The Simpsons/A Streetcar Named Marge

A Streetcar Named Marge
Season 4, Episode 2
Airdate	October 1, 1992
Production Number	8F18
Written by	Jeff Martin
Directed by	Rich Moore
← 4x01 Kamp Krusty	4x03 → Homer the Heretic
The Simpsons — Season Four

A Streetcar Named Marge is the second episode of the fourth season of The Simpsons, and the sixty-first episode overall. Marge is cast as Blanche in a musical adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire, but doesn't put her heart into it until her marriage with Homer is strained.

Special Guest Voices: Phil Hartman (Troy McClure, Lionel Hutz), Jon Lovitz (Llewelyn Sinclair, Ms. Sinclair)

Also Starring: Maggie Roswell (Helen Lovejoy), Lona Williams (Debra Jo Smallwood)

Plot Overview

Marge is auditioning for a musical version of A Streetcar Named Desire, but this sudden change in her schedule is met with indifference from Homer until she actually tries to leave. At the theater, just about everyone else in Springfield seems to be auditioning as well, including Jasper Beadley and Chief Wiggum. The director, Llewelyn Sinclair, comes in to inform all of the women auditioning for Blanch Dubois that they're all terrible and attempts to strike the production since there is no leading lady. But, he stops when he hears Marge speaking in a defeated tone on the phone with Homer.

The first rehearsal is marred by Maggie getting in the way of scenes between Ned and Marge, which leads to Sinclair suggesting that she be put in the daycare run by his sister, "Ayn Rand School for Tots." Considering that they're the only daycare in town that isn't currently under investigation by the state, Marge has no choice but to leave Maggie in Ms. Sinclair's care. Maggie is stripped of her pacifier, which she tries to replace with other objects but doesn't succeed. She leads an elaborate plot with the other babies to get the pacifiers out of the locker, but is discovered by Sinclair and put in "The Box."

Meanwhile, Marge's rehearsals are going poorly. Llewelyn is disgusted by Marge's limp performance and inability to smash the prop bottle on a table and threaten Ned with it. She tries to better understand her motivation when Homer interrupts and asks for candy machine change. While he fights with the candy machine, Llewelyn explains that Stanley is crushing her soul and she can't let that happen. Eventually, Homer's actions push her over the brink and she finally gives him the white hot rage he wanted.

The day of the play has finally come, but before the family goes to see Marge, Maggie tries on more time to get her pacifier back from Ms. Sinclair. Maggie gets the keys to the locker from her desk in a daring aerial assault and unlocks the locker door to distribute pacifiers all around. Later that night, Homer and the kids go to pick her up and find a terrifying scene with dozens of babies sucking on pacifiers. They all go to the play, which is only there for one night. After the play ends, everyone is applauding for Marge except for Homer, who appears to be drifting off to sleep. Homer insists that he wasn't sleeping, but he was upset over the ending and implies that he'll be a better husband so that she won't go crazy.

Notes

Title Sequence

• Blackboard: "My name is not 'Dr. Death'." The final line cuts off at "De."
• Couch Gag: The family jumps onto the couch, but it turns into a hideous brown tentacled monster.

Music

"New Orleans" Lyrics

Long before the Superdome,

Where the Saints of football play,

There's a city where the damned call home,

Hear their hellish rondelet:

New Orleans!

Home of pirates, drunks, and whores...

New Orleans!

Tacky, overpriced souvenir stores...

If you want to go to hell, you should take a trip

To the Sodom and Gomorrah of the Mississip':

New Orleans!

Stinking, rotten, vomiting, vile...

New Orleans!

Putrid, brackish, maggoty, foul...

New Orleans!

Crummy, lousy, rancid and rank...

New Orleans!

Blanche's Introduction

I thought my life, would be a Mardi Gras...

A never-ending party... (pause) Ha!

I'm a faded Southern dame without a dime...

Steve and Blanche

I am just a simple paperboy, no romance do I seek.

I just wanted forty cents, for my deliveries last week.

Will this bewitching floozy

Seduce this humble newsie?

Oh, what's a paperboy to... doooooo?

Closing Number

You can always depend on the kindness of strangers

To pluck up your spirits, and shield you from dangers.

Now here's a tip from Blanche you won't regret.

A stranger's just a friend you haven't met.

You ha-ven't met...

Streetcar!

Trivia

The Show

• Pacifiers: After her pacifier is taken away, Maggie can be seen sucking on a Bart Simpson figure that is oddly colored. Because it looks like a pale green color, it may be a "glow in the dark" figure. Or, it's simply miscolored.
• Life in Hell: The rabbit from Matt Groening's Life in Hell strips, Binky, makes a brief appearance as part of a pop-up book in the daycare when Maggie is stealing the keys from Ms. Sinclair.
• Cameo: After the Birds homage with the babies all sucking on pacifiers in the daycare, Alfred Hitchcock can be seen walking a poodle outside of the building. This is a reference to Hitchcock frequently putting himself in his movies as a brief cameo usually consisting of him entering a car or standing off in the background. This was actually a reproduction of his cameo from The Birds.
• Play Cast: The cast of Oh! Streetcar! is as follows:
  • Helen Lovejoy - Stella
  • Apu Nahasapeemapetilon - Steve
  • Lionel Hutz - Mitch
  • Otto Mann - Pablo (later replaced by the director)
  • Marge Simpson - Blanche
  • Ned Flanders - Stanley
  • Herman - Sailor (Chorus)
  • Jasper Beardly - Chorus
  • Chief Wiggum - Chorus

Behind the Scenes

• Legal Woes: Originally, this episode was conceived two years prior to airing with the characters being cast in a faithful reproduction of the Tennessee Williams play A Streetcar Named Desire, which was not a musical. But, they were only allowed to use two lines from the play by mandate from Williams' estate so they wrote their own songs based loosely on the material.
• The Society: The day after this episode aired, Matt Groening received a phone call from the Ayn Rand Society asking if he was making fun of them with his reference on the "Ayn Rand's School for Tots."
• Original Play Title: The play was originally titled Hello Trolley, but nobody thought it was funny despite how clever it sounded at first.
• Blackboard Apology: Even though the opening bit from Oh, Streetcar! was a parody of a similar opening number about how lousy London is from Sweeney Todd, the song drew some controversy from citizens of New Orleans who didn't appreciate the slam on their city. What happened was a New Orleans television critic decided to print the lyrics to the song before it could be seen in context, which drew a lot of heat from people who misunderstood the joke. As a result, Quincy Jones pulled the show from the FOX affiliate he owned for several weeks and there was a threat made on "Bart's" life (i.e. the midget in a foam rubber suit who was king of Mardi Gras that year). In the next episode, the blackboard gag is an open apology to the city of New Orleans.
• Controversial Airing: Channel 4 in the United Kingdom broadcast this episode in syndication on September 7, 2005, just over a week after New Orleans was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. Two days later, the channel apologized on-air in the time-slot the episode was shown. In subsequent airings, the song which referred to New Orleans as the "home of pirates, drunks, and whores" was omitted.