“Yo, um, I must’ve like, fallen on a bullet, and it like, drove itself into my gut.” – Snake

“Hey, don’t worry.  You don’t have to make up stories here, save that for court.” – Dr. Nick Riviera

In an attempt to fill the summer with love, hate and pointless Simpsons commentary we at the Dead Homer Society are going to spend some time overthinking Season 8.  Why Season 8?  Because Season 8 is when The Simpsons really began to deteriorate into Zombie Simpsons.  That’s why.  Because we’re cutting edge and ultra-modern we’re using a newfangled, information-superhighway fad called a “chatroom” to conduct our conversation.  This text has been edited for clarity and spelling (especially on “wheelbarrow”).

Today’s episode is 817 “My Sister, My Sitter“, tomorrow’s will be 821 “The Old Man and the Lisa“.

Charlie Sweatpants: Shall we get started with My Sister, My Sitter?

Mad Jon: Yes, My sister my sitter.

Charlie Sweatpants: Initial thoughts and impressions?

Mad Jon: My wife made a comment when she walked into the room as I was prepping this episode: “I hate this episode but I can’t explain why.”

I don’t hate it

Dave: I’m mostly indifferent to it

Mad Jon: But I can understand where she is coming from

I just get bored with it

Charlie Sweatpants: I’m pretty positive on this one.

Dave: Yeah?

Mad Jon: There isn’t a lot that’s wrong with it, but there are only a few good jokes and there are hints to Zombieish behavior

Charlie Sweatpants: There are two plot moves that make no sense, Lisa babysitting for Bart and then Lisa’s actions at the very end, but other than that this one is pretty good.

Dave: I’ve always found Bart’s antics to be a bit out of character

Mad Jon: Homer, spends no time at the plant and the water fountains at the squid port might as well as been baseball bats

Charlie Sweatpants: “hints” is a good way to put it. But there’s only that, most of the gags work. Even when Bart gets hurt and Homer gets trapped in the fountain nothing super outrageous happens.

Homer isn’t blasted into the sky by the fountain or anything.

Mad Jon: Homer also wears a tuxedo for the hell of it

Dave: And a monocle

Mad Jon: and drives through the pedestrian mall. That he wouldn’t have even wanted to go to.

Charlie Sweatpants: Okay the driving through the pedestrian mall I’ll give you.

Dave: What about getting trapped in a fountain?

Charlie Sweatpants: But I didn’t think the tux was too out of character. He’s taken Marge out to fancy places before.

Dave: Like Bart’s behavior, it seems a little off

Mad Jon: I was happy with the following: Dr Nick’s office, the climax where Mrs Lovejoy says Lisa’s on drugs, Wiggum’s realization that he has tickets to Bob Saget, and the Eye on Springfield opening

The rest was like purgatory

Charlie Sweatpants: Ha, the Eye on Springfield opening is one of the things I’m not too keen on.

Mad Jon: Its a classic opening

Charlie Sweatpants: But it doesn’t have it’s own opening.

The stories are good, but the actual opening is just the theme song and the logo.

Mad Jon: Fair enough

Charlie Sweatpants: There’s no bikini girls, or Kent having sushi in the bathtub with Geisha girls.

No Krusty putting animals into one end of Krusty Burger, either.

Mad Jon: That just goes against the episode because that means they cut the opening to make room for more boring pre-zombie antics

This episode contains 53% new footage

Charlie Sweatpants: Lisa taking Bart to the emergency clinic is good.

Dave: I like Snake’s explanation for his gunshot wound

Mad Jon: Oh yea, the wheelbarrow deal.

Charlie Sweatpants: And Dr. Nick’s thing about him not need to lie there, “save that for court”.

Dave: and to backtrack, the stores in the Squidport are all pretty clever

Charlie Sweatpants: Also true.

Mad Jon: I like the clipboard at Dr. Nick’s, especially the allergy section: Mace, Pepper Spray, Bullets.

Charlie Sweatpants: I liked “unusual sex practice”

Dave: Heh.

Mad Jon: ha ha

Dave: Did either of you catch the “Poochie Close-out” sign?

Charlie Sweatpants: In front of the I&S Store, yeah.

Mad Jon: Yeah I saw that, I first thought it said “Store Closing” so I had to rewind it.

