The Heartbroke Kid (S16, E17-352)

I'm guessing the 'Bart has a heart attack' couch gag didn't make the cut.

Plot Summary
The elementary school signs a vending machine contract with a company that provides fatty, processed snacks to kids for what I presume is a hefty profit.  While Lisa quickly realizes how bad these snacks are, Bart goes the opposite route and starts gouging himself on the stuff, getting money from tricking Willie.  Three weeks later, Bart has become comically fat, unable to finish a coach gag as he's suffering from a heart attack.  Despite efforts by Dr. Hibbert and the family to get Bart to eat right, he continues to eat junk food in secret.  Lisa catches this, and helps set up an intervention for Bart.  Bart tries to run away, but is easily captured by 'professional child snatchers' who take Bart to a fat camp.

The camp, ran by Tab Spangler, isn't doing much for Bart either as he still finds ways to snack and gorge.  Its not cheap, either, and the Simpsons have to find a way to increase their income to pay for Bart's fat camp.  Ultimately their decide to turn the house into a youth hostel, which grabs the attention of several German young adults.  With Bart not getting any better, Spangler shows Bart the sacrifice his family has made.  Finally, Bart understands, so that night he goes into the school and destroys all the vending machines, also stealing the money from them with the intention of using it to pay for the camp.  He arrives at the house the next day with the money, allowing the family to toss out the 'eurotrash'.  Bart promises he won't ever eat junk food again, though he doesn't plan on going back to fat camp despite still being fat.  With three weeks of paid camp left, the family forces Homer to go back with Spangler.

Quick Review
This episode is slightly better than I anticipated, and most of its goodwill can be attributed by the guest voice of Albert Brooks, who voiced the issues-laden Spangler.  He was the star of what was otherwise a below average episode.

Final Score: 7.2

You Only Move Twice (S08, E02-155)

I'd work for him, no question.  Wouldn't you?

Plot Summary
A group from a Globex Corporation attempts to hire Waylon Smithers away from the nuclear plant, but when he refuses, they decide to recruit the man with the next longest tenure at the plant: Homer Simpson, who gladly agrees to the new job in hopes of achieving his dream: becoming the owner of the Dallas Cowboys.  As the job is upstate in Cyprus Creek, the family would have to move.  Though Marge is reluctant to leave, Homer uses a video Globex gave him to convince her and the family to move, and abandon their home as selling it would do little good anyway.

Just after reaching their new home, the family is greeted by Homer's new boss, Hank Scorpio.  Scorpio is a wonderful sort of boss, and his warm, kind demeanor helps Homer fit right in, not even laughing at Homer when Homer reveals his Cowboys dream to Scorpio.  Soon, as Homer decides to inquire about work hammocks to Scorpio, Hank sets Homer aside to take care of 'business': as it turns out, Scorpio is a supervillain and his Globex Corporation is building a giant death ray for the purposes of conquest, and Homer's job is to motivate a 'team' to get the nuclear reactor the death ray needs up within a short period of time.  Homer comprehends none of this, though, and finds he's really starting to like his new job and his new boss.

His family, meanwhile, are having some difficulties.  Marge finds herself having no housework to do as the house does a pretty good job of keeping itself clean.  Bart is unable to keep up with a well educated new school and is sent down to a remedial class whose tedium sits poorly with him.  Lisa finds that she's allergic to nearly everything in town.  One night, after Homer tackled a "loafer" at work, the family lets him know their struggles, and their desire to move back to Springfield.  Trouble, Homer decides to talk to Scorpio about it, just as Globex is being invaded by government forces.  During the chaos, Homer tells Scorpio his troubles, and Hank tells Homer that he should do what's best for his family, and suggests he does move back to Springfield.  Homer thanks Scorpio for everything and leaves just as the mayhem starts to get good.

The Simpsons return home, and at that moment Homer gets a telegram from Scorpio, who informs Homer that Scorpio's plan (which involved seizing the east coast apparently) couldn't of succeeded without Homer, and as a present Scorpio gets Homer one step closer to his dream.  While not the Dallas Cowboys, Homer instead now owns the Denver Broncos, which bums Homer out as Denver, at the time, was not good at football.  Then they won two Super Bowls just a little over a year after the episode aired.  Go figure.

Quick Review
You Only Move Twice is a wonderfully genius episode with a character in Hank Scorpio (voiced wonderfully by Albert Brooks) that was very well written as a likable boss regardless of his schemes.  Homer's football team subplot provided a few laughs whenever it was mentioned, and the family's troubles, particularly Bart's, were well done as well.  Its one of Season 8's best episodes.

Final Score: 10

Bart's Inner Child (S05, E07-088)

Inner Homer: "Food goes in here!"
Homer: "It sure does."

Plot Summary
This episode begins with great excitement as Homer finds an ad in the paper for a free trampoline!  Despite Marge's inclinations, hastily does Homer drive to Krusty's house to acquire the item, though Krusty implies some kind of treachery afoot which Homer does not pick up.  Soon enough, he and the kids are bouncing around on it, with Homer having bigger plans for the trampoline.  It begins with him charging others to jump on it as well, but the plan goes awry when everyone starts getting hurt while on the trampoline.  Homer has to ultimately get rid of the trampoline by setting up a trap for Snake the criminal to steal it.

