The Wettest Stories Ever Told

The Wettest Stories Ever Told is the eighteenth episode of The Simpsons’ seventeenth season.

Plot

When the Simpsons' plans for a nice family outing at the Frying Dutchman turns into a dining disaster (due to an uncooperative octopus armed with knives), the family tries to salvage the night by turning the episode into yet another Simpsons anthology show (in the same vein as "Tales from the Public Domain," "Margical History Tour," and "Simpsons Christmas Stories")--this time with a nautical theme.

Mayflower Madman

Marge (who's widowed), Bart, and Lisa board the Mayflower to head for the new world, but just as they do, Homer runs ahead of them and hides in a barrel. They see the police (Lenny and Carl) looking for him--as Homer made the mistake of questioning why the current era is called the Jacobean era when the king is named James and not Jacob. The family takes pity on him, and Marge immediately grows on Homer. However, Moe likes her as well (having gone as far as to kill her previous husband) and is instantly jealous of their friendship. To get Homer out of the way, Moe takes him down to the storage room where all the beer is held and tells him to drink whenever a wave hits the boat (by claiming that it's a game). He gets drunk, and Captain “Flandish” (Flanders) and Reverend Lovejoy find him and most of the other passengers partying.

Moe blames Homer, and they place him in a stock. A storm then approaches, and Captain Flandish is accidentally knocked unconscious. Homer claims that he steers better when he's drunk (saying that he's been driving drunk since he was twelve), and while drinking a bottle of wine while still trapped in the stock and now shirtless, he leads them safely out of the storm, and gets together with Marge. All members of the Mayflower meet the Wampanoag tribe, and Flandish thanks Great Chief Wig-Gum for all he has done for them, as he regrets for what they are going to do to them. Wiggum then asks what that is, and Flandish replies it is giving him the biggest piece of pumpkin pie, and mumbles that they are going to take their land and wipe them out.

The Whine-Bar Sea

The Bounty sets sail from England in 1789, commanded by Captain Bligh (Seymour Skinner). During the first 718 days of the voyage, Bligh severely mistreats his crew, by not giving them water at last day in order to save water and tossing off their mail because they had drawn a picture of Bligh making out with a merman. Willie warns him of a mutiny if he keeps mistreating the crew, but Bligh ignores him, saying "Mutiny? On the Bounty?". They arrive in Tahiti, where Homer and Marge are the rulers of island and the crew has a wonderful time until it is time to leave. The crew wanted to stay at Tahiti, but Captain Bligh tells them that it was a wonderful vacation but they must forget it and sing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" in-a-round while working.

Eventually, Bligh continues abusing the crew more as they sing, and First Mate Bart Christian, who's had enough of this, leads a mutiny with the help of the crew and sends Bligh and Willie off in a lifeboat. Willie then berates Bligh for not listening to him in the first place, but that only makes Bligh more angry at Willie, challenging him as too much of a spineless coward to mutiny. In response, Willie forces Bligh off the lifeboat (proving that he's not a coward) and rows away while Bligh holds onto on a sea turtle, who then submerges into the sea, with Bligh in tow after the latter taunts it. Bart, as the new Captain of the Bounty, orders the crews to set sail for Tahiti. But when he throws away the ship’s helm and they crash into Antarctica.

Watership D'ohn (aka, The Neptune Adventure)

Mike B. Anderson (pictured) directed the episode.

Homer’s story takes place on the luxury liner S.S. Neptune on New Year’s Eve during the 1970s in a parody of The Poseidon Adventure. At midnight, Captain Burns fails to notice a massive freak wave which hits the bridge and kills him and First Officer Waylon Smithers and the ship capsizes. Krusty is cut in half (a reference to the film, Ghost Ship) and the situation worsens after Homer drops a cake on the skylight, filling the ship with water. Led by Selma, survivors Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, Lenny, Carl, Comic Book Guy, Old Jewish Man and his wife, and Sideshow Mel ignore Purser Wiggum’s advice to stay put in the ballroom and decide to climb up the decks to the engine room. While climbing up through the smokestack, Lenny panics and takes a dive.

They encounter rooms in flame, tigers, and Homer doing his business in an upside-down bathroom, commenting that he has great "ass-suction". Comic Book Guy swims through a flooded deck to help the others get to the engine room, but he has a heart attack and dies. The group makes it to the engine room, but Sideshow Mel’s hair is set on fire because of a blowtorch from the rescue team and he falls unconscious. The rest of the original group makes it off the ship, at which point they encounter the walking skeletons of the Bounty crew who are still trying to get back to Tahiti.

Reception

In its original airing, the episode was watched by 7 million viewers, the lowest ratings of season 17.

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