Notes for FABF04 (I, (Annoyed Grunt)-bot)

"I, (Annoyed Grunt)-bot" was better than I though it would be. Fox's promotion department must figure jerkass/whineass Homer and slapstick brings in the most non-routine viewers, so to judge by the preview I was expecting something pretty bad. Instead, the main robot plot was pretty decent and unified, with only a little gross-out content, and in true Simpsons style Bart and Homer bonded in their own odd way. It's also nice to see one of the (if not the) biggest roles for Snowball II; while the demise of III and Coltrane is unusually quick and even meant to be funny in its rate, it was a good subplot for Lisa (and I suppose even some Lisa/Marge time). I'm kind of surprised Lisa doesn't recognize her own cat at the end; it's left open whether it is her or not, but I don't even live with the cat and could make the identification...I'd assume Lisa would at least note the similarity, but perhaps she got superstitious and didn't want to mention anything. On a different note, I really enjoyed most of the actual moments for their humorous content (it is a comedy, right?), so this--like FABF02 earlier this season--works quite well as an everyday episode, even if the plot is not particularly special. A-, I guess.

DYN: ...Fox actually gave us the entire episode at 8:27 pm after the OT football game? (The Simpsons fans in us are naturally very pleased, I'm sure, but the King of the Hill/Futurama fans in us must be quite annoyed at the preferential treatment...) ..."Four hours later" is not in a standard (or MG) font, but looks a little deadly? ...Milhouse can't read "chick" backwards, or only took enough time looking at the tattoo to be able to orient it? ...for our less than stellar spellers, Springfield has "Dominoe's" pizza (not the real-life Domino's)? ...for the second week in a row, a typically reserved parent says a mild-to-moderate curse word (Marge/damn in FABF03, Flanders/bitchin' now)? ...the hill Bart can't get up is pretty steep for that one road to run along a level height? ...most kids would outlive their pets, though Bart feels this is tragic?

...Dolph's name is mentioned for the first time in a while? ...the stop/go buttons on the robot's remote are Oreos (or perhaps Hydrox...Hydroxes? Hydrices?)? ...Maggie offers Lisa her pacifier in consolation? ...the name Buzzkill for the first robot is appropriate if Homer was drinking beforehand? ...Coltrane has Bart's hairstyle (with the ears contributing)? ...just like Snowball II, Snowball III/"V" are not actually white, yet the one white cat they get retains its original name (Coltrane)? ...the subplot of the bullies returns in act III (instead of act I being virtually isolated)? ...Homer takes Maggie into the robot with him for the final fight? ...the writers respect our intelligence or wanted to keep us guessing by never explicitly telling us Snowball V is Snowball II? ...the official titles containing "D'oh" have been split evenly (and almost alternate) between "D'oh" and "(Annoyed Grunt)"? (3G03-AG, AABF02-D, AABF19-AG, BABF14-D, EABF10-D, FABF04-AG)

Previous episode references: DABF20: "Robot Rumble" show (or is it Robo Trumble?) 5F03: A bully's mom's not-too-glamorous job (Mrs. Muntz at Hooters then, Kearney's mom...um...somewhere they need tassles) 7F24: Lisa writes a poem about her dead cat (less emotional this time), who was hit by a car (Chrysler/Mercedes) 2F12: A Simpson rides a unicycle with his pants down BABF21: Homer is an oaf 8F07: Homer and Bart build something for a contest CABF20: Homer builds a half-ass robot AABF15: Homer gets mad at a creation and hits it with a pipe/tool while lamenting his poor building skills loudly BABF14: Beer sucked out of a carpet (Barney/Homer) The Maggie File on SNPP has several instances of a pacifier in another mouth, but the ones where Maggie offers it seem to be MG05, 7G09, 7G13, 1F01, and 2F32...there may be more in recent seasons, though I can't recall. 2F04: Jessica Lovejoy returns (an appropriate channel for her bad-girl tendencies, if I may say so) EABF21: The Frink family keeps expanding 5F15, FABF01: The crazy cat lady returns 4F23: Skinner is Tamzarian (at least it's appropriate - if not legal - for Lisa to point this out, as she would be opposed to such a perpetuated lie, and she would accept him as who he was anyway [recall her Shakespeare quote]) AABF22: Sideshow Mel's strange views of nature (clouds are "born" in the sky and robots can give birth to full-grown men) 7G04, 9F14, and countless others - "mild" electrical shocks administered to Simpsons by other Simpsons

Goofs: -Bart's clock must have been set wrong, since the closest months when the first is Tuesday are October 02, April/July 03, June 04, and February/March 05. -After the announcer corrects "ladies and gentlemen" to just "gentlemen," at least one woman can be seen in the audience (top left). An intentional joke? -If Snowball II does indeed return at the end, what was buried? Either a very similar cat was hit, it was squashed to an unrecognizeable form, or no one in the family actually looked at the interred kitty...I'm not going to make a big deal out of it but it should be noted.

I'm not sure why you're so intent on pushing this theory that it's the same cat. Yes, it was identical in appearance and disposition, but I didn't see any attempt to imply that it actually WAS Snowball II.

