The Italian Bob

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The Simpsons episode
"The Italian Bob"
Episode no.	364
Prod. code	HABF02
Orig. Airdate	December 11, 2005
Writer(s)	John Frink
Director	Mark Kirkland
Couch gag	A hand tosses out playing cards with pictures of each Simpson on them
Guest star(s)	Maria Grazia Cucinotta as Francesca and Kelsey Grammer as Sideshow Bob
SNPP capsule
Season 17 September 11, 2005 – May 21, 2006
Bonfire of the Manatees The Girl Who Slept Too Little Milhouse of Sand and Fog Treehouse of Horror XVI Marge's Son Poisoning See Homer Run The Last of the Red Hat Mamas The Italian Bob Simpsons Christmas Stories Homer's Paternity Coot We're on the Road to D'ohwhere My Fair Laddy The Seemingly Never-Ending Story Bart Has Two Mommies Homer Simpson, This Is Your Wife Million Dollar Abie Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore The Wettest Stories Ever Told Girls Just Want to Have Sums Regarding Margie The Monkey Suit Marge and Homer Turn a Couple Play
List of all Simpsons episodes...

"The Italian Bob" is the eighth episode of The Simpsons' seventeenth season. It first aired on December 11, 2005. This episode is the ninth appearance of Sideshow Bob.

1 Synopsis
2 Trivia
3 Cultural References
4 Awards
5 Goofs
6 Broadcasting Information

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

After Mr. Burns' old car breaks down, he tells Homer to pick him up a brand new Lambor gotti Fasterossa car in Italy. The rest of the family comes along with him, and after they pick up the car, they have a great time touring the country. However, after a huge wheel of Mortadella lands on their car, they push it into a small Tuscan village nearby called Salsiccia. When they get there, they ask an elderly woman for help, and she tells them that the mayor speaks English. However, they find out the mayor is none other than Sideshow Bob. The are shocked to find him there, and for once, he feels the same way. He explains to them that after he attempted to kill Bart, he came to Italy to begin a new life. After a rough start, the natives warm up to him after he helped them crush grapes into wine (using his enormous feet). After that, they elected him mayor of their village. Bob no longer has any intention of killing Bart, and it is revealed that he has a wife and son, Francesca and Gino, and they don't know anything about his past life in America. Bob begs the Simpsons not to tell anyone, and they agree in order to have the car fixed.

The Simpsons enjoy spending time in the village, and they continue to keep Bob's past a secret. However, when Lisa gets drunk at a party, she starts to spout off about him being an attempted-murderer. He leads her away from the table, but as she stumbles backwards, she rips off his suit and everyone can see that underneath is his outfit from Springfield Prison. They find out the Bob is an attempted killer, and they take away his title as mayor. The Simpsons take off in the fixed car, and Bob swears vendetta on them.

After the family flees, Bob begins to follow them on a motorcycle. Homer drives into a ditch and ends up driving on ancient Roman ruins, and after they go off the end, the car ends up on top of Trajan's Column in the Roman Forum. Bob's wife meets up with him, and she tells him that they will kill the Simpsons together as a family (Gino, too).

Meanwhile, the Simpsons are wondering what they should do next. Lisa spots a bus with a poster advertising Krusty the Klown's performance in Pagliacci. They meet up with him at the Colosseum, and he puts them in as extras. However, Bob, Francesca and Gino find them and corner them in on the stage while Krusty, who went into a trap door, flees the stage, allowing Bob to perform the climax of Vesti la Giubba. Before they can kill them, though, Krusty's limo picks them up. The Terwilligers walk away with evil smiles, no doubt plotting revenge.

