(long) A review of "Milhouse Doesn't Live Here Anymore (FABF07)"

[The long of it]

Today (well, yesterday by the time this is posted) is Matt Groening's 50th birthday. What do you get the cartoon mogul who has everything? How about a decent episode of his flagship show? "Milhouse Doesn't Live Here Anymore" is only the second episode of "The Simpsons" to air on Groening's Birthday ("Das Bus (5F11)" was the first). Let's tear open the wrapping and see what he got.

The show begins with a field trip to the Museum of Television and TV because, goodness knows, the children of Springfield just don't watch enough television. The museum itself turns out to be kind of dull, except for one really good joke between Paul Lynde and Nadia Comaneci. I'm surprised, given how well the series has skewered television over the years. (I'll give the producers credit for rounding up some of the original series' voices for cameos, however.)

Milhouse acts strangely during the field trip, at one moment disrupting class and, at the next, trying to confide something to Bart. We soon see that he does have some startling news: He and his mother are moving to Capital City, for good. From a fourth-grader's perspective, Milhouse might as well be moving to Mars. At first, I thought his behavior was awkwardly written, but now that I've thought about it I believe the situation called for the uncertain rhythms of someone with big news to tell and no good way of telling it.

Milhouse's departure for the lights of "Cap City" creates a friendship vacuum in Bart's social order, and ushers in the best part of this episode. Marge subtly nudges Bart to hang out with Lisa, and to the surprise of both siblings, they become fast friends. There's a certain novelty to seeing this normally bickering pair put aside their differences and just hang out. In one cute scene, Bart encourages Lisa to jump her bike over a ditch, saying, "Forget everything you know about gravity." Lisa's answer: "But I know so much." In another scene where Lisa passes up a chance to meet two of her favorite jazz artists to be with Bart, while at the same time Bart misses a chance to go shooting things with Nelson. The idea that Bart and Lisa's friendship might demand sacrifices is an interesting one, and one I wish the writers had explored further.

While the "A" plot provides most of the warmth, Homer has a "B" plot that provides most of the humor. He takes up panhandling to buy Marge some nice jewelry for their anniversary. A friendly bum gives him some advice, and Homer proves to be such a natural begging talent that he's soon stealing business from the city's established, if that's the word, transient community. Marge's rationalization of Homer's begging is good, and a nice break from her usual "voice of reason" behavior.

While the individual parts are good, they aren't as integrated as I would like. There's an extended scene in the first act where Nelson is ridiculed for his low-income background. The writers have shown Nelson's more vulnerable side before, but usually in shorter scenes than this. I figured the writers were going to make some sort of plot point but, no, the matter is never mentioned again. Also, the two subplots scarcely intersect. It's as though the each of the two lead writers (sorry, I didn't remember their names) worked in isolation on each plot, and didn't want to interrupt the other's train of thought by mentioning what they were doing. Finally, Isabelle Sanford (from "The Jeffersons") steps in and mechanically introduces a joke she explains will "cut through the treacle." Good idea, but wouldn't it be better to do that with a joke that springs naturally from the story itself?

Maybe the writers were trying to give the show's creator a little of something that he has enjoyed in the past: Storylines that find the humor in some of life's darker moments (like separation from your best friend), Homer trying to do the right thing but going about it in a hilariously wrong way, and kitschy guest stars that play with the constraints of "normal" television. I liked "Das Bus" more, but this episode is pleasing evidence that "The Simpsons" still has much to offer -- which might be the best present of all. Happy Birthday, Mr. Groening.

[The short of it]

Two good plots make up this episode. For warmth, we have Bart and Lisa befriending each other after Milhouse leaves town. There was an interesting novelty in seeing them put aside their differences for a while and just hang out. For humor, Homer turns to panhandling to raise money for Marge's anniversary gift (and is pretty good at it, too). The "lead bum" that shows Homer the ropes was funny, and I liked Marge's reaction to Homer's latest moneymaking scheme. The parts don't gel into a whole as smoothly as I like, the trip to the TV museum was as funny as I'd expect, and the perfect ending remains elusive this season. Despite this, the show as a whole is good enough to merit a (B). Happy Birthday, Mr. Groening!

[DYNs]

...	on the security monitor, we can see Homer imitate a walrus by
	shoving two inanimate carbon rods in his mouth?
...	on another monitor, we can see the guys playing "bullfighter"
	with one of the plant's forklifts?
...	the lady who tells Homer not to stop dancing only donates a
	penny?
...	Mr. Largo and Mrs. Pommelhorst are part of the moving crew?
...	LuAnne sounds really different?
...	the six types of panhandler are:  bad musician, messed-up vet,
	cripple, fake cripple, religious zealot, and crazy guy?
...	Homer flashes about US$126 (a single, a $5 bill, five $10 bills,
	a $20, and a $50) at Costingtons?
...	in the home movie, Homer coughs up three toy cars?

