Strong Arms of the Ma
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| The Simpsons episode | |||||
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| "Strong Arms of the Ma" | |||||
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| Promotional artwork for the episode showing a super strong and muscular Marge Simpson. | |||||
| Episode no. | 300 | ||||
| Prod. code | EABF04 | ||||
| Orig. airdate | February 2, 2003 | ||||
| Written by | Carolyn Omine | ||||
| Directed by | Pete Michels | ||||
| Chalkboard | "The school does not need a 'regime change' " | ||||
| Couch gag | The couch is a novelty cardboard cut-out with holes in it. The family members go behind the standup and stick their faces through the holes: Lisa becomes the face for Homer, Homer becomes Marge, Maggie becomes Lisa, Bart becomes Maggie and Marge becomes Bart. Instead of the TV, a photographer is standing in front of the Simpsons and takes their picture. | ||||
| Guest star(s) | Pamela Reed as Ruth Powers | ||||
| Season 14 November 3, 2002 – May 18, 2003 |
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| List of all The Simpsons episodes | |||||
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Strong Arms of The Ma is the actual 300th episode of The Simpsons. "Barting Over" is advertised as the 300th episode, but in the episode they make a reference to it being the 302nd.
[edit] Plot
The Simpson family goes to Rainier Wolfcastle's Bankruptcy Garage Sale, where everything that he owns is up for sale at throwaway prices. Homer asks Rainier if he has anything that will go up in value when he dies and is shown his old weight-lifting set, complete with dumbbells and bench press. Homer takes it. On the way home, Marge and the kids smell something awful. They pinpoint the source to Maggie. Marge quickly pulls into the Kwik-E-Mart, and Apu is reluctant about letting Marge use the restroom, but when he smells Maggie, he allows it. Later, as Marge comes out with a much sweeter-smelling Maggie, a shady character accosts her and threatens her with a gun. Finding only diapers in Marge's purse, he grabs her pearl necklace and takes off. Marge, stunned, walks to her car in a daze and breaks down at the wheel in front of her kids.
The next day, they inform the cops and Chief Wiggum declares he will get on it right away. Later, as Marge is about to leave the house, Homer gives her some pepper spray and some tips on how to handle an attacker. She pulls up to the Kwik-E-Mart, but she is scared when Ralph greets her. She pepper-sprays him, and feeling guilty, she drives back home where it's safe. When she reaches home, Bart tells her she is parked over the mailman. Marge is a nervous wreck and cannot bring herself to cross the threshold of her house. Homer and the kids try their level best to encourage her to go outside, but to no avail. Finally, she moves into the basement. There, feeling a bit safer, she prepares breakfast for the family and sets up a bed for herself. One day, when she is alone at home, feeling bored but still afraid to venture outside, she eyes Rainier Wolfcastle's weight-lifting set and decides to use it to pass the time.
In two weeks, she builds herself up and even gets a well-defined washboard stomach (much to Homer's delight). Suddenly, she dashes out to the garden to get some lemons. Realising that she is not afraid anymore, she starts running around town in happiness. Suddenly, she runs into her mugger, who tries to assault her again. But this time, she beats him so intensely he is left a bloody mess. The cops arrive and arrest the crook. Marge, pumped after catching the crook, starts exercising even more (to the theme from Rocky). One day, as she jogs by an open-air gym at the beach, an accurate portrayal of Muscle Beach in Venice, California, she runs into Ruth Powers, her old neighbor. Ruth, pretty buffed herself, tells Marge that she owes it all to steroids. She talks Marge into using them, attacking her inability to stop trying to be stronger, and also attacking her wish not to be weak and helpless, she also advises Marge to enter a women's bodybuilding contest. Marge, using the steroids, exercises harder than ever. At the contest, despite her massive training, she wins second prize. This puts Marge in a bad mood.
Later that night, at Moe's, Homer and a whole lot of other male Springfieldians are celebrating, Homer tries to calm the angry Marge down. Due to the steroids, she has become extremely short-tempered and powerful, a recipe for disaster. After Homer goes to the bathroom, she gets mad at what Moe says and proceeds to beat up everyone at the bar. Finally, when Homer comes out and sees the "Muscle Marge", he pleads with her to look inside her and find the sweet, loving Marge and to lay off the steroids. Marge, horrified with what she has done, apologizes and leaves with Homer. Moe, in order to cover the costs of repairing his bar, sets fire to it; however, Carl points out that he has not insured the place yet. Later, at the Simpson house, Marge burns the weight set in the furnace as the show ends. Homer asks if Marge is ready for a "real workout" which turns out to be a request to wax the car.
[edit] Trivia
This is the third episode of the season which shows Marge with large breasts: first directly in "Large Marge" when she gets breast implants, then in "Helter Shelter", when Lisa tightens Marge's corset, and here, when Marge builds up and takes steroids, her breasts become larger.
[edit] Cultural references
- The way the slightly-buffed-up Marge confronts her mugger is identical to the scene in The Godfather where James Caan's character (Sonny Corleone) beats up his sister's abusive husband, Carlo Rizzi.
- The scene with the mailman is a spoof of the classic The Twilight Zone episode "Time Enough at Last". An earlier spoof of that episode also appears in Groening's other series, Futurama. (A Head in the Polls)
- When Homer tries to fit all the things he bought from Rainier Wolfcastle in the car, the theme of the famous game Tetris plays. When Homer realises there is not room for him in the car, the final seven notes of Music A on the NES version plays as a Game Over tune. This also parodies the Tetris effect, the ability of any activity to which people devote sufficient time and attention to begin to dominate their thoughts, mental images, and dreams.
- When Homer speaks to Marge after she destroyed Moe's, Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings plays. This is a reference to a scene in Platoon
- The mugger wears a hat that looks like the Disney character Goofy.
- The name of the female strong person contest is the "Iron Maidens", a reference to the mediaeval torture device of the same name or the heavy-metal band Iron Maiden.
- One of the female bodybuilders in the talent contest is seen and heard singing The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, the intended (but not used) theme song to the renowned Western of the same title.
- The song that plays on the jukebox when Marge hits Disco Stu is Frankie Goes to Hollywood - Relax.
- Some of the songs that play when Marge rips the jukebox out of the wall at Moe's Tavern are "At Last" by Etta James and "Love Is a Battlefield" by Pat Benatar.
- The cafe Marge and Ruth enter during the episode is named "Let's hear it for the Soy", a reference to "Let's hear it for the boy", a song from the musical Footloose.
