Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Homer the Whopper (S21, E01-442)

Observe - in terror - as Everyman succumbs to his most villainous foe: obesity!
Plot Summary
At the comic book shop, Bart and Milhouse uncover a comic written and drawn by the comic book guy himself.  The comic features an overweight hero who fights crime as Everyman, who gains whatever powers he absorbs from a comic book (armor from Iron Man, elasticity from Plastic Man, etc.).  Bart and Milhouse actually come to like the comic, and learns that the comic book guy has written several hundred issues worth of material that he has been too embarrassed to publish, but they convince him to self-publish them anyway.  It turns out to be a critical success and soon a movie company offers to buy the movie rights to Everyman from the comic book guy.  He accepts on the single provision that he gets to choose the lead actor.  Wanting Everyman to literally be your average everyday person, he chooses Homer, who just so happened to walk into his store on an unrelated matter.

The movie's producers weren't fond of comic book guy's demand to choose his own Everyman.  Still, they get to meddle anyway by hiring a fitness expert to make Homer fit, knowing that comic book guy has become too Hollywood to care now.  Homer develops a close bond with the trainer and with his help Homer becomes fit within a month.  By now, production of the movie has started and Homer feels like nothing can go wrong.  At that point, Homer's trainer decides to leave, having taken on another client.  Devastated, Homer deals with his grief the only way he can unaided: eating.  In no time, Homer is back to his original weight, and he's barely able to fit into his Everyman suit.

The movie is prepared for screening, and despite competent attempts at editing, the movie is ruined as shots taken while Homer was still fit is mixed with shots of the later fat Homer.  The crowd isn't pleased with the movie, and its officially a bad movie.  Homer's trainer returns to apologize and promises to help Homer get fit again.  Meanwhile, the movie producers try to bribe comic book guy into giving the movie a good review, but the man holds true to himself and gives the movie a scathing review online.

Quick Review
This wasn't a good episode.  Yeah, it has some moments but for the most part it was a fairly boring episode.  Some of the comic book references were appreciated (particularly Plastic Man), but overall the episode didn't do all that much in the way of comedy.

Final Score: 6.6

No comments:

Post a Comment