Sideshow Bob's Last Gleaming
I don't smoke. I very rarely drink (and I generally don't like it). I don't do drugs hard or soft (I tried some pills last year but they made me feel slightly off rather than euphoric in any way). But I feel I have my vices. I managed to lose 60 pounds over the course of a year and a half but it is hard because I like food and given the opportunity I will eat until I don't feel good. I'm also something of a screen addict, on my phone a little too much. And as a kid, there was nothing I liked more than watching TV, even when there was very little good on. I feel like that's not uncommon for kids of my age but times have changed and I feel like the opiate of the masses moved from radio and movies to TV to the Internet (frankly, I don't think religion was ever REALLY on the table). As a kid I remember thinking that the Internet must be inherently better than TV because you are forced to read and Interact with it but frankly I've found more issues with the Internet than with TV. Even more than TV, the Internet is wedged deeply and necessarily into our world, which makes it a little scarier, even for all the good its done. But its easy to see why at the time TV seemed like the nadir of culture, especially in the 90s, simultaneously a time of positive and negative change on TV, a mix of trash "bread and circuses" shows and the rise of a higher quality breed of television such as The Sopranos, Twin Peaks and, hey, the Simpsons.
In this episode, Sideshow Bob is increasingly irate with television, believing it to be a scourge on society. While doing prison cleaning work at an air force base, Bob manages to escape and steal an atomic bomb. During an air show, Bob reveals he is holding Springfield hostage: end television in the city in all of its forms or the bomb goes off. Meanwhile, the Simpsons kids, who are at the air show, manage to find Bob but can't stop him from detonating the bomb when he discovers Krusty has been using an emergency channel to continue to perform. Luckily, it turns out the bomb was a dud, but undeterred, Bob kidnaps Bart and plans to ram a plane into the isolated shack he's been broadcasting from. Again, Bob didn't take into account that the aircraft he was using, the Wright Brothers' original plane, isn't capable of crumpling even an old shack and Bob is dragged off by the police.
There have been five Bob episodes by this point but this is the first one where Bob kind of feels like the lead, even while in the antagonist role. I'm pretty sure we spend more time with him than the Simpsons and Bart and Lisa interrupting his plans are almost incidental. Seriously, if you were to take Bart and Lisa out of the equation, Bob may have gone free by not leading the cops to him but in both major moves he makes he is completely undone by his own incompetence. And its even funnier since he is so arrogant, such as when he snidely mocks the simplicity of the harrier jet before crashing it instantly. And we are in an era where Bob's revolutionary stance against TV is understandable if you were able to extend those feelings to modern social media, it works. The episode is very funny and is a broad but searing take on America's TV addiction.
Its an interesting episode to view in light of the Social Media age, where people on social media are talking about how social media was a mistake. Ironic? Yeah but not inaccurate. Social media is deeply important in this age but mismanagement, abuse and it heading in harmful directions both intended and unintended certainly have caused damage to the fabric of society. A similar issue can be leveraged against TV in the 90s, with TV being able to warp our views of reality. Supposedly, people were dreaming in black and white more in the era of black and white TV and movies and dreaming in colors more in the era of color TV. OK, citation needed and I don't feel like looking it up. Its a thing I heard but maybe this is a "we eat 8 spiders a night" thing. But it does feel plausible. I think it had a serious effect on how reality itself is viewed. But Bob's concerns are obviously less humane and more classist. Not that I can't relate; the television that he's raging against is incredibly crass and there's much more of that than any quality TV in the world of the Simpsons. He just can't abide people's enjoyment of "bad" TV rather than a genuine concern of society's mental health. He's rather just murder everyone than let them enjoy Vanessa Redgrave on a motorcycle.
