(long) A review of "C. E. D'oh! (EABF10)"
Benjamin Robinson
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 SCHOOL
Extension school entrance:
EXTENSION
SCHOOL
ORIENTATION 7:30
GRADUATION 9:30
Body oil jug:
OIL
of
OH, YEAH!
Written on Richdale's chalkboard:
SUCCESSMANSHIP
101
People at successmanship class:
Richdale
Otto Homer Lenny Moleman
Barney CBG Carl Geeky-voiced
Teen
Yiddisha Kirk Van Willie
Guy Houten
Successmanship 101 textbook:
MEGATRONICS
The 48
Tips to
Corporate [portrait]
Success
STARK
RICHDALE
Homer's inspirational poster, before:
SWEDISH
BIKINI TEAM
And after:
SWEDISH
EFFICIENCY TEAM
Break room signs:
COFFEE CREAM STIRRERS
ROOM
Sign at Lego Land:
WELCOME tO
LEgO LaND
Picnic banner:
HOMER'S 305TH
EVERYTHING IS BACK
TO NORMAL BBQ
[Personal Comments & Observations]
>> Musical References
"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."
>> Meta-reference Corner
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.
>> The Day the Music Died
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."
>> Car Watching for Success
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.
>> What, no one wanted to be on the 'Topes?
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.
--
Benjamin Robinson bj...@freenet.tlh.fl.us
This message may or may not contain sarcastic content; your burden to decide
"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end" -- Semisonic
Jiffy
America. Rather than stark enjoyment, once again the populous has chosen to
be ANALytical. If only you would put this effort into AIDS research. Get a
life. Subtle entertainment for the intelligent should be left for the brains
of those who can appreciate it.
"Benjamin Robinson" <bj...@freenet.tlh.fl.us> wrote in message
news:3e7675b8...@news.digital.net...
Joshua
news:jtEda.1315$lQ4.4...@news20.bellglobal.com:
> And this is what would be wrong with society or should I say corporate
> America. Rather than stark enjoyment, once again the populous has
> chosen to be ANALytical. If only you would put this effort into AIDS
> research. Get a life. Subtle entertainment for the intelligent should
> be left for the brains of those who can appreciate it.
No YOU shut up!
(And did you have to quote the entire review? Jeez.)
Matt Garvey
a look around snpp (the other snpp) and make your comment then.
a friendly message from matt
Park Luck
Hell, scientists have developed a hair pill AND a boner pill. Why care about
things like AIDS and cancer?
evan
James Pritchard
> Then again, maybe the writers could have fit this episode into its
> allotted time, after all. "Simpson and Delilah (7F02)" had a
> storyline that was at least as complex -- Homer grows hair, the hair
> gets him a better job, a secretary completes the makeover, Homer loses
> the hair and his new position -- and managed to do justice to all of
> its elements. That is why "Simpson and Delilah" will be a classic
> episode, while "C. E. D'oh!" will be remembered as an average show.
Great review (the rest of it too), I agree with your comments above.
I thought the third act ended very prematurely, and was a result of
poor writing given the time constraints of the show, as you note, they
have pulled it off far more sucessfully in the past. On the same
note, I'd love to see another two-part episode, though I'm not sure it
would necessarily guarentee any depth.
That Guy
posts while quoting the whole lengthy thing.
"Jiffy" <jiffy...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:jtEda.1315$lQ4.4...@news20.bellglobal.com...
dan
hilarious, but I can't remember the exact quote. Does anyone happen
to remember it? It was something along the lines of, "Did you expect
me to pollute my britches with delight?"
Gus Podgorny
> And this is what would be wrong with society or should I say corporate
> America. Rather than stark enjoyment, once again the populous has chosen to
> be ANALytical. If only you would put this effort into AIDS research. Get a
> life. Subtle entertainment for the intelligent should be left for the brains
> of those who can appreciate it.
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