[edit] Trivia

The rake-to-the-face gag is recycled from "Cape Feare".
The Italian police book features Snake as Invasione Di Casa (home invader), Mayor Quimby as Drinko Drive-O (drunk driving), Peter Griffin as Plagiarismo (plagiarism), Stan Smith as Plagiarismo Di Plagiarismo (plagiarism of plagiarism), and Sideshow Bob as Omicidio Attentato Multiplo (multiple attempts of murder)
The two year old town drunk looks and sounds like a young Barney Gumble. He may actually be one of Barney's innumerable children, thanks to the Springfield sperm bank.
When Homer gives an Italian woman a mug with Kentucky emblazoned on it as a peace offering, this may be a reference to "Behind the Laughter", in which the Simpsons are referred to as a "Northern Kentucky family."
When Lisa rips Sideshow Bob's clothes off revealing his prison suit, his prison number is HABF02, the production code of this episode (a running gag on The Simpsons, where the episode's production code is seen on-screen).
The writing in the book of fugitives from America on the opposite page from the pictures appears to be Arabic.
Homer and, to a lesser extent, Bart manifest profound knowledge of the history of Italy, not to mention the Italian language, in this episode.
When the family visits Pompeii, there are the remains of a Roman family strongly resembling the Simpsons, which Homer refers to as "savages."
The PBS logo has the Simpsons' overbite, which was also featured in Missionary: Impossible.
In Sideshow Bob's flashback, he is wearing the same clothes as he was at the end of his last appearance, in "The Great Louse Detective".
On Sideshow Bob's globe, Tuscany looks like it is a city, but it is actually a region.
This episode was shown during the Super Bowl XL Halftime show (February 5, 2006).
The name of the village (Salsiccia) means "sausage" in Italian.
Krusty's lines during the musical Pagliacci, with the words changed to "I'm all out of Rice Krispies", is a reference to the Batman comic "Hush", when, during the musical, Harley Quinn is disguised as the lead actor and sings the same lines about Rice Krispies.
Sideshow Bob has a child now, who appears to be older than Maggie, seeing as he can talk - in previous episodes Maggie has existed but Bob has had no son.
Pompeii was spelled "Pompei" when they arrived. Pompei in fact is the correct Italian name of the city.
The Italian spoken in the show is a quite literal translation of the English phrases shown as subtitles. It's not grammatically and phonetically correct sometimes, but the literal translation of the English idiomatic expressions would sound nonsensical to an Italian native.
Lisa does not appear to speak much Italian in this episode, despite learning from Milhouse in the previous episode. However, she does translate the old woman's dialogue and correctly identifies all the cheeses that fall off the truck.
The Song Krusty The Klown is featured singing at the opera is a parody of Ruggiero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci. To which Sideshow Bob quite rightly exclaims, "I can't believe what that clown is doing to Leoncavallo! And they call me a murderer?!"
In Day of the Jackanapes it is implied by the Springfield police that Springfieldians have never heard of McDonald's because they go to Krusty Burger. But here, Homer indentifies McDonald's in Italy correctly. Strangely enough, the Springfield Police, spent at least two minutes talking about the differences between Mcdonald's and Krusty Burger in a nod to Pulp Fiction in Season 7's 22 Short Films About Springfield.

[edit] Cultural References

The episode title is a reference to the 2003 film The Italian Job.
The Lamborgotti Fasterossa is virtually identical to the real-life Lamborghini Gallardo. As a play on the names of Italian exotic cars, the Fasterossa's name is also derived from the Ferrari Testarossa and the manufacturer Bugatti. The badge is of a horse (which appears on the Ferrari badge) but is in the stance of the bull on the Lamborghini badge. The 'rossa' root might explain the car's red color, despite Lamborghini's signature yellow color. Also, Sideshow Bob chases the Simpsons with a motorcycle that looks like a Ducati 999.
The song Lisa chants as the cheeses bounce towards the Fasterossa is to the tune of "Italiano Calypso", a song on The Seven Hills of Rome.
Lisa mentions Jean Valjean. Both Bob, Principal Skinner and Arrested Development's Oscar Bluth have worn Valjean's prison number in the past.
This episode marks the first cameo appearance of Stan Smith. He, like fellow "plagiarismo" Peter Griffin is shown with their regular skin color rather than yellow skin.
Sideshow Bob's line, "Now cut that out!" is a reference to Jack Benny.
The plot is similar to "Les Misérables", where as Jean Valjean was mayor of a town until he was found to be an ex-con.
This is the second episode to reference the opera Pagliacci, the first being Large Marge in the fourteenth season.

[edit] Awards

Kelsey Grammer won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance for his voice portrayal of Sideshow Bob in this episode.

[edit] Goofs

Homer did attend college—later in life, though. However, his character would be known to forget something like that.
Bob becomes the "Il Mayore" of Salsiccia but the correct Italian word would be "Sindaco". Mayore is probably an intentional Italianization of the term mayor, as the word doesn't even exist in Italian.
When the family is at the Lamborgotti assembly line, the sign shows "Limea Montaggio No. 1". The correct word would be "LiNea". Plus, "No." is the English abbreviation of "Number", in Italy that would have been "N°", "Num." or simply "N.". "#" is not used in Italy.
When the Italian Police searches the book of American criminals, Sideshow Bob is listed under "omicidio attentato multiplo" (Attempted multiple homicide (Bart)). The correct Italian term would be "Tentato Omicidio Multiplo". Attentato is a wrong, although largely intelligible, translation of attempted, as the word in Italian means more or less "act of terrorism", and not the act of attempting to do something.
The correct Italian word for plagiarism is "plagio", not plagiarismo. This may have been intended with the point of making the accusations clear.
Homer accidentally causes one of the turbines to fall off the plane and onto Cletus' farm. However, when the plane lands in Italy, it is still attached.
Mr. Burns knows and recognises Homer Simpson immediately when he asks Homer to get the car from Italy. The fact that Mr. Burns never could recognise Homer in the past has been a much used point in several episodes.