Image used under Creative Commons license from Flickr user kubacheck.

“So what’s it like being famous, Dad?” – Bart Simpson
“People know your name, but you don’t know theirs. It’s great.” – Homer Simpson

I have not watched most of these Season 12 episodes since they originally blighted my television set. I didn’t forget how bad they were overall, but I did forget in just how many ways they’re specifically bad. The opening of this episode takes two whole minutes just to get Homer to make a phone call. They do so with a badger that’s hiding in the doghouse. (They have to bring back the badger at the end to drag this deadweight episode to the credits.) “Badger in doghouse” isn’t a terrible idea, but it’s also certainly not something that any self respecting show should try to string along for two whole minutes. And that’s just one example.

Possibly to avoid talking about the horribly boring filler material that makes up almost all of this episode, much of the commentary consists of them talking about a) how cool it was to meet The Who, b) how cool it was for The Who to meet them, and c) how they animated The Who. In fact, the commentary opens with The Who’s Roger Daltry; he wasn’t in the room with them but recorded a little story about doing the voices that plays later in the commentary. The Who were such a big deal that not only do they get their own segment on the commentary but they also merit a star studded commenting cast, it’s ten guys total including Groening, Meyer and Castellaneta.

1:45 – “I just watched it again last night and it’s kind of a crazy episode.”

2:15 – Long background about how they came up with the idea of there being two halves to the town. As per usual they’re ignoring the drawn out and pain filled opening.

3:15 – “This story went through a lot of incarnations, and uh, each one of them equally successful.” Then they all laugh at how dumb it is before talking about how they kept changing things because nothing worked, even doing things they initially vowed not to do. By the way, no one is talking about the fact that Homer just voluntarily got attacked by a badger and now has his internal organs exposed to the world.

4:30 – “I remember people on the internet were angry about Homer’s entrails being visible after the badger gored him.” It was stupid then and it’s stupid now, though I’d describe myself more as “bored” than “angry”.

5:30 – They’re trying to remember whether or not the concert was originally going to be at the beginning or not, they just knew they were going to have The Who.

8:00 – Long silence ended by a discussion of how pissed people were about getting new area codes and how “dark” it is that Homer tries to blow himself up at the town meeting. “Dark” is not the word I would go for there. “Cheap”? Sure. “Pointless”? Definitely. “Stupid”? For sure. But “dark”? How is this dark?

9:00 – Now that the cities are split there’s not much on the commentary. Someone noted that the Cardinals made the Super Bowl this year, that’s nice.

9:40 – Talking about how it didn’t make sense that the town was evenly split because there should be a lot more people on the poor side. We know.

10:40 – “I couldn’t figure out why the bullies were on the rich side of town.” That’s okay, neither can anyone else.

11:00 – Long silence at the clock eating scene where Marge and Apu talk about toilet paper.

12:15 – Discussing how cool it was to meet The Who.

13:00 – Still discussing The Who instead of the bizarre goings on of the episode.

14:20 – More stories about recording with The Who. Meanwhile the episode is crashing and burning.

15:20 – They’ve been telling stories about Pete Townsend’s brother for about a minute now. Episode: still shitty.

15:50 – Now they’re talking about seeing a taping of VH1’s Storytellers. Seriously.

16:40 – After that four minute introduction, Roger Daltry is now talking about doing the voice. He’s not in the same league as Joe Mantegna, but this is much more interesting than the rest of what’s going on here.

18:50 – And Daltry’s done.

19:15 – Discussing how they animated The Who as Homer pretends to be a rock star for thirty seconds.

20:00 – Once they’re done discussing animating The Who there’s a long silence as Homer gets set on fire and the band members resolve whatever it is that passes for the plot.

21:00 – Laughing at how poorly animated the crowd is.

21:30 – As the badgers plot to invade the town, Meyer is asked if he remembers where this came from. His answer: “Desperation”. They all laugh (it was funny), but it doesn’t do a whole lot to undermine my theory that this episode is terrible in every way imaginable.