Wedding for Disaster

I really like how in every new Simpson’s episode they make the opening credits different every time. This time I thought it was really clever how they made each character a type of food. The main idea of this episode was that the Reverend in their church finds out that for a period of time he was not certified. This means that any blessings he gave or any marriages were not official. Marge and Homer find out that their second marriage was not official, so they must get re married. Marge becomes “bridezilla” throughout the wedding planning process and Homer becomes angry that anything he would like gets turned down by Marge. Their wedding day arrives however Homer disappears and is nowhere to be found. The episode then makes a reference to the popular movie Saw and has Homer chained up in an enclosed room. He hears a voice over the loudspeaker as they instruct him to eat through a lollipop made of hot sauce in order to get the key. Lisa and Bart find a key with a key chain on it with the initials SB. It turns out that Marge’s sisters where the ones to take Homer away from the wedding because they wanted Marge to dump him for good. Homer being locked up proved to Marge’s sisters how much he truly loves and cares about Marge. Although I did not find this episode to be as funny as past ones, I enjoyed the references that they made to the movie Saw. I thought it was a very clever plan and was able to tie in the theme of Homer and Marge’s true love for one another.

In the Name of the Grandfather

I thought this episode of The Simpsons was very entertaining. First in the opening credits I found it funny when they had the family acting as dogs. The episode starts out with the family going to a home and garden show. Everyone is mad at Marge because she told them each a different lie about where they were going. Homer is shown as the typical husband when he says that he wasn’t listening when Marge told him where they were going. They end up buying a hot tub and become obsessed with the idea of being in it. They forget all about Grandpa at the nursing home and tell him that they will make up for it by helping him do something that he has always wanted to do. Grandpa wanted to go to Ireland and have a beer at his favorite pub. When in Ireland, there were many stereotypical comments made about Irish people. At the bars they serve corn beef and cabbage like its beer coming out of the taps. They show the Irish as being drunk all the time and Homer makes a comment about how the Irish have become hard working and sober when they discover that the bar has lost its customers. Also, they show many different companies and they changed their names to poke fun at the Irish. Homer and his father end up getting drunk at the bar and they buy the bar in their drunken state. They realize with the help from Moe that they need to allow people to smoke in their bar since the other bars do not allow that. At first they get a lot of customers, but in the end they get in trouble with the law and are ordered back to America. Overall I thought it was a very good episode and it made me laugh a number of times.

"Gone Maggie Gone"

This episode of the Simpsons focused on Maggie being taken in by a nun into a convent. Homer is responsible for allowing them to take her in, so he must get her back without Marge knowing. Marge is unaware of the entire situation because she must be blind folded from looking in the eclipse. Lisa is sent into the convent disguised as a nun so she can get Maggie back. She discovers that she must solve a puzzle in order to find the gem. Lisa is very excited about this because she loves challenging her intellect as she puts it. At the end of the episode Lisa discovers that Maggie is the gem child and she will bring peace to all of Springfield. Marge ends up discovering where Maggie is through her own motherly instincts and says that she will not give up her child. I felt that the use of nuns and the convent could be a slightly controversial topic and that people who are very religious would not find the show funny. I did not find anything offensive and thought it was a good episode. I thought that the clues that Lisa had to find were very clever such as the biggest ring in Springfield. This proves Lisa’s great intellectual abilities and how she is able to conquer many challenges. I also thought it was funny at the end when Homer decides to leave Bart behind and the convent. As he sits in the chair claiming to be the new gem child the devil appears. This wasn’t one of my favorite episodes of the Simpsons but I think they always seem to do a good job entertaining the viewers.

"How the Test Was Won"

This week’s episode of The Simpsons which was called “How the Test Was Won” focused mainly on the idea of standardized testing in public schools. When Bart and Lisa return to school they find out that the vice president is giving them a test in order to determine how much money they should receive from the government. This episode makes reference to the no child left behind policy that we now have in the United States. On the day of the test Bart and a few other students are made to believe that they are exempt from taking the exam because they did so well on the practice test. However in reality the principal and the superintendent were excluding them from the test so the overall score of the students would not be brought down. This idea can also be related to a problem that schools have faced throughout the years. There have been accusations that schools have deliberately kept certain students from taking the exam, so they could possibly receive more money from the federal government. While taking the exam, Lisa is shown to be very nervous and anxious about doing well. The questions were very tricky to her and she wasted most of her time dwelling on one specific question. This can be related to how most students feel when they are forced to take a standardized test. Some people have excellent grades throughout the year, and then end up doing terrible on the standardized tests. Bart and his friends were able to prove to Principal Skinner that standardize tests do not help students at all, and that the teachers need to be more willing to teach the students in a way that will reach out to them. Overall I thought this was a very good episode and was easy to relate to the issue of standardized testing that we have today in our society.