[8.2/10 on a post-classic Simpsons scale] This is just a Swartzwelder gag fest. Sure, there’s nominally a story and a comic premise, but it’s all really just an excuse for Homer and company to screw around at an awards ceremony, or in a mansion, or on a yacht. But the gags are very funny! Everything from the little insert about the Grammys, to Homer’s box social flyers, to Moe worrying about his bus pass, are a rib-tickling good time.
It’s tough, because normally there’s a lot of the sort of thing I would complain about re: latterday Simpsons episodes here. There’s no heart or commentary to it. There’s lots of outlandish events and winks. And even pointless celebrity cameos. But it’s funny, damnit! And even when the show would fix some of its more fundamental flaws in this error, I’m not sure it was as consistently funny as it is here. Laughter is a good tonic. Keep me chuckling throughout, and I’ll forgive a lot.
The B-Story and C-Story are solid in the laughs department as well. Mr. Burns going to the Mayo clinic is a nice excuse to do comic medical montages. And Marge and Lisa exploring/cleaning up Burns’s mansion is good for some good ol’ Marge Simpson provincialism and riffs on Mr. Burns’s absurd life and lifestyle.
The pirate attack in the third act feels a little tacked on and isn’t really resolved so much as it just kind of ends, but whatever. This isn’t an episode designed to tell a great story. It’s’ an episode meant to provide fodder for a barrage of trademark Swartzwelder gags, and in that, it succeeds wildly.
Overall, this one lacks a lot of the core elements that I think tend to make a good Simpsons episodes, but it brings enough funny to more than make up for that.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2019-03-17T06:00:11Z
[8.2/10 on a post-classic Simpsons scale] This is just a Swartzwelder gag fest. Sure, there’s nominally a story and a comic premise, but it’s all really just an excuse for Homer and company to screw around at an awards ceremony, or in a mansion, or on a yacht. But the gags are very funny! Everything from the little insert about the Grammys, to Homer’s box social flyers, to Moe worrying about his bus pass, are a rib-tickling good time.
It’s tough, because normally there’s a lot of the sort of thing I would complain about re: latterday Simpsons episodes here. There’s no heart or commentary to it. There’s lots of outlandish events and winks. And even pointless celebrity cameos. But it’s funny, damnit! And even when the show would fix some of its more fundamental flaws in this error, I’m not sure it was as consistently funny as it is here. Laughter is a good tonic. Keep me chuckling throughout, and I’ll forgive a lot.
The B-Story and C-Story are solid in the laughs department as well. Mr. Burns going to the Mayo clinic is a nice excuse to do comic medical montages. And Marge and Lisa exploring/cleaning up Burns’s mansion is good for some good ol’ Marge Simpson provincialism and riffs on Mr. Burns’s absurd life and lifestyle.
The pirate attack in the third act feels a little tacked on and isn’t really resolved so much as it just kind of ends, but whatever. This isn’t an episode designed to tell a great story. It’s’ an episode meant to provide fodder for a barrage of trademark Swartzwelder gags, and in that, it succeeds wildly.
Overall, this one lacks a lot of the core elements that I think tend to make a good Simpsons episodes, but it brings enough funny to more than make up for that.