[References]

"Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" (movie) - title of episode a spoof

"Rawhide" (TV series)
-	during their barrel-rolling race, "Snap, Crackle, and Pop" make
	up new lyrics to this show's theme song.  Oh, and speaking of
	whom ...

"Rice Krispies" (breakfast cereal) - Snap, Crackle, and Pop were the cartoon spokesmen for this cereal

Museum of Television and Radio - SES students make a field trip to Museum of Television and TV

Mickey Mouse (cartoon character) Mao Tse-Tung (Chinese leader) - name of restaurant in the "Itchy & Scratchy" cartoon, Mickey Mao's, inspired by this unlikely pairing

Chinese food stereotypes
-	three stereotypes (one possibly controversial) are referenced in
	the "Itchy & Scratchy" cartoon  (See "Personal Comments &
	Observations" for more)

"Snow White" (fairy tale) - Homer asks a mirror, "Who's the baldest of them all?"

Mussolini (Italian dictator) - the lead panhandler calls Homer "Moocholini"

local Monopoly knock-offs
-	many cities have special commemorative Monopoly editions where
	local street names replace those of the regular game (whose
	names come from Atlantic City, NJ)

[Previous Episode References]

[4F20] Museum of TV and Television (note subtle name change) seen [1F09] Homer says, "I didn't say stop," when a performance is interrupted [5F13] Bart reluctantly befriends Ralph [2F07] Homer and Marge shoo the kids away so they can snuggle [5F15] Milhouse the bed-wetter [5F11] Episode airs on Matt Groening's birthday

[FFF]

Nelson's lunchbox:

    BUNNY
     FOOFOO

Museum sign:

       MUSEUM OF
       TELEVISION
         AND TV

    +--------------+
    | FREE EMMY TV |
    |FIRST THOUSAND|
    |   VISITORS   |
    +--------------+

First museum exhibit:

    HALL OF
    NOSY NEIGHBORS

MRS. KRAVITZ MR. ROPER NED FLANDERS

Easter special title card:

• Hudson Brothers *

              Easter
              Special

• Helen Reddy * Paul Lynde *

    [The names were actually arranged in a circle around "Easter
     Special," but it's a major pain in the butt to do this in
     ASCII text]

Moving van:

    STARVING TEACHERS
       MOVING CO.

Kirk's sign:

< NUEVO CONDOS

"Itchy & Scratchy" title card:

    MOO  GOO
    GAI PAIN

Chinese restaurant sign:

MICKEY MAO'S

           ALL YOU
           CAN EAT
             CAT
           SPECIAL

Seasonings Itchy uses:

     SOY        RED        MSG
    SAUCE      PEPPER

Billboard:

Diamonds ...

    [Woman receiving ]
    [diamond necklace]

      BECAUSE MONEY
       EQUALS LOVE

Homer's first panhandling sign:

      NEED $
    WILL SETTLE
      FOR �

Bart's videotape:

MILHOUSE & ME

Homer's second panhandling sign:

     COPS TOOK
     MY BRAIN
    PLEASE HELP

Lisa's book:

THE MOUND BUILDERS

Bart's first chance card:

    [drawing of ] Bart Will Make
    [Bart making]      Your Bed
    [Lisa's bed ]    For A Week

Card Lisa redeems:

    Good for
    one HUG
        ---

[Oops!]

The second act starts with Homer in the foyer, passed out on top of Marge -- and no explanation of how he got there. Did a commercial break run too long in the East, or was this abrupt opening intentional?

Why does Bart need to take a plane to Capital City? Isn't it within easy driving distance?

Unless they're wired together in a museum, the bones of a skeleton don't stay connected to one another. Bart shouldn't have been able to reposition the skeleton's arm the way he did.

Doesn't it seem strange that Lisa wouldn't tell an adult about the important archeological find?

[Personal Comments & Observations]

Ned Flanders is an exhibit in the TV museum. We acknowledge he's a TV character, but of course no one on the show seems to do so.

Milhouse wants to switch around the heads on the Cosby kids exhibit. That's fitting. For the show's second season. "The Simpsons" audaciously moved to Thursdays, opposite the hugely popular "The Cosby Show."

This is, amazingly, the first time in fifteen seasons that anyone had pronounced Mrs. Krabappel's name to rhyme with "crabapple." The producers even made this observation as part of the DVD commentaries. In a way, it's kind of a shame that someone in the show noticed the connection, since it was a good subtle joke that everyone remained oblivious.

Real and fictional people in this episode.

Isabelle Sanford: As she mentioned, she played Louise Sanford, the patient wife of combustible George Jefferson on "The Jeffersons." She introduced herself as "Weezy," which was George's pet name for her character.

