Clown in the Dumps (S26, E01-553)

Another new gimmick for Season 26: in-episode hashtags.
Surely, #thesimpsons enriches this "emotional" moment.

Plot Summary
Krusty is the target of a comedy roast, but he is completely unprepared to be the one that's roasted.  After the likes of Sarah Silverman and especially Jeff Ross tear into Krusty for being "unfunny", Krusty takes the words, for some reason, to heart.  After a quick attempt to prove he's funny fails, Bart finds him and advises him to seek counsel from his father, Rabbi Hyman Krustofski.  Krusty goes to his father to learn how funny he is.  The Rabbi starts by noting his favorite comedian, Rabbi Rudenstein,  then telling Krusty that he's always felt his son's comedy has been kinda "eh", immediately becoming motionless.  Krusty quickly realizes that his father died while calling him an "eh" comedian.

A grieving Krusty finds himself unable to cope with his father's death, nor with his last remarks.  Soon, Krusty decides to retire as he no longer finds himself funny.  Bart, desperate to save his hero (again), goes to Krusty's mansion and shows him multiple Krusty episodes at once to show the clown how funny he is.  Krusty, though, quickly notices how often he reuses his simple jokes and gags, and becomes even more depressed, going into a drinking binge as a result.  In the aftermath, a sleeping Krusty dreams about being in Jewish Heaven, with Rodney Dangerfield touting its strengths, but Krusty's father appears to remind him Jewish Heaven isn't actually a thing, and that if he wants to make a difference, Krusty should devote his life to helping people.

Meanwhile, the Rabbi's death has Lisa gravely concerned for his own father's health, and begins constantly watching and keeping an eye on Homer to ensure his safety.  Soon, Lisa wraps a sleeping Homer completely with bubble wrap, and ironically it does help as it saves Homer from a bus crashing into him - validating Lisa's fears.

Krusty helps with the construction of an animal shelter, but he feels no accomplishment for the feat.  Bart finds him again and takes him to a nearby temple, where Rabbi Rudenstein is giving service.  Rudenstein includes comedy in his routine, and Krusty realizes that Rudenstein's jokes are no better than his.  More notably, though, if his father found Rudenstein funny, then by extension he had to of found Krusty funny as well.  Relieved, Krusty has another dream where he and his father enjoy their time in the Jewish Heaven that shouldn't be.

Quick Review
Where to start?

First of all, the couch gag.  It went on for way too long.  Its become a thing in recent years where the producers of the show will allow other creators to make their own couch gag, but they gotta start enforcing some kind of time limit on these, or put them on social media by themselves, or something.  This one, created by Don Hertzfeldt, which features what the Simpsons would be like tens of thousands of years from now (under the correct premise that the show is still airing then), went on for almost two minutes, whereas the "joke" was understood in well under half the time.  It really seems like filler for the episode as it just dragged on and on, it seemed.  That said, its just as well the episode got filler at the beginning, because the episode wasn't that good.

Now, the death.  News of a character's death had been circulating for awhile, and hype was building up.  Clues as to who would be the one to perish popped up, and the news that the character would die in a Krusty-focused episode, rumors were rampant on who it would be.  The episode itself even references the buildup in the chalkboard gag.  I figured, in a previous writing that is no longer, that the character that dies would be unrelated to the plot and they would die in a stupid way.  Well, I was half-right, the character was related to the episode's plot, but he died in a stupid way, which I guess is par for the course for the show at this point.  Rabbi Krustofski, who originally was Krusty's estranged father before they made up, helped Krusty finally go through his bar mitzvah, and has appeared in a couple of cameos since, is not the "big, important" character producers made it out to be.  Oh, sure, he's an important piece of Krusty's character and he's voiced by Jackie Mason, but as a standalone character he's not much.  To compare, there was little to no buildup for Mona Simpson's death, and she's both voiced by a well-known celebrity and important to Homer's history.  So why now?  It troubles me that, in what seems to be a very gimmicky season, they would build that death up.

