Bart Has Two Mommies
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Bart Has Two Mommies is the fourteenth episode of the seventeenth season of The Simpsons. It aired on March 19, 2006, as the 370th episode overall. The title is a reference to the controversial children's book Heather Has Two Mommies (about a girl growing up with a lesbian couple as her parents). The episode stars Rod Flanders in his largest role on the series.
[edit] Plot
In spite of Homer's best efforts to cheat, Ned Flanders wins a rubber duck racing contest and wins a female computer called FeMac. Ned gives the computer to Marge because Ned doesn't have any use for it. In return for the computer, Marge babysits Rod and Todd. With Marge spending so much time at the Flanders', Homer must look after Bart and Lisa. He spends most of the time sleeping and Bart and Lisa break many, many things, while jousting with their bikes as steeds. Homer takes the kids to an animal retirement home where he hopes to see the title character from the movie Gremlins. The trip goes awry when Toot-Toot the monkey pulls Bart into her cage and holds him hostage after Bart offers her a bit of his ice-cream. Marge listens to Rod and Todd's prayers which include them having a wonderful day and forgiving Mrs. Simpson for eavesdropping on their prayers. Ned comes back home and sees one of his kids wearing a band-aid and tells them to crawl to their beds. Marge tells him that he should support some forms of adventuring and shows him a flier about an activity center with everything covered in foam. Ned agrees eventually after some thought.
Homer fools Marge into not having to worry about Bart. Marge takes Rod and Todd to the children's activity center to encourage their spirit. Ned secretly spies on them and overreacts to Rod's minor injury. Ned therefore bans Marge from babysitting. Marge learns of Bart's kidnapping via a breaking news report from a small television set hanging from the roof of the centre. Toot Toot and Bart end up on the top of the Church's unbuilt steeple. Reverend Lovejoy makes Marge cry when he indicates he is willing to name the steeple in memory of Bart.
Rod, putting his newly-acquired climbing skills to use, climbs the scaffolding in an attempt to rescue Bart using Toot Toot's son (Mr. Teeny, Krusty the Clown's pet monkey) as an exchange.
Marge convinces Ned to learn that he must believe in his son and not worry about harm in order for Rod to make it to the top and successfully rescue Bart from the monkey. At that rate, Ned praises Rod to be brave and go up the scaffolding to get the job done. Eventually Rod gets it done, rescuing Bart. While the boys climb down, Bart tells Rod to not let their hands touch because that would look gay. When Rod asks him what gay means, Bart purposefully makes up a lie about how it means someone was afraid but that person isn't afraid any longer. Rod then screams down "I'm gay, Daddy! I'm gay! Mrs. Simpson made me gay!" which makes Ned glare at an embarrassed Marge. The episode ends with Maude Flanders in heaven looking down with pride and Bob Hope walking off with God.
[edit] Cultural references
- Marge calls herself a "Star Wars" after making a Darth Vader mask out of a paper plate.
- Antonio Fargas makes an appearance as Huggy Bear (from Starsky and Hutch), who has mistakenly been caged in the animal retirement home. This is not Huggy Bear's first appearance on The Simpsons, but it's his first speaking role. In "Homie the Clown", Homer presented a Cable Ace Award to "the son of the guy who played Huggy Bear" for the "Most Promising New Series on Cable". In actuality, Antonio Fargas' son is professional football player Justin Fargas.
- Homer yells "Springfield High football rules!", paraphrasing a famous line from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure: "San Dimas High School football rules!".
- The scenes where Rod is struck by fear of heights parody Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo.
- Toot-Toot carrying Bart up the church steeple parodies King Kong.
- In this episode, Mr. Teeny's first name is revealed to be Louis, according to the subtitles between him and Toot-Toot at the end of the episode.
- The rubber duck race that Homer races in has many references to Walt Disney’s 1937 Silly Symphony short The Old Mill.
- Rod and Todd play "Christian Clue", a parody of Cluedo right down to the formulaic solution, in this case "the secular humanist in the school-house with misinformation", represented by cards showing respectively a man in a Yale sweater, a church house, and a dinosaur, and this last card is in turn a cultural reference to creationism, which the Flanders family also illustrated in The Monkey Suit.
- The FeMac is a pink iMac G4.
[edit] Soundtrack
- Ode to Joy was the music played when Rod and Todd got accustomed to the unconstrained see-saw.
- When Ned is covering his backyard with foam for safety of Rod and Todd, he sings a parody of the song "Welcome to the Jungle" by Guns N' Roses about making the yard safer.
- As Homer is crunched and mutilated as he goes through a series of gears "Powerhouse" by Raymond Scott plays on the soundtrack. This was a signature tune used by Carl Stalling in many of his Warner Brothers cartoons (particularly those that feature factory work), and later by Richard Stone and Steven Bernstein. The sequence, visually, is also a tribute to Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times.
- When Toot-Toot retrieves her son Louis, the song played is "Reunited" from Peaches & Herb.
