Children of a Lesser Clod
Encyclopedia
Children of a Lesser Clod is the 20th episode of The Simpsons
twelfth season
. In the episode, after spraining his knee during a basketball game, Homer begins taking care of the neighborhood kids to cure his boredom, prompting jealousy from Bart and Lisa, who feel that Homer is giving the kids the attention they never had.
The episode is written by former and current show runner
, Al Jean
and directed by Michael Polcino
. The title is a parody of the play/movie Children of a Lesser God
.
to attend one-time-only free classes, along with many other Springfieldians who admit they will never return to the YMCA and pay for any of the regular classes. Lisa
takes gymnastics
(and gets yelled at by the Russian coach for being too old), Bart
gets tricked into taking an etiquette
class by a black man dressed as a gangsta rapper (who happens to be the husband of the prim and proper etiquette teacher), and Homer
participates in a basketball
class for men over the age of 35, but suffers a torn ACL
after a dunk attempt ends with the backboard crashing down on his leg. After Homer gets his surgery, he is told by Dr. Hibbert
that he cannot go to work, and he must stay home. Homer finds himself extremely bored, even going so far as attempting to cross-breed Santa's Little Helper
and Snowball II. One evening, Ned
wants Marge to watch Rod and Todd while he attends a Chris Rock
concert (that he misinterprets to be an abbreviation for a Christian Rock concert), but Marge is out identifying a body (which ends up being a very much alive Hans Moleman
which everyone thinks is really dead) so Ned asks Homer instead. The kids like having Homer take care of them, which allows Homer to establish his own day care center.
Homer starts a day care center (under Marge's ownership), "Uncle Homer's Day Care Center", to entertain himself, but makes Bart and Lisa feel like outcasts by ignoring them, giving Bart's jacket to Milhouse, forcing them out of their bedrooms for a film crew that is making a documentary about him, and having them work long hours at night to cut out felt hearts in his honor. The daycare center is wildly successful, and Homer earns a nomination for the "Good Guy Awards" ceremony. For the ceremony, Bart and Lisa splice in home movie footage of Homer at his worst (passed out on the floor drunk and almost naked during Christmas, losing Maggie in a poker game, and chasing Bart down the street while wielding a chain mace) to prove to everyone that Homer's nice guy persona is a sham. The audience becomes outraged and Homer angrily strangles Bart on stage. Everyone in the audience becomes horrified by Homer's behavior, and decide to prevent their kids from being watched over by him. Homer escapes from the ceremony with all the kids in a van, until he crashes the van into a tree, and tries to escape before Chief Wiggum stops him. After three mistrials, Homer apologizes to Bart and Lisa for neglecting them, and promises to care for his own children (including the perpetually-ignored Maggie) instead of the neighborhood kids.
The episode is written by Al Jean
and directed by Michael Polcino
. During production the staff were looking for a basketball player to shoot a gun, but no one said yes. Al Jean has a few different storylines during his pitch and decided to put all of them together into this episode. The line when Milhouse says he knows Bart's dad better than Bart knows him is a reference to Mike Reiss
's real life experience where a person said he knows his parents better than he does. During production the animators need Ralph to get off screen for a two shot so they decided that Ralph followed a butterfly. When Homer puts his daycare permit in the picture frame it is based on Dana Gould
's real life experience in which he gave his parents a newspaper article about him winning a boston comedy competition and later found out that it was replaced by Larry Bird dunking butterfingers. The third act with the police change was not the original third act. When the video about Homer's day care starts the scratches of the video were added in post production.
This episode marks the first appearance of Lugash the Béla Károlyi
-esque gymnastics coach. He would later appear in "Little Girl in the Big Ten
". This is the first episode where it is revealed that Kent Brockman
and Arnie Pie (the helicopter news reporter) do not get along at work. In previous episodes, the two characters did not audibly hate each other (in fact, they were shown bowling together on the season seven episode "Team Homer
" as part of the Channel 6 Wastelanders bowling team along with Krusty the Clown and The Mexican Bumblebee Man), but there were many times where Kent Brockman would brush off any misfortune that Arnie Pie happened upon (cf. Mr. Plow
). In later episodes, Kent and Arnie would either argue or express hatred for each other (cf. the season thirteen finale "Poppa's Got a Brand New Badge", the season fourteen episode "Pray Anything
", the season fifteen episode "The Wandering Juvie
", and the season 18 finale "You Kent Always Say What You Want
").