How about all of those guest voices?  Silverman, Ross, Mason, David Hyde Pierce, Kelsey Grammer for a Sideshow Bob cameo, lot going on there.  While not as many celebrity guests as in Season 25's premiere, they were overall better used than in that episode, with each providing a good line or two (well, except Pierce, I guess).

That all aside, the episode was okay.  There were a few good jokes throughout, and the sideplot with Homer and Lisa had its moments, but the episode's multiple missteps really hurt it and at the end of the day, another "Krusty quits, oh wait-" episode just doesn't work out.

Final Score: 6.6

Once Upon a Time in Springfield (S21, E10-451)

...and there's Mel, hiding in that tree looking at them like a creep.

Plot Summary
Once again, Krusty the Klown's TV show is lagging in ratings and once again network executives believe they know the reason: Krusty's show doesn't draw in the young girl audience, and to combat that they're going to introduce a co-star for Krusty intended to draw said audience in.  Krusty is, of course, upset over this change, but deals with it rather than getting fired altogether.  The new co-star is Princess Penelope, a young woman making her showbiz debut.  He act, which includes a horse with a horn strapped on to make it resemble a unicorn, is beloved by young girls and they flock to the newly formatted show leaving little room for Krusty's act, or the boys who like said act.

With Penelope in full bloom, Krusty becomes washed up (again).  However, he gathers himself and storms into Penelope's room to make a final stand.  Penelope, though, admits that she's in love with Krusty, becoming a huge fan of his when she was 12, and starts making out with him.  Krusty just goes with the flow, and simply lets his show become Penelope's princess hour with him happily joining her.  Bart and Milhouse can't deal with this, especially when they see Krusty propose to Penelope on air.  The boys vow to stop that wedding so they can actually watch something decent at 4:00 PM.

Meanwhile, Homer, Lenny and Carl are miffed that Mr. Burns has taken away their break time donuts to save money.  As they complain about it at the bar, a man representing Capital City's nuclear plant informs the three he's looking for more workers for his plant.  He gives the three a tour of the plant, and shows them all the perks they could have if they work for him.  The three are impressed, but are spied upon by Smithers who informs Mr. Burns that his three tug of war members are about to turn.  One night, as the three are about to move their things to Capital City, Mr. Burns meets them in the parking lot and promises to bring back their daily donut time, using a specially crafted donut made from ingredients that don't really exist elsewhere.  Once Burns turns down a health plan so they can have a second such donut every day, the three are sold and stay at Burns' plant.

The wedding ceremony comes, with Krusty's father doing the honors.  Bart and Milhouse show up and present to Penelope a couple of Krusty's ex-wives who now hate the Klown for how he treated them.  This doesn't bother Penelope at all, but it does get to Krusty, who realizes he couldn't let himself treat Penelope the same way in the future, and calls off the marriage.  Some time later, Penelope - who has since quit the show - is doing street shows in Paris where Krusty finds her and admits he still wants to be with her, and the two become a couple again as the episode thanks fans for 20 great years and, in a bold faced lie, states the best is yet to come.

Quick Review
This episode started off really strong but faded gradually until the last couple of minutes where there was barely any comedy left.  Luckily for it, the comedy that starts the episode off was really good.  The subplot featuring Homer and his pals was pretty decent but too short to really hit a mark.  The main plot, which starts as basically another "Krusty gets replaced by a new thing" still works pretty well and the latter half is still pretty decent, poor ending aside.

Final Score: 7.8

Today I Am a Clown (S15, E06-319)

When Mr. T made that line about not managing his
finances better, how serious do you think he was?

Plot Summary
The family learns that Santa's Little Helper conceived puppies with Dr. Hibbert's poodle.  The family finds this odd as, after the last time the dog had puppies, Homer was supposed to get the dog neutered.  However, Homer took pity on the dog and had it promise never to get 'busy' again, which obviously didn't work.  So, Bart and Lisa go around town to give away the new batch of puppies.  They give one puppy to Krusty the Klown, who takes it for a walk a short time later.  He gets taken to the Jewish walk of fame, but learns to his disgust that he isn't featured on there.  When he goes to get his name on there, he learns he isn't eligible because he never had his bar mitzvah.

