The Wettest Stories Ever Told (S17, E18-374)

Surprised the other skeletons haven't pulled a mutiny on skeleton Bart yet.

Plot Summary
The family is at the Frying Dutchman's restaurant, but after getting no food nor any competent help from staff, the Simpsons fill time by telling sea-faring adventures.

Mayflower Madman
Lisa starts off with a tale of the Mayflower voyage.  A widow, Marge, takes her kids aboard and aid in hiding Homer, who dared make a contradiction.  Dressing him up as a Puritan, Marge starts to take a liking to Homer's charms, though Homer has a tough time getting used to Puritan customs.  Some guy that Moe is portraying has his eyes on Marge, though, and becomes ultra jealous when she spends more time with Homer.  Noting that Puritans are always sober, Moe takes Homer to his secret stash of beer, and gets Homer wasted.  He takes the captain (Flandish) and the ship's priest (Lovejoy) to witness Homer's drunken behavior, which has now expanded to including several other "Puritans", and Homer is quickly placed in a stock.  Soon, though, the ship is hit with a storm, and Flandish is knocked out.  Homer claims he can navigate the ship, even while drunk, and proves his claim true by leading the ship to land.  Some time later, Flandish and his pilgrims meet up with an Indian tribe, pretty much telling the tribe they're screwed.
Individual Score: +0.3

The Whine-Bar Sea
Bart begins his tale about The Bounty.  The Bounty sets sail in 1789, led by Captain Bligh (Skinner).  However, his crew (consisting of Bart and several other boys from his regular school) becoming increasingly frustrated with Bligh's treatment of them.  Bligh ignores Willie's warnings of a possible mutiny, but brings the ship to Tahiti, where everyone has a great time.  Afterward, though, Bligh puts the crew back to work, forcing them to forget their trip to Tahiti and sing a song instead.  Bart finally has enough, and leads a mutiny against Bligh, forcing him and Willie off the ship.  Bart tries to remove all evidence of Bligh's tyranny, but removes the steering wheel in the process.  The group tries to get back to Tahiti, but find themselves greatly sidetracked after they land in Antarctica somehow.
Individual Score: +0.4

Watership D'ohn (aka The Neptune Adventure)
Its the 70s, and versions of Springfield characters are attending the maiden voyage of the Neptune.  Soon, though, a giant wave capsizes the giant boat, killing many.  The few survivors, including the entire Simpson family sans Maggie, try to make their way to safety.  Several more sacrifices are made in the process, most notably the "lovable loser" (comic book guy) who secures a pathway out but suffers a heart attack afterwards.  The survivors reach the top where they're freed by a rescue crew, but they're all met by the crew of the Bounty, now all skeletons still looking for Tahiti.
Individual Score: +0.1

Quick Review
So, this was an odd episode concept, to have an anthology based around three sea-related storylines.  Sadly, none of the storylines were all that funny.  Heck, I found the transition scenes with the family at the restaurant as funny as each segment and those bits lasted a total of four minutes, if that.  This just wasn't a funny episode.

Final Score: 6.1

Guess Who's Coming to Criticize Dinner? (S11, E03-229)

All that antidote can't be good for you.

Plot Summary
The elementary school goes to a local newspaper for a field trip, with Homer volunteering to help take some kids there.  As the kids tour the building, Homer breaks from the group when he smells cake nearby.  His nose takes him to a farewell party for the paper's food critic who is less than enthused about the party's food.  When Homer arrives and starts getting into the cake, the news editor there realizes that Homer actually likes the stuff, and decides to hire him on as the new food critic, provided Homer can write a sample review.  Homer's attempt, of course, fails, but he gets another chance.  Lisa helps him with his second attempt, and the new review is good enough for Homer to get the job.

Homer begins visiting restaurant after restaurant to eat food and review the places, with Lisa writing the reviews.  As a lover of food, Homer finds that he enjoys every restaurant he goes to, and gives positive reviews everywhere, earning the praise of a fattening Springfield.  However, soon thereafter Homer is greeting by the other critics of the newspaper, who chide Homer for only dishing out good reviews, and suggest he throws in some negative reviews every now and then.  Being the extreme character that he is, Homer of course does a complete 180; instead of giving every restaurant he visits a good review, he starts giving every restauarant a bad review, having Lisa type up scathing remarks about each place.  It too much for Lisa to be involved with, so she quits helping Homer with the reviews.  Still, Homer feels that he'll never get his comeuppance.

Springfield is hosting a food festival, and Homer is tasked with reviewing the food there, as every restaurant will be represented.  Shortly before the festival, members of every restaurant in Springfield meet up.  Having lost business from Homer's continued negative reviews, they decides to kill him, as simply banishing him from the restaurants is too 'dishonorable'.  They bring in some kind of assassin chef, who reveals an éclair so filled with butter it'd probably clog even Homer's heart beyond repair, and it'll be filled with poison too.