Charlie Sweatpants: See? There’s lots of stuff like that in this one.

Mad Jon: We have mentioned maybe 3 or 4 minutes worth of one liners and sight gags.

Charlie Sweatpants: It’s just that the basic premise is a little whacked because there’s no way Homer and Marge would trust Lisa to Bart and no way Lisa would agree to it.

Mad Jon: I wasn’t trying to say the episode sucked, as it doesn’t but I do find it boring. Minus a few good scenes.

Charlie Sweatpants: What about Rod and Todd?

That part was great. No dice in the game, they’re scared of bugs, and need stories told to them about robots.

Dave: I actually think Homer and Marge would agree to the idea, it’s just Bart’s reaction is way over the top for me

Mad Jon: I am ok with Rod and Todd, but Lisa kinda fucked it up.

Dave: It just feels like a lazy plot device because they ran out of things for Lisa to do as a babysitter

And therein lies the problem. It’s about a 10 minute episode stretched to 21 minutes

Mad Jon: Flanders’ explanation of why he needed a babysitter was better

Dave: It’s not bad, just meh.

Charlie Sweatpants: Well, Bart was always supposed to be hellish on babysitters. I’ll grant that it’s a little over the top, but it never struck me as all that bad.

Yeah, the Holy Land thing is hilarious.

Dave, I see where you’re coming from on that.

But this is an episode that grew on me the more I watched it. I remember being kind of down on it at first, but once you’ve gone numb to the admittedly improbable story there are a lot of great jokes and quotes.

Dave: On that last part I agree, sure

Mad Jon: See, I am kind of the opposite, the more I watch it the less I like it.

Its like the B-sharps, it gets less funny each time I hear it.

Charlie Sweatpants: Bart’s comment about all the best bands being affiliated with Satan cracks me up, especially since like two years later Creed came along and proved him right.

Dave: Ugh, Creed.

Mad Jon: Didn’t they just get back together?

Dave: Nauseous visions of high school dances and other shitty events…

Mad Jon: That shall be your eternal punishment for going to high school dances.

Dave: I deserve it.

Charlie Sweatpants: You sure do. Okay, rankings of this episode within Season 8?

I’ve gotta to mid to high, but I think I’m gonna be an outlier on that.

Mad Jon: Its right down the middle for me. Not bad, not good, some funny stuff, and some stuff that pisses me off.

Dave: Middleish?

Yeah like I said, I’m indifferent to it. There’s definitely some funny stuff and I certainly don’t hate it

Mad Jon: I think Lisa turns me off most of the episode. She’s too Lisa-ish.

Ha

I bet some googlers disagree with my last statement. But we’ll have to wait for the next porn search post.

Charlie Sweatpants: How do you mean? Seems like babysitting would be something that’s right up her alley.

Mad Jon: Yeah, but it was too Lisa-y

Charlie Sweatpants: You mean like where she’s just a little too strident for an 8 year old?

Mad Jon: It was like Lisa was doing an imitation of herself being a babysitter.

Charlie Sweatpants: Okay, I see what you’re saying.

You certainly see that towards the end as her mis-adventure gets worse and worse.

Mad Jon: Oh yeah.

Charlie Sweatpants: Favorite or most hated parts?

Dave: Favorite: Squidport shops, Homer’s monocle

Hated: Bart, in general

Charlie Sweatpants: I’m more down on the post-emergency clinic part of Lisa’s adventure.

The Wiggum stop is kinda lame, and then Bart falling into the harbor takes forever.

Dave: Oh, and the “She’s on drugs!” bit is great

Mad Jon: I don’t know, I guess my favorite was Dr. Nicks office, and most hated would be Homer and Marge at the Squidport post store montage.

Charlie Sweatpants: I always like the fountain bit because it’s got the “don’t laugh at me, I was once like you” line. That’s one I use all the time.

Mad Jon: yeah ok, that lines is funny, but still, Bad! Bad Simpsons writers! No Homer Abuse for the hell of it!

Charlie Sweatpants: It’s pretty mild on the Homer Abuse scale though.

Dave: Indeed.

Charlie Sweatpants: He didn’t end up naked, on fire or even in any serious pain. Just utter humiliation.

Mad Jon: And involuntary manslaughter is pretty mild on the human killing scale too.

Charlie Sweatpants: Touche, counselor.