The Fat and the Furriest
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| The Simpsons episode | |
| "The Fat and the Furriest" | |
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| Episode no. | 318 |
| Prod. code | EABF19 |
| Orig. Airdate | November 30, 2003 |
| Written by | Joel H. Cohen |
| Directed by | Matthew Nastuk |
| Chalkboard | None |
| Couch gag | Homer walks through several security doors a la the "Get Smart" opening, eventually landing on the couch with the family. |
| Guest star | Charles Napier |
| Season 15 November 2, 2003 – May 23, 2004 |
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| List of all Simpsons episodes... | |
"The Fat and the Furriest" is an episode from The Simpsons that aired in the fifteenth season on November 30, 2003. The episode is about Homer fighting a bear and the episode code is EABF19.
[edit] Synopsis
It's Mother's Day, and Homer and the kids meet, while Marge is asleep, to see what each one has got for her. Lisa has got flowers, but Bart, Homer and Maggie have all got crudely-made coffee mugs. They decide to go out and get something for her. As they go around town window-shopping, they come across a Costington's Store, where Homer gets excited when he sees a diamond necklace on display, but we find out that he's more interested in getting Marge the display window. They go to the nearby Sprawl-Mart, where they see that Grampa is an employee. They even meet Patty and Selma, who suggest that they buy Marge a "Kitchen Carnival", a machine with cotton candy, caramel, and deep fry.
The same day, Marge opens her presents and loves the "Kitchen Carnival". The "Kitchen Carnival" becomes a big hit with the Simpson family, as they can have all the cotton candy and fried carrots (for Lisa) they want. Homer, one night, anxious for more goodies, makes a cotton candy, but gets inspired to coat it in caramel. The next morning, Bart and Lisa are stunned to see a massive ball of confectionery in the kitchen, with Homer standing by proudly. They start gorging themselves with it, but don't even get close to finishing it. Homer takes it with him to work and uses it to get into the carpool lane. But finally nature takes it course and the ball is attacked by ants, birds, and cats. The Flanders kids also get stuck to it.
The ball is now one big, unholy mess and Marge tells Homer to get rid of the ball. So he reluctantly takes it to the garbage dump and dumps it. Suddenly, he's attacked by a huge grizzly bear and he nearly wets his pants.
A while later, he returns home a nervous wreck, his clothes all tattered and shredded. Marge asks him what the problem is, telling him that she cannot bear to see him like this. On hearing the word "bear", he freaks out and bolts upstairs. Later, as they watch TV, they see a show segment called "Kent's Cowards", where footage of Homer being attacked by the bear is shown. In the footage, Homer is scared half to death, while the bear gets bored of Homer's crying and leaves, shrugging. Homer is branded a coward. Bart's friends tease him about it. At work, his friends play a practical joke on him, by pushing a stuffed bear towards him and scaring his pants off. At home, he sees bears everywhere, teddy bears, bears in fairy-tale and children books, on groceries, even football-playing bears dressed in the Chicago Bears home uniform, and an Intensive-Care Bear, brandishing a tire-iron (which Homer incorrectly calls a crowbar). Grampa joins him to cry, then tells him that he must defeat the bear to get over his fear. Homer decides that he must take revenge on the bear. So he goes to meet a hunter, Grant (who is the same person who videotaped Homer getting scared of the bear, in the first place), and asks for advice. Grant is a hunter of any kind of animal, endangered or otherwise. He advises Homer to take necessary precautions when fighting against a grizzly and gives him a tracking device with which he can locate the bear, thanks to the electronic tag he has put on the bear.
Later, in his garage, Homer makes a rather flamboyant protective suit to fight the bear, while Eye of the Tiger is playing in the background. When she finds out, Marge forbids Homer from fighting the bear. But Homer sneaks out of the house (in his protective suit) with the help of Lenny and Carl and is joined by Bart, and they set off to the forest to find the bear. They set up camp in the forest. Homer, who feels hot under the suit, goes to a nearby stream to cool off, after Bart tells him that the tracking device cannot locate the bear in the vicinity. As it turns out, Lenny and Carl have borrowed the batteries of the homing device to play their radio. As Homer cools off in the stream (sans his protective suit), the bear attacks again. He screams for help, but Lenny, Carl and Bart are busy dancing to the radio music. The bear drags him to his cave.
