"All's Fair in Oven War" is the second episode of The Simpsons' sixteenth season, and originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on November 14, 2004.[1] In the episode, Marge gets her kitchen remodeled and the dishes she make inside it get rave reviews. Under the suggestion of Ned Flanders, she decides to enter a cooking contest.
Matt Selman wrote the episode, and Mark Kirkland served as director. Thomas Pynchon and James Caan guest starred as themselves.[2] The episode features cultural references to songs such as "Separate Ways", "Boplicity" and "Take Five," as well as references to the film The Godfather and various fictional food mascots. The episode received positive reviews from critics.
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Marge and Homer discover the house next to them is up for sale, and is marveled by the extensive kitchen inside the house. After realizing the poor quality of her own kitchen, she asks Homer to hire a contractor. Not wanting to pay the price of hiring one, he decides to remodel it himself. While remodeling the kitchen, Homer unearths his old collection of Playdude magazines. After Marge sees them, he innocently tells her he kept them only for the articles, and she decides to make sure by cutting out all the nudes from the magazines. After this, Homer decides that they are now of no use, and throws them away, only for them to be found by Bart and Milhouse. After reading the 1970s magazines, they are inspired to renovate their treehouse. After Homer's attempts of remodeling the kitchen fail, Marge finally decides to hire a contractor herself.
After two years of renovation, Marge's kitchen is finally remodelled, for the price of $100,000. She then cooks her first dish in the kitchen, which gets rave reviews from many Springfieldians, as well as Thomas Pynchon. At the Kwik-E-Mart, Marge encounters an advertisement for the Ovenfresh bake-off, in which the grand prize is being Ovenfresh's spokeswoman, "Auntie Ovenfresh". Under Ned Flanders's advice, she decides to enter the bake-off with her "dessert dogs" and she wins, beating Ralph's "Grilled crayon sandwich." At the bake-off, most of the competitors cheat by ruining Marge's dessert dogs on purpose, so while alone in the judging room, Marge retaliates by tainting all the other entries with Maggie's ear medicine. Lisa discovers that Marge has been cheating at the bake-off, and loses her faith in her.
Meanwhile, Chief Wiggum and other concerned parents talk to Homer about Bart spreading Playdude to the other children. Realizing that Bart has got the Playdude magazines he threw away, Homer decides to have a talk with Bart about the facts of life. After the talk, a horrified Bart quickly spreads the talk to Milhouse and the other children, horrifying them as well. Meanwhile, at the bake-off finals against Brandine Spuckler, Marge considers cheating again, but then discovers a note from Lisa and admits to her foulplay, restoring Lisa's faith in her. Not long afterwards, the new Auntie Ovenfresh flour bag with Brandine on it comes out and her husband, Cletus mentions that she has left him for James Caan. In response, Cletus's friends ambush Caan at a toll booth and gun him down in a scene reminiscent of the death of Sonny Corleone, Caan's character in the film The Godfather, luckily for him, he survives and complains about that scene.
The episode was written Matt Selman, his eleventh writing credit for The Simpsons. The episode was the first season sixteen episode that Mark Kirkland directed.
Thomas Pynchon guest stars as himself in the episode, wearing a paper bag over his head.[3] His role is reprised from the season 15 episode "Diatribe of a Mad Housewife". According to executive producer Al Jean, Pynchon helped write the jokes for his appearances.[4] James Caan also guest stars in the episode, first seen in Bart's treehouse. He is then shown dating Brandine Spuckler, and he is later shot by hillbillies at a toll booth.
In the original version of this episode, after Homer tells Marge that she is the "best chef in the house," Marge grumbles, "Eh, BFD," which stands for "big, fucking deal". On Sunday night FOX repeats, the "F" in "BFD" is awkwardly muted out. The original line can be heard in syndicated reruns. The syndicated version also credits Russi Taylor, who was not credited in the original version of the episode.[5]
In its original American broadcast, "All's Fair in Oven War" garnered roughly 11.4 million viewers.[7]
The episode has garnered positive reviews from critics. Eric Messinger of Springfield Weekly gave the episode a positive review. He gave the episode a B-, stating the Marge segment "needed a bit more fine-tuning." However, he praised the Bart segment, stating that it saved the episode, and that Bart not seeing nudity in the Playdude magazines worked well in every joke, and the segment was almost reminiscent to the season three episode "Bart the Murderer." He also praised the James Caan guest appearance, stating it "worked quite well, especially with the Godfather ending pay-off."[8]