When You Dish upon a Star

"When You Dish Upon a Star" is the fifth episode of The Simpsons' tenth season. It originally aired on November 8, 1998. This episode can be found on Disc 1 of The Simpsons Season Ten DVD Boxed Set.

[edit] Plot

The Simpson family decide to spend a day out in Lake Springfield, where Homer soon gets involved in a parasailing accident, crash landing in the bedroom of Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger's holiday home. He convinces them that he should work for them as a personal assistant, while keeping it a secret that they are in Springfield.

Eventually, Homer becomes good friends with the celebrity couple, though he creeps out the visiting Ron Howard and tries unsuccessfully to pitch a script about a "killer robot driving-instructor that travels back in time for some reason" and a talking pie.

Eventually Homer's inability to keep a secret leads Baldwin and Basinger to mistrust him, and they end the friendship. In retaliation Homer starts a mobile museum of "Hollywood Jerks" displaying their personal belongings to get back at them. The celebrities discover this while intending to apologize to Homer. A high speed chase ensues between Homer in the mobile museum and the celebrities in their Hummer. Homer agrees to stop after Ron Howard is injured during the chase.

Ultimately Homer is court-ordered to keep 500 miles away from any celebrity (living or dead) while Ron Howard successfully pitches Homer's script to Brian Grazer at 20th Century Fox and sing Happy Days the Simpsons Credits and the gracie lady shush at Gracie Films Ron Howard Says "Homer, We're Out Of Vodka" In Asscation with 20th Century Fox Television DA DA DA DA DAAAAA!

[edit] Cultural references

This episode's title is a reference to the song "When You Wish upon a Star", from the 1940 Disney animated feature Pinocchio.
Homer's rant about deceased celebrities "appearing in commercials dancing with vacuum cleaners" is a reference to a 1997 TV advertisement that depicted the late Fred Astaire dancing with a Dirt Devil vacuum cleaner.
Apu's sandcastle is a very detailed replica of the Taj Mahal.
Homer's dream is a spoof of Hanna-Barbera's Yogi Bear. Homi tells Bart Bart to get the picnic basket until Ned comes and Homi starts attacking. When he falls asleep again he starts thinking he is Magilla Gorilla.
Homer angrily addresses Ron Howard as "Potsie" (a Happy Days character) and "Horshack" (a character from Welcome Back, Kotter).
The ripples in the pink lemonade when the crowd of people come is a reference to Jurassic Park.

The drawing of Homer's time machine features what looks like the flux capacitor from the Back to the Future trilogy.
Homer invents a cocktail called The Lawnmower, which is vodka and wheat grass juice.
When Homer lands on top of Alec Baldwin, he mistakes him for his brother Billy.
In the episode, Homer confessed to being illiterate, claiming to understand text by logos. However, he is later shown reading off of a list while trying to make a purchase at the Kwik-E-Mart.
When Springfield shows up to see Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger, Comic Book Guy mentions the caterpillar drive from The Hunt for Red October, and says that he has come up with a list of technical errors he thinks Baldwin would enjoy to discuss.
In one scene, Homer prank calls the "old lady from Titanic" (actually actress Gloria Stuart) to tell her she stinks.