5/6/2001 Episode capsulre submission

Quick plot summary: Ned Flanders honours his wife's memory with the construction of a religious theme park.

Spoilers.

Thoughts: Back to basics for this season! As in, compared to last week's episode ("Trilogy of Error"), this episode was quite weak. While it had its moments, (ie: "I have ants crawling on the inside of my mouth and I don't care" - Millhouse) it's becoming quite clear to me that they are running out of ideas. 60%.

Simpsons 5/6/2K1

DYN... -Professor John Frink says "Ivan Reitman" when he gets kicked in the stomach by the cow? -Ned Flanders says "Maude Gone Minute" rather than the expected "Doggone Minute" when Rachel intends to go to a hotel? -As lambs get burned down, two leave armature wire frames, one of them leaves a skeleton?

Memorable quote: "What was that, floating mask? You want me to shoot everyone?" -Chief Wiggam

Pop culture references: Praiseland - obvious play on Graceland (someone else fill in the details...I'm not an Elvis expert).

John Travolta and Saturday Night Fever - Disco Stu's vision of heaven in which he sees John Travolta wearing the white polyester leisure suit as seen in Saturday Night Fever. Inside the dance floor, he sees Frank Sinatra.

Star Trek (original series): the crew of the old Enterprise shows up in CBG's vision of heaven, as does the regular cast (with CBG appearing as Spock).

Get Smart - Agent 99 (played by Barbara Feldon) appears in CBG's vision of the heaven

Catwoman - DC Comics' nemesis of a certain Caped Crusader makes an appearance in CBG's vision of heaven.

Previous episode refs: -3F03 Lisa the Vegetarian: The return to "Storytown Village", only it's been condemned because some kid got decapitated in it. Oops.

Peace, Vince Yim

I don't think anyone could convincingly say the writers of the Simpsons are capable of running out of ideas. No one in their right mind could have predicted that Ned would someday build a Christian theme park. What the writers are running out of, however, are ideas that make sense, and a good plot to hold the jokes. I still laugh at the Simpsons, but more often than not, it's followed by the shaking of my head - and that would be side to side, not violently in merriment. They'll do anything for a laugh these days, and sadly, they will write anything, no matter how stupid, to allow that setup to take place. Now if only they'd run out of drugs...