Marge and Homer Turn a Couple Play (S17, E22-378)

Could Homer be any happier right now?  Maybe if he had some fries...

Plot Summary
The Simpsons learn the Springfield Isotopes are good at baseball again, and decide to hop on the bandwagon.  The team has gotten good since acquiring some big time (yet minor league level) slugger named Buck Mitchell.  Buck is also married to a singer named Tabitha Vixx, who is mostly known for slutting it up during her performances, including the singing of the national anthem at the game.  Buck is embarrassed by Tabitha's dancing, greatly affecting his play, but notices Homer and Marge making out on the kiss cam, somehow making the connection that those are the two that can help fix his marriage.

Buck goes to the Simpson house to officially ask the two to help in marriage counseling.  Marge is hesitant, mostly because her marriage with Homer hasn't been smooth, but Homer helps convince her to give it a try.  The Simpsons' first attempts at counseling don't go very well, as Tabitha's seductive demeanor and Buck's "good ol' boy" attitude continue to clash.  Still, Marge and Homer are able to keep the two together by finding ways they can do high profile stuff together.  The family goes to one of Tabitha's concerts, where afterward Homer goes to see Tabitha in her room.  Tabitha offers Homer some fried chicken she just happened to have, and asks Homer to give her a neck rub.  The moans of ecstasy from Tabitha's rub and Homer's chicken lust can be heard outside, by Buck, who misunderstands and knocks Homer out, basically ending him and Marge as counselors.

With what's happened, Buck's play begins to sour again.  Marge is upset not just because of what Homer did, but also because of her lack of success at counseling.  Still, Homer decides to try one last ditch effort to fix Buck's marriage, and runs off to the stadium.  Tabitha visits Marge shortly thereafter, telling Marge she's going to break up with Buck.  Marge convinces Tabitha otherwise, and the two also head for the stadium.

Homer commandeers the Duff Blimp and uses it to display a message, 'from Tabitha' to Buck.  Buck gets so inspired from it he hits a home run... which flies right into the blimp, causing it to fall.  Homer escapes, but is found by Buck who quickly learns Homer's deception.  Marge appears on the jumbotron just in time to tell Buck that marriage can be hard work, but worth it if you care about the other person.  Tabitha and Buck make up, and their marriage is saved for now thanks to the efforts of the Simpsons.

Quick Review
It wasn't that bad of an episode.  There wasn't all that much that was funny, but there wasn't anything particularly bad about it either.  The plot was alright, thankfully it stayed away from becoming another marriage episode, though it ended on a bit of a rush job.  Still, the jokes weren't all that plentiful.

Final Score: 6.7

Hungry, Hungry Homer (S12, E15-263)

"Dancing away my hunger pains, movin' my feet so my stomach won't hurt.
I'm kinda like Jesus, but not in a sacrilegious way."

Plot Summary
After helping Lisa acquire a missing piece to her Lego Blocko Eiffel Tower set, Homer comes to the conclusion that helping out 'the little guy' feels pretty good.  Homer spends the next day helping Bart and Marge with their problems.  As Homer discusses his new quirk for the week at the bar, Lenny storms in furious.  The baseball team, the Springfield Isotopes, have been terrible, but Lenny was unable to get a refund for his season tickets.  Homer decides to help Lenny out.

Homer learns that the team was bought by Duff Beer a year ago, and so decides to talk to the team's new owner: Howard K. Duff the eighth.  Homer attempts to speak on Lenny's behalf, but fails to accomplish anything.  On his way out, Homer accidentally stumbles into a private room full of gear and merchandise for the "Albuquerque Isotopes", and realizes that Duff is trying to move the team.  Duff along with his goon Duffman knock Homer unconscious and attempt to erase him memory of what he saw, but Homer remembers anyway.  He attempts to alert the media of the plot, but the room containing the revealing evidence has been cleaned up and Homer is made to look a fool.

