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| "Hehehe... hipsters, too cool for school." |
As congratulations for filling up their reward jars, Bart and Lisa get to do a fun activity with Homer on "Saturday Surprise Dad Day". Homer, who establishes himself in this episode as the "fun dad" has somehow acquired not just tickets but VIP passes to a video game convention and the three of them have fun recognizing pointless references there. Upon returning, Marge becomes jealous over how much fun the three of them had. Marge talks to Homer about it that night, and Homer agrees to let Marge do the next Saturday Surprise. She surprises the kids alright... by taking them to some church function. After that predictably doesn't fan out, Marge's car begins to break down on the drive home. The car dies in a rather ethnic part of town, but the kids are too hungry to care about the car right now. The three spy an Ethiopian restaurant where people are eating with pancakes. Intrigued, the three go in, though Marge is very hesitant. The kids convince her to try something new, because fun dad Homer would, and Marge decides to get the "most authentic" dish the restaurant has. The three end up enjoying the meal, especially Marge.
Comic book guy and Sideshow Mel enter the restaurant to see Marge eating the meal, which they weren't aware was on the non-translated menu. Mel calls over several "foodies", who all look like hipsters but also specialize in eating new things then blogging about them on the internet. Later, the three take home some leftovers which Homer is absolutely unwilling to try, and the three agree to start up their own food blog: The Three Mouthketeers. Marge is particularly thrilled not because of the food so much, but because she gets to spend time with the kids as they eat new thing after new thing.
Feeling a bit jealous, Homer tries to invite the kids to Krustyland on the next Saturday, but Marge reminds the kids that they've been invited to an exclusive chemistry-based restaurant that same day, and the kids agree to do the restaurant. Homer has a mini breakdown over not being able to be the fun dad anymore and, feeling sorry, Marge decides to invite him to the dinner which Homer happily accepts even though he thought the whole thing was stupid in the first place. Marge begins to regret that decision, as she has a nightmare that the "fun dad" will steal her thunder and he swoops away the kids and the foodies and everything else, leaving Marge with nothing again. Worried, Marge tries to convince Homer to forget about it over the phone, but Homer insists on coming and making things fun. In a panic, Marge decides to give Homer the wrong address, telling him its on East Oak street instead of West Oak.
In one end of town, Marge and the kids begin their sterile dinner while at the other end Homer goes to the place which is actually a meth lab. Knowing that the restaurant is full of chemistry and hipsters, Homer mistakes the lab and the druggies as such, and unwittingly orders a crackpipe which he comes ever so close to smoking. Just before that happens, though, the police bust in on a raid. Homer finally realizes what the place is, and calls Marge, who has been worrying about what she did the entire time. Learning Homer is in danger, Marge abandons the other foodies, who don't care about her predicament, and she and the kids rush over to the meth lab. Homer is still inside being chased by one of the dealers when Marge tosses the take-home dessert from the restaurant into the dealer's mouth. The wonderful taste distracts him enough for Chief Wiggum to knock him out, and Homer is saved. As Marge apologizes for putting Homer in danger, the kids are thrilled that Marge took them to that restaurant and a meth lab bust, officially declaring her "fun mom". As a result, both parents take the kids to Krustyland the following Saturday as "fun parents".
Quick Review
I'd like to digress for a bit before I begin my review for this. Just about a year ago (a year from tomorrow, in fact), I started up this blog and my mission to watch, score and barely review each and every episode of The Simpsons. I'll get more into that tomorrow, but the reason why I started it up in the first place was to see whether criticisms of the show's decline were valid and, if so, just how valid they were. This decision of mine came about after I looked at a screencap of the Dead Homer Society's compare and contrast of this episode to Homer Badman. Specifically the setup and use of each episode's convention scenes. It really is telling just how different each of them were used for their respective main plots.
Looking through the article again to prepare for this review, its also helped me come to a sad realization about modern Simpsons that's been going on for several seasons now: the use of the reference. In the past, if the show referenced something it was either too subtle to notice the first around, or it made sure it was accompanied by a joke or bit. That's not the case nowadays. Instead, a reference is made with nothing to accompany it and you the viewer are expected to believe that should be enough for you to laugh. The video game convention scene in this episode was nothing more than a minute or so of video game references. None of it was funny - it was just taking the names of video games and replacing key words to avoid copyrights.
Recent and, I'm certain, future episodes also reference modern movies and television shows but make no effort to do anything more to them than to simply 'redo' the reference but with Simpsons characters. Its either "hey I get the reference... where's the joke" or "I don't get the reference... was that supposed to be funny?" and the answer to both is a resounding "no" regardless of context.
Yes, the scene in the video game convention as well as the foodie rap montage were both terrible and basically destroyed the episode. It tries to make up for it when Homer wants in on the fun and the parts with the meth lab were pretty decent, but the episode wasn't salvagable at that point.
It kind of hurts. One year later, the episode that made me look into whether the Simpsons has really fallen that badly has helped me confirm that, yes, it has, and I still have 39 episodes plus whatever Season 25 has to offer left.
Final Score: 5.2
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