Covercraft (S26, E08-560)

Sideshow Mel's family, nothing more than a quick gag.  Sure was worth the wait.

Plot Summary
A dispute between Moe and the owner of the next door music shop ends with both of them going to jail and their businesses closed down.  This forces Lisa to go to the "big corporation" music store for her needs.  Homer takes her there and quickly becomes the target of opportunistic salesmen.  They get him playing the bass guitar and as Homer finds that he's actually good at it, the salesman sell him that plus tons of accessories, the combinations of which cause low-pitched chaos at home.  Marge complains about this to her circle of friends, who then admit they have similar problems with their husbands.  Marge then realizes that the husbands can form their own band, and thus only bother one wife at a time.

The husband crew consists of Homer at bass, Kirk van Houten at piano, Dr. Hibbert at drums, and Reverend Lovejoy at guitar.  After learning they all have the same taste in music, the four quickly gel and jam.  Soon after that, Apu arrives to be the group's singer, and reveals that, due to his time at the Kwik-E-Mart, he has developed the voice of the lead singer from the group Sungazer to maintain his sanity listening to the group's songs nonstop at the store.  With this voice added in, the group decides to become a cover band, dedicated to their craft, thus the name Covercraft.  The group gets a gig at the Springfield Cabbage Festival, but Apu is nervous.  Homer convinces Apu to believe that he's at the Kwik-E-Mart with nobody around, handing Apu his work uniform to help with the setting, and with that mindset Apu helps Covercraft become a popular cover band in Springfield.

Soon, Sungazer - whose lead singer passed away - decides to make Apu their singer for their tour, and Apu gleefully accepts.  Homer becomes envious of Apu's supposed success, and out of panic disbands the remains of Covercraft.  Still, Apu sends the Simpson family tickets and backstage passes to Sungazer's concert in Springfield.  Homer 'realizes' that Apu couldn't of gotten this far without Homer's advice and goes backstage to steal back Apu's uniform.  Forced to hide, Homer witnesses Sungazer treating Apu like crap thanks to a harsh contract Apu signed.  Realizing Apu does not, in fact, have it good, Homer drops his anger and helps Apu enact a little revenge of his own by ordering in a buffet of Kwik-E-Mart quality hot dogs for Sungazer.  They quickly become ill, and Apu takes the opportunity to have Covercraft perform the concert instead.  The police figure out the hot dog scheme, though, and Apu and Homer are arrested in due time.

Quick Review
This episode was pretty boring, I felt.  Not a lot of jokes, but not a lot of "bad" things either.  The focus was clearly on music, and the few attempts at comedy (the opening bit with Moe and the music shop owner, for instance), had a few misses that held the episode back.

Final Score: 6.0