On a research trip, Lisa is shocked to discover that Sideshow Bob is now the chief scientist at a massive chemical engineering company, but they bond over their appreciation for high-culture. Marge attempts to preach healthy sexual practices to a teen church group, which goes awry.
Now for part two of our special double episode extravaganza. Not only will Sideshow Bob grace us with an appearance, but apparently him and Lisa will buddy up tonight. I would say here’s hoping, but we all know what’s going to happen here.
Dead Homer Society 
18 responses to “Sunday Preview: The Man Who Grew Too Much”
I will not be watching either new episode. I have finally reached the point where I am DONE with this show. I don’t know why I didn’t stop watching after that infamous Lady Gaga episode.
The last new one I watched was the one where CBG married a cardboard cutout. She might as well have been one….her reason for existense was to be CBG’s wife.
Beaten.
I ended up watching this and now I wish I didn’t like I’ve done with almost every other episode in the past few seasons, Perhaps I like torturing myself maybe?
Yeah, I know that feel. Having stumbled upon this blog almost four years ago myself, I think mainly because I was looking for people like me who want to see this piece of rotten shit die one day.
This was a boring episode. Yes, genetically-engineered foods have a lot of potential advantages, but Monsanto is not a nice corporation: It is a monopolistic giant that puts small farmers out of business, replaces all our food with corn and corn syrup, and abuses growers in third world countries. Maybe the idea of Sideshow Bob’s modifications could have been humorous, but instead they were overdone and uninteresting. Genetically modified food was not funny in the marijuana episode, but that was just one joke; this dragged out the humorless premise for half an hour.
lol an episode about GMOs… Wow, that’s pretty fresh and new! Okay, now to start my time machine and go back to 2007 where I came from.
As usual, The Simpsons had more memorable scenes on the subject (though I haven’t watched this or any episodes from the last 2 seasons), such as the giant tomato from Duffless.
It always bugs me when Zombie Simpsons uses Sideshow Bob. Did ZS even explain why Sideshow Bob is evil again after saving Bart, Lisa and the town of Springfield in the episode Brother From Another Series?
I don’t think the writers ever watched this one. To any newcomers on the prod they probably just show Season 1, and then they’re on the job.
Animators too lazy to draw him in anything other than a prison uniform?
It started off kinda promising when the friendship between Bob and Lisa was introduced, but just tanked in virtually every other aspect
-Lisa actually went on the staunch promotion of genetically modified food? At least it broke Lisa out of her usual stereotyped liberal stances on things, but really came out of nowhere. Not to mention GMOs are both a non-issue in the U.S. these days and alternately banned in most Western/EU nations.
-A lot of overdone jokes. The license plates, mutant Bob, that whole abstinence bit. The only ones I kinda likes were with Jasper and with the scientists saying “What are we even doing?” after doing shock tests on Bob.
-Did they really just hit a new low with Rod and Todd? Made worse by Ned hearing what they said and not caring.
-Bart was just annoying in this one. Kinda hoped Bob was able to do a bit more to him before the end.
-So Bob saved Barts life….why?? Bob would have been completely blameless, not to mention Bart insulted him just beforehand. Bob isn’t Frank Grimes
-The whole abstinence bit was kinda dumbly handled. Why were the bullies attending again? Why did that tacky Mideast comparison have to be made? It also pretty much promoted teen sex, made a bit more unsettling by the fact that the bullies’ ages range from tween to high school age. I mean they still go to Bart’s school, right? At least Kearney’s “I live in a drawer” son didn’t make an appearance
-So Bob is pretty much free by the end of the episode. Everyone thinks he’s dead and he just walks away
-The Edna bit was nice, though the way the episode sets it ups is weird. Ned says earlier that he’s having tango lessons with Edna, but it’s shown to just be a dream. Does that mean Ned lost his grip on reality, or is this whole episode just a dream?
From what I understand, the plot just copied The Old Man and The Lisa, with bits from Brother From Another Series in which itself the fact that Bob saves the kids in the end was already kinda convoluted, right? If I knows ZS the way I knows them, I can predict that it went as follows: Lisa and Bart stumble upon Bob running a Monsanto-ripoff company. Lisa is first encouraged and proud of Bob, but then first out that his evil plans include pumping food with GMOs. So instead of the Lisa I used to know, she somehow approves of it and the episode resolves when Bob saves Bart from something, but then they think he’s dead?
FUCK ME TENDER if THIS is “one of their characters dying this year”…
If this is the character that “died” this year, then congratulations. The writers of what was once the greatest American comedy of all time are now officially more pathetic and gutless than the writers of Family Guy. (Give them credit: it took a lot of guts to kill a character for an entire two episodes, midseason, AND create a brand new opening for said two episodes.)
There are actually two TV characters that I want to compare Al Jean to right now, but I’d be afraid of insulting said TV characters.
No, the actual evil twist was that Bob successfully genetically modified himself to have superhuman strength and the ability to breathe underwater.
What?!? ahahaha seriously?
@ Stan
A few differences. Here’s how it went in a nutshell
Lisa hastily concludes that GMOs are good after some quick research offscreen (“They can solve world hunger”), a Monsarno representative comes out of nowhere and approves of her endorsement so much she invites Lisa and the family to Monsarno. It turns out Bob is head scientist of the company.
Bob explains how he got there, then Bart makes a dumb impersonation of him and almost drinks phosphoric acid before Bob swats it out of his hand Frank Grimes style and tells him he almost killed himself. He then flatters Lisa and invites her for some intellectual free time as a friend and fellow researcher.
Lisa takes the offer and things go all well and good until Bob saves Lisa’s life through a surprising display of superhuman strength, then randomly breaks himself loose and goes on a rampage because he apparently gave himself DNA attributes of several known animals and plans on using the DNA of Einstein, George Washington and a bunch of other great men of history (something like Einstein’s brain is in Springfield is anyone’s guess) to become a superhuman evil mastermind.
Things are all going Bob’s way since he’s nigh immortal, chasing the kids to Springfield dam (what, again?). While beating up the teenagers Marge was teaching (who are there for some reason) and about to swallow Kearney whole, Lisa quotes Walt Whitman, suddenly causing Bob to stop everything and commit suicide by jumping off the dam. He does so, plummeting to the bottom yet lives because of his super strength and that he “forgot” that he gave himself gills.
About the “Simpsons character dying,” it looks like it will be Krusty’s father, Rabbi Hyman Krustofski, in an early 26th season since the episode has been revealed to be called “A Clown in the Dumps”. Not absolute yet, but seems very likely considering how minor he was and that he required a guest voice actor.
Actually thanks for the recap, I wasn’t counting for one until Joe Matar on Youtube would do his infamous Simpsum once again (you’re not him, right?).
Well, this really is an episode not to remember, because Bob’s devious mastermind thinking completely went Phinneas and Ferb in this one case. Hearing from these new plots I often catch myself on the fact that stupid can ‘sometimes’ be funny, but if you start passing constantly one for another, you’ll either end up wasting your reputation, losing your credibility, or both.
And as for Krusty’s father dying… Hell, Krusty himself is dead to me since long ago, why should we care if some prop character dies, no matter who voices him? Frankly, the only way for them to make me watch the show again, at least one, is to kill Homer Simpson. That’s right. An episode where Homer indefinitely perishes, finale or not, will ultimately grab my attention. Anything else… don’t bother.
I’ll quickly catch the rss feed as I are unable to locating your own e-mail subscription weblink and also e-newsletter service. Carry out you’ve got any? Be sure to well then, i’ll recognise to ensure I can sign up to. Many thanks.