Oct 07, 2018 The babysitter mystery continues – will Chimpoo & Simpoo finally solve this case? Chimpoo Simpoo – A detective duo with minds that work faster than you can imagine, instincts that save them from precarious situations and the presence of mind to invent and discover on the go!

'Marge Simpson in: 'Screaming Yellow Honkers' ' is the fifteenth episode of The Simpsons'tenth season. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on February 21, 1999.^[1] After Homer purchases a Canyonero sports utility vehicle, he discovers he bought the model intended for women, so he gives the vehicle to Marge. Despite disliking it at first, Marge grows fond of it, and quickly develops clear road rage against other motorists. The episode was written by David M. Stern and directed by Mark Kirkland.^[2]

Plot[edit]

The Simpson family attempts to leave Springfield Elementary after watching a poor talent show by the school's teachers. As they sit at the parking lot due to Marge's timid driving, Homer sees Krusty driving a Canyonero and buys one for himself. However, Lenny and Carl tell him he bought the 'F-series', which is intended for women. Embarrassed, he gives the vehicle to Marge, who dislikes it at first due to its size and features, but soon grows fond of it and develops road rage. Later, Marge is given a traffic ticket by Chief Wiggum for cutting through a funeral procession and ordered to take a defensive driving course. While leaving the class, she accidentally drives the Canyonero into a prison, letting some inmates escape, and loses her license.

Later, Homer, Bart, and Lisa visit a zoo, where Homer sling-shoots a rock at a lemur, causing a chain reaction that makes the rhinoceroses go berserk and escape. The police ask Marge to use her Canyonero to stop the wild animals, but she declines until she sees her family in danger. She succeeds in rounding up the animals and saving the children, but one escapes with Homer on its horn. She chases the angry rhino into a construction site and deliberately crashes the vehicle, making it explode. The rhino attempts to stamp out the fire, allowing zookeepers to capture it and Homer to escape.

Production[edit]

The idea behind the episode came from a study performed that showed women had more cases of road rage than men.^[3] The names of the other car salesmen on the board in the car garage are friends of Mike Scully from high school.^[4] The road rage film which Chief Wiggum shows during the road rage class was originally titled 'Screaming Yellow Honkers'.^[5] The road rage film was originally to have been presented by Troy McClure, but voice actor Phil Hartman died the previous year.^[4] The group of people running out of the zoo, before Homer, Bart, and Lisa, are caricatures of Mike Scully, his wife, and his children, who are also seen running behind Kent Brockman's news report.^[4] The Fox Broadcasting Company executives were displeased with the positive references to NBC made near the end of the episode.^[4] As a compromise, the writers added in the sequence during the end credits where Homer reads a statement at gunpoint that disparages NBC and praises Fox (and briefly praises CBS, resulting in him being shot).^[4]

In an attempt to stop the rhinos, Homer shouts 'Jumanji!', a reference to the film Jumanji.^[4] Marge mentions Dateline NBC and former anchor Stone Phillips.^[4] Ms. Krabappel does a balloon dance singing 'Fever', a 1958 hit for Peggy Lee.^[2] The other teachers parody songs from Fame.^[2] Singer Courtney Love is advertised on a box of Wheaties breakfast cereal.^[2]

Reception[edit]

In its original broadcast, 'Marge Simpson in: 'Screaming Yellow Honkers' finished 43rd in ratings for the week of February 15–21, 1999, with a Nielsen rating of 8.7, equivalent to approximately 8.6 million viewing households. It was the third highest-rated show on the Fox network that week, following Ally McBeal and The X-Files.^[6]

Peter Brown of If notes in his review of The Simpsons' tenth season that 'Marge Simpson in: 'Screaming Yellow Honkers', alongside 'Lard of the Dance', 'Wild Barts Can't Be Broken', and 'Homer Simpson in: 'Kidney Trouble', was 'some of the best episodes of the season'.^[7]

The authors of the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, wrote in their review of the episode: 'very clever, very dry humour and showcasing the last person you might expect to suffer road rage. Some lovely moments (Marge losing patience with Agnes and Kearney is great), especially her drive across the cornfield. Sadly the Canyonero doesn't survive the experience of this episode, which would have been nice, if only to see Marge regularly at the wheel rather than Homer.'^[2]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

