[The long of it]
A man's home is his castle, but Homer's been feeling like the victim of a coup d'etat lately. So, he buys an RV and exiles himself to the back yard. Despite having a mobile home, Homer rarely travels anywhere.
"Mobile Homer," by contrast, goes a few places too many. I can't say that the plot meandered, because the writers (led by Tim Long this time) kept things on-topic and avoided having jarring segues. Instead, the story quickly explores one aspect of the plot, then moves on to the next one, and then a next one, and so on until the credits roll. There's an advantage to this, because if you don't like the way the episode is going, you can wait a few minutes and it will go somewhere else. But it also keeps the story from building momentum, and excitement. With few knock-'em-dead gags, "Mobile Homer" feels a little flat.
The episode begins funny (in the good sense) when Homer cleans the garage, is ambushed by a band of spiders, and nearly kills himself. Then we change course: Homer has no life insurance, and the insurance companies wisely will have nothing to do with him. So, Marge puts the Simpsons on a strict money diet, and we get some cool FFF of bargain- basement products like Budget-O's cereal, and Colombia's Shame discount coffee. Then it's on to the Simpsons' latest marital crisis. Homer's feeling henpecked by his thrifty wife, so he splurges on an expensive motor home. The highlight of this segment is a scene where Marge and Homer each try to lure the kids into staying the night at their place. Homer meets some other RV'ers, and they all decide to camp out on the Simpsons' back yard, to Marge's dismay. Finally, the kids, sensing their parents' marriage is in real trouble, decide to drive the RV back to the dealer for a refund. The final phase has the family on board a Turkish freighter for a semi-wacky finale.
As you can see, that's a lot of ground to cover in a short time. The writers might have felt, as I do, that none of these plots could carry the whole show by itself. Dropping some of the weaker ones would have allowed the better ones to expand and flourish. I'm admittedly hard- pressed to name what could be cut, because each plot segment had at least one redeeming moment. I could have done without the "RV nation" subplot, but that would have meant giving up an interesting old couple, whose banter masks a deep underlying hostility.
Like "Mobile Homer" itself, Lisa's development is a bit "all over the map," too. We get a bit of ultra-political Lisa near the top of the episode. (She even says "bio-hubris" with a straight face.) For most of the rest of the show, she's more like a real eight-year-old, to the point where she can join Bart in looking for the most "fun" parent to spend the night with. I'm rather happy with that decision -- Lisa the smart eight-year-old is more interesting than Lisa the enviro- lobbyist. You can argue that this tendency is carried a bit far in the final act, when Bart devises a risky scheme to get the family back together. I'm not saying she ultimately wouldn't have gone along with it, just that she would have protested a bit more before doing so.
I'm not going to protest this episode too much, either. It's a bit hard for me to rate because there's nothing really bad about it, but it isn't screamingly funny, either. The problem, in the end, is not that the show didn't go anywhere. It's that it didn't visit anything long enough to develop into truly great material.
[The short of it]
With few knock-'em-dead gags, "Mobile Homer" feels a little flat. The story works with a lot of themes -- physical Homer humor, the family economizing, marital troubles, and a highway chase scene -- but doesn't delve deeply into any one of them. It's a similar story with Lisa, although I like her characterization for most of this episode. In the end, however, "Mobile Homer" is like the interstate that stretches before an RV: Potentially interesting, but with large expanses that aren't that memorable. (C+)
[DYNs]
... both kids nudge Maggie toward the other sibling's side?
... the mold stains on Homer's garage wall?
... Philip Michael Thomas ("Miami Vice") is on the cover of the "TV
Guide" underneath the "Alf" one?
... at one point, the RV drives down a seven-lane freeway? How much
traffic does Springfield have, anyway?
