“Now, the only antidote to a zany scheme, is an even zanier scheme!” – Homer Simpson “Why does it have to be zany?” – Fat Nerd Since the show had all but run out of ideas by Season 11, it’s no surprise that they had to start revisiting topics and concepts that they’d already done with increasing frequency. And while most of “Kill the Alligator and Run” is a bizarre slideshow of the family leaping from one goofy, vaguely Southern situation to another, it gets there by transporting Homer to a raucous college party and having him run around with the drunken kids. As it happens, Homer had tried to party with college students once before, in Season 5’s infinitely better “Homer Goes to College”. As with so many comparisons between The Simpsons and Zombie Simpsons, to really get to the heart of the matter you have to put aside most of Zombie Simpsons usual problems. So, no, the trip to Florida doesn’t have anything to do with spring break, nor does it have much to do with Homer’s odd freakout at the beginning of the episode or the subsequent multi-act run from the law. And, no, Homer getting down with the college kids doesn’t make any sense on its own either, from his getting to the beach with a bed tied to him to his bizarre antics at the Kid Rock concert to the sheriff happily looking the other way for Homer. All of those typical Zombie Simpsons shortcuts distract from just how empty the comedy here really is, so while they exist and are a big part of what makes this episode so very unwatchable, they aren’t what makes their take on “spring break” so utterly empty, boring and unfunny. On the surface, both “Homer Goes to College” and “Kill the Alligator and Run” have Homer acting like a jerk around college kids. But if you look just a bit deeper, you can see that Zombie Simpsons wasn’t doing anything else while The Simpsons was using Homer for far more than just him running around and yelling. Homer yelling and running, there’s a lot of this. The premise of “Homer Goes to College” was that Homer, in his infinite stupidity, thought that all those Animal House style movies about college are what life on campus is really like. When he actually got there, he figured that the jocks would be constantly beating the nerds, that the dean was naturally out to get everyone, and that the rest of the students would feel the same way he did. Homer being Homer, he couldn’t see that none of that was true, and instead tried to do things like take the nerds on a beer fueled road trip and prank a nearby school that no one else on campus even cared about. The jokes come fast and heavy, but the main idea on which everything else rests is that Homer is wildly out of place and spectacularly wrong about what college…
Tag: Kill the Alligator and Run
Crazy Noises: Kill the Alligator and Run
“Florida? But that’s America’s wang.” – Homer Simpson For the fourth summer in a row, we here at the Dead Homer Society will be spending some time discussing twelve year old Simpsons episodes. This year we’re doing Season 11. Why Season 11? Because we’ve done Seasons 8, 9 and 10 already, and it’s time to take an unflinching look at the end of the show. Since Skype and podcasts didn’t exist in 1999, and we want to discuss these episodes the way the internet intended, we’re sticking with the UTF-8 world of chat rooms and instant messaging. This text has been edited for clarity and spelling (but not on “clusterfucktastic”, which is my new favorite word). [Note: Dave couldn’t make it this week.] Mad Jon: So, you ready to get this shitshow going? Charlie Sweatpants: Oh, let’s. Mad Jon: Kill the alligator and run? Charlie Sweatpants: Since I already had to suffer through watching it, yes, let the catharsis begin. Mad Jon: Excellent. I would like to begin by complaining about the parking cone hat man. Charlie Sweatpants: Gotta start somewhere. Mad Jon: I used to think this one was relatively watchable, then I realized that every time I watched it, I was either fucked up or doing something else. Because when you really sit down to pay attention, I don’t think there are many other episodes in seasons before or recently after this one, that Homer is less of a detriment. Charlie Sweatpants: How do you mean? Mad Jon: I’m glad you asked. Between the quiz master bit, the insanity bridge, and the perpetual spring break, Homer could not have been more of a zombie character. Additionally, unlike recent episodes, such as the missionary one, the background characters do absolutely nothing but set him up even further. There is no other focus, no boundaries, (other than Marge futilely tying him to the bed) to offset his insanity He actually asks his therapist why his baby isn’t gaining weight. Charlie Sweatpants: So you’re saying that since the rest of the episode is as bad as he is, Jerkass Homer can’t do much damage to something that’s already a wasteland? Mad Jon: No, I am saying that this time everyone steps back and lets him salt the earth. I am not saying the rest of the episode wasn’t terrible, because it was. I am just saying that usually there is at least a semblance of an obstacle. And I don’t count the sheriff here, because he only makes it worse. And he drags Joe C down with him. There is a scene in this one where Homer drinks from the giant 40oz and actually says, “All for Homer, All for Homer.” Charlie Sweatpants: There is. Mad Jon: How… no. I was going to ask how he got up there when the bouncers instantly stopped him from helping what he thought was a lost child. But I’ve decided against it. Sorry… I had to get that off my…