Fear of Flying (The Simpsons)

"Fear of Flying" is the eleventh episode of The Simpsons' sixth season. Homer is banned from Moe's and struggles to find a new bar. When he destroys a plane after being mistaken for a pilot at a pilots-only bar, the airline buys the Simpsons' silence with free tickets and it is discovered that Marge is hysterically afraid of flying.

1 Plot
2 Cultural references
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Plot

Dr. Zweig.

After Homer pulls a prank on Moe, he and the others at the bar ban Homer for life, and he goes on a quest to find a new bar. He visits a high-class bar, from which he is promptly asked to leave, the Cheers bar, where he is scared off by the knowledge that the bar has karaoke, and a lesbian bar, where the lack of a fire exit perturbs him more than anything. At a loss, he eventually ends up in an airline pilots' bar, where he passes himself off as an aviator as only pilots are allowed to drink there. He is given a loaner uniform, and is subsequently mistaken as a pilot and roped into flying a plane. When his total incompetence results in severe damage to the plane while still on the taxiway, the owner of Kwazy Klown Airlines buys the Simpsons' silence by giving them free tickets to anywhere they desire (except Hawaii or Alaska, "the freak states"), lest the airline become a "laughingstock."

When Homer and his family board the aircraft, Marge becomes uneasy. She makes up unconvincing reasons why she should leave the plane. When Homer tries to calm her, she admits to Homer that she has a fear of flying. Marge becomes increasingly scared until she breaks down and has a fit of panic so disruptive that the Simpsons are forced to leave the plane. The vacation is cancelled (although Grampa is left on the plane like Home Alone). Marge does not want to talk to anybody about her phobia, and Lisa worries that Marge's decision to keep her feelings bottled up will cause them to "come out in other ways." Indeed, Marge begins to show signs of her lingering flight-related trauma, cooking giant feasts and shingling the roof in the middle of the night, and declaring that she is trying to stay in "a state of cat-like readiness." Lisa convinces Marge to undergo treatment with therapist Dr. Zweig, who uncovers the roots of Marge's fear, including the moment she realized her father was an apron-wearing airplane "stewardess," a job that was mostly reserved for women during that time. Dr. Zweig assures her male flight attendants are now very common and that her father could be considered a pioneer. However, when Marge suggests he might even be an American hero, Dr. Zweig dismisses her and says, "let's not go nuts." At that moment, Marge remembers more traumatic incidents involving airplanes that probably contributed to her fear of flying. Marge is ostensibly cured of her fears. When leaving, Marge thanks Dr. Zweig and says "When I hear the wind blow it will whisper "Lowenstein". But when Marge and Homer attempt to fly on a plane again, the plane crashes, albeit rather uneventfully, into a swamp.

[edit] Cultural references

Numerous cultural references are made throughout the episode. Homer enters the Cheers bar in a scene which is a parody of a typical episode of the comedy series Cheers.^[2] All of the characters are voiced by the actors who played them in Cheers, with the exception of Frasier Crane who remains silent. Crane is played by Kelsey Grammer, who plays the recurring character Sideshow Bob on The Simpsons.^[1] Marge's dream sees her in the role of Mrs Robinson from Lost in Space, while Homer plays Dr Smith.^[2] The scene where Marge and Jaqueline Bouvier duck down when a biplane shoots at them in a cornfield is a parody of Alfred Hitchcock's film North by Northwest.^[2] Grampa being left on a plane and proceeding to slap his hands on his face and yell is a reference Home Alone,^[2] and Homer's Mount Lushmore caricature resembles Eustace Tilley, the mascot of The New Yorker.^[1] The films Homer rents are Hero, Fearless and Alive!, the latter of which Marge watches.^[2] Homer's line about "shaking off the dust of this one-horse town" is lifted from It's a Wonderful Life, while Homer's all-time favorite song is revealed to be "It's Raining Men" by The Weather Girls.^[2] Marge calls Dr. Zweig "Lowenstein", a reference to Barbara Streisand's character in the film The Prince of Tides, and the episode's title is a reference to Erica Jong's novel Fear of Flying.^[2]