[The long of it]
There's a line Homer says in "Treehouse of Horror (1F04)" that's destined to become a classic, especially in the eyes of anyone who's a part of the 9-to-5 grind. Told that he has to drive a stake through the heart of the vampiric Mr. Burns, Homer wonders, "Kill my boss? Do I dare live out the American dream?"
Homer almost, but doesn't quite, live that dream in "C. E. D'oh!" Instead of killing Burns, he deposes him and becomes supreme overlord of SNPP. Now, imagine for a minute Homer trying to run a nuclear power plant. What do you suppose might happen? Permanent blackout? Meltdown? Or maybe Homer is just smart enough to leave the technical details to employees who know what they're doing, letting him concentrate on bungling the administrative details. ("Triple the donut order! And make sure they all fancies, this time!") It could be quite a lot of fun.
What actually happens is faintly disappointing. To get Homer to the executive suite, "C. E. D'oh!" creates a fairly complicated story. Homer, feeling inadequate in the bedroom, takes a course at the Springfield Extension School on the art of strip-tease. He bounces from there to a business-success class taught by Stark Richdale, a real shark of a man who would probably be at home on Oliver Stone's Wall Street. Richdale inspires Homer to climb the ladder at SNPP, but when Burns fails to appreciate his efforts, Homer plots to take over his job.
This set-up isn't bad. (Okay, some of the humor was a little too bizarre for my taste, like the Lego Land buildings that come to life.) The mechanism Homer uses to carry out his plan is clever, especially for him. But once Homer actually is boss, the episode, which has a middling amount of momentum to begin with, fades. It's not that the jokes are bad -- I liked the scene where Homer "telecommutes" to a family dinner -- but the show doesn't make that last push to hilarity. It rallies toward the end, with a strange encounter with Mr. Burns, and a funny Homer-Bart scene, but the "Homer as boss" phase is perfunctory, as if the writers suddenly realized they had to quickly wrap up their story.
My original thought was, well, "The Simpsons" has run into a limitation of its form. The show has 22 minutes to tell its story, and giving more time to CEO Homer would mean less time for his clever takeover scheme, or for the self-improvement class, neither of which I'd want to cut. This story might have made a good multi-episode arc, except that would require that the writers care about continuity from one story to the next and, if their DVD commentary means anything, they don't.
Then again, maybe the writers could have fit this episode into its allotted time, after all. "Simpson and Delilah (7F02)" had a storyline that was at least as complex -- Homer grows hair, the hair gets him a better job, a secretary completes the makeover, Homer loses the hair and his new position -- and managed to do justice to all of its elements. That is why "Simpson and Delilah" will be a classic episode, while "C. E. D'oh!" will be remembered as an average show.
For "The Simpsons," average isn't necessarily a bad thing to be. This episode had decent humor, good characterization, and a reasonable ending; it's just that problems with pacing made the concluding part of its story seem thin and inconsequential. A good episode, but one that demonstrates there's still a way to go before recapturing the glories of the past.
[The short of it]
Homer running SNPP is a great premise, but this episode is faintly disappointing. The pacing is too rushed at the end, so the "Homer-as- boss" aspect doesn't have time to fully develop. I liked the set-up, the way Homer got the boss's job, and the ending, but the episode never really rises above the average for this series. Not necessarily a bad place to be, but this show demonstrates there's still a way to go before recapturing the glories of the past. (B-)
[DYNs]
... Maggie can really bust a move? ... in Homer's eyes, suicide is easier than trying to lose weight? ... with the exception of the instructor, all of the people at "Successmanship 101" were characters we knew? ... Homer is lower on the org chart than the inanimate carbon rod? ... Homer mixes up chess and checkers? ... the gargoyles on Mr. Burns's mausoleum look a little like him?
