The Simpsons/The Front

The Front
Season 4, Episode 19
Airdate	April 15, 1993
Production Number	9F16
Written by	Adam I. Lapidus
Directed by	Rich Moore
← 4x18 So It's Come to This: A Simpsons Clip Show	4x20 → Whacking Day
The Simpsons — Season Four

The Front is the nineteenth episode of the fourth season of The Simpsons, and the seventy-eighth episode overall. Bart and Lisa decide to write an episode of Itchy & Scratchy, but are forced to use Grandpa's name to get the script produced. Meanwhile, Homer attempts to get his high school diploma.

Special Guest Voice: Brooke Shields (Herself)

Also Starring: Doris Grau (Roxie), Maggie Roswell

Plot Overview

On the Krusty the Clown Show, Krusty shows an Itchy & Scratchy cartoon which is about as dull and lifeless as cartoons can get. The entire short is Itchy lightly hitting Scratchy with a mallet until the two turn the camera and issue a warning about drug use to the kids. Bart half-heartedly suggests that he and Lisa could write a better cartoon, which Lisa decides is a good idea. They come up with a cartoon where the two are in a barber shop and Itchy pours barbecue sauce on Scratchy's head. Flesh-eating Ants devour his head, Itchy raises the barber's chair sending Scratchy's head into a fat Elvis' television. Fat Elvis shoots the TV (and, by extension Scratchy) and the cartoon ends. The two put their names on the script and send it to Roger Meyers, who promptly rejects the script.

Lisa suggests that Meyers doesn't take them seriously because they're kids. So, instead, they decide to put Grandpa's name on the script and send it again. This time, Meyers read the script and finds it funny enough to produce. Grandpa plays along with the scheme when he starts getting paid for what he believes to be absolutely nothing. Meyers offers Grandpa a staff job paying $800 per week.

While the kids become cartoon writing stars, Marge gets an invitation to her high school reunion and Homer, when asked why he didn't get one too, admits that he never graduated from high school because he flunked Remedial Science A. Even though Homer isn't a high school graduate, he still tags along with Marge and winds up winning several deprecating awards like "Most Improved Odor." But, after winning all of those awards, they're all taken away when the class's former principal announces that Homer never finished high school. In order to get all of his trophies back, he decides to pass that class and get his degree.

Grandpa (or, rather, just the kids) is nominated for outstanding writing in a cartoon series at the "Annual Cartoon Awards." Krusty and Brooke Shields present the award's nominees, which includes a He-Man parody called Strong-Dar: Master of Akom, Action Figure Man, The Ren & Stimpy Show season premiere and the Itchy & Scratchy episode that the kids wrote. Abe wins and shames the audience for honoring such a foul, violent cartoon. He hands over the award to the kids and they all leave early. Meanwhile, Homer passes his test and is officially a high school graduate.

At the end of the episode, a segment called "The Adventures of Ned Flanders" airs before the credits, titled "Love That God." Rod and Todd tell their father that they're not going to church today. When he demands a reason why, the two tell him that it's Saturday and they all share a laugh.

Notes

Title Sequence

• Blackboard: "I will not sell miracle cures." The final line cuts off at "mir."
• Couch Gag: The family does a kicking dance reminiscent of the Rockettes at Rockefeller Center. They're joined by several women who dance along with them, followed by men juggling on unicycles. Lastly, the entire backdrop is pulled up to reveal magicians, firebreathers, a dog jumping through a flaming hoop and elephants doing gymnastics.

Trivia

The Show

• Crew Cameos: Several members of the Simpsons crew have cameos in this episode. Jon Vitti's likeness appears in Roger Meyer's office as the Harvard graduate who is fired from the show. Later on, when Roger Meyer gives Abe Simpson a tour of the writer's room, almost the entire writing staff for the show is seen including John Swartzwelder, George Meyer, Jeff Martin, Sam Simon, Al Jean and Mike Reiss. The later two appear a second time at the awards show.
• Writing Room: The Itchy & Scratchy writers room is drawn exactly from from real Simpsons writers room, right down to the broken lamp on top of the refrigerator.
• Cameo in Name Only: Lisa can be seen reading a book called "How To Get Rich Writing Cartoons," written by John Swartzwelder. John Swartzwelder, as noted above, is a prolific writer for The Simpsons and has written the most episodes of the show, totaling at around 17 by the end of this season and over 50 in the series overall.
• Itchy & Scratchy Credits: Dee Cappelli and Jacqueline Aktins are credited as assistants to Itchy and Scratchy, but actually are assistants on The Simpsons. Botany 500 is the company which provided wardrobe for Dick Van Dyke and the production company logo is a parody of Stephen J. Cannell Productions. There's also one frame in the sequence in which they actually steal a large chunk of their own credits for this episode.
• Homer's Awards: The awards given to Homer at the high school reunion include:
  • Most weight gained
  • Most improved odor
  • Lowest paying job
  • Most hair lost
  • Oldest car
  • Person who traveled the least distance to come to the reunion

Behind the Scenes

• Concept Genesis: The idea for this episode came from an instance where a couple of kids wrote an idea for an episode of Tiny Toons Adventures and sent it to producer Steven Spielberg. Spielberg miraculously got their letter and liked it enough to buy the rights and fly the kids out to see a part of their episode get made.
• Came Up Short: This episode came up extremely short, which is why it has the elaborate opening credits sequence, several Itchy & Scratchy cartoons, long non-sequitor jokes and the completely unrelated short about Ned Flanders at the end.
• Voice Fill-In: In the class reunion sequences, Artie Ziff makes an appearance but he isn't voiced by Jon Lovitz like he usually is. Instead, Dan Castellaneta fills in because Lovitz wasn't available for recording.
• Press Shoot-Out: During the awards ceremony, there's a joke about The Ren & Stimpy Show not having a clip ready. John Kricfalusi is a notorious procrastinator and had previously taken shots at the writing and animation for The Simpsons, saying that the show "succeeded despite the writing."
• Life Imitating Art: Two years after this episode, where there's a joke about Al Jean and Mike Reiss' caricatures writing a sitcom about a sassy robot, the real Jean and Reiss wrote a pilot for a sitcom about a sassy angel called Teen Angel. The pilot was soundly rejected by numerous networks before getting 17 episodes on ABC in the 1997–1998 season.

Allusions and References

• Happy Days: While looking at his old yearbook, Homer recalls several events from Happy Days episodes that he mistakes as his own memories. The motorcycle crash may be a reference to the episode Richie Almost Dies. Additionally, Homer rattles off several characters from the series, including Ralph Malph and The Fonz, and the banner for the reunion reads "Class of 1974: Aaaay... Sit on it."

Homer: No, they weren't all happy days. Like the time Pinky Tuscadero crashed her motorcycle, or the night I lost all my money to those card sharks and my dad Tom Bosley had to get it back.

• Billy Crystal: Bart comments that he'll never watch an awards show ever again, unless it has "that delightful Billy Crystal." Crystal was, for a time, a perennial host for the Academy Awards and hosted the show four times by the time this episode first aired. His hosting jobs are often ridiculed and maligned for making extensive use of musical interludes, sung by Crystal himself.