Marge Simpson in: "Screaming Yellow Honkers" (S10, E15-218)

Remember kids!  Popcorn eventually knocks a single rhino out!

Plot Summary
A crowd leaves en masse from a terrible entertainment program done by the elementary school staff, creating a traffic logjam which Marge is unwilling to force her way out of.  Homer sees Krusty bust through in his Canyonero, a monster SUV.  Inspired by the display of force, Homer goes out to buy one.  After being scammed mercilessly by the car dealership, Homer learns from Lenny and Carl that he actually bought the Canyonero "F-series", a version of the SUV meant for women.  Upset, Homer refuses to drive it anymore, even hotwiring Marge's car to drive it instead.  Left with no other option for grocery shopping, Marge gives the Canyonero a try and quickly comes to like it.  On the way back, she winds up in another traffic jam, with home just a freeway exit away.  With Bart's encouragement and the Canyonero's impressive 4x4 capabilities, Marge aggressively takes a detour through some hills to drive right up to her house.

From this point on, Marge becomes a much more aggressive driver.  Stuck in a single lane behind a funeral proceeding, Marge speeds her way around and past it, drawing Chief Wiggum's ire.  He orders her to attend a defensive driving course intended to inform about and wash away road rage, and it seems to work for Marge at first.  However as another logjam occurs as people try to leave the parking lot where the course takes place, Marge exhibits more anger in trying to leave, but is forced to take a sharp turn, accidentally driving the car into a prison fence, freeing convicts who were one day away from full rehabilitation.  As a consequence, Chief Wiggum is forced to have Marge tear up her ticket.

Later, Homer takes Bart and Lisa to a wild animal park that may or may not just be a fancy zoo.  Homer's general incompetence ultimately leads to a rhino breakout.  Wiggum realizes that an aggressive driver with a large and tough SUV could corral the rhinos (somehow), and tries to get Marge to help, though she only does upon learning her family is in immediate danger.  She is able to round up all but one of the rhinos back into the fancy zoo, but a single holdout is able to grab a hold of Homer and make a run for it.  It escapes to a construction site, with Homer able to hide out in a porter potty, but not for long.  Marge decides to sacrifice her Canyonero by turning it sharply while jumping out.  Doing so causes it to flip over and catch fire, and rhinos instinctively try to stamp out fires, which means Homer is saved.  As Marge reveals how she knew all of that, via NBC's Dateline, the family goes on a big NBC lovefest, though Homer 'tries' to give FOX a worthy mention during the credits, getting shot and dying I guess? when he accidentally gives praise to CBS instead.

Quick Review
This was another solid episode, one that starts strong but tapers off near the end, especially when things focus on the rhino escape.  The odd NBC/FOX/CBS bit to end the episode, with Homer getting shot during the credits for saying CBS is pretty great, was weird but whatever.  The episode was still mostly solid.

Not sure about this, but this episode may have featured the first use of an instructional video (the Road Rage video) without the ability to use Troy McClure (as Phil Hartman had died).  The woman that did the video instead was still good, but you know that Troy would've given that bit a special charm.  Now I've made myself sad...

Final Score: 8.0

The Last Temptation of Krust (S09, E15-193)

You know, babies have gone #2 in that thing.

Plot Summary
The Simpson family is invited to a charity comedy show, but Bart notices that Krusty the Klown isn't being featured.  He goes to the show early to talk to Jay Leno, and two are able to convince Krusty to go as it'll work towards his community service.  However, Krusty's material turns out to be pretty dated, making jokes about TV dinners and the Chinese, and even resorting to the flying dickey trick, and nobody finds the material funny.  After confirming as much in a review, Krusty decides to go on a massive bender, winding up passed out in the Flanders' yard.

Bart finds Krusty, and helps him get it together.  Krusty winds up in Bart's room, and upon seeing all of the crap with his face on it, he realizes that he's spend so much time selling out that he's never bothered to keep his material fresh.  Jay Leno is brought over to help, and he advises Krusty that people nowadays (or least in the late 90s) like situational comedy, jokes about stuff that occurs in everyday life.  Krusty tries to adopt a new routine based around that, but his attempts to get the Simpson family laughing fail miserably.  As such, Krusty decides to retire in a press conference.  During his, he goes on a tirade about how crappy modern comedy is.  It makes the reporters laugh, and Krusty realizes he makes a good insult comic, and returns to show business.

The 'new' Krusty does shows at Moe's and spends his time not just insulting things, but also making it a point to make fun of advertising shills.  Two such shills watch these shows, and despite what Krusty's been saying tries to have him promote their new SUV, the Canyonero, giving him a Canyonero for free.  Krusty seemingly turns down the offer, having become a changed clown.  However, in his next show, Krusty reveals that he eventually gave the truck a run and eventually agreed to endorse it.  This angers the crowd, and they throw bottles at Krusty before parting.  As Bart wonders why Krusty gave in again, Krusty learns that in his heart, he's more of a sell out than he ever was a comedian.  Krusty gives Bart a ride home in the Canyonero, which has an extended advertisement to conclude the episode despite how unsafe it actually is.

Quick Review
This was another fine episode though there was nothing really spectacular about it except the Canyonero ad at the end.  Jay Leno's appearance was well done, I felt, but the other comedians seemed thrown in and the episode would've been no different without them.  Otherwise, there were still plenty of jokes to carry the episode to the score it got.

Final Score: 8.6