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The Simpsons/So It's Come to This: A Simpsons Clip Show

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So It's Come to This: A Simpsons Clip Show
So It's Come to This: A Simpsons Clip Show
Season 4, Episode 18
Airdate April 1, 1993
Production Number 9F17
Written by Jon Vitti
Directed by Carlos Baeza
← 4x17
Last Exit to Springfield 		4x19 →
The Front
The Simpsons — Season Four

So It's Come to This: A Simpsons Clip Show is the eighteenth episode of the fourth season of The Simpsons, and the seventy-seventh episode overall. An April Fools Day prank involving exploding sends Homer to the hospital, allowing the family to reminisce about better days.

Also Starring: Maggie Roswell (Maude Flanders)

Contents

Plot Overview

April Fool's Day is upon the Simpson household and Homer has already gotten a head start on the festivities by taping Bart's eyes shut and letting him drink spoiled milk. Bart promises that he's going to fool Homer back in revenge for what's happened so far. He comes up with the idea to shake up a can of beer using an industrial paint shaker at Springfield Hardware, which he then replaces in the refrigerator. After seeing a Public Service Announcement about beer causing cancer, Homer finally gets up and opens the beer, which causes a massive explosion which blows the roof off of the house.

At the hospital, Dr. Hibbert informs the family that Homer may never walk again because of the injuries he sustained in the explosion. Not to mention the countless blows to the head he's received over the years. Homer is visited by his friends and family, who reminisce about some of his better moments before the injury and, in one case, attempt to mercy kill him when he refuses beer. His therapy continues with doctors attempting to coax him into walking, but only a vending machine manages to do the trick. Although, it steals his money and falls on him when he beats on it to get either his money or the candy.

Homer's incident with the candy machine sends him into a coma, which spurs Mr. Burns into demanding that the plug be pulled. He tries to do it himself and hired Dr. Nick to say that Homer shows no signs of life. The family throws him out and entertains an idea from Professor Frink, who suggests the plot from Fantastic Voyage. The family tries to rouse him from his coma by reminding him of past occasions, which doesn't work until Bart admits that he was the one who shook up the can of beer.

Homer tries to get the family with one more prank, but they inform him that he's been in a coma for 7 weeks and lost 5% of his brain.

Clips Used

The following episodes were shown as clips in this episode, in order of appearance (including multiple clips from episodes):

Notes

Title Sequence

  • Blackboard: "No one is interested in my underpants." The final line cuts off at "intereste."
  • Couch Gag: The family sits on the couch, but they all have the wrong heads on. Everyone switches heads and Maggie takes her pacifier away from Homer, whose head was on her body.

Trivia

The Show

  • Clip Show Bonus: In the clip where Homer accidentally rolls down the huge ramp on Bart's skateboard, animators actually went in and animated a whole new segment to show Homer falling down the gorge whereas it was originally all off-screen. There's a stark contrast between quality in color and animation quality, indicating the new footage vs. the old.

Behind the Scenes

  • Midnight Oil: During production of the fourth season, the writers were so burnt out on working long, hard hours that many were considering quitting the show. In hopes of keeping everyone happy, James L. Brooks decided to give the writers a break by including a clip show. Although, technically, this episode still has an act and a half of new material.
  • So It's Come to This: There was intense pressure on producers of the show to create extra episodes in each season and the plan was to make four clip shows per season to make that limit. However, writers and producers felt that so many clip shows would alienate fans of the series. The network's reasoning was that clip shows cost half of what a normal episode cost to produce, but they could sell syndication rights at full price.
  • Fun with Censorship: The network censors initially refused to let the phrase "beer causes rectal cancer" into the show because beer was the only alcoholic beverage which could be advertised on television for a period of time. The censors eventually relented when they found a medical textbook which stated the link between beer and cancer, but still asked them to "go easy" on beer in the future.
  • Montage: The montage of Homer saying "D'oh" 32 times in a row came directly from David Silverman's college speaking tour. In his tour, he used several clips from the show, this being one of them, although his version was a bit longer.

Allusions and References

  • One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: When Moe and Barney visit Homer in the hospital, Homer reacts with violent revulsion to a can of beer. This causes Barney to smother Homer with a pillow out of mercy and throw a water fountain through a window so that he can escape into the forest outside. This scene parallels the ending of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest where the Chief did the same to Randle McMurphy after McMurphy was electroshocked into a vegetative state.
  • Fantastic Voyage: Professor Frink's plan to wake Homer from his coma is basically just the plot from Fantastic Voyage, a science fiction movie about a group of scientists who aim to save a man's life by removing a blood clot from his brain. The scientist had discovered a way to make the shrinking process work indefinitely and that information is the only reason why scientists agreed to the plan in the first place. Of course, Homer's situation isn't the same.

Memorable Moments

Quotes

  • Homer: Thanks for coming to visit me, Moe.
    Moe: I brought you a little present
    (Homer shrinks in his bed at the sight of beer.)
    Homer: No! No! Beer bring pain!
    Barney: I can't stand to see him like this!
    (Barney smothers Homer with a pillow, throws a water fountain through a window and runs off into the horizon.)
    Moe: He really needs a girlfriend.
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