This episode was advertised as featuring Ron Howard
in what would have been his third appearance on "The Simpsons" (his first two appearances can be found in season ten's "When You Dish Upon a Star
" and season eleven's "Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder
"). Originally, the third act involved Homer getting all the kids in Howard's latest film, a Gladiator
-like picture, hence the original title of the episode being "The Kids Stay In The Picture" (a play on the title of legendary producer Robert Evans' "The Kid Stays in the Picture
"). However, Ron Howard did not appear in this episode (in fact, no guest voices were used at all in this episode) and the third act was about Homer winning an award for caring for the neighborhood kids until his own children show him as an unfit father.
The original airing of the episode had a peculiar animation error in it. At the end of the schoolyard scene with Bart, Milhouse and Ralph (after Milhouse tells Bart that Bart's jacket looks better on him), the last few frames of animation show animatic layout drawings of Bart instead of cleaned and colored cels. In all reruns, this error is fixed.
and the 1986 film
based upon it. The episode features the original basket for basketball. Professor Frink's use of "Flubber" directly references the 1997 film
of the same name. Lugash is a parody of Béla Károlyi
.
Homer's line "I believe you can fly!" references the R. Kelly song "I Believe I Can Fly
" from the 1996 film
Space Jam
. As Homer recalls doing a slam dunk into space (which never happened), George Jetson
crashes into his leg. Homer reacts as if he was his boss, Mr Spacely.
Rainier Wolfcastle's plan to convert the YMCA so he can hunt "the most dangerous prey of all: man" is a reference to The Most Dangerous Game
.The "crazy" torch song
that Homer sings while babysitting Rod and Todd Flanders is a 1969 hit song by Peggy Lee
called "Is That All There Is?
", which was Lee's final Top 40 hit and a #1 song on the easy listening chart
. When Homer goes hysterical and kidnaps the children, Ralph
asks where they're going. Homer replies they're getting frosty chocolate milkshakes. When the series was on The Tracey Ullman Show
, this was Homer's catchphrase. It was also something of a running joke in the first two seasons (and was mentioned again in THoH XIII's Send in the Clones
, in which one of Homer's clones is his Tracy Ullman Show persona). The Good Guys Award is criticized by the New York Times as "Pointless."
asking a child on his show Kids Say the Darndest Things
about a specific hobby, of which the child promptly replies "Pokémon
!" Cosby begins incoherently rambling about what Pokémon is whilst flapping his ears. This is a parodied mannerism of Cosby's that is often used on the show. This is also the second time Cosby has been parodied on The Simpsons. Another similar gag was used in the episode Helter Shelter
.
This sequence involving Bill Cosby's over-exaggerated mannerisms from this and other episodes on The Simpsons (as well as the Family Guy
episode "Brian Does Hollywood
") became an internet meme
when many parodies on these particular segments became internet memes in their own right, especially on YouTube
and YTMND
.
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
twelfth season
The Simpsons (season 12)
The Simpsons 12th season began on Wednesday, November 1, 2000 with "Treehouse of Horror XI".The season contains four hold over episodes from the season 11 production line. The show runner for the twelfth production was Mike Scully. The season features three episodes that were produced for the...
. In the episode, after spraining his knee during a basketball game, Homer begins taking care of the neighborhood kids to cure his boredom, prompting jealousy from Bart and Lisa, who feel that Homer is giving the kids the attention they never had.
The episode is written by former and current show runner
Show runner
Showrunner is a term of art originating in the United States and Canadian television industry referring to the person who is responsible for the day-to-day operation of a television seriesalthough such persons generally are credited as an executive producer...
, Al Jean
Al Jean
Al Jean is an award-winning American screenwriter and producer, best known for his work on The Simpsons. He was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan and graduated from Harvard University in 1981. Jean began his writing career in the 1980s with fellow Harvard alum Mike Reiss...
and directed by Michael Polcino
Michael Polcino
Michael Polcino is an animation director on The Simpsons. His brother, Dominic Polcino, is a former Simpsons director and currently works on Family Guy.-The Simpsons episodes:He has directed the following episodes:*"The Mansion Family"...
. The title is a parody of the play/movie Children of a Lesser God
Children of a Lesser God (play)
Children of a Lesser God is a play by Mark Medoff, published in 1980 focusing on the conflicted professional and romantic relationship between deaf former student, Sarah Norman, and her teacher, James Leeds. The play was specially written for the Deaf actress Phyllis Frelich, based to some extent...
