Three Men and a Comic Book
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"Three Men and a Comic Book" is the 21st episode of the second season of The Simpsons.
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[edit] Synopsis
Bart attends a comic book convention and finds the first issue of Radioactive Man at the Android's Dungeon sale table for $100. He doesn't have enough money in his own allowance and his parents refuse to give Bart extra money. So Bart turns to Mrs. Glick, who has some rather unsavory chores around the house that he can do, but she only gives him 50 cents for his hard work. Bart returns to the comic book store, only with a few cents extra, and runs into Milhouse and Martin. He talks them into pooling their money and buying the first Radioactive Man Comic from Comic Book Guy. None of them want to let the comic book out of their sights and decide to spend the night together in Bart's treehouse. As a storm approaches, Martin devises a plan so that the three boys have equal access to the comic. As he attempts to leave with the comic, Bart stops him. Bart gets progressively more paranoid and becomes convinced that the other two are conspiring against him.
Eventually, each boy is at each other's throat. When Martin gets up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, Bart thinks he plans on stealing the comic book and subsequently ties him up. Meanwhile a storm is raging outside. Milhouse falls out of the treehouse as a gust of wind takes hold of the comic so that it flies towards the entrance. Bart reaches out to grab Milhouse by the hand. He is forced to decide between Milhouse and the comic. After mulling over his options, Bart chooses Milhouse and pulls him up into the treehouse. The comic flies out the door and is zapped by lightning, and shredded by Santa's Little Helper.
The next morning, the three boys reflect on how their inability to share lead to the destruction of the comic book.
[edit] Trivia
- This episode marks the introduction of Nelson Muntz's infamous "Haw Haw!" laugh.
- First appearances of Comic Book Guy and Bartman.
- Radioactive Man Issue 1's original price was 10 cents.
- This episode tells us Patty and Selma got their husky hoarse voices because they smoked so much. They are shown speaking with higher voices during Marge's flashback. Before their voices changed from smoking, they were voiced by Pamela Hayden instead of Julie Kavner.
- Radioactive Man had five fingers on his left hand after the A-bomb exploted.
- the scene where patty and selma smoking as kids was cut out.
[edit] Cultural references
- Robin — Fallout Boy (Radioactive Man's sidekick) is an obvious parody of Batman's young sidekick.
- Saboteur — The scene where Bart saves Milhouse from falling out of the treehouse is taken from the 1942 Hitchcock film.
- Three Men and a Baby — The episode title is a play on the 1987 film.
- The Treasure of the Sierra Madre — The part of the story where Bart, Milhouse and Martin begin arguing over the comic book is lifted from the 1948 film.
- Winston cigarette television commercials – The Radioactive Man commercial for Laramie cigarettes is a take-off of The Flintstones starring in Winston's TV cigarette commercials, which aired during the 1960s.
- The Wonder Years – Daniel Stern provides the voice of "Adult Bart" reminiscing about the time he got a job doing errands for Mrs. Glick (since he failed to convince Homer to loan him the requisite $100 for Radioactive Man #1), just like Stern did his "Adult Kevin" voice-over on The Wonder Years.
[edit] External links
