Tag: I Won’t Be Home For Christmas

“Hey, I thought Krusty was Jewish.” – Lisa Simpson “Christmas is a time when people of all religions come together to worship Jesus Christ.” – Bart Simpson According to IMDb, this is the first whole episode Al Jean’s written in a long time.  Sadly, it didn’t seem to matter.  Homer goes on one zany little escapade after another, there’s plenty of expository nonsense, several musical montages that seem designed to do nothing more than eat clock (efforts at which fell so short that they added a preview of the next episode to help fill all twenty of their contractually obligated minutes), and the usual Zombie Simpsons problems. – It’s probably longer than it needs to be, but this Christmas themed opening is actually a nice change of pace.  There’s even some freeze frame fun (all the Jewish characters are eating at the Chinese restaurant). – The Peanuts reference to open the episode at least didn’t take long.  It didn’t have anything to do with anything else, but it was short. – The Comic Book Guy thing with the Star Wars Holiday Special, however, did take too long and didn’t have anything to do with anything else. – Bizarre kookiness starts early here, with Marge telling Bart to hold the ladder she’s using to trim the tree only to look down and see Maggie!  She falls, then laments out loud that Homer isn’t there.  Why did she think Bart was there?  C’mon, that was like four seconds ago, who can possibly remember that far into the past? – Burns shows up for no reason to talk to Homer.  Then Smithers appears out of nowhere. – The clip from Miracle on 34th Street is weirdly out of place. – Homer’s at Moe’s because Moe made him crash his car (don’t ask), then is going to leave before Moe begs and screams at him to take pity on him and stay.  The obvious repetition is what’s supposed to make this funny, I guess, but that’s all it is: hey, Moe screaming and crying is funny, let’s keep at it!  That this is just the usual “Moe the Sad Sack” stuff makes it lamer still. – Now Moe is telling us that he’s wrapped around Homer’s leg, and now he’s up on Homer’s shoulders.  Oof, this just keeps going. – Moe was briefly happy, so he stabbed himself in the head with a corkscrew. – Now Marge is telling us what’s happening, “One night, the one night of the year I want Homer home with his family, and he can’t even do that.” – Then Marge tells us what she’s about to say.  Did anyone edit this? – Homer’s driving around now, finds Moe’s closed, then goes to the Kwik-E-Mart where he spends the better part of a minute buying lottery tickets. – This is what passes for a setup these days, “Aw, thanks for your honesty, Apu.  Is there any other product in the store you’d like to warn me about?”.  Such natural dialogue! –…