.
Plot
The family goes to the YMCAYMCA
The Young Men's Christian Association is a worldwide organization of more than 45 million members from 125 national federations affiliated through the World Alliance of YMCAs...
to attend one-time-only free classes, along with many other Springfieldians who admit they will never return to the YMCA and pay for any of the regular classes. Lisa
Lisa Simpson
Lisa Marie Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons. She is the middle child of the Simpson family. Voiced by Yeardley Smith, Lisa first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987. Cartoonist Matt Groening...
takes gymnastics
Gymnastics
Gymnastics is a sport involving performance of exercises requiring physical strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, and balance. Internationally, all of the gymnastic sports are governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique with each country having its own national governing body...
(and gets yelled at by the Russian coach for being too old), Bart
Bart Simpson
Bartholomew JoJo "Bart" Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons and part of the Simpson family. He is voiced by actress Nancy Cartwright and first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...
gets tricked into taking an etiquette
Etiquette
Etiquette is a code of behavior that delineates expectations for social behavior according to contemporary conventional norms within a society, social class, or group...
class by a black man dressed as a gangsta rapper (who happens to be the husband of the prim and proper etiquette teacher), and Homer
Homer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
participates in a basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
class for men over the age of 35, but suffers a torn ACL
Anterior cruciate ligament
The anterior cruciate ligament is a cruciate ligament which is one of the four major ligaments of the human knee. In the quadruped stifle , based on its anatomical position, it is referred to as the cranial cruciate ligament.The ACL originates from deep within the notch of the distal femur...
after a dunk attempt ends with the backboard crashing down on his leg. After Homer gets his surgery, he is told by Dr. Hibbert
Julius Hibbert
Dr. Julius M. Hibbert, usually referred to as Dr. Hibbert, is a recurring character on the animated series The Simpsons. His speaking voice is provided by Harry Shearer and his singing voice was by Thurl Ravenscroft, and he first appeared in the episode "Bart the Daredevil". Dr...
that he cannot go to work, and he must stay home. Homer finds himself extremely bored, even going so far as attempting to cross-breed Santa's Little Helper
Santa's Little Helper
Santa's Little Helper is a recurring character in the American animated television series The Simpsons. He is the pet greyhound of the Simpson family. The dog was introduced in the first episode of the show, the 1989 Christmas special "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire", in which his owner abandons...
and Snowball II. One evening, Ned
Ned Flanders
Nedward "Ned" Flanders, Jr. is a recurring fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons. He is voiced by Harry Shearer, and first appeared in the series premiere episode "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire". He is the next door neighbor to the Simpson family and is generally...
wants Marge to watch Rod and Todd while he attends a Chris Rock
Chris Rock
Christopher Julius "Chris" Rock III is an American comedian, actor, screenwriter, television producer, film producer and director. He was voted in the US as the 5th greatest stand-up comedian of all time by Comedy Central...
concert (that he misinterprets to be an abbreviation for a Christian Rock concert), but Marge is out identifying a body (which ends up being a very much alive Hans Moleman
Hans Moleman
Hans Moleman is a recurring character in the animated television series The Simpsons. He is voiced by Dan Castellaneta, and first appeared in the episode "Principal Charming". He normally appears in a running gag, where he usually suffers unfortunate, nearly fatal, events...
which everyone thinks is really dead) so Ned asks Homer instead. The kids like having Homer take care of them, which allows Homer to establish his own day care center.
Homer starts a day care center (under Marge's ownership), "Uncle Homer's Day Care Center", to entertain himself, but makes Bart and Lisa feel like outcasts by ignoring them, giving Bart's jacket to Milhouse, forcing them out of their bedrooms for a film crew that is making a documentary about him, and having them work long hours at night to cut out felt hearts in his honor. The daycare center is wildly successful, and Homer earns a nomination for the "Good Guy Awards" ceremony. For the ceremony, Bart and Lisa splice in home movie footage of Homer at his worst (passed out on the floor drunk and almost naked during Christmas, losing Maggie in a poker game, and chasing Bart down the street while wielding a chain mace) to prove to everyone that Homer's nice guy persona is a sham. The audience becomes outraged and Homer angrily strangles Bart on stage. Everyone in the audience becomes horrified by Homer's behavior, and decide to prevent their kids from being watched over by him. Homer escapes from the ceremony with all the kids in a van, until he crashes the van into a tree, and tries to escape before Chief Wiggum stops him. After three mistrials, Homer apologizes to Bart and Lisa for neglecting them, and promises to care for his own children (including the perpetually-ignored Maggie) instead of the neighborhood kids.
