“Ooh, I hear this really sucks.” – Lisa Simpson

For the third summer in a row, we at the Dead Homer Society are looking to satisfy your off-season longing for substandard commentary on substandard Simpsons.  This summer we’ll be looking at Season 10.  Why Season 10?  Because we’ve already done Seasons 8 and 9 and we can’t put it off any longer.  Prior to Season 10, we watched as the show started falling over, this is when it fell over.  And while the dust wouldn’t settle completely for another season or so, there is no bigger gap in quality than the one between Season 9 and Season 10.  Since we prefer things to remain just as they were in 1995, we’re sticking with this chatroom thing instead of some newer means of communication that we all know just isn’t as good.  This text has been edited for clarity and spelling (especially on “cellophane”).

Today’s episode is 1021 “Monty Can’t Buy Me Love”.  Tomorrow will be 1022 “They Saved Lisa’s Brain”.  This week we’ve also got a special guest, our old friend Bob Mackey. 

Charlie Sweatpants: Shall we get started with the unscheduled trip to Scotland?

Mad Jon: Oh sure.

Bob Mackey: Yeah this episode brings up particularly bad memories.

Charlie Sweatpants: I was still trying to defend the show when this was broadcast. It wouldn’t last much longer.

Bob Mackey: I worked a really depressing temp job at a bank for a month, and my Simpsons calendar featured an image from this episode for most of that time

So I might be even more biased.

Mad Jon: You have every right to be.

Charlie Sweatpants: Ouch, that’s a bad association for sure.

Mad Jon: I know I have seen this episode before, multiple times. But I have never watched it with any kind of critical eye at all. Now that I have, this may be the laziest, most un-explicable episode so far.

Bob Mackey: This one kind of proved that no one in that era knew how to write for Mr. Burns.

  Which is why they practically retired him after this.

Charlie Sweatpants: My defense at this point was that I often liked them more on a second viewing when the shock of the weird plot twists had worn off. But when Season 10 hit syndication I found myself not even making it through the reruns. This one is a prime example of why.

Burns is out and out painful here.

  He’s very un-Burns-like in every way imaginable, from his thin skin and never before seen need to be loved to his bizarre reliance on Homer for everything.

Bob Mackey: I haven’t pried open this DVD set since the one time I watched it. And when I noticed it’s themed after the Simpsons movie, and I got a little sad.

Mad Jon: Didn’t even notice that.

Charlie Sweatpants: Nor I.

Mad Jon: But to be fair, the cellophane only came off when it was time to start chatting about this season….

Bob Mackey: Yeah he and Burns are way too buddy-buddy in this one. I liked their previous character dynamic much more.

Even when he was completely dependent in "Homer the Smithers", he was still vicious; now he’s a second version of Grandpa Simpson.

Charlie Sweatpants: That’s a depressingly accurate way to put it. He can’t figure out *anything* anymore.

Mad Jon: The only Burns line I can remember is when he says that the orphanage isn’t going to demolish itself.

  Which is followed by him cattle prodding every recognizable face they could draw.

Charlie Sweatpants: The cattle prod thing goes on forever, they really thought they were onto something there.

Bob Mackey: I did want to mention their Howard Stern parody.

Charlie Sweatpants: By all means.

Bob Mackey: It’s not even a parody! It’s just someone writing Stern material. There’s absolutely no twist or different take on that character.

Charlie Sweatpants: The same can be said of Michael McKean’s other part as Not Richard Branson.

Both are so mild as to not even be satire.

Bob Mackey: And then Burns says something like "Stop all the farting!" and you start wondering if you’re watching the right show.

Mad Jon: Ah yes, followed by his desperate pleas to the listeners that most of the noises aren’t coming from him.

Bob Mackey: Real Burns would have had that guy murdered horribly!

Mad Jon: Just like the Rolling Stones.

Bob Mackey: Yeah, you don’t hear from them anymore.

Charlie Sweatpants: Nah, real Burns would’ve had hired goons precede him and make the show go perfectly for him.

Bob Mackey: Ooh, even better. Like when he took over the TV station in Rosebud?

Charlie Sweatpants: But you’re right, the last thing he would do is show up and make a fool of himself. Then again, at that point he’d already showed up at the Simpsons house for dinner by himself, tossed silver dollars off a roof, and punched a statue for no reason.

  He’s pretty much the polar opposite of himself from "Rosebud" here.

Mad Jon: Then he rode home in Homer’s beat the fuck up car.