And to add a Previous Episode ref:

8F07: Bobby Goldsboro's "Watching Scotty Grow" plays. Only this time, I think it was the actual recording, where in "Saturdays of Thunder" they re-recorded the song with a soundalike, which was the style at the time.

Dr Music wrote:

I sure could use Frink's sarcasm detector now, since I'm not sure what to make of this. Forgive me for being defensive, but: The idea was given to me by the Upcoming Episodes page/posts, so I guess that's how I watched the episode. (I was prepared to accept Snowball III as the new cat, until she drowned; though it would have been an odd way to jazz up the show.) So when Hibbert hit a cat, I figured perhaps SII ran in one direction and a stray was hit...and so forth. In any case, I believe that the writers want us to be slightly uncertain, whether we believe Snowball V is really Snowball II or not; I don't believe my original post implies that I insist it's the original cat.

On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 22:40:05 -0500, Matt Garvey wrote:

The new cat was written to look like Snowball II so that in future episodes they can feature the new cat without ever referencing that it's the new cat and not the old cat. Much like not referencing that Skinner isn't actually Skinner.

Never mind that cats actually do have distinct personalities and behaviors. Actually I thought the cat Coltrane would've had lots of possibilities for future eps, but I guess it would be too much work for the writers/animators to deal with a different cat.

On Mon, 12 Jan 2004 07:18:54 GMT, simpsfan wrote:

Well it would certainly ruin the joke

Which joke...the one about how Lisa's cats keep dying, or the retread of the Skinner/Tamzarian joke? Either way, I'd be much happier with the joke "ruined", thank you very much.

On Mon, 12 Jan 2004 17:34:47 -0500, "Brett A. Pasternack" wrote:

You're not looking at the bigger picture. The joke is that 99% of all "Simpsons" episodes end with everything returning back to normal, no matter what had occurred before. The endings to the episode in which Homer and Ned become friends, the Tamzarian episode and the one last night are meant to spoof that. It's like everything has returned back to normal like always, except the viewers, and the characters who are only pretending, know otherwise.

I *am* looking at the bigger picture. The joke was funny at least once. But after the episodes you mention, and other episodes with the cop-out "we're going to say onscreen that the plot made no sense, so you can't get mad at us" ending (e.g. Trilogy Of Error, The Great Money Caper), this sort of thing is played out.

I'd be much more interested in seeing what they could do with the new cat.

On Tue, 13 Jan 2004 23:01:24 -0500, "Brett A. Pasternack" wrote:

This wasn't really a cop-out ending just a joke about how everything always stays the same.

Probably nothing since they didn't do anything with the old cat. Which is why it'd be pointless to just change the cat after 320 episodes and is funnier the way they did it.

[email] (David) wrote in message news:...

I thought that the way they showed the cat lady as an angel implied that she was bringing Snowball "1" back to Lisa, in a cartoony kind of resolved way...

"Matt Garvey" wrote in message news:[email]...

See, maybe I'm just dense, but I did not get that impression at all. The impression I got was that we're just supposed to pretend Snowball V is Snowball II in perpetuity, in exactly the same way we're supposed to pretend that Armin Tamzarian is Seymour Skinner.

Mind you, I didn't see the "Upcoming Episode" post that implied otherwise.

(And yes, use of the word "implied" was intentional. Any takers?)

Could somebody post it please?

I certainly never got the impression it was the same cat; it just seemed like yet another cop-out ending to me.

In alt.tv.simpsons, on the "Re: Notes for FABF04 (I, (Annoyed Grunt)-bot)" thread, Gyumaoh wrote:

Matt's probably referring to this post from Don's weekly Upcoming Episode listing:

Back to Gyumaoh:

I, too, had the understanding that Snowball II and V were the same cat. We didn't see it, but the family witnessed Dr. Hibbert's SUV hit Snowball, and the family had a body to bury. That's an awful lot to explain away. (Not necessarily a mangled body, either. Didn't Snowball jump in front of the truck? As long as a tire didn't run over her, the impact could have killed her while leaving the body recognizable.)

I think the point of the ending was to be a cop-out, so I'll give the writers a little latitude in this area, especially with the funny "Principal Tamzarian" line.

I expected that Snowball II would somehow come back from the "dead" i.e. turn out only to have been knocked out. I read a news story years ago about a dog that had been thought dead after an accident, buried by its owner, and then dug itself out of the ground and came scratching at the back door a day later. Weird but true!

"Matt Garvey" wrote in message news:[email]...

It's a takeoff on the old saying, a parent shouldn't outlive their children.

Matt Garvey:

That's probably what they were going for, but I don't think they succeeded. I found the constant killing off of cats to be more mean-spirited than humorous.

I found the Domino's gag particularly amusing because, not long before the episode started, I was talking to my girlfriend about how Domino's Pizza isn't very good.

Maybe Homer missed the garbage pickup date again.

Another goof: All of the Snowballs, including the first one, seemed to be buried in the Simpsons' yard in this episode. In "Sideshow Bob Roberts," Snowball I was buried in a pet cemetery.