would hate it. There was totally a joke or two just waiting there and they never went with it.

Color me SHOCKED that at least some kids seem to be aging. Last I saw little Ling, she was still a baby. Now she's a speaking toddler? While Maggie remains a baby?

It doesn't bother me that much. I mean Maggie was a baby when Apu was single and she is still a baby and in that time Apu got married, got Manjula pregnant (and she was pregnant) and now the octuplets they seem to be around the same age as maggie. If you apply logic to that situation it means she didn't grow for about a year. So trying to think about it this way seems like a bad idea.

[JTMacc99]

So trying to think about it this way seems like a bad idea.

In theory, some people shouldn't age while others do, but in theory, communism works.