Charlie Sweatpants: There he knew what he wanted and got it, everyone and everything else be damned.

Bob Mackey: I noted that — it was weird to see the show cut to a new scene with Burns just standing in their dining room.

Mad Jon: Compare this Burns to the one from the German episode.

  Burns from the German episode demanded fear from the common folks, now he just wants cuddles.

Charlie Sweatpants: It’s a direct contradiction.

  And not an improvement.

Bob Mackey: True, most of the Burns episodes take power away from him in some way, but he’s still ruthless regardless.

  Not in this one, though.

Charlie Sweatpants: Even beyond Burns, this episode flies apart at every seam it’s got. Act 2 alone starts with Burns surprising Homer in the plant and ends with them flying to . . . wait for it . . . Scotland.

  Where, and this gobsmacked me at the time and did again today, they actually find the Loch Ness Monster.

Bob Mackey: And Groundskeeper Willie is there for no reason.

Mad Jon: In the random cutaway from the car ride. Also Willy is there.

Bob Mackey: Right!

Charlie Sweatpants: How desperate for an ending were they?

Mad Jon: Desperate enough not to really have one.

Bob Mackey: I will admit that the reverse King Kong joke at the end was inspired, but it would be even funnier without Nessie there.

Charlie Sweatpants: I try to avoid playing Monday morning script doctor, but wouldn’t the more satisfying ending have been a failure to find the monster, a subsequent humiliation of Burns, and his regressing back to hating everyone?

Mad Jon: Not a bad idea.

Charlie Sweatpants: Instead, they put a real life damn monster in the episode. My head shakes every time I think about it.

I’ll agree the flash bulb thing kinda works, but it’s not nearly enough.

Mad Jon: I am sure you noticed this, but the monster followed your animation failure from the Screaming Yellow Honkers episode.

Charlie Sweatpants: I noticed.

Bob Mackey: And a purple monster at that — apparently it was a cel-painting error they were too cheap to fix.

Charlie Sweatpants: It gets bigger and smaller at random. One minute it’s four stories high, the next it’s standing next to Burns in a damn casino.

  This whole thing is a hot mess.

Mad Jon: I am pretty sure it just gets smaller. It is almost like each time they divided by three, until it is only a few feet taller than normal humans.

  It was frickin’ huge in the loch, which, by the way, was only about 2 feet deep on its own.

Bob Mackey: I guess the writers had so few Scotland jokes that we get part of Act 3 instead of an entire episode.

Charlie Sweatpants: The Scots are about the only part of this one I really like.

  It’s just the one joke about them having horrible lives and taking them with barely a complaint, but it’s kinda funny when Homer twirls in his kilt, when their town drowns, and when Willie talks with his parents.

Bob Mackey: This also has a continuity error everyone likes to complain about

Charlie Sweatpants: Just one?

Bob Mackey: Well, the thing about Willie’s father having been hung for stealing a pig

Charlie Sweatpants: I could see that. It doesn’t rate for me though. I’m pretty apathetic about inter-episode continuity. Intra-episode making the least fucking sense however, that I care about.

Bob Mackey: Doesn’t bother me, but I thought it should be mentioned.

Mad Jon: Well this has plenty of that, or plenty of not having it… I guess.

Charlie Sweatpants: This one does it in spades. Why is Homer’s ass on every TV in the mega store? How do those silver dollars cover an entire block? How did they pump the giant lake dry? How did the hospital think it was Homer’s money? Why, for that matter, did Burns give Homer the damn check? Oh, and the damn Loch Ness monster.

Sorry, I don’t mean to rant, but this one is nonsensical and hyperactive in a way that few in Season 10 are. That’s something that’s gotten much more prevalent, and watching it today I was really struck by how much of a resemblance it bears to Seasons 20+.

Mad Jon: Most agreed.

Bob Mackey: I was pretty supportive of the show at that point, but this episode left me feeling kind of sick.

Charlie Sweatpants: Even the Antiques Roadshow thing at the beginning is like that. Instead of it being a real PBS satire like at the beginning of "Marge on the Lam", it’s Moe and Skinner and Homer and the gang.

Mad Jon: My favorite line came at the end anyway. When the re-dubbed Lisa’s earlier quote over the production credits "Ooh I hear this really sucks…"

Bob Mackey: You guys mind if we move on to the next one?

Charlie Sweatpants:  By all means. The quicker I stop thinking about this one the better my blood pressure will be.

Mad Jon: Let’s do it.