Smoke on the Daughter

"Smoke on the Daughter" is the fifteenth episode of The Simpsons' nineteenth season. It aired on March 30, 2008,^[1] and was written by Billy Kimball, and directed by Lance Kramer. Lisa becomes a ballerina at an academy and discovers her natural talent is enhanced by second hand cigarette smoke. Meanwhile, Homer shows Bart his secret room where he has secretly been making beef jerky and is torn when a family of raccoons steal it.^[1] During the first airing, the episode was watched by 7.10 million people.^[2]

1 Plot
2 Cultural references
3 Reception
4 References

[edit] Plot

A large snake enters Bart's bedroom which is revealed to be a costumed Homer. Lisa arrives dressed as Angelica Button, a character from her favorite book series, and the two reveal that the family is entitled to attend the opening sale of the final book. They manage to all get a copy of the book, and finish reading during the trip home. The family decides to watch television, and a commercial comes on; it is for a ballet academy owned by a man named Chazz Busby. Marge is inspired, and reveals to Lisa that she has a whole box of unfulfilled dreams, one of which is to become a ballet dancer. Lisa encourages Marge to follow her dream, and she auditions for Chazz Busby's ballet academy. Busby lets Marge pass, but remains bitter about her performance.

Meanwhile, Homer takes Bart to the basement and introduces him to his secret room, the "jerkytorium", a room in which Homer has been making beef jerky. While dancing, Marge does an impossibly high stretch with her leg, causing it to get stuck. Busby kicks Marge out, insulting her. An angry Lisa decides to defend Marge, and while berating Busby, he notices Lisa's posture is perfect for a ballerina. He asks if Lisa would join his ballet class, and Marge interrupts, accepting the offer on Lisa's behalf. However, no matter how hard she practices, Lisa soon turns out to be terrible. While on break, a ballerina asks Lisa if she would like to smoke, claiming it improves their performances. Horrified, Lisa rejects the cigarette. Lisa says that fresh air is better, but inadvertently inhales a large amount of the cigarette's smoke. When the break is over, Lisa enters the studio and performs better than ever, and deduces that second hand smoke is what makes her excel.

Lisa hallucinates about a smoke-shaped figure of herself.

Homer brings Apu to his "jerkytorium", and he and Bart are shocked to discover it is completely empty. After incorrectly blaming Ned Flanders, Homer discovers that a family of raccoons has made off with his jerky. That night, Lisa hallucinates of a cigarette-smoked shaped older version of her, who convinces her to continue smoking. Outside her window, Homer and Bart lay a trap to capture the raccoons: a tray loaded with sleeping pill-laced beef jerky. However, this plot fails when Homer eats the drugged jerky. While driving Lisa to ballet practice, Marge—who is proud of having a ballerina as a daughter—starts glowing about how she sees herself in Lisa and Lisa begins to suspect that Marge is living out her dream through her.

Homer follows one of the raccoons into the family's home under a tree stump, and can not bring himself to attack the family because he sees they are a loving family that resembles his own. At the studio, Lisa's dancing falters and she anxiously waits for the break. When the break does come, she finds out that it is windy outside, so all the smoke begins to blow away. She realizes her only other alternative is to actually smoke a cigarette, and picks one up; right before she smokes it, Homer—alarmed and shocked—arrives to steal it out of her hand. Angry, he goes to tell Marge, but discovers she is so proud of Lisa, he can't bear to destroy her happiness. He does, however, order Lisa to quit cigarettes, and decides to get Bart to tail her.

When Bart informs Homer that Lisa is still addicted to smoke, Homer creates a plan involving one of the raccoons. On the night of the big ballet recital, the raccoon breaks into the changing room and steals all the cigarettes. On stage, all the ballerinas soon go out of control, and Lisa tells the appalled audience that ballet is something America has forced onto children, and quits, prompting Busby to also quit. Marge also learns not to display her dreams through her child.^[1]

[edit] Cultural references

The episode's title references Deep Purple's 1972 song, "Smoke on the Water". The name of the character Chaz Busby is a reference to the famous director and choreographer of musicals Busby Berkeley. Angelica Button (who originally appeared in "The Haw-Hawed Couple") parodies the Harry Potter series.^[3] When Bart raises his head out of the pile of leg warmers in the smoke outside, the song "The End" by The Doors is heard, mirroring a sequence in the film Apocalypse Now.^[3] After Lisa quits ballet and rejects Busby, he puts on a bowler hat and struts out of the theater to the song "On Broadway", referencing a dance sequence in All That Jazz.^[3] Flanders crosses out the words "darn" and "heck" out of the Hardy Boys books.^[3] The couch gag is a reference to the Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner series.^[4] Lisa also mentions an episode of "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody", although, the episode she mentioned was not a real one.^[3]

[edit] Reception

The episode was watched by 7.10 million people; the number is not considered to be accurate, as the episode aired on a special time (according to commercials).^[2] Richard Keller of TV Squad stated that he enjoyed the week's episode, but commented that it "wasn't as strong as the previous two." Robert Canning of IGN thought that the episode was good and that it "started off very, very strongly" but commented that it seemed to lose its comedic pace as it progressed. He particularly enjoyed the episode's couch gag, stating that "It was a great reminder of the early, innocent days of cartoon comedy but with a modern Simpsons twist". He gave the episode a 7.2/10.^[4]