1. ^'Marge Simpson in: 'Screaming Yellow Honkers''. The Simpsons.com. Retrieved 2008-09-07.
2. ^ ^abcdeMartyn, Warren; Wood, Adrian. 'A new car brings out Marge's aggressive side'. British Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 2008-09-07.
3. ^Meyer, George (2007). The Simpsons The Complete Tenth Season DVD commentary for the episode 'Marge Simpson in: 'Screaming Yellow Honkers' (DVD). 20th Century Fox.
4. ^ ^abcdefgScully, Mike (2007). The Simpsons The Complete Tenth Season DVD commentary for the episode 'Marge Simpson in: 'Screaming Yellow Honkers' (DVD). 20th Century Fox.
5. ^Hauge, Ron (2007). The Simpsons The Complete Tenth Season DVD commentary for the episode 'Marge Simpson in: 'Screaming Yellow Honkers' (DVD). 20th Century Fox.
6. ^Associated Press (February 24, 1999). 'Prime-time Nielsen ratings'. Associated Press Archive.
7. ^Brown, Peter (August 7, 2007). 'The Simpsons – The Complete Tenth Season'. If. Archived from the original on March 2, 2009. Retrieved 2008-09-07.

External links[edit]

• 'Marge Simpson In: 'Screaming Yellow Honkers' The Simpsons.com
• 'Marge Simpson in: 'Screaming Yellow Honkers' episode capsule'. The Simpsons Archive.
• 'Marge Simpson in: 'Screaming Yellow Honkers' on IMDb
• 'Marge Simpson in: 'Screaming Yellow Honkers' at TV.com

'A Fish Called Selma' is the nineteenth episode of The Simpsons' seventh season. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on March 24, 1996. The episode features Troy McClure, who attempts to resurrect his acting career by marrying Selma Bouvier. Show runnersBill Oakley and Josh Weinstein were fans of Phil Hartman and wished to produce an episode that focused on his character McClure. Freelance writer Jack Barth wrote the episode, and Mark Kirkland directed it.

Barth's script underwent a substantial rewrite in the show's writing room, including the expansion of the Planet of the Apes musical and addition of the song 'Dr. Zaius'. The episode ran too long because of the slow pace of Troy and Selma's speech. Consequently, guest star Jeff Goldblum rerecorded his dialogue as MacArthur Parker at a faster speed.

The episode received generally positive reviews, with particular praise given to Hartman and the musical.

Entertainment Weekly placed the episode eighth on their list of the top 25 The Simpsons episodes.

Plot[edit]

Chief Wiggum pulls Troy McClure over for dangerous driving. Not wishing to be required to wear his glasses while driving, Troy goes to the DMV to get his license changed to remove the requirement. He offers to take DMV employee Selma Bouvier to dinner if she lets him pass the eye test, to which she agrees. After dinner, photographers notice Troy leaving with Selma and the story hits the news. The next day, Troy's agent, MacArthur Parker, calls and says that he can get work again if he continues seeing Selma. Troy continues to date her and his career begins to recover. On his agent's advice, Troy asks Selma to marry him; she agrees.

The night before the wedding, a drunk Troy tells Homer the reason for his marriage: he doesn't really love Selma, and he just plans to use her as a sham wife to help further his career. Although Homer fails to act, Marge and Patty try to explain it to Selma, who accuses them of just being envious. She confronts Troy, who shamelessly admits that their marriage is a sham but explains she has everything she could want and will be 'the envy of every other sham wife in town'. Selma has doubts, but accepts the situation because she fears being alone. Parker thinks he can get Troy the part of McBain's sidekick in McBain IV: Fatal Discharge, but concludes he will have a better chance if he has a family. Troy and Selma try to conceive a child, but neither feels comfortable with their situation, and Selma finally leaves after deciding that bringing a child into a loveless family is wrong. During the first half of the end credits, news confirmed that Troy turns down the role of McBain's sidekick to direct and star in his own film, The Contrabulous Fabtraption of Professor Horatio Hufnagel.

Production[edit]

Simpoo Chimpoo Episode 7 English Dub

Show runnersBill Oakley and Josh Weinstein were fans of actor Phil Hartman, who had been a recurring guest star since the second season. They decided to produce an episode entirely about his character Troy McClure to give Hartman as much to do as possible. Oakley wanted to explore Troy's character because he had never interacted with the show's other characters before, only appearing on television.^[3][4] The writers chose the plot idea of Troy's marriage to Selma Bouvier because she was 'always marrying people'.^[3] The episode's first draft was written by freelance writer Jack Barth, although the rest of the writing staff rewrote it.^[3]