Meanwhile, at home, Marge discovers that Homer and Bart are missing, along with the protective suit. Knowing that Homer is about to do something foolish, she takes Lisa and enlists Grant's help to go find Homer, before something bad happens. They meet Lenny, Carl and Bart, who tell them that Homer was dragged off by the bear. After shooting down a bald eagle and eating it as a sandwich, Grant goes off in search of Homer.
At the bear's cave, Homer is almost catatonic with fear as the bear advances menacingly. But he decides to fight and die like a man. Just then, the bear starts to roar, but this time in pain. Homer notices the electronic tag (that Grant spoke of) on the bear's ear and pulls it off, much to the bear's relief. Homer even tries it on and gets shocked. Just to be sure that the tag was to blame for the bear's rage, he tries it on again and experiences the same result. When he takes it off, he sees that the bear is now very docile and friendly. Homer takes a liking to the bear. The bear feeds Homer and himself, although Homer is the bigger glutton of the two. They walk around and push each other playfully (Homer gets pushed a good 10 feet away).
Suddenly, Grant shows up and starts shooting at the bear. Homer realises that Grant is tracking them using the electronic tag and chucks it into a nearby lake (so that it won't cause anymore harm to living creatures). Unfortunately, the tag electrifies the whole lake and kills all the fish... and a diver who was unlucky to have been swimming there at that time. Homer and the bear go past a camp-site and help themselves to a plate of sausages. Looking at a map, they see that they have to get to a Wildlife Sanctuary, however it is surrounded on all sides by "Kill Zones", so they have their work cut out for them.
As they approach the sanctuary, Homer senses that something's amiss. He throws a pine cone some distance away and sees a whole group of hunters jump up and start firing mercilessly at the pine cone. Homer comes up with an idea - the bear has to lose his fur. The bear is not too thrilled about that idea. He gets another idea - the hunters are looking for a male bear, so he pulls out a knife. The bear puts that idea down as well. Finally, Homer dresses up the bear in his protective suit and sends him towards the Wildlife Sanctuary. The hunters fire at him, but he is unharmed and manages to reach the sanctuary safely, where he gets attacked by a rogue elephant (which is actually Stampy, a reference to the earlier episode "Bart Gets an Elephant"). Nevertheless, Homer feels happy and his family is proud of him. We see the bear defending itself against the elephant using a club.
[edit] Trivia
- This is the first of two episodes to be animated by Toonzone Entertainment. It is unknown whether more episodes will be animated by them at this point, though they haven't been used since the end of season 15's production season.
- When Homer is at the garbage dump, he walks past a pile of VHS tapes & a pile of laserdiscs. The last booth is empty with a sign that reads "reserved for DVDs." This is a reference to how Technology is moving so fast that soon DVDs will be in the garbage dump alongside VHS and Laser Discs, presumably having been replaced by a newer media storage format.
- Abe Simpson says he has his own website old coot.com which is an actual website of an old man puppet.
- After being peeled off the sugar-ball, Rod says he was saving sugar for his wedding night, but in the season 5 episode Homer Loves Flanders, he ate a pixie stick (although Bart told him there was no sugar in it).
[edit] Cultural references
- The Sprawl Mart is a parody of Wal-Mart, who also uses the elderly as store greeters.
- The episode title is a parody of the 2001 action film, The Fast and the Furious.
- The bear-proof suit Homer makes is a parody of Project Grizzly.
- Patty and Selma claim they appeared on an episode of The Price is Right, however, it would be extremely unlikely that both of them would be allowed to appear as contestants on the show, nor would CBS likely not air the episode in which they appeared for not being "TV pretty".
- Among the bears Homer sees during the hallucination sequence are Winnie the Pooh, Paddington Bear, gummi bears, Teddy Grahams, Smokey Bear, the Chicago Bears mascots, and a pink Care Bear with a heart on its belly that identifies itself as an Intensive Care Bear, all looking cross. Additionally, one of the books that Homer pickes up shortly after he knocks over the wall shelf is "The Berenstain Bears", a popular kids book series.
- When the Intensive Care Bear turns on the radio shortly before Homer's hallucination sequence ends, portions of the Mexican Hat Dance plays.