... Marge apparently unloaded 100 cans of soup on her own?[References]
~Fabio (romance-novel cover model) - Homer, in Marge's garage-cleaning fantasy, looks kinda similar
"Charlotte's Web" (children's book) - can of "Charlotte's Dead" spider poison in Homer's garage
"seven stages of death" research - Merry Widow Insurance compresses this to four: denial, anger, acceptance and cash
Colombian coffee - discount coffee brand is, "Colombia's Shame" - can has an embarrassed Juan Valez (the mascot for the Colombian coffee growers)
"Extreme Makeover" (TV series) - Homer imagines a "Mobile Home Makeover" show
"King Kong" (movie) - RV dealer's mascot is "Kamper Kong"
AskJeeves.com (search engine) - Homer wants to "ask Jeeves" if "dino" is short for "dinosaur"
[Previous Episode References]
[8F17], [AABF20] Simpsons economize more than usual [7G09] Homer buys an RV from Bob's RV Roundup
[FFF]
Can of spider poison:
Charlotte's
Dead [ Wilbur the pig ]
[and dead Charlotte] SPIDER
POISONTV Guide:
WHY ALF
HATES
VICTORIA
PRINCIPALBart's prediction picture:
THIS IS WHAT
WILL HAPPENInsurance agency:
MERRY WIDOW
INSURANCE CO.
--------------
DENIAL, ANGER,
ACCEPTANCE,
CA$H!TV movie-of-the-week:
[mansion] WIFETIME TV
PRESENTS F r o m
H o m e m a k e r
t o H o m e l e s s [ woman in a ]
[cardboard box]Cut-price cereal:
budget-
o's
[ man in ] great
[bad clown] frugal
[ makeup ] taste!T-shirts from Goodwill:
HOOTERS E.R.A.
NOW!
MANHATTAN
BEACH[The "Hooters" was the actual logo from the restaurants.]
Cheap coffee:
COLOMBIA'S
SHAME
DISCOUNT
COFFEE
[embarrassed]
[Juan Valdez]Spare-tire cover on Homer's mobile home:
KLASSY
KRIBRV dealer:
Bob's RV
ROUNDUPKids' note to Mom and Dad:
Dear Mom
and Dad, We don't want
you guys to split
up, so we'reEmergency lane sign:
RUNAWAY
TRUCK
LANE ->COMING SOON
[I loved the resigned way Lisa said, "Oh, rats" when she saw this]
Turkish freighter:
STAR OF ANKARA
TURKEYKamper Kong's T-shirt:
NO
PAYMENTS
'TIL 2008[Oops!]
We see Lisa playing her sax with some Turkish sailors, but we don't hear it.
[Personal Comments & Observations]
"Vacation" by (if I remember this correctly) the Go-Gos plays when Marge reviews the vacation pictures with Homer.
When Homer parties with his children, he plays "Welcome to the Jungle," by Guns'N'Roses.
We first hear one of the RV'ers cover Johnny Cash's "I've Been Everywhere" (well, I suppose that's what it's called), then the original gets played over the closing credits.
Just before the credits, They Might Be Giants' version of Istanbul plays. (The song isn't original to them, but I'm not sure who recorded the first version.)
Bart and Lisa might have been happier if they switched shirts ...
"E. R. A." stands for the Equal Rights Amendment, a proposed amendment to the constitution that would ban discrimination on the basis of gender. New amendments to the Constitution (usually) have to be voted upon by the individual states, and the pro-amendment organizations adopted the campaign slogan, "ERA Now!" It turned out to be ERA never, though, since the amendment was ultimately defeated in the 1970s.
Or maybe not. The following article appeared in the March 21, 2005, St. Petersburg Times:
Tuesday marks the 33rd anniversary of the day Congress sent the Equal Rights Amendment to the states for ratification. Three more states must ratify it to make it law. Supporters are targeting Florida, Georgia and Illinois as most likely to do so this year. Gov. Jeb Bush said in 2003 that the ERA was as dated as "wearing bell-bottoms." Guess he hasn't been to the mall lately.
[Collette Bancroft, "Forward Thinking." St. Petersburg Times, March 21, 2005, p. 1E.]
Just before Homer and Marge catch up with the kids, the RV is passed by an orange Old Beetle (on the right) and a second-generation green VW Bus (on the left).
Homer's RV wasn't intended to represent a specific make, but that class of RV can sell for as much as a standard house. No wonder Marge was upset!
One of the knocks on SUVs is that they are prone to rolling over when called upon to make quick maneuvers, like rounding a curve. The joke is that a "gentle curve" is enough to cause instant doom, although the curve we see on the show is pretty sharp by Interstate highway standards.