One aspect of the rewrite was the song 'Dr. Zaius' from the Planet of the Apes musical, which the staff consider to be one of the greatest musical numbers ever written for The Simpsons.^[3][4] The two songs in the musical were composed by Alf Clausen, who had worked as a copyist on the original film of Planet of the Apes.^[5] Weinstein—who had not seen the film at the time—^[5]pitched it in the writer's room as 'Rock Me Dr. Zaius', in parody of the 1985 song 'Rock Me Amadeus' by Falco. It expanded into a full song primarily concocted by George Meyer, who included 'corny' aspects of vaudeville.^[3][4] The line 'From chimpan-A to chimpan-Z' in the final song of the musical was written by David X. Cohen. Oakley commented that he has heard the line 'all over the world'.^[3] Several of the staffers have commented on how writing the Planet of the Apes parody generated a great deal of enthusiasm in the writer's room: Oakley described it as 'one of those rare bursts of creative brilliance. A lot of the things that people remember and love on The Simpsons were horrible late-night grinds, whereas this was just a magic visit from the joke fairy.'^[5]

Director Mark Kirkland was pleased that Troy was the star of the episode; he enjoyed interpreting Hartman's voice performance because it allowed him and the other animators to 'open [McClure] up visually as a character'.^[6] Due to the slow talking speed of Troy and Selma, the episode's audio track was 28 minutes long which meant that multiple scenes had to be cut, including Troy's bachelor party.^[3] After the cast had completed their original recording,^[7] guest star Jeff Goldblum rerecorded his dialogue as MacArthur Parker at a faster speed to further shorten it.^[3] His character's design was loosely modeled on him, as well as a real-life 'sleazy Hollywood agent'. The animators watched several of Goldblum's films, including The Tall Guy, in order to get a better representation of his performance.^[6]

Throughout 'A Fish Called Selma', it is hinted that Troy engages in strange sexual activity. The writers initially did not know what the 'unsavory' sexual preference would be, but eventually decided on a fish fetish, a suggestion from executive producer James L. Brooks, since it was 'so perverted and strange, that it was over the top'.^[3] At the episode's table reading, an attendee exclaimed that the line, 'from now on she's smoking for two' has 'got to go' from the script; however, her request was denied.^[3] On the walls of the Pimento Grove restaurant, the animators placed caricatures of every single guest star who had appeared on the show up to that point, as well as pictures of the fictional celebrities of the show.^[6]

Cultural references[edit]

The episode's title is a reference to the film A Fish Called Wanda, while the opening scene features a parody of The Muppets.^[2] McClure appears in a musical version of Planet of the Apes; the song 'Dr. Zaius' is a parody of 'Rock Me Amadeus' by Falco.^[2] The musical's title - Stop the Planet of the Apes. I Want to Get Off! - is a reference to the stage show Stop the World – I Want to Get Off.^[5] The scene with Selma and Troy smoking is similar to Now, Voyager.^[2] The house that McClure lives in is based on the Chemosphere in California and his car is a DeLorean.^[3] The showbiz news anchors, voiced by Hank Azaria and Pamela Hayden, are based on Entertainment Tonight hosts John Tesh and Mary Hart, respectively.^[4] McClure describes Jub-Jub the iguana as 'Everywhere You Want to Be' in reference to a Visa commercial.^[3]Ken Keeler pitched the name MacArthur Parker, in reference to the song 'MacArthur Park', written by Jimmy Webb and first recorded by Richard Harris.^[3] Selma's costumes are modeled on the clothes of Marilyn Monroe.^[7] At the wedding, Homer sings 'Rock and Roll Part 2' by Gary Glitter in his head.^[3] The rumours of Troy McClure having a bizarre fetish for marine life mirror sex rumours about Richard Gere and a hamster.^[8]

Reception[edit]

In its original broadcast, 'A Fish Called Selma' finished tied for 66th place in the ratings for the week of March 18–March 24, 1996, with a Nielsen rating of 7.8. It was the sixth-highest rated show on the Fox network that week.^[9]

In 2003 Entertainment Weekly placed the episode eighth on their list of the top 25 The Simpsons episodes.^[10]

Empire, in 2004, called the episode the 'high point' of the show's 'long-standing love affair with The Planet of the Apes', and cited it as McClure's 'finest hour'.^[11]

In 2006, IGN named the episode the best of the seventh season, stating that it seemed the 'obvious pick'. They called the musical the best moment of the episode and 'maybe even the whole show'.^[12] In a 2008 review, IGN's Robert Canning praised Phil Hartman's performance as 'simply the best of any guest appearance on The Simpsons'. He concluded by saying: 'Sure, [the episode's] writing is smart and the jokes are funny, but without Phil Hartman as Troy McClure, 'A Fish Called Selma' would only be good. With Hartman, it's fantastic!'^[13] Michael Moran of The Times ranked the episode as the best in the show's history.^[14]

