Children of a Lesser Clod
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Children of a Lesser Clod is the 20th episode of The Simpsons twelfth season.
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[edit] Plot
The family goes to the YMCA to attend one-time-only free classes, along with many other Springfieldians who admit they will never return to the Y and pay for any of the regular classes. Lisa takes gymnastics, Bart gets tricked into taking an etiquette class, and Homer participates in a basketball class for men over the age of 35, but suffers a torn ACL after a dunk attempt ends with the backboard crashing down on his leg. After Homer gets his surgery, he is told by Dr. Hibbert that he cannot go to work, and he must stay home. Homer finds himself extremely bored, even going so far as attempting to cross-breed Santa's Little Helper and Snowball II. One evening, Ned wants Marge to watch Rod and Todd while he attends a Chris Rock concert (that he misinterprets to be an abbreviation for a Christian Rock concert), but Marge is out identifying a body (which ends up being a very much alive Hans Moleman) so Ned asks Homer instead. The kids like having Homer take care of them, which allows Homer to establish his own day care center.
Homer starts a day care center (under Marge's ownership), "Uncle Homer's Day Care Center", to entertain himself, but makes Bart and Lisa feel like outcasts by ignoring them, giving Bart's jacket to Milhouse, forcing them out of their bedrooms for a film crew that is making a documetary about him, and having them work long hours at night to cut out paper hearts in his honor. The daycare center is wildly successful, and Homer earns a nomination for the "Good Guy Awards" ceremony. For the ceremony, Bart and Lisa splice in home movie footage of Homer at his worst (passed out on the floor drunk and almost naked during Christmas, losing Maggie in a poker game, and chasing Bart down the street while wielding a chain mace) to prove to everyone that Homer's nice guy persona is a sham. The audience becomes outraged and Homer angrily strangles Bart on stage. Everyone in the audience becomes horrified by Homer's behavior, and decide to prevent their kids from being watched over by him. Homer escapes from the ceremony with all the kids on a van, until he crashes the van into a tree (none of the kids are hurt) and tries to escape before Chief Wiggum stops him. After going through three mistrials, Homer says he is sorry for neglecting Bart and Lisa, on whom he now decides to focus his love (along with the forgotten Maggie).
[edit] Production
This episode marks the first appearance of Lugash the Béla Károlyi-esque gymnastics coach. He would later appear in "Little Girl in the Big Ten".
This is the first episode where it's revealed that Kent Brockman and Arnie Pie (the helicopter news reporter) don't get along at work. In previous episodes, the two characters did not audibly hate each other (in fact, they were shown bowling together on the season seven episode Team Homer as part of the Channel 6 Wastelanders bowling team along with Krusty the Clown and The Spanish Bumblebeeman), but there were many times where Kent Brockman would brush off any misfortune that Arnie Pie happened upon (cf. Mr. Plow). In later episodes, Kent and Arnie would either argue or express hatred for each other (cf. the season thirteen finale "Poppa's Got a Brand New Badge", the season fourteen episode "Pray Anything", the season fifteen episode "The Wandering Juvie", and the season 18 finale "You Kent Always Say What You Want").
A short segment of the episode features Bill Cosby asking a child on his show Kids Say the Darndest Things about what he likes to play. The child promptly replies "Pokémon!" Cosby begins incoherently rambling about what Pokémon is, an often parodied mannerism of Cosby's. This is the second time Bill Cosby has been parodied on The Simpsons.
This episode was advertised as featuring Ron Howard in what would have been his third appearance on "The Simpsons" (his first two appearances can be found in season ten's When You Dish Upon a Star and season eleven's Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder). Originally, the third act involved Homer getting all the kids in Ron Howard's latest film, a Gladiator-like picture, hence the original title of the episode being "The Kids Stay In The Picture" (a play on the title of legendary producer Robert Evans' "The Kid Stays In The Picture"). However, Ron Howard did not appear in this episode and the third (in fact, no guest voices were used at all in this episode) and the third act was about Homer winning an award for caring for the neighborhood kids until his own children show him as an unfit father.
The original airing of the episode had a peculiar animation error in it. At the end of the schoolyard scene with Bart, Milhouse and Ralph (after Milhouse tells Bart that Bart's jacket looks better on him), the last few frames of animation show animatic layout drawings of Bart instead of cleaned and colored cels.[1] In all reruns, this error is fixed.
When Homer goes hysterical and kidnaps the children, Ralph asks where they're going. Homer replies they're getting frosty chocolate milkshakes. When the series was on the Tracey Ullman Show this was Homer's catchphrase. It was also something of a running joke in the first two seasons (and was mentioned again in the Treehouse of Horror story where Homer buys a hammock that produces clones of himself, one of which is his Tracy Ullman Show persona).
[edit] Cultural references
- The title is a spoof of the play Children of a Lesser God and the 1986 film based upon it.
- Professor Frink's use of "Flubber" directly references the 1997 film of the same name.
- Homer's line "I believe you can fly!" references the R. Kelly song "I Believe I Can Fly" from the 1996 film Space Jam.
- As Homer recalls his memory of him doing a slam dunk into space (which never happened), George Jetson later crashes into his leg. Homer Reacts if he was his boss, Mr Spacely.
- Rainier Wolfcastle's plan to convert the YMCA so he can hunt "the most dangerous prey of all: man" is a reference to The Most Dangerous Game.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- "Children of a Lesser Clod" episode capsule at The Simpsons Archive
- "Children of a Lesser Clod" at the Internet Movie Database