Production
Al Jean
Al Jean is an award-winning American screenwriter and producer, best known for his work on The Simpsons. He was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan and graduated from Harvard University in 1981. Jean began his writing career in the 1980s with fellow Harvard alum Mike Reiss...
and directed by Michael Polcino
Michael Polcino
Michael Polcino is an animation director on The Simpsons. His brother, Dominic Polcino, is a former Simpsons director and currently works on Family Guy.-The Simpsons episodes:He has directed the following episodes:*"The Mansion Family"...
. During production the staff were looking for a basketball player to shoot a gun, but no one said yes. Al Jean has a few different storylines during his pitch and decided to put all of them together into this episode. The line when Milhouse says he knows Bart's dad better than Bart knows him is a reference to Mike Reiss
Mike Reiss
Michael "Mike" Reiss is an American television comedy writer. He served as a show-runner, writer and producer for the animated series The Simpsons and co-created the animated series The Critic...
's real life experience where a person said he knows his parents better than he does. During production the animators need Ralph to get off screen for a two shot so they decided that Ralph followed a butterfly. When Homer puts his daycare permit in the picture frame it is based on Dana Gould
Dana Gould
Dana John Gould is an American comedian and comedy writer born and raised in Hopedale, Massachusetts. His upbringing and his extended family lent themselves to his stand-up routine, which has been seen on HBO, Showtime, and Comedy Central, among other places.-Career:After high school, he studied...
's real life experience in which he gave his parents a newspaper article about him winning a boston comedy competition and later found out that it was replaced by Larry Bird dunking butterfingers. The third act with the police change was not the original third act. When the video about Homer's day care starts the scratches of the video were added in post production.
This episode marks the first appearance of Lugash the Béla Károlyi
Béla Károlyi
Béla Károlyi is a Romanian gymnastics coach. He was born in what was then Kolozsvár, Hungary, a region restored to Romanian administration after 1944. Károlyi and his wife, Márta, also of Hungarian origin, emigrated to the United States in 1981 and both have dual citizenships for Romania and the...
-esque gymnastics coach. He would later appear in "Little Girl in the Big Ten
Little Girl in the Big Ten
"Little Girl in the Big Ten" is the twentieth episode of The Simpsons’ thirteenth season. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on May 12, 2002. In the episode, after seeing John F. Kennedy in a hallucination during gym class, Lisa befriends two college students in order to...
". This is the first episode where it is revealed that Kent Brockman
Kent Brockman
Kent Brockman is a fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons. He is voiced by Harry Shearer and first appeared in the episode "Krusty Gets Busted"...
and Arnie Pie (the helicopter news reporter) do not get along at work. In previous episodes, the two characters did not audibly hate each other (in fact, they were shown bowling together on the season seven episode "Team Homer
Team Homer
"Team Homer" is the twelfth episode of The Simpsons seventh season. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on January 7, 1996. In the episode, Homer starts a bowling team with Moe, Apu, and Otto. When Mr. Burns discovers the team was funded with his money, he insists on joining...
" as part of the Channel 6 Wastelanders bowling team along with Krusty the Clown and The Mexican Bumblebee Man), but there were many times where Kent Brockman would brush off any misfortune that Arnie Pie happened upon (cf. Mr. Plow
Mr. Plow
"Mr. Plow" is the ninth episode of The Simpsons fourth season, which originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on November 19, 1992. In the episode, Homer buys a snow plow and starts a business plowing driveways. It is a huge success, and inspired by this, Barney Gumble starts a...
). In later episodes, Kent and Arnie would either argue or express hatred for each other (cf. the season thirteen finale "Poppa's Got a Brand New Badge", the season fourteen episode "Pray Anything
Pray Anything
"Pray Anything" is the tenth episode of the fourteenth season of The Simpsons. It is the 301st episode of the Simpsons in broadcast order; in production order, this is the 299th....
", the season fifteen episode "The Wandering Juvie
The Wandering Juvie
The Wandering Juvie" is the sixteenth episode of The Simpsons fifteenth season. The episode aired on March 28, 2004. It guest starred Sarah Michelle Gellar as Gina Vendetti.-Plot:...