While that ploy didn't work out, Homer still finds some dignity in that at least he was willing to try something fun, while Marge would've been content just keeping things are dry and boring as they apparently were previously.  Not happy with being called out on her frequent nagging by Homer and the kids, Marge heads over to her sisters' place, where they show her an infomercial featuring a self-help "guru" named Brad Goodman.  Marge gets Homer to watch a tape featuring Goodman with her, and the two come to the conclusion that, in other words, Marge's nagging only serves to shame Homer, and if Marge becomes more tolerant, they both will become better people as a result.  It seems to work for the both of them, and soon Goodman himself is going to visit Springfield himself in a presentation.  The whole family, and seemingly the whole town, goes to it, where Goodman advises that people "loosen up", to follow their inner-child.  When Bart, bored out of his mind, decides to interrupt, Goodman only encourages Bart, calling Bart's carefree attitude exactly what Springfield needs towards self-improvement.  Urged to "be like the boy", the town runs off confident in its new direction, all except Lisa who is appalled by these turn of events.

At first, Bart is prideful that everyone is following in his example, but now that everyone is being a class clown or getting into other kinds of mischief, he loses what made himself special, and becomes depressed over it.  With the town's new outlook on things, a "Do as you feel" festival is held, where people are encouraged to do what they feel like.  However, things turn sour when a bandstand and a Ferris wheel fall apart, because the people in charge of maintenance didn't feel like doing a competent job at doing so.  With tempers rising, people start letting others know what they feel like, and soon a brawl breaks out.  While initial blame is placed on Goodman for his shoddy help, the town quickly turns its anger on the boy whom Goodman told them to be more like: Bart.  Homer helps Bart escape via a slowly-moving float, and that night the family argues over self-improvement.

Quick Review
I wasn't a big fan of this episode.  The trampoline segment at the beginning was top notch, but once everyone started acting like Bart (except Lisa who acted like, well, Lisa), the episode really went south.  There's still a good amount of jokes throughout the episode, but the latter half of this episode really didn't sit well with me.  Its been awhile since I've come across a 'real miss', and given the score you'd think its silly to consider such an episode a "miss", but its the worst episode I've viewed since Season 3.

Final Score: 7.6

Life on the Fast Lane (S01, E09-009)

Won't be the last time we see this.  No, really, its in a clip show episode too.

Plot Summary
Marge, frustrated that Homer "gave her" a bowling ball for her birthday, surprises Homer by actually keeping it and putting it to use at the bowling alley.  While there, she gets bowling help from a rather suave man named Jacques, and his aggressive moves escalate the relationship.  While both Homer and the kids realize something is amiss, Marge eventually has a tough decision to make: meet Jacques at his apartment to really get things going, or stick with Homer.  She decides on the latter, meeting Homer at the nuclear plant, and the two respark their relationship, in the back of one of their cars in a ten minute span.  All's well that ends well.

Quick Review
There are a lot of episodes on The Simpsons which delve into the marriage of Homer and Marge Simpson, and how things like an attractive man, an attractive woman, or Homer's general stupidity can put that marriage at risk.  For awhile, it seemed like there were one or two such episodes per season.  There are even flashback episodes which have their relationship tested.  Its one of the more common types of episodes in the series, and with but a few exceptions most aren't really that great.

Such is the case for the first of these episodes, Life on the Fast Lane.  In terms of humor, the episode didn't have much going for it.  There were a few good jokes here and there, which does include the ending, and the introduction of Reverend Lovejoy's gossipy wife Helen was excellent.  However, it was just too little for the episode to really be considered great.

Final Score: 6.6

The Call of the Simpsons (S01, E07-007)

"Avenge me, son.  Avenge my death."

Plot Summary
Homer is jealous that neighbor Ned Flanders bought a new, state-of-the-art-for-1990 RV.  Not wanting to be upstaged, Homer attempts to buy an impressive RV of his own, only to have his apparently awful credit get in the way.  Upon finally getting something that was once considered an RV, Homer immediately takes his family camping (after rubbing in his new purchase to Flanders).  Some bad driving later, Homer ends up losing the RV - and a whole lot of camping equipment - leaving the family stranded in the middle of the woods.

While Marge and Lisa just hang out with little problem, and Maggie has a whimsical adventure with some bears, Homer's experience as an "expert woodsman" leads him and Bart into a lot of trouble.  One such encounter leaves Homer covered in mud with a mouth full of honey, having a guy with a camera nearby mistake him for Bigfoot.  Controversy ensues, and as the family separately finds their way out of the woods, Bigfoot hunters capture Homer and, upon further study, can not tell whether the guy is actually Bigfoot or even a human.

Quick Review
In Homer's Odyssey I noted that Homer hadn't really become his trademark self yet, and that episode was perhaps one of the last few chances viewers had to see Homer as the lazy but well-meaning oaf he once was.  The Call of the Simpsons, however, takes Homer's character into territories that have since become entire planets.  ...that didn't make much sense, did it?  What I meant was that this is the first real episode to show the kind of Homer Simpson that we'd be seeing for years to come.

The Call of the Simpsons is one of the best episodes of Season 1, with plenty of jokes and humorous circumstance to be had.  Homer's adventures in the wild, including his being mistaken for Bigfoot, are among the episode's highlights.  Indeed, Homer's character has taken a change with this episode, ultimately for the better.

Final Score: 8.1