The Computer Wore Menace Shoes
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“The Computer Wore Menace Shoes” is the sixth episode of the twelfth season of The Simpsons.
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[edit] Plot
Homer shows up to work, but no one lets him in. Lenny and Carl stop by and tell him the plant is closed; everyone else was informed via e-mail. Homer decides to buy a computer. The best one costs $5,000 and Homer must take out a fifth mortgage. After he gives up on learning how to use it, Lisa sets up the computer. Homer quickly catches on and starts his own webpage, which contains copyrighted material from other pages. To avoid getting sued, Homer calls himself “Mister X.” When no one visits his page, Homer posts a rumor that Mayor Quimby spent the street repair fund on a secret swimming pool. This rumor later proves to be quite true, taking Mayor Quimby into custody.
Homer then decides to post more rumors, vowing to keep digging and probing until everyone is in jail. He later uncovers that Apu is selling week-old donuts as bagels (which sent Apu to jail and had the police collect all of the donuts and bagels in the city), a police scandal (which was the police racing prisoners and using the electric chair to cook chicken), and that Mr. Burns is selling uranium to terrorists (Which really sent Mr. Burns to jail). Mr. X wins the Pulitzer Prize, but when Homer hears the cash reward is going to starving children because no one knows who Mr. X is, he reveals that he is Mr. X. With the whole town aware of Homer’s double identity, no one wants to talk to him. As his webpage’s popularity drops precipitously, Homer posts made-up stories, but just as Homer’s page gets popular again, he is kidnapped.
Homer wakes up on “The Island,” a strange Victorian era-style community straight out of The Prisoner (with the exception of the name, which in The Prisoner is “The Village.”) Everyone there has a secret that some powerful organization doesn’t want to share with the world. Homer learns that one of his stories was true (the story he was captured for indicated that flu shots were being loaded with mind-controlling additives). While he is trapped, Homer is replaced at home by an impersonator with a German accent. Homer gets help from Number Six (voiced by Patrick McGoohan, reprising the role he played in The Prisoner) and escapes the island. He returns home and defeats his German double. However, the entire family is drugged by the dog and taken back to The Island, where they are quite happy. The ending is a bit strange for the series. The plot is left unresolved and the family is left on the island. For this reason, and because the episode appears to abandon reality, it can be seen as non-canon, similar to a Treehouse of Horror episode.
[edit] Trivia
- A reproduction of Mr. X’s webpage was put up by Fox shortly before the episode aired and is still viewable as of April 2008. It is extremely faithful to the episode, with one omission: there is none of the poor grammar and spelling noted by Skinner.
[edit] Cultural references
- The title is a pun on The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, a 1969 film that has a loosely related plot.
- The couch gag involves Santa's Little Helper dancing like Snoopy in the cartoon version of Peanuts.
- Homer's instruction into the computer mouse to "kill Flanders" is a reference to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, where Scotty attempts to direct a Macintosh by speaking to its mouse.
- Elements Homer steals for his “Mr. X website” include the “Dancing Jesus” (a parody of the dancing baby) and the After Dark screensaver “Flying Toasters.”
- References are made to controversial journalist Matt Drudge.
- The story “Mr. X” posts on his website about flu shots being used as a mind control agent may be a reference to The X-Files episode “Red Museum.” The fact that it subsequently turns out to be true parallels the Mel Gibson movie Conspiracy Theory.
- The cymbal-banging monkey that Homer saw when he woke up after being drugged was the same as the monkey that Bender saw when he woke up on the island on the Futurama episode “Obsoletely Fabulous.”
[edit] The Prisoner references
This episode makes many references to the popular TV show The Prisoner, including:
- Patrick McGoohan guest stars, reprising his role as “Number Six”; he claims to have spent 33 years trying to escape from “The Island,” the same amount of time between the end of The Prisoner and the premiere of this episode.
- “The Island” resembles “The Village,” including the 1960s-styled inner sanctum containing lava lamps and egg chairs.
- Homer’s exclamation that he is a man and not a number, only to look at the pin on his shirt, is a parody of Patrick McGoohan’s famous phrase: “I am not a number, I am a free man!”
- Homer’s escape from “The Island” is nearly thwarted by the “Rover” balloon (which had previously been parodied in the episode “The Joy of Sect”).
- The escape also borrows the theme music from The Prisoner.
[edit] External links