", and the season 18 finale "You Kent Always Say What You Want
You Kent Always Say What You Want
"You Kent Always Say What You Want", formerly known as "Kent State Massacre", is the twenty-second episode of The Simpsons eighteenth season, airing on May 20, 2007 as part of the one-hour season finale, alongside the episode "24 Minutes"; a repeat took place on August 19, 2007. It was the...
").
This episode was advertised as featuring Ron Howard
Ron Howard
Ronald William "Ron" Howard is an American actor, director, and producer. He came to prominence as a child actor, playing Opie Taylor in the sitcom The Andy Griffith Show for eight years, and later the teenaged Richie Cunningham in the sitcom Happy Days for six years...
in what would have been his third appearance on "The Simpsons" (his first two appearances can be found in season ten's "When You Dish Upon a Star
When You Dish upon a Star
"When You Dish Upon a Star" is the fifth episode of The Simpsons tenth season, which was originally broadcast on November 8, 1998. When the family spend the day at Lake Springfield, Homer meets Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger, who are hiding from the media in their secluded summer home...
" and season eleven's "Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder
Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder
"Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder" is the sixth episode of the eleventh season of the American animated sitcom The Simpsons. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on November 14, 1999. In the episode, Homer becomes a local celebrity after bowling a 300 game, but his fame quickly...
"). Originally, the third act involved Homer getting all the kids in Howard's latest film, a Gladiator
Gladiator
A gladiator was an armed combatant who entertained audiences in the Roman Republic and Roman Empire in violent confrontations with other gladiators, wild animals, and condemned criminals. Some gladiators were volunteers who risked their legal and social standing and their lives by appearing in the...
-like picture, hence the original title of the episode being "The Kids Stay In The Picture" (a play on the title of legendary producer Robert Evans' "The Kid Stays in the Picture
The Kid Stays in the Picture
The Kid Stays in the Picture is the name of a 1994 autobiography by film producer Robert Evans. It is also the name of a 2002 film adaptation of the book directed by Nanette Burstein and Brett Morgen and released by Focus Features and USA Pictures...
"). However, Ron Howard did not appear in this episode (in fact, no guest voices were used at all in this episode) and the third act was about Homer winning an award for caring for the neighborhood kids until his own children show him as an unfit father.
The original airing of the episode had a peculiar animation error in it. At the end of the schoolyard scene with Bart, Milhouse and Ralph (after Milhouse tells Bart that Bart's jacket looks better on him), the last few frames of animation show animatic layout drawings of Bart instead of cleaned and colored cels. In all reruns, this error is fixed.
Cultural references
The title is a spoof of the play Children of a Lesser GodChildren of a Lesser God (play)
Children of a Lesser God is a play by Mark Medoff, published in 1980 focusing on the conflicted professional and romantic relationship between deaf former student, Sarah Norman, and her teacher, James Leeds. The play was specially written for the Deaf actress Phyllis Frelich, based to some extent...
and the 1986 film
Children of a Lesser God
Children of a Lesser God is a 1986 American romantic drama film directed by Randa Haines and written by Hesper Anderson and Mark Medoff. An adaptation of Medoff's Tony Award-winning stage play of the same name, the film stars William Hurt and Marlee Matlin as two employees at a school for the deaf:...
based upon it. The episode features the original basket for basketball. Professor Frink's use of "Flubber" directly references the 1997 film
1997 in film
-Events:* The original Star Wars trilogy's Special Editions are released.* Production begins on Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.* Titanic becomes the first film to gross US$1,000,000,000 at the box office making it the highest grossing film in history until Avatar broke the record in 2010.*...
of the same name. Lugash is a parody of Béla Károlyi
Béla Károlyi
Béla Károlyi is a Romanian gymnastics coach. He was born in what was then Kolozsvár, Hungary, a region restored to Romanian administration after 1944. Károlyi and his wife, Márta, also of Hungarian origin, emigrated to the United States in 1981 and both have dual citizenships for Romania and the...
.
Homer's line "I believe you can fly!" references the R. Kelly song "I Believe I Can Fly
I Believe I Can Fly
"I Believe I Can Fly" is a 1996 song by R&B singer R. Kelly. The song was written, produced and performed by Kelly and was featured on the soundtrack to the 1996 film Space Jam. The song later appeared on Kelly's 1998 album R.....
