Saddlesore Galactica (S11, E13-239)

Well, the Simpsons hadn't done a "jockeys are an elf-like people" plotline before.

Plot Summary
The school band Lisa is a part of is invited to participate in a 'battle of the bands' like contest at the state fair.  At said fair, the band does a wonderful rendition of Living in America, and Lisa thinks she's won.  A band from Ogdenville plays Stars and Stripes Forever, a song Lisa dismisses, but when the band finishes the song with a display of glowsticks which wow the judges despite not being allowed, Lisa becomes furious, even more so when the Ogdenville band wins the contest.

As Lisa continues to fume over that, the family goes to see a rather odd attraction where a guy has a horse, Duncan, 'dive' into a pool.  As the police come to investigate the attraction over suspicions of animal cruelty, the act's manager makes a quick getaway, leaving Duncan without an owner.  Rather than have the horse try its luck at a dog food factory, Bart convinces his parents to adopt the horse.  Yes, the Simpsons are getting a horse, which the comic book guy points out has happened before though nobody there cares.

Lisa's outrage towards the contest persists, and she writes a letter to President Clinton hoping for action, calling the White House just to make sure he's read it, all while Marge unsuccessfully tries to get Lisa to forget about the contest.  Meanwhile, Homer and Bart realize Duncan can serve as a race horse, and enter him at a race track.  Duncan, though, is intimidated by the other jockeys and loses his first race badly.  Homer decides that an attitude adjustment is in order, and he and Bart give Duncan a makeover, turning him into some kind of badass horse now named "Furious D".  With the new attitude, Furious D becomes much more aggressive on the track, winning several races.

Homer loves his newfound success, but is suddenly captured by the other jockeys, who take him to the 'secret land of the jockeys'.  Revealing themselves to be an elf-like people, I guess, they tell Homer that being horse jockeys is their way of life, and that Homer and his horse are throwing that life into disarray.  They warn him that if Duncan wins the Springfield Derby, they'll eat his brains or something.  Homer initially agrees to tank the race, but Bart convinces him otherwise and he comes up with a plan.

At the Springfield Derby, Furious D ends up winning the race and, sure enough, jockeys come for Homer's life, or brain or I dunno.  Homer and Bart get away on Duncan, leading them back to their place where he has Marge and Lisa spray the incoming jockeys with water, thereby incapacitating them, and Homer puts them in a garbage bag they can't escape from.

Having won the big race, Homer and Bart can take Duncan out to stud.  Meanwhile, President Clinton visits the Simpson house, having read Lisa's letter.  He personally changed the outcome of the contest, and awards Lisa 1st place because the lesson here is: if you complain enough about something, it'll eventually go your way.  Hm, I see that a lot nowadays.

Quick Review
Its a shame, really.  There's some good jokes sprinkled throughout this episode, and if those jokes were the only things that made up the episode it'd be scored at least a solid 8 or so.  However, the plot in this episode is just terrible.  I mean, the "Simpsons get a horse - again" plot isn't so bad by itself, but it doesn't do the writing staff any good will to have comic book guy represent "fans" who would complain about the show using unoriginal plots.  Its true that complaining about unoriginal plots is kinda lame as its the jokes that makes an episode good, but they didn't have to throw that in there.  I also like how, when revisiting the joke, comic book guy reappears in a "Worst Episode Ever" T-shirt, as though the writing staff is admitting that people aren't going to like this.  (Comic book guy was one episode off, btw - or he was, until a Season 25 episode, written by the same guy who wrote this episode, featuring comic book guy getting married proved to be even worse).

What was with the elf jockeys, anyway?  I don't understand what was going on with that.  One might mistake this as a stretched out Treehouse of Horror segment, but it wasn't.  Its like they didn't know how to bring conflict to the "Homer and Bart have a winning race horse" storyline and decided to come up with that out of the blue.  That bit with Clinton at the end was weird too.  In the end, there was just too much going wrong with this episode for the jokes to make up for it.

Final Score: 6.2