Bart and Lisa find the ashamed clown, and get him to ask his father, the venerable Rabbi Krustofsky, why Krusty never had a bar mitzvah.  The Rabbi simply reveals that by the time Krusty could have one, he had fully gone into his career as a clown and that holding a bar mitzvah for him would've shamed the family.  Krusty decides to have one, anyway, and furthermore begins to openly display his beliefs on the show.  This includes not doing the show on Saturdays like before, so Krusty decides on having Homer replace him on that day, under the premise that Homer will screw up so bad there's no way he could replace Krusty (there's no way that plan will backfire!).  As Krusty takes his extra free time to study up for his bar mitzvah, Homer's fill-in show on Saturday is basically just him, Moe, Lenny and Carl ranting about things.  The kids aren't fans of it, but most adults are and the show becomes a hit.  Homer becomes a bit power-hungry, though, replacing Lenny with Barney when the former hinted at a pay raise, and Barney with Disco Stu when the former complained about the lighting.  It becomes so popular, the network executives decide to simply cancel Krusty's regular show.

Krusty goes to FOX and they agree to air his bar mitzvah live.  Meanwhile, Homer makes the grave mistake of listening to Lisa and uses the show to talk about important issues.  Predictably, people stop watching, the ratings tank and Homer's show is quickly cancelled.  At the same time, Krusty's bar mitzvah gets underway, and he gets Mr. T to help with the show.  However, Krusty sees his father in the stands looking awfully disappointed in Krusty, and Krusty decides to have a normal bar mitzvah after the show.

Quick Review
This was an alright episode, nothing special.  The middle act was probably the best of the three, but the others were okay as well.  I didn't enjoy Mr. T's appearance as much as I thought I would, it was just him either doing the ceremony or making a joke based around his famous "I pity the fool" phrase.  Still, its better than the other episode focused on Krusty's religion, which isn't saying all that much.

Final Score: 7.5

Like Father, Like Clown (S03, E06-041)

At this point I don't think the rabbi knows what's going on exactly.

Plot Summary
In this episode, Krusty (eventually) has dinner with Bart after the latter proved Krusty's innocence in Krusty Gets Busted.  Its a fine affair at first, but at the dinner table, Krusty is asked to say grace.  He says it in Hebrew, and its quickly learned he's Jewish.  However, saying grace in Hebrew brought back some memories to Krusty, and he can't help but shed tears.

As it turns out, one Herschel Krustofsky was born to a rabbi, whose father was a rabbi, and so on and so forth.  Herschel, however, found enjoyment in making people laugh, but his father Hyman Krustofsky would have nothing of it.  Herschel would attempt to continue a clown routine in secret, but was found out during a show which his father was attending.  Right then and there, Hyman denounced Herschel, claiming he had no son.

The memories begin to eat away at Krusty, affecting his on-air work.  Bart and Lisa agree to have Krusty reunite with his father.  While it wasn't difficult to track the rabbi - he is one of Springfield's leading Jewish leaders apparently - it is much more difficult to convince him to reconcile with Krusty, citing phrases from various religious texts to justify his decision.  Lisa tries to fight fire with fire by having Bart recite similar phrases to counterpoint the rabbi's decision, but Hyman refuses to listen.

Finally, in a last ditch effort, the two give the rabbi a powerful quote passionately depicting the Jewish people's struggles in the past and their victories in the present.  Impressed with the tidbit, the rabbi is stunned to learn that the quote is from Sammy Davis Jr., a Jewish entertainer.  Realizing that entertainers can also provide wisdom, Hyman regrets the time he's lost with his son, but quickly Bart and Lisa have him reunite with Krusty on the latter's program, and the two share a happy reunion together.

Quick Review
Its a touching episode, one that is a strong developer of Krusty's character.  I liked the idea behind the episode and the way it played itself out, but the jokes just weren't there.  Its a good episode, but its not really a funny episode, you know what I mean?

Final Score: 7.2