This episode is a fun lowbrow parody of lowbrow culture in the forms of TV and an air show. The writing itself does feel a bit superior to the "rubes" but its easily forgivable because it is very funny and Bob's upper class posturing is also constantly undermined ("Are you getting lots of bugs in your mouth too?" "...yes. *ptew ptew*"). It isn't a subtle parody but that's kind of the point, making the Simpsons (both the family and the show) feel even dumber than usual to tell a funny story about TV. But probably the plot point that feels the most relevant is Krusty deciding to put on a show to get "100 percent of the audience" despite the fact that it could result in the town's destruction... and he's doing it in the desert, where he might not be effected. With social media deciding ONLY THIS WEEK to really give a shit (out of necessity) after over four years of crap its allowed, to me, Krusty comes across as extra callous than usual. But thankfully, as tough as things are right now, I don't think the living envy the dead.
Jokes I missed before:
There's a couple sections taken off for syndication but one I have a stronger memory of. The one I don't.
"I want to meet the first female stealth bomber pilot. During the Gulf War, she destroyed 70 mosques and her name is Lisa too."
This is weirdly both very much in and out of character for Lisa. I feel like Lisa is a character who would accept one form of progress in a regressive field but even then bombing mosques feel like a line way too far for Lisa. And yet, I also appreciate how insanely dark this joke is and how very pointed it is about what qualifies as a hero. But also, also, there are probably a lot of awful viewers who missed the joke of this and even then is a VERY rough bit. I feel like it's "Kirk burned down the cracker factory and killed Luann's dad" dark, with some race stuff thrown in. Its... a lot for me to unpack emotionally and stuck with me through the viewing.
Other great jokes:
"Just think Lees, that's our pickle brine burning Sideshow Mel."
After a list of Bob's crimes.
"But what I'll mainly remember is the laughter."
"I renew my objection to this pointless endevour; informally now and by affidavit later."
"The state's not paying you five cents an hour to stand around so get busy."
"Oh, I'll get busy. I'll get very busy indeed. HahahaHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
"Hehehe. You still got it, Bob."
Some funny social commentary tucked into the set up of a great joke.
"Say, did somebody say 'box kites'?"
"NO."
"The common box kite was originally used as a means of drying wet string."
There are made up Simpsons facts I sometimes wish were true.
"By the way, I'm aware of the irony of appearing on television in order to decry it, so don't bother pointing that out."
-- signed, the writers.
"Our city will not negotiate with terrorists. Is there a city nearby that will?"
"No need sir. We'll find that headcase than Garfield finds lasagna... Sorry. My wife thought that was gangbusters."
R. Lee Ermey is great at angry but he's also surprisingly great at being kind of pathetic.
"Free and easy, Lees. There's nothing like an unfurnished basement for pure comfort."
"And what makes your voice high?"
"Tight, binding underwear?"
"And former President Ike Eisenhower. 'Let's get biz-ah!'"
"Don't you see? That would be taking the easy way out."
"I agree."
Good joke and awesome villain power move.
"Well, if it isn't my arch-nemesis Bart Simpson... and his sister Lisa, to whom I am fairly indifferent."
"I should have known you were too smart to fall for that."
"What kind of smart? Book smart? Because there are plenty of people who are book smart but it takes a very special kind of genius--"
I love Bob channeling Lisa here.
"Now you boy."
"If the tennis rackets don't get you, the pool skimmers will!"
Other notes:
The episode was written by Spike Ferensten who I mostly remembered as a guy with a late night Fox talk show that no one ever watched. He also wrote for Seinfeld, including classics like The Reverse Peephole and The Soup Nazi and the Puerto Rican Parade which... well, we won't be seeing that one again any time soon.
I like how Marge seems not on board with the whole episode.
I like the non-joke but silly misdirect that you think Bob snuck out the window that's clearly open but he's hiding in a little trashcan.
Man, that Goya joke certainly feels odd through the lens of history since they seemed to take a stance against immigrants a few years ago.
You just know that Krusty spent at least a minute of screen time trying to catch the scorpion with tongs for the Stingy and Battery show.