Angry that he's being called a liar even though he's telling the truth for once, Homer takes a suggestion from Lisa to go on a hunger strike outside the stadium, not eating again until Howard Duff tells the truth about moving the team.  With nobody usually attending the baseball games, Duff sees Homer waste away outside the stadium on his hunger strike, and sees the people crowded around him, and puts two and two together.  While Homer's sleeping, a pair of guys move Homer and the pole he chained himself to over the center field wall to become a new attraction: Hungry Hungry Homer.  With people now back in the stadium and Homer's yells for the truth too weak to reach anyone's ears, Homer is stuck to waste away for several days.

Growing weaker, skinnier and of course hungrier, Homer begins to hallucinate.  Duff decides enough is enough and has Homer unchained from his pole.  Having Homer come down, he offers Homer a brand new Isotope dog to recover from his 12 day long hunger strike.  Homer, too weak to remember what he was doing in the first place, is about to eat the dog when he realizes that the hot dog's toppings have the bold, southwestern flavors one would find in Albuquerque, and uses the opportunity to finally inform everyone in the stadium about the plan to move.  As the crowd comes to realize the truth, Homer also convinces Duffman to turn against his employer, and Homer effectively saves the team from moving.  However, the mayor of Albuquerque is undeterred, he'll try and get the Dallas Cowboys to come down and play baseball instead.

Quick Review
This was a fine episode, with a few good moments.  Duffman features in the episode's highlights, and though there wasn't anything particularly bad about the episode, the quantity of jokes was just a bit lacking which prompts the score it received.

Final Score: 7.8

Wild Barts Can't Be Broken (S10, E11-214)

Is this really that spooky?  Season 1's coloring goofs were spookier than this.

Plot Summary
The family goes to see a Springfield Isotopes baseball game, and the 'topes lose.  Homer writes them off.  Six months later, certain circumstances allow the Isotopes to get hot and they make it to the championship game.  Homer bandwagons the team.  The team ends up winning the title, causing mass celebration.  Homer, Barney, Lenny and Carl go nuts and drive around town.  They reach the elementary school, and decide to cause drunk havoc there by driving around.  The damage caused is most notable.  The next morning, Chief Wiggum states that the people responsible are unknown, therefore kids are responsible for it, and thus establishes a curfew where all kids must be home by dark.

Kids are left being either bored or horrified to spend time with their parents at night.  One night, while sifting through the perils of primetime TV, Bart and Lisa see a commercial for a scary movie shown at a drive-in theatre, but only at night.  The two rally kids across town to break curfew to see it.  The movie features creepy kids who know all the secrets of the adults, and can also get them to beat up themselves.  However, Wiggum catches the kids and as punishment forces them to clean a billboard featuring Wiggum telling kids not to break curfew.

Angry over these turn of events, the kids wish they knew adults' secrets like the children in the movie.  However, they do: they know their parent's secrets.  Again finding a way to break curfew, and sneaking away with the required equipment, the kids set up a radio program which reveals secrets of people across town, mostly Homer.

Panicked, the town has a meeting to figure out what to do.  Meanwhile, Chief Wiggum enlists Professor Frink to help him find the broadcast, and Frink does find them - behind Wiggum's billboard.  Using the 3D cup in the billboard as a broadcasting device, the kids have been using that to send out the program.  Adults across town confront the kids and the two engage in a battle of song.  In the middle of the song, the senior citizens arrive, unable to get any sleep from the singing.  As both kids and adults try to shoo them away, the seniors reveal their true power: by voting for an ordinance that installs an after-dark curfew for anyone under 70.  The night theirs again, the seniors have fun frolicking across the streets.

Quick Review
This was an okay episode.  The baseball story to open up the episode was fine, and the movie had its moments as well.  What bugged me, though, was the "kids vs adults (and later vs seniors)" theme the episode had going for it.  It bugged me because the only adult that was actually against kids for most of the episode was Chief Wiggum: he was the one who blamed kids for the school disaster, he was the one who started up the curfew, he was the one who set up the billboard, he was the one who enforced the curfew, and he was the one to punish the kids for breaking curfew.  He did practically all of it, the rest of the town only got on the kid-hating bandwagon in a mob-mentality sense near the episode's end.  How Wiggum's kid agenda became a kids vs adults theme never sat well with me.

Final Score: 7.8