A Star Is Torn
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"A Star Is Torn" is the eighteenth episode of The Simpsons' sixteenth season. The episode aired on May 8, 2005 in the US.
[edit] Plot
The Simpsons go to the Kwik-E-Mart, where they see a robbery in progress. Homer, out of change to call the cops, asks Apu, who tells him that he has to buy something first. Marge wonders whether they should try other stores. Lisa insists upon buying vegetables from a hillbilly run veggie stand, to which the rest reluctantly agree.
That night, the family enjoys their vegetarian meal, until Bart, Homer, Marge, and Maggie feel queasy and start throwing up. Because she is a vegetarian, Lisa seems to be fine. The rest of the family is sitting on the couch, shivering. Lisa points out that the rest of them are so used to processed foods that they could not stomach the nutritiousness of vegetables. As the sick ones sit on the couch, wrapped in blankets, Lisa feeds them dry toast, and gently sings them to sleep with the "Hush, Little Baby" song.
The next morning, the non-vegetarian bunch of the Simpsons are better and showing it—by eating buckets of fried chicken, while watching TV. On TV, they see Krusty make an endorsement for his "Li'l Starmaker" competition. Bart convinces Lisa to enter the competition, praising her beautiful singing voice.
Later that evening, every kid shows up at the competition. Krusty tells everyone that he is going to be their celebrity judge, but he also says that he will use an "Applause-O-Meter" to measure the people's appreciation of the kids' singing. We see a series of bad auditions, including Ralph's high-pitched and not-so-faithful version of "A, B, C, D, E, F, G" and Milhouse's version of "When a man loves a woman," cut short by Lenny, then Clarissa Wellington's perfect version of "Mockingbird", the same song Lisa was planning to sing.
Lisa starts to panic, but Homer comes to her rescue by going to the nearby music store and writing a song for her to sing (albeit with the use of much plagiarism). She sings the song "I'm Talking Springfield", which praises Springfield (not so much Flanders), which delights the crowd so much that the Applause-O-Meter goes berserk.
Soon, the competition enters its knockout stages. Homer, now Lisa's manager, starts using every means at his disposal to make Lisa feel comfortable. He even gets her the right spotlight, by beating up the technician. Every week, one contestant is eliminated based on the votes cast by the audience. Soon, the three semi-finalists are Lisa, Clarissa and a boy named Cameron. He seems to be the fan favorite, thanks to his beautiful voice and a smile that "brought a puppy back to life".
Soon, Clarissa gets eliminated, leaving just Cameron and Lisa in the fray. However, Homer's "helpfulness" gets a bit out-of-hand (by strangling the Squeaky Voiced Teen) and makes Lisa mad. As a result, Lisa fires him as her manager. Homer becomes angry and upset.
On the way back home in the car, Lisa tries apologizing for firing him, but that makes him angrier and they start yelling at each other, making Marge, Bart, and Maggie beat a hasty retreat to a video arcade and/or shoe shopping. Lisa also exits and Homer drives off alone, still angry.
As the rest of them eat dinner, Homer comes in and announces that he is now Cameron's manager, and he has renamed Cameron to "Johnny Rainbow" and himself to "Colonel Cool". Lisa feels unhappy that Homer is upset at her. She sees Homer teaching Cameron "jazz hands." She tries to make up with Homer by feeding him homemade cookies, but that fails once the cookies are finished.
On the day before the final elimination, Lisa practices on stage, but can not seem to get a good spotlight. Homer and "Johnny Rainbow" enter, and get a rosy spotlight. Homer seems a bit icy towards Lisa, though he softens up enough to tell her to look into the spotlight, to make her eyes twinkle. Lisa is touched by Homer's advice.
During the final, Lisa sings her own song she has written herself, called "Always My Dad", dedicated to Homer. The song simply makes her say how much she loves her dad, and how sorry she is for hurting him. After she finishes, everyone loves it, and she goes to Homer, and they make up.
Cameron then goes up, and sings a rather condescending song "Privileged Boy" (that Homer wrote). The song simply makes him sing how much he is better than the other people at the stadium. The shocked audience boos him off the stage, with a few rotten vegetables as an accompaniment.
Lisa is moved to know that Homer set up Cameron just for her. He tells her that he will always be there for her, not even death can stop him. When she feels a bit creeped out, he tells her he loves her and they hug.
As the credits roll, Lisa and Homer are doing jazz hands. Maggie joins them, but keeps falling over.
[edit] Cultural references
- This is the third episode with the title parodying the film A Star Is Born, the other two being "A Star Is Burns" and "A Star Is Born-Again".
- Li'l Starmaker is a parody of American Idol and this is even referenced in the episode ("Not affiliated with American Idol; we've never even heard of American Idol").
- This episode seems to draw heavily from Al Jolson's The Jazz Singer
- Lurleen can be seen standing in the mall audience.
- Homer's line "Everything I did, I did for you" is a reference to a song from Gypsy, a musical about a vicious stage parent.
- Cameron's character could be seen as a parody of the American Idol contestant Clay Aiken.