At the festival, Bart overhears a couple of the restaurant owners discussing the plan, and goes to tell Marge and Lisa.  They split up to find Homer.  Homer, having become stuffed eating and then negatively reviewing way too much food, sees the éclair created by the assassin, and makes his way over to eat it.  Lisa is able to find Homer just as he grabs it, and in desperation declares it to ironically be nonfat.  The supposition is enough for Homer to toss it away in horror, exploding some other stall nearby.  As the chef is arrested (though he immediately escapes), Homer and Lisa reconcile, though Homer still gets his comeuppance in the form of a simple beating.

Quick Review
I rather enjoyed this episode.  It has a few highlights, like Homer imagining the dog saying "chewy?" during his second attempt at a review, and even as off-the-wall as the idea of bringing in an assassin chef to kill Homer with a fatty poisoned éclair may be, it was done pretty well and brought an entertaining conclusion to the episode.

Final Score: 8.4

New Kid on the Block (S04, E08-067)

Its no wonder I don't see as many all you can eats these days...

Plot Summary
As I've said in another episode review (specifically Bart the Lover), these earlier episode rarely have Bart in a position where he's even infatuated with another girl.  In the Season 3 episode Bart's Friend Falls in Love, he even says to Milhouse that such things are not a concern to him at the episode's end.  It may or may not explain a lot that these later seasons have several episodes where Bart has a girlfriend.  In any case, New Kid on the Block is the first episode in which Bart actually finds himself in love with another girl.

It happens after the elderly couple the Winfields decide to move out.  Despite struggles to sell the house due to potential buyers seeing and being disgusted by Homer's antics, the house eventually does sell.  Shortly thereafter, Bart and Lisa sneak into the basement of that house from outside, and after Bart scares Lisa away with a horror tale, he is snuck up on by another person, scaring him so hard he passes out.  Upon coming to, he sees a girl somewhat older than her - Laura Powers - and instantly becomes infatuated with her.

Meanwhile, Homer sees a commercial for an "all you can eat" seafood restaurant and decides to go there with Marge (despite Marge having an allergy to fish).  Bart suggests Laura be their babysitter for the night, and with Homer eager to eat non-stop he agrees.  As Laura continues to unintentionally steal Bart's heart, Homer indeed eats non-stop at the restaurant, going late into the night.  Finally, the restaurant's owner, then named Captain McCallister, kicks Homer out after Homer practically ate everything.  Still, upset that he did not eat all he could eat, Homer decides to sue the restaurant (Lionel Hutz later calls Homer the greatest hero in American history).

The next day or so, Bart begins asking around for tips to get Laura to notice him.  Talks with Grampa and Homer are mostly fruitless.  Frustrated, Bart is surprised to see Laura call him to the treehouse.  There, Laura tells him shocking news: she has a boyfriend and, worse yet, its Jimbo Jones.  Devastated (and not too happy when he overhears Laura saying "he's just a kid" after leaving with Jimbo), Bart is determined to prove himself to her.

The day Homer's lawsuit goes to court arrives, and again Laura is babysitting.  This night, Laura has Jimbo come over for a "study session".  Needing to act quickly, Bart decides to prank call Moe, but afterwards tell Moe that he's Jimbo Jones, providing an address as well, knowing full well Moe would come rushing over to enact some kind of vengeance after all those prank calls.

Meanwhile, Homer's court case is moving along nicely.  It turns out Captain McCallister is not actually a sea captain, and Marge retells the story of that night, where after being kicked out they tried to find another all you can eat seafood restaurant and, upon failing to find one, going fishing instead.  Losing the favor of a rather overweight jury, the Captain decides to make a plea deal with Homer: Homer can indeed eat all he can eat at the restaurant, while the Captain advertises him as some kind of bottomless stomach monster to attract customers into that kind of horrific thing.

Finally, Moe comes rushing in, with a rusty, dull blade in hand, and goes right for Jimbo.  Jimbo quickly breaks down crying, killing Moe's blood lust and Laura's regular lust.  As Moe quickly leaves to limit Barney's beer-stealing opportunities, Laura sees Jimbo for what he really is and tells him they're through.  She tells Bart he was right about Jimbo, and notes that if Bart were older, she'd go out with him anytime.  They prank call Moe, who falls for it yet again.

Quick Review
This was a great episode.  The main story had a lot going for it as we see a new side to Bart we've barely seen in the past, and the whole thing with Moe was great to.  Like usual, though, its Homer's sidestory which steals the show in terms of pure hilarity.  The notion of him eating non stop for hours, then suing the restaurant for not letting him eat all he could eat afterwards is just so ridiculous, but then for him to actually get some justice for it... somehow it ends up being very hilarious.

Final Score: 9.4