Mrs. Kravitz: The nosy neighbor on "Bewitched." She'd occasionally see Samantha working her magic, but could never get anyone to believe her.

Mr. Roper: Landord and downstairs neighbor to Jack, Janet, and Chrissy on "Three's Company." He and the missus later got their own series, creatively titled "The Ropers," and a nosy neighbor of their own. (Played by Jeffrey Tambour, who is on "Arrested Development," which is on as I'm typing this.)

Helen Reddy: Singer whose biggest hit was "I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar."

Paul Lynde: Comedian best known for sitting in the center square of the original "Hollywood Squares." If I'm not mistaken, he was also Templeton the Rat in the cartoon adaptation of "Charlotte's Web."

Willie Tyler & Lester: Popular ventriloquism duo, and arguably the *last* popular ventriloquism duo.

Nadia Comaneci: In 1976, Comaneci, a gymnast from Romania, won the first perfect 10.0 in Olympic gymnastics history. And the second. And the third ... a total of seven in all. Her presence in the Easter special fits in with the mid-70s feel of many of the museum exhibits.

Ironsides: Who played this guy, Raymond Burr? Ironsides was a paraplegic detective. He had assistants to do some of the physical information-gathering he couldn't do, but he was able to do most of the deductive work himself.

Lancelot Link: Chimpanzee super-spy. To make his show, the producers filmed real chimpanzees in costumes, and then dubbed in some of the most inane dialogue imaginable. Come to think of it, maybe chimps were responsible for the scripts, too.

K. I. T. T.: Knight Industries Two Thousand, the talking Pontiac Firebird on "Knight Rider."

Salem: The black cat on "Sabrina, The Teen-Aged Witch."

Mr. Ed: The famous talking horse on the show of the same name.

Branford and Wynton Marsalis: Two Grammy award-winning musicians and brothers. At least one of them plays the sax (and I forget if the other brother is a sax player, or plays the trumpet). While most musicians play either classical or jazz, the Marsalises have won acclaim for their work in both styles of music.

LuAnne and Milhouse drive off to Capital City in a Chevrolet Tahoe (or possibly the similar GMC Denali). These start at about US$25,000 and go up quickly from there. Maybe LuAnne should be paying alimony to Kirk!

Tonight's "Itchy & Scratchy" cartoon plays upon two stereotypes regarding Chinese Food. First, we have the rather unsavory rumor that Chinese restaurants are secretly stir-frying stray cats and dogs and passing them off as the small bits of meat in chow mein and the like. (Because, you know, them there Commie pinko barbarians will eat just about any critter that doesn't move fast enough.) The Chinese- American community gets rather honked off at this, as you might imagine. I'm curious to see if anyone objects.

The second stereotype is that if you go out to eat at a Chinese restaurant, an hour later you're just going to be hungry again. Note that in the cartoon the mouse family ate Scratchy's body at eight o'clock, waited until nine, and then devoured his head. There's a grain of truth to this stereotype. Traditional Chinese cuisine isn't as heavy as Western fare, so it doesn't take as long until you're ready to eat again.

Finally, Itchy adds MSG (monosodium glutamate) to his Chop Scratchy dish. Chinese restaurants regularly used MSG as a flavor enhancer until it became widely known that some people were allergic to it. The extra sodium probably wasn't doing customers any favors, either. Restaurant owners quickly revised their recipes and advertised "No MSG" on their menus. Today, I don't think you could get an MSG-added dish even if you wanted it.

Tonight's animation highlight: The scene at the end of the second act, as the camera pulls between Lisa, then Bart, then Marge, and on up the stairs to Homer. It's an impressive move and a labor-intensive one, too, since both the foreground and the background have to be animated.

"Benjamin Robinson" wrote in message news:[email]...

-------- While the episode had its funny moments, that lack of intersection of the subplots did make it one of my lesser-favourite episodes. This was in addition to Lisa being out of character (e.g. the archeological site some of us have mentioned), and some of Homer's begging was downright pathetic. Still, I'll never forget moments like Mr. Burns using Snap, Crackle and Pop to describe Homer, Lenny, and Carl, or the pants repo scene with Mr. Van Houten. I've seen much better episodes during the past two seasons.

------- Ah yes, I forgot, that was the other thing I liked in that episode. Milhouse showed his classic character of being overly enthusiastic about something he's bought, such as those ALF Pogs in 3F02, or the cup-and-ball in 3F07.

------- Add Grampa wetting his pants to that list. He did that in 4F05, 1F04, and AABF04, although I think this is the first time he's actually shown "wet".

------- I seem to remember Homer walking in the door drunk and passing out on top of Marge. I saw it on Global in Canada, and I've never known them to cut shows short due to commercials or other factors.

