Homer has a mid-life crisis, takes up bass guitar and forms a cover band with some of the other dads in town. But the band’s modest early success is soon overwhelmed by the breakout potential of their most unlikely star, Apu.
The Red Rocker himself, Sammy Hagar, will guest voice tonight in an episode that I can only speculate to be ‘dad-rrific’. If you are feeling musically inclined however, I would suggest pulling out your season 5 DVDs and watching “Homer’s Barbershop Quartet” instead.
Dead Homer Society 
35 responses to “Sunday Preview: Covercraft”
And besides, George Harrison is way cooler than Sammy Hagar.
(Okay, you might disagree with me about that, but George Harrison is one of my most favorite celebrities ever, and I never have been a fan of the sort of rock Sammy Hagar does.)
I wonder if they’ll reference Apu’s previous role in The Be Sharps – or is ‘That 90s Show’ the new canon now? I shudder to think.
You recommend ‘Homer’s Barbershop Quartet’ – and rightly so – but even ‘How I Spent My Strummer Vacation’ would be a more palatable alternative to this.
True, “Strummer Vacation” was pretty awful but as bad as these ZS have been….
Also some Homerpalooza vibes here.
“I wonder if they’ll reference Apu’s previous role in The Be Sharps”
Whoa, careful with such thoughts there, Jack. You’ll blow their brains out… wait, have they got any?
I get the feeling most current ZS writers have never even seen “Homer’s Barbershop Quartet.”
There was a picture of the Be Sharps in Apu’s dressing room.
I’m glancing at the TV while on mute and I can still tell they’ve done all this shit before. Compare and contrast is going to be easy this week.
So, what is the title pun here? Covers and Minecraft? Ughh…
A pun on “Hovercraft,” surely?
Turns out it’s just Homer mashing together “Cover” (song) and “Craft”. Hibbert states the obvious and notes it rhymes with hovercraft, which Homer dismisses as coincidence.
“Covercraft” doesn’t even rhyme with “Hovercraft” if you pronounce them both correctly…
How do you pronounce “hovercraft”? Also, is it even possible to have a “correct” way to pronounce a made up word? (well, a portmanteau but still)
I don’t know if there’s an accent where these two words rhyme perfectly. Perhaps so, but in my own accent (and in the American accents I’ve heard), “cover” is pronounced with more of a U sound – “cuh-ver” – while “hover” has more of an O sound – “hoh-ver”.
Am I wrong? It’s only a very minor thing, regardless.
Oxford begs to differ – cover: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/american_english/cover hover: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/american_english/hover
Perhaps “hoh-ver” is an Albany expression?
Bizarrely, the pronunciation guide says they rhyme but the “listen” buttons sound a bit different!
I don’t know why I care so much about this…
Am I the only one that hears it somehow? They sound different in the same way that “bother” and “mother” don’t quite rhyme either. (Though Oxford says those words ARE pronounced differently.)
One’s a near-open central vowel “ɐ” (close to the British ‘schwa’), the other’s an open back rounded vowel “ɒ”, same as in US pronunciation of “not”. In Canada, however, both sound alike.
Thanks for the clarification! I made way too big of a deal out of this.
I’m someone who lives in Mid-Atlantic U.S. and Appalachia and both “cover” and “hover” do rhyme perfectly, but yes, there certainly are regions in the U.S. where the words sound like what you’ve described.
Is there a region where they go “cah-vah”? In Eastern Canada the “oh” sound is really more of an “owe” sound than “awe”, so here we say both as “cohver” and “hohver”.
Yes. Covers and Minecraft. Definitely.
I only presumed there would be a b-plot of Bart (or Lisa… or Marge) getting addicted to Minecraft or something, with the premise being silly, the developing idea being plain dumb, and the conflict of his addiction never resolving itself at the end. “Hey, Minecraft’s been around long enough, it’s time we make ‘fun’ of it, huh?”
I’m not watching the show anyway, it’s worse for my health than alcohol. So yeah.
I’m actually still surprised they didn’t make an episode where Marge gets fond of taking selfies while Homer, Lenny and Carl decide to “Occupy Springfield” for Mayor Quimby to lower some tax funds. I mean, it’s been 2 years already, by the usual slowpoke progression momentum it should’ve already been on topic.
You know you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel when “Main character joins musical group with convenience store clerk” becomes a recurring plotline.
You know you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel when a cartoon sitcom runs for 26 fucking seasons.
Haha, yes.
You know you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel when you comment on posts 8 billion times.
Did they just actually make Kirk into a success? And Lovejoy is a rock star? What’s next, Flanders becomes a porn star?
I’d be careful with that, given that shower scene on the season 11 episode where Maude dies and Homer makes that dating video of Ned.
Baby on board,
How I’ve adored
That sign in my car’s windowpaaaaane
Now people will stop intentionally ramming our car!
I didn’t mind this too much aside from gool ‘ol jerkass Homer creeping up and the usual ZS blandness and lame jokes. Nothing too crazy happened here and the story was at least more believable than “Strummer Vacation”
Probably helped that there was a focus on Apu, the least annoying/boring out of the group. The explanation for his singing voice was actually kinda clever.
Also, since her voice actress died, it seems that Manjula will forever be a cardboard cut-out in future episodes never uttering a word. Unlike Krabappel, they don’t seem to want her to just “disappear” quite yet.
Certainly not going to recommend it, but it was the least grating so far this season.
According to simpsons.wikia.com, Jan Hooks voiced Manjula in only 6 episodes, and she is currently voiced by Tress MacNeille. But I haven’t seen the new episode, so I don’t know how contrived it felt for her to not speak.
The Be Sharps was a blink-and-miss reference, but even the Sadgasm ep was better than this. This was beyond pointless.
Worse than “That 90s Show”?! Mother of God…
I think I heard somewhere that Manjula was originally voiced in this episode, but then when Jan Hooks died they cut her dialogue out. I have a feeling she’ll pull a Lunchlady Doris and be voiced again after a while.