Marge Be Not Proud

Bart sees a commercial advertising the fighting game "Bonestorm", and decides he must have it. However, Marge refuses to buy it, since the game is too expensive and glorifies violence. Other attempts to obtain the game fail. Bart later learns that Milhouse has Bonestorm and visits him hoping to play, but Milhouse quickly has Bart thrown out. Discouraged, Bart visits the local Try-N-Save discount store. Inside the store, Bart sees Jimbo and Nelson shoplifting from the store. Bart sees the video game case has been left open. Bart takes a copy of Bonestorm, hides it in his jacket, and walks out of the store.

Outside, Bart thinks he is home free, until he gets caught by the store's security officer, Det. Don Brodka. Bart is taken to a back room, where Brodka calls his parents, leaving a message informing them of Bart's crime. Brodka tells him to leave and never return, or else he will face criminal charges. Bart races home, barely beating his parents home and managing to replace Brodka's phone message with another tape.

The next day, Marge announces plans to have their family's picture taken at a photographer's studio in the Try-N-Save. Bart is unable to convince Marge to go elsewhere. At the store, Bart tries to avoid detection, but Brodka grabs him just as the photographer snaps the picture. He explains to Marge and Homer how Bart stole the game. When Marge tells him that her son is not a shoplifter, the store detective shows them the surveillance tape on one of the TVs in the store. Bart blocks the TV, but the incriminating tape is also playing on all the other TVs for sale, over and over again. Defeated, Bart cries out: "I did it!"

Bart's parents are very disappointed in him. While Homer attempts to lecture Bart about how wrong stealing is (and gets distracted with memories of watching the Police Academy movies), Marge becomes distant with her son and sends him to bed. Bart is left out of family activities, such as decorating the Christmas tree and making snow statues of themselves. Bart fears he has lost his mother's love, and decides he must regain it. He visits the Try-N-Save, and returns with a bulge in his coat. Marge confronts him, believing he was shoplifting again. She finds Bart has hidden a picture of himself bought as a Christmas present for Marge. Marge is overjoyed, and in gratitude for receiving her Christmas gift, she gives Bart his, telling him it is the video game "every boy wants," according to the store clerk. Bart eagerly opens the present only to find out it is Lee Carvallo's Putting Challenge. Although he is disappointed, Bart smiles and embraces his mother.

The episode finishes with Bart playing Lee Carvallo's Putting Challenge over the end credits.

[edit] Cultural references

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The title is a quotation from Holy Sonnet no. 10 by John Donne, which begins “Death, be not proud, though some have called thee / Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so”; but the immediate reference may be to John Gunther’s book Death Be Not Proud, which likewise takes its title from the Donne sonnet.

Marge Be Not Proud features a number of references to video games. The fictional golfer Lee Carvallo is patterned after PGA golfer Lee Trevino, who has a game called Lee Trevino's Fighting Golf. In addition, Lee Carvallo's Putting Challenge features digital sports talk commentary in a stilted rhythm that was featured in such games as Joe Montana Sports Talk Football. The commercial for Bonestorm is a parody of the Slim Jim commercials. A wild Santa Claus, who is the game's spokesman, is a take on Slim Jim spokesman "Macho Man" Randy Savage. The commercial also parodies Mortal Kombat, featuring a cameo by a Liu Kang doppelganger who fights against a tank, and characters in Bonestorm bearing a resemblance to Goro.

The name for Bonestorm comes from BloodStorm, an ultra-violent Mortal Kombat-styled video game released in 1994. When Bart is debating whether or not to steal the game, he imagines likenesses of Sonic the Hedgehog, Donkey Kong, Mario, and Luigi (who are depicted with the opposites of their actual heights) urging him to take it with the exception of Lee Carvallo, saying that "the game will not improve your putting". At one point, Milhouse is depicted being "blown away" from the speakers in his chair while playing the game. This is a reference to the "Blown Away Guy" ad campaign of Maxell.

Bart replaces the answering machine tape with "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh" (causing a confused Homer to ask Marge if Lisa is at Camp Granada). Ned Flanders appeared in the Time Magazine Person of the Century, a reference to the Person of the Year annual issue by the same magazine. In The Simpsons: Hit & Run video game, Marge trys to prevent the sale of BoneStorm's sequel, Bonestorm 2 in the mission Bonestorm Storm.