" from the 1996 film
1996 in film
Major releases this year included Scream, Independence Day, Fargo, Trainspotting, The English Patient, Twister, Mars Attacks!, Jerry Maguire and a version of Evita starring Madonna.-Events:...
Space Jam
Space Jam
Aside from Jordan, a number of NBA players and coaches appeared in the film. Larry Bird portrays a friend of Jordan who joins him for a game of golf. When the Monstars steal the NBA players' talent, they invade a game between the Phoenix Suns and the New York Knicks, causing the Knicks' Patrick...
. As Homer recalls doing a slam dunk into space (which never happened), George Jetson
George Jetson
The following is a list of major characters in The Jetsons. The Jetsons is an animated television comedy produced by Hanna-Barbera and first broadcast in prime-time on ABC as part of the 1962–63 United States network television schedule. Additional episodes were produced from 1985–1987, with the...
crashes into his leg. Homer reacts as if he was his boss, Mr Spacely.
Rainier Wolfcastle's plan to convert the YMCA so he can hunt "the most dangerous prey of all: man" is a reference to The Most Dangerous Game
The Most Dangerous Game
"The Most Dangerous Game", also published as "The Hounds of Zaroff", is a short story by Richard Connell. It was published in Collier's Weekly on January 19, 1924....
.The "crazy" torch song
Torch song
A torch song is a sentimental love song, typically one in which the singer laments an unrequited or lost love, either where one party is oblivious to the existence of the other, where one party has moved on, or where a romantic affair has affected the relationship...
that Homer sings while babysitting Rod and Todd Flanders is a 1969 hit song by Peggy Lee
Peggy Lee
Peggy Lee was an American jazz and popular music singer, songwriter, composer, and actress in a career spanning six decades. From her beginning as a vocalist on local radio to singing with Benny Goodman's big band, she forged a sophisticated persona, evolving into a multi-faceted artist and...
called "Is That All There Is?
Is That All There Is?
"Is That All There Is?" is a song written by American songwriting team Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller during the 1960s. It became a hit for American singer Peggy Lee from her recording in November 1969...
", which was Lee's final Top 40 hit and a #1 song on the easy listening chart
Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks
The Adult Contemporary chart is a weekly chart published in Billboard magazine that lists the most popular songs on adult contemporary and "lite-pop" radio stations in the United States...
. When Homer goes hysterical and kidnaps the children, Ralph
Ralph Wiggum
Ralph Wiggum is a recurring fictional character on the animated series The Simpsons, voiced by Nancy Cartwright. The son of Police Chief Wiggum and a classmate of Lisa Simpson, Ralph is best known as the show's resident oddball, and is noted for his non sequiturs and erratic behavior...
asks where they're going. Homer replies they're getting frosty chocolate milkshakes. When the series was on The Tracey Ullman Show
The Tracey Ullman Show
The Tracey Ullman Show was an American television variety show, hosted by British comedian and onetime pop singer Tracey Ullman. It debuted on April 5, 1987 as the Fox network's second primetime series after Married... with Children, and ran until May 26, 1990. The show blended sketch comedy shorts...
, this was Homer's catchphrase. It was also something of a running joke in the first two seasons (and was mentioned again in THoH XIII's Send in the Clones
Treehouse of Horror XIII
"Treehouse of Horror XIII" is the first episode of The Simpsons fourteenth season, as well as the thirteenth Halloween episode. The episode aired on November 3, 2002, three days after Halloween...
, in which one of Homer's clones is his Tracy Ullman Show persona). The Good Guys Award is criticized by the New York Times as "Pointless."
Internet meme
A short segment of the episode features Bill CosbyBill Cosby
William Henry "Bill" Cosby, Jr. is an American comedian, actor, author, television producer, educator, musician and activist. A veteran stand-up performer, he got his start at various clubs, then landed a starring role in the 1960s action show, I Spy. He later starred in his own series, the...
asking a child on his show Kids Say the Darndest Things
Kids Say the Darndest Things
Kids Say the Darndest Things is an American comedy series hosted by Bill Cosby that aired on CBS as a special on February 6, 1995 then as a full season from January 9, 1998 to June 23, 2000...
about a specific hobby, of which the child promptly replies "Pokémon
Pokémon
is a media franchise published and owned by the video game company Nintendo and created by Satoshi Tajiri in