Also in 2006, Kimberly Potts of AOL Television named the episode the 14th best episode of the series.^[15]

Dave Foster of DVD Times praised the episode in his 2006 review, as well as Jeff Goldblum's participation on the audio commentary. He stated: 'for those yet to witness Troy McClure's musical take on Planet of the Apes, well, you might say you haven't lived! Musical parody at its very best, the visuals and aural delights in this one brief sequence guarantee this season a recommendation being one of the most inspired moments of The Simpsons many seasons.'^[16]

In 2012, Johnny Dee of The Guardian listed it as one of his five favorite episodes in the history of The Simpsons, writing: 'Key to The Simpsons longevity is the minor characters who only crop up every season or so. And none more so than Troy McClure.'^[17]

Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, the authors of the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, were pleased that 'Troy McClure gets a starring role at last'.^[2]

References[edit]

1. ^Groening, Matt (1997). Richmond, Ray; Coffman, Antonia (eds.). The Simpsons: A Complete Guide to Our Favorite Family (1st ed.). New York: HarperPerennial. ISBN978-0-06-095252-5. LCCN98141857. OCLC37796735. OL433519M.
2. ^ ^abcdeMartyn, Warren; Wood, Adrian (2000). 'A Fish Called Selma'. BBC. Retrieved 2007-05-09.
3. ^ ^{abcdefghijklmn}Oakley, Bill (2006). Commentary for 'A Fish Called Selma', in The Simpsons: The Complete Seventh Season [DVD]. 20th Century Fox.
4. ^ ^abcdWeinstein, Josh (2006). Commentary for 'A Fish Called Selma', in The Simpsons: The Complete Seventh Season [DVD]. 20th Century Fox.
5. ^ ^abcdFox, Jesse David (13 July 2017). 'An Oral History of The Simpsons' Classic Planet of the Apes Musical'. vulture.com. Retrieved 16 July 2017.
6. ^ ^abcSilverman, David (2006). Commentary for 'A Fish Called Selma', in The Simpsons: The Complete Seventh Season [DVD]. 20th Century Fox.
7. ^ ^abGoldblum, Jeff (2006). Commentary for 'A Fish Called Selma', in The Simpsons: The Complete Seventh Season [DVD]. 20th Century Fox.
8. ^Reid, Joe (2015-03-24). 'Today in TV History: 'The Simpsons' Put Selma Into A Sham Marriage With Troy McClure | Decider | Where To Stream Movies & Shows on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Instant, HBO Go'. Decider. Retrieved 2015-12-24.
9. ^'Prime-Time Ratings'. The Orange County Register. 1996-03-27. p. F02.
10. ^'The Family Dynamic'. Entertainment Weekly. 2003-01-29. Retrieved 2007-05-09.^{[dead link]}
11. ^Colin Kennedy. 'The Ten Best Movie Gags In The Simpsons', Empire, September 2004, pp. 76-7
12. ^Goldman, Eric; Dan Iverson; Brian Zoromski (2006-09-08). 'The Simpsons: 17 Seasons, 17 Episodes'. IGN. Archived from the original on 27 May 2007. Retrieved 2007-05-09.
13. ^Canning, Robert (2008-06-18). 'The Simpsons Flashback: 'A Fish Called Selma' Review'. IGN. Retrieved 2008-06-24.
14. ^Moran, Michael (January 14, 2010). 'The 10 best Simpsons episodes ever'. The Times. Retrieved 2010-01-14.
15. ^Potts, Kimberly. ''The Simpsons' Best Episodes Ever'. AOL Television. Archived from the original on 1 December 2008. Retrieved 2008-12-06.
16. ^Dave Foster (2006-02-25). 'The Simpsons: The Complete Seventh Season'. DVD Times. Archived from the original on 20 December 2008. Retrieved 2008-12-19.
17. ^Dee, Johnny (2012-01-13). 'The Simpsons at 500: what are your favourite episodes?'. The Guardian. Retrieved 2012-01-14.

External links[edit]

Chimpoo Simpoo Episode Number 7

• 'A Fish Called Selma' at The Simpsons.com
• 'A Fish Called Selma episode capsule'. The Simpsons Archive.
• 'A Fish Called Selma' at TV.com
• 'A Fish Called Selma' on IMDb
• 'An Oral History of The Simpsons' Classic Planet of the Apes Musical'. Vulture. 2017-07-13.

Simpoo Chimpoo Episode 7 Recap