Somebody claiming to be [email] (The Rack) wrote in news:[email]:
But I think you're missing something here. A lot of us on the NG seem to like this episode not because it's "Simpsons Lite", to use your term. I'd posit the reason we like it is that it harkens back to the tradition of the great episodes of seasons gone by (the first eight seasons). I, like you, enjoyed 5F13 "This Little Wiggy". And I think the reason I like such episodes is that they've got coherent plots which aren't overtaken by bizarreness and Jerk*ss Homer; plus, they've got some intelligence to them. Episodes from later seasons which fit this bill would be "Bart's Night Out" and "Wild Barts Can't Be Broken", except that these two fall into one of the terrible traps of later seasons -- the Stupid Climactic Musical Number. Homer is at his best when he's trying to do things in a well-intentioned way but fails (as in his disciplining Bart in "Bart's Night Out", trying to renew his love life in "Natural Born Kissers", or helping Burns and Gloria in CABF18; even the commenting on the odd fortunes isn't a sign of Jerk*ss Homer -- it's the sort of thing you could expect the cast of Seinfeld to do, which is ironic considering that Julia Louis-Dreyfus was the guest star), not when he's being a schmuck ("Trash of the Titans", "Homer Simpson in Kidney Trouble", or even the ending of "Last Tap Dance in Springfield", an otherwise enjoyable episode). And these "Simspons Lite" episodes are giving us the non-Jerk*ss Homer.
Other good things about the "Simspons Lite" episodes are that the plots are reasonably realistic and intelligent. Not like, "Saddlesore Galactica" with the jockey trolls, or "Maximum Homerdrive" with the auto-driver, the episode which Homer's web-site which has a parody of "The Prisoner", "Simpsons Safari" with the diamond-mining monkeys, or the ending of "Homer the Moe". CABF18 had a believable plot (Homer helps Burns find true love), stuck to that believability, and gave us some intelligent humor at the same time (you only chuckled at Homer and Marge's implied sex scene, I found it hilarious -- although whether it would have been better to include a wide- eyed Maggie sucking her pacifier is a topic that can be debated).
The "Simpsons Lite" episodes also don't gratuitously use guest stars. Look at "New Kids on the Blecch", a truly terrible episode which seemed written for the purpose of advertising N-Sync noise. Elton John didn't seem to serve much of a function in the Apu Loves Manjula episode (and I like Elton John's music). The better episodes either use no guest stars, or use them in a good way (not self-promotion or trying to take over the episode). (Stephen Hawking playing himself in "They Saved Lisa's Brain" is good, and the satire in that episode is excellent), the kleptomaniac Jasper Johns in "Mom and Pop Art" is quite funny, and Isabella Rosselini does a good job as the art gallery owner. By the same token, Julia Louis-Dreyfus' role in CABF18 is good, without being overstated. (Ditto for Jane Kaczmarek in "The Parent Rap", but that episode had some contrived plot devices like the judge's voice in the fiber-optic tether, or the deus ex machina, which make it somewhat worse. But that's not the guest star's fault!)
Having said that, there are some episodes which aren't "Simpsons Lite", but which are good clean entertainment and push the envelope. Examples of this would be "Trilogy of Error", "22 Short Films About Springfield", or Homer's dream sequence in "El Viajo Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer" (the latter half of that episode wasn't so great, however).