Notes for PABF05 (Moe Goes from Rags to Riches)

Well that was remarkable from start to finish... for being ridiculous. I enjoy a good high concept, and I appreciate the "unlikely tale of an object" angle... but this episode just didn't know what to do with itself. It really didn't need a subplot (maybe the spirits felt the main story was a little thin, but wouldn't there be plenty of room to flesh it out?), or the weird predictability of each act using the subplot as an opener. But the real problem is that it just wasn't all that funny (or touching) - full of obvious gags, you know? It could have been a lot better without much effort.

DYN: ...one of King Nelson's wives is apparently Disney's Princess Jasmine? ...the map has some labels in English, but entries like "Athena" (not the Latin or Greek for Athens, by the way) and Carthago (which is Latin), and then "spAIN" (where the capital SP are smaller)? ...Bart seems to be filling FLOATING balloons with oxygen... on Everest? ...a LOT of looped (but not reanimated) lines in the Bart/Milhouse subplot?

Previous episode stuff NABF13: Milhouse's affinity for Finding Nemo DABF08: The peasant French Simpsons 2F15: Marge's loom skills 7F18: Burns commissions Marge for a portrait of himself, and it's not what he expected, but beautiful (I like how attention was not called to this)

Meta Jimbo the guard tells King Nelson that he's already discarded almost 500 wives; Nelson thinks it's weird that he's counting. We're 2 episodes away from The Simpsons' 500th episode. I hope it's better. (Oddly there doesn't seem to be that much hoopla about it yet!)

Couch gag This is the first HD/widescreen couch gag to be used three times (and the first overall in about 4 years). It is also missing the pained sound Lisa/Marcia makes when hit by a ball in the Brady Bunch segment.

DYN: That at one point, Homer was "Dancing On The Ceiling":

On Jan 29, 11:44 pm, [email] wrote:

He wasn't the first one:

[email] wrote:

And dancing to a song by the same guy who sang "Dancing On The Ceiling", no less.

There was a period where having everyone in town dance and celebrate together was a common way to end episodes; see Sweets And Sour Marge (DABF03), for example. Having it happen at the start of the episode was an odd twist.

Lionel Ritchie.

On Sun, 29 Jan 2012, Matthew Garvey wrote:

I'm not usually critical of the episodes, but this one seemed like it had potential, and then failed. The idea of a tapestry that foretold the future was interesting, but then it didn't really do anything but be a joke. They spent long time in the beginning, then glossed over things towards the end. I thought it was going to be like the Tall Tales episode or any of those episodes where something is used to put the family in different situations from literature or history, but that didn't quite happen. It has similarities to the episode with "Bobo" the bear, but not only did that episode get the history out of the way fast, it showed the bear in a bunch of more significant points in history.

The idea probably would have been better if the rag wasn't that old. Set its beginnings in the 20th century, the beginning, and have it travel through history.

Michael

So am I alone on this, or does anyone else think this one may truly be the actual "Worst Episode Ever"? I'm usually a defender of late-era Simpsons and I've liked most of this season, but this thing was a mess. I'm not even sure I cracked a smile once. Something was just strangely off about the whole thing..

-lugnut

It has some pretty strong competition from pretty much all of the other episodes I managed to see this season.

SparkoHeaps wrote in news:7d2dfc48-0180-4ab2-b6ca- [email]:

If all you expect (or want) is to see something bad, that's probably all you'll notice.

Once Upon A Time, Wiseguy wrote:

True, and especially true when they shovel crap at us week after week.

** Captain Infinity

I don't know if I'd *quite* go that far, but it was pretty darn bad, yeah.