[References]
"Leader of the Pack" (song) - title of Itchy & Scratchy cartoon, "Bleeder of the Pack," a spoof
Holly/Valens/Bopper plane crash - Scratchy knows he's doomed when he's on the same plane as Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and the Big Bopper [See "Personal Comments & Observations" for more]
"60 Minutes II" (TV series) - Homer picked up some seduction pointers from this show
"Grimm's Fairy Tales" (book) - Homer calls Marge, "Little Red Riding Hood" - he likens himself to the Big, Bad Wolf, Red's adversary
"Dr. Strangelove" (movie) - air-to-air refueling seen as sexual metaphor
Club Med (resort) - weight loss clinic called "Chub Med"
Malcolm X (civil rights activist) - Dr. Hibbert's stage name as a stripper was, "Malcolm Sex" - his slogan was, "by any means necessary," like Malcolm X's
Oil of Olay (skin cream) - Hibbert has a jug of "Oil of Oh, Yeah!" body oil
"Star Trek: The Original Series" (TV series) - doors to Homer's workstation slide open with the same sound effect used on this show
Coors beer advertisement - for a time, ads featured the fictional "Swedish Bikini Team"; Homer replaces their poster with the more prosaic "Swedish Efficiency Team"
"Star Wars" (movie) - Lenny and Carl use plutonium rods like lightsabers as they fight over which "SW" installment was the worst one [Looks like "Star Trek" and "Star Wars" fans get equal- opportunity treatment on "The Simpsons"]
[Previous Episode References]
[1F13] Homer gets less regard than a carbon rod
[FFF]
Outdoor advertising:
SUICIDE HOTLINE
CALL [man in]
1-555-NO-KILL-U [noose ] FEELING UNATTRACTIVE?
LOSE WEIGHT AT
C H U B M E D FIND THE ANSWERS
TO YOUR PROBLEMS ...
AT
SPRINGFIELD
EXTENSION SCHOOLExtension school entrance:
EXTENSION
SCHOOL ORIENTATION 7:30
GRADUATION 9:30Body oil jug:
OIL
of
OH, YEAH!Written on Richdale's chalkboard:
SUCCESSMANSHIP
101People at successmanship class:
Richdale
Otto Homer Lenny Moleman
Barney CBG Carl Geeky-voiced
Teen
Yiddisha Kirk Van Willie
Guy HoutenSuccessmanship 101 textbook:
MEGATRONICS
The 48
Tips to
Corporate [portrait]
Success STARK
RICHDALEHomer's inspirational poster, before:
SWEDISH
BIKINI TEAMAnd after:
SWEDISH
EFFICIENCY TEAMBreak room signs:
COFFEE CREAM STIRRERS
ROOMSign at Lego Land:
WELCOME tO
LEgO LaNDPicnic banner:
HOMER'S 305TH
EVERYTHING IS BACK
TO NORMAL BBQ[Personal Comments & Observations]
"Rock around the Clock," by Bill Haley and the Comets, was the background music at the beginning of "Bleeder of the Pack."
As Homer and Bart played baseball (or tried to), we heard the theme to "The Courtship of Eddie's Father."
The banner at the picnic says it's Homer's 305th "Everything's back to normal" BBQ, refers the way Homer's life goes off on a lot of weird tangents, only to return miraculously to normal.
By the way, if the producers meant to refer to this being the 305th episode of the show, they miscounted. It's really the 306th.
Actually, it was more like the night the music died. In 1959, four musicians were on a touring package together: Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, the Big Bopper, and Waylon Jennings, who was a country and western singer. They had a plane that would take them from venue to venue, but it could only carry three of them, plus the pilot. Either Jennings didn't much care for flying in such a dinky aircraft, or it was his turn to ride the bus with the equipment, but he sat out the flight that night. Whatever the reason, the decision saved his life -- the plane ran into a storm that night and crashed. Nobody survived. The tragic event became popularly known as "The Day the Music Died," and is one of the things referred to by the lyrics of Don McLean's "American Pie."
Stark Richdale says his car is a Bentley Mark XII. It's a model that doesn't exist in real life. The car Richdale pointed to looks most like a Bentley Continental, to which some aftermarket accessories like gold trim and a huge trunk spoiler have been added.
The crowd tosses Burns into a Ford Crown Victoria taxi. The Crown Vic is a popular choice for taxi duty in the United States, since it's one of the last full-size sedans made in America. The taxi in the show was a few years old, because it has the original "grille-less" front end and the narrow headlights.
The Montreal Expos and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays (who play in St. Petersburg, Florida) are two of the least-attended teams in the league, and with some reason. Both normally have some of the worst records in baseball, so it's funny that Bart and Milhouse adopt their personas during the schoolyard game. During last season's contentious salary negotiations, Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig openly discussed the probability of contraction -- dumping some of the less-profitable teams from the league as a way of cutting expenses. The Expos and the Twins were definitely on the list. The Devil Rays were officially off it, but rumors to the contrary spread anyway.
I know enough about Esteban Yan to tell you that he is an actual Devil Rays player, but that's pretty much it.