------- I thought it was a fairly long drive. The Simpsons have done it, but it was implied in those episodes that Capital City was rather far away. Last year Bart and Lisa's 3rd grade class stayed in a hotel in Capital City during a field trip, which implies it's at least two hours away from Springfield. Lots of people fly that distance, and I'm not surprised Bart took a plane since he was going by himself and he hasn't tried driving since 1996 (at least I don't think he has).

------- That should be another "previous episode reference" for snpp.com. In 2F32, Bleeding Gums Murphy tells the story of having appeared on the Cosby Show in 1996, and they even show the kids. There was also CABF16, which although was an indirect reference, included Bill Cosby on "Kids Say the Darndest Things" and his Pokemon fit.

------- I too thing that was an impressive animation, although I was expecting to see Maggie somewhere in this. At the least the shot could have moved into her crib and showed her make a "suck".

Jay LaRochelle:

I seem to recall a sign in "Homerpalooza" indicating that Capital City was only thirty-some miles from Springfield, but it seems to be farther away in pretty much every other episode.

Nathan Mulac DeHoff wrote:

Yeah, thirty-FIVE miles now.

Well, to be fair, "Homerpalooza" took place before they moved the town two miles down the road in "Trash of the Titans."

[email] (Benjamin Robinson) wrote in news:[email]:

Must have been the latter (well, I don't know about "the East"). On FOX in Boston, we saw Homer at the door, drunk, Marge looks mad, Homer gives her flowers, she says something about a gas station having such nice bouquets. She then "swoons" and he grabs her as she falls backwards. The result is what you saw.

Jim

Benjamin Robinson wrote:

I think a commercial ran too long on your local station; I'm in Ohio and saw it all. From memory, Homer appears home drunk but presents Marge with flowers from Chevron (the gas station). She passes out from amazement, and Homer passes out from alcohol simultaneously. Lisa comes down the stairs and makes a joke, then cut to I&S. (Check your tape - did the commercial right before your Act II include a local Fox promo or something from your cable provider? They're not always the best at timing, and it looks like you might have started exactly 30 seconds late.)

"Benjamin Robinson" wrote in message news:[email]...

And I noticed that the cartoon character of Mrs. Kravitz was drawn to look like her original portrayer, Alice Pearce. When Pearce died after only two seasons, Sandra Gould took over for the rest of the series. For years, the first two seasons of "Bewitched" were out of syndication (they aren't in color), so many people aren't familiar with Pearce's portrayal.

"Uniblab" wrote in message news:4031886a$[email]...

Of course, most fans of the show would consider Pearce the definitive Gladys.

On Tue, 17 Feb 2004 00:36:45 GMT, [email] (Benjamin Robinson) wrote:

You missed....

The Hudson Brothers. Part of the great musical/variety show fad in the 1970s. Starring in "The Hudson Brothers Razzle Dazzle Show" were Brett, Bill and Mark Hudson. I think they were mainly aimed at the Tiger Beat crowd.

On Mon, 16 Feb 2004 20:51:20 -0700, Alan Hamilton wrote:

And one of them married Cindy Williams of *Laverne and Shirley*.

"Scott Munro" wrote in message news:[email]...

That would be Bill Hudson, who is also the father of Kate Hudson (although Kate was raised by her mother Goldie Hawn and Goldie's longtime live-in, Kurt Russell). Bill and Cindy are currently going through a divorce.

And nowadays, the younger generation would likely only know them as including the father of Kate Hudson. Bill's her father.

And Mark Hudson was the neighbor on "Sara" circa 1985, where Geena Davis had the starring role.

Michael

"Benjamin Robinson" wrote in message news:[email]...

Dishes that say "No MSG" or "No MSG added" can actually contain lots of MSG:

http://www.truthinlabeling.com/nomsg.html

MSG is in nearly every processed food other than sweets. It's even in some nasal sprays:

http://www.truthinlabeling.org/II.WhereIsMSG.html

MSG is often in foods but not listed on the ingredient list as MSG or Monosodium Glutamate, because it is often called other things such as Glutamate, Glutamic acid, Calcium caseinate, Monopotassium glutamate, Sodium caseinate, Yeast nutrient, Yeast extract, Autolyzed yeast, Hydrolyzed protein, (any protein that is hydrolyzed) Hydrolyzed corn gluten and others:

"That Guy" wrote in message news:...

It's also in Marge's pork chops.

"That Guy" wrote in message news:...

It couldn't possibly be as good as the food described in http://www.snpp.com/episodes/1F06.html as containing the following ingredients:

Ingredients: "Salt, artificial honey-roasting agents, [excited] pressed peanut sweepings..." Mmm.

Space Mvsevm