Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Sweets and Sour Marge (S13, E08-277)

We've past the point where visual gags remain part of an episode's plot.  Great.
Plot Summary
At the library, Homer's apathy towards books is lessened when Marge shows his the Duff Book of World Records.  The oddities found within grab Homer's attention, to the point where he wants to attempt to get a record himself.  However, all of the individual records are out of reach for Homer, so he decides to get a group record, settling on having the town get the record for world's largest human pyramid.  He's successfully able to get the town to take part, and they're one second away from maintaining it long enough to get the record, but a literal slip of the hand causes the pyramid to fall apart, and somehow everyone gets bundled up into a massive ball and sent rolling down a hill.  They finally settle ontop a truck scale, where the scale weights them to be 64,152 lbs.  Averaging it all out, Springfield sets the record for the world's fattest town.

Its an accomplishment nearly the entire town enjoys, but Marge is dismayed over it.  She ponders how everyone could be so obese, and observes that there's sugar everywhere.  The Kwik-E-Mart doesn't even offer a product lacking sugar.  Marge sees that the Kwik-E-Mart's sugary products are made by the Motherloving Sugar company, whose worldwide HQ is right nearby!  Marge goes there to complain to the CEO, whose last name is also Motherloving, but little is accomplished.  Upset, Marge decides to file a class-action lawsuit against the company over the claim that its sugar is harmful to others, getting enough signatures around town to do so.  She gets additional help from Professor Frink, a former worker at the sugar company, who admits that they knew sugar was addictive and made candy from it from that fact alone.  With enough detriment against sugar, and a failed bribe as well, Judge Snyder rules in favor of Marge, then goes and banishes sugar and sugar-related products from Springfield.

"Marge's law", as its now known, devastates the town, leaving kids unable to function and store shelves bare.  Still, Marge is happy the law is passed.  Homer can't take it, though, even willing to lick at any sticky spot that's on the ground.  Apu notices Homer's desperation, and takes him to a secret meeting featuring Mr. Burns and others, and they decide to smuggle in some sugar from an island nearby.  They do so, getting huge quantities of sugar on a large boat, but the police catch on to them.  As Burns and the others make a quick escape on a lifeboat, Homer takes the sugar boat and is able to evade the police.  He goes to a dock to deliver the sugar to Motherloving, but Marge catches Homer and is able to convince him to dump the sugar into whatever body of water the boat is in.  People catch wind of this and quickly dive into the water to enjoy their sweet, sweet sugar.  Judge Snyder admits he abused his power and repeals Marge's law, and though Marge is saddened that her nagging once again led nowhere, Homer still likes that quality about Marge.

Quick Review
I don't really have much to say about this episode.  Some jokes were funny, some jokes weren't.  The overall plot was substandard that had some potential near the beginning that never worked out.  It wasn't that great of an episode.

Final Score: 6.4

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