Marge's Son Poisoning

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The Simpsons episode
"Marge's Son Poisoning"
Marge and Bart's new bike.
Episode no.	361
Prod. code	GABF20
Orig. airdate	November 13, 2005
Show runner(s)	Al Jean
Written by	Daniel Chun
Directed by	Mike B. Anderson
Couch gag	The Simpsons go to sit on the couch, but the couch grows fangs and snarls at the family. The Simpsons run out into the street, where everyone's chairs, sofas and loungers are rising up and attacking their masters. Sherri and Terri (the purple-haired twins) are swallowed by their beanbag chairs, Officers Eddie and Lou are trapped in their police car as the couches rock it back and forth, Professor Frink is attacked by his futuristic couch, and Moe fights back against his bar stools by blasting them with his shotgun. Homer hides out from the rampaging seats in a store called "Couch World", but isn't safe there as all the couches pile on top of Homer and crush him.
Season 17 September 11, 2005 – May 21, 2006
"Bonfire of the Manatees" "The Girl Who Slept Too Little" "Milhouse of Sand and Fog" "Treehouse of Horror XVI" "Marge's Son Poisoning" "See Homer Run" "The Last of the Red Hat Mamas" "The Italian Bob" "Simpsons Christmas Stories" "Homer's Paternity Coot" "We're on the Road to D'ohwhere" "My Fair Laddy" "The Seemingly Never-Ending Story" "Bart Has Two Mommies" "Homer Simpson, This Is Your Wife" "Million Dollar Abie" "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore" "The Wettest Stories Ever Told" "Girls Just Want to Have Sums" "Regarding Margie" "The Monkey Suit" "Marge and Homer Turn a Couple Play"
List of all The Simpsons episodes
Seasons 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7 · 8 · 9 · 10 · 11 12 · 13 · 14 · 15 · 16 · 17 · 18 · 19 · 20

"Marge's Son Poisoning" is the fifth episode of the seventeenth season of The Simpsons. 11.4 million people tuned in to this episode.

[edit] Plot

The family is at Paradise Pier, the Ferris wheel of which Marge has been looking forward all her life to riding, only to find out that it is being dismantled with some of its equipment being sold. Homer purchases a dumbbell while Marge gets a tandem bicycle. When Marge wants to take the bike for a ride, she finds that Homer is a less-than-willing participant.

She tries it on her own and falls. Realizing that his mother might actually be lonely, Bart offers to go for a ride with her when she did not get to ask Lisa in the first place. They ride into an unincorporated part of the county and come upon a small village that features a tea house. Later the tea house closes forever, causing Bart to invite his mother to his treehouse for tea.

Marge redecorates the treehouse and the pair goes off to get a new tea service; Bart gets a Krusty Teapot. Outside the store, the bullies Jimbo, Dolph and Kearney accuse Bart of being a mama's boy, which causes Bart to rebel on Marge. Marge goes into a depression and eventually sells the bike.

Feeling bad, Bart offers to team with her in a karaoke contest. While seeing Skinner and his mother perform, Marge has visions of a terrible future for Bart, and she stops the show to let Bart know that he can find his own way of life and that he shouldn't worry about her; it's her job to worry about him. To make things better, she gives him a fire extinguisher to spray in front of the audience, including the bullies that teased him.

Meanwhile, at Moe's, Homer shows off the strength in one of his arms he's gained from working with the dumbbell, and Moe has an idea on how to capitalize on it. Moe takes Homer to the arm-wrestling championships, where Homer readily wins, but finds that he really misses his wife.

[edit] Cultural references

• The store Marge and Bart go to is called "The China Syndrome". A "China Syndrome" is a catastrophic nuclear accident and a 1979 movie of the same name.
• The tea shop Marge and Bart go to, named "The Leaf Garrett Tea Shop", is a reference to Leif Garrett, a teen idol, actor, and singer popular in the 1970s.
• In the "attack of the couches" couch gag, Professor Frink's couch loosely resembles a war machine from the 1953 film The War of the Worlds.
• The sign for Paradise Pier is identical in design to the sign on Brighton Pier.
• After Bart abandons Marge, the end theme from Midnight Cowboy plays during the scenes where she is lonely; she also takes the tandem bicycle on a bus to Miami, in direct reference to the end

scene of the film. Even though no member of the Simpson family may ever enter Florida since the episode "Kill the Alligator and Run" suggesting the ban against them might have ended.

• While Marge and Bart ride to the tea shop, they sing "Sweet Home Alabama" by Lynyrd Skynyrd. Later in the episode, Marge sings the song alone in the karaoke, to which Homer (arriving home with the arm wrestling trophy) later joins.
• Paradise Pier is one of the "lands" at Disney's California Adventure, which has been made fun of in several previous episodes.

• At Karaoke night, Apu sings "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone" by Paula Cole. Right after, Principal Skinner and his mother sing "Ebony and Ivory" by Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder (as Marge envisions herself and Bart, both aged, singing the same song).
• "My Sharona", by The Knack, is sung by bullies Jimbo, Dolph and Kearney at the end credits. Homer also refers to the song as a "pop music footnote", as he tosses his trophy through the window at the boys.
• When Marge remarks "I have stolen a saleman's pen", it is a reference to the play "Death of a Salesman", when Biff steals Bill Oliver's pen towards the end of the play.