[3.5/10 on a post-classic Simpsons scale[ What the hell is this episode? Is it a fast food parody? A tale about Burns trying to become liked? A chance for Homer to stand up for his daughter? An excuse for Marge to dive deep into the stock market? An adventure for the kiddos?
It’s schizophrenia beyond belief, jumping from thing to thing without any connective tissue or point. Eventually, there’s some emotional trajectory and even a mild bit of cleverness when Homer uses his corporate-approved catch phrases to reveal Mr. Burns’ fast food franchise’s terrible business practices. But on balance, “Burger Kings” is just a pile of sloppy joe meat, sluiced together without any purpose or direction.
It’s also ghastly in terms of humor. There are so many jokes that genuinely made me furrow my brow for how dumb and/or bizarre they were. It feels like comedy made for robots who don’t fully understand what laughter is. Even the handful of decent gags in this one (Marge’s battles with Alexa, Frink’s chef robot hugging him in public) are mild chuckles at best. I’m sure The Simpsons has had outings more devoid of laughs than this one in recent years, but none comes to mind,
The episode takes on the fast food industry, Burns’s popularity (or lack thereof), plant-based meat, amateur stock enthusiasts, and can’t wring laughs out of any of it. You’d think that sort of scattershot approach would result in a few good comic hits by sheer randomness alone, but it’s a veritable wasteland of laughs.
Most of the really bad Simpsons episodes have some element that marks them as terrible, whether that’s some core concept that’s offensive, or a really cockamamie story idea, or some moment that’s beyond the pale. “Burger Kings” doesn’t have any of those. It doesn’t have anything really. It’s just a hastily slapped together, unfunny mix of random plots and gags, and somehow that makes it worse than so many other contenders.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2021-04-24T16:54:28Z
[3.5/10 on a post-classic Simpsons scale[ What the hell is this episode? Is it a fast food parody? A tale about Burns trying to become liked? A chance for Homer to stand up for his daughter? An excuse for Marge to dive deep into the stock market? An adventure for the kiddos?
It’s schizophrenia beyond belief, jumping from thing to thing without any connective tissue or point. Eventually, there’s some emotional trajectory and even a mild bit of cleverness when Homer uses his corporate-approved catch phrases to reveal Mr. Burns’ fast food franchise’s terrible business practices. But on balance, “Burger Kings” is just a pile of sloppy joe meat, sluiced together without any purpose or direction.
It’s also ghastly in terms of humor. There are so many jokes that genuinely made me furrow my brow for how dumb and/or bizarre they were. It feels like comedy made for robots who don’t fully understand what laughter is. Even the handful of decent gags in this one (Marge’s battles with Alexa, Frink’s chef robot hugging him in public) are mild chuckles at best. I’m sure The Simpsons has had outings more devoid of laughs than this one in recent years, but none comes to mind,
The episode takes on the fast food industry, Burns’s popularity (or lack thereof), plant-based meat, amateur stock enthusiasts, and can’t wring laughs out of any of it. You’d think that sort of scattershot approach would result in a few good comic hits by sheer randomness alone, but it’s a veritable wasteland of laughs.
Most of the really bad Simpsons episodes have some element that marks them as terrible, whether that’s some core concept that’s offensive, or a really cockamamie story idea, or some moment that’s beyond the pale. “Burger Kings” doesn’t have any of those. It doesn’t have anything really. It’s just a hastily slapped together, unfunny mix of random plots and gags, and somehow that makes it worse than so many other contenders.