The Man in the Blue Flannel Pants (S23, E07-493)

Here's an entry for the 'extreme awkwardness' award.

Plot Summary
Krusty is forced to improve the brand awareness of his own crappy vodka, so he is tasked with setting up a party where that vodka is the main drink served.  He's also tasked with finding someone not just willing to host the party, but also hip.  Somehow in someway, Homer meets this criteria, so Krusty's party is held at the Simpson home.  Mr. Burns is accidentally invited to the party by Homer, and as expected he becomes a pretty big buzzkill.  Homer springs into action to save the party by having Burns do something more his speed: do some karaoke of a song old enough for him to be familiar with.  With the party back in full swing, Burns takes notice of how Homer handled the situation.  The next day, Burns decides to promote Homer to the plant's Account Manager position, with the previous one on his way to retirement.

The retiring guy, Robert Marlowe, shows Homer how to handle the position, which involves a lot of salesmanship and drinking bourbon during downtime.  With Marlowe's help, Homer is able to convince the mayor to allow the plant to increase their rates, and Marlowe bids Homer adieu.  Soon, though, Homer becomes worn out from his new job, with long nights and plenty of travel he becomes so disillusioned he turns into yet another television reference.  He doesn't even have time to read Lisa a bedtime story, forcing the half-illiterate Bart to do so in a side story so short its not worth explaining.

Marge becomes concerned with Homer's behavior and talks directly with Marlowe, who does reveal that the life of the account manager is one where hardly any time is left for the family.  Marge decides to reverse this and tries to convince Homer to take a vacation with the family to a rafting trip, showing him a brochure for it.  Homer sees Mr. Burns outside his office and quickly shoos Marge out, as Burns tells Homer he's got a big account for him to close, but needs an exciting locale to seal the deal.  Seeing the rapids trip, Burns suggests they do that to accomplish the sale, and Homer figures in his mind that he'll be able to do both the family vacation and the account at the same time, and agrees.

Of course, that doesn't work out so well as both Burns' raft and his family's raft are both out at the same time, separated only by a strip of forested land, and Homer has to quickly switch between the two often.  Quickly, Homer's scheme is found out by Marge and Homer is caught in the middle of both rafts as they both miss their docking points, now floating towards a waterfall.  Forced to choose between his work and his family, Homer ultimately decides on the latter and moves his family's raft to safety.  Marlowe appears from out of nowhere to save Burns - though not his clients - and he happily takes his old job back, allowing Homer to go back to his job as "safety inspector".

Quick Review
Well, its better than the past couple of episodes, but that's not saying much.  Again, the show attempts to reference, this time a cable TV show, and does so with enough accuracy that there wasn't any comedy to make it worth the effort.  The tiny piece of episode that was the side story wasn't funny either, and while the episode does pop up decent jokes from time to time, its still yet another weak effort to what has been a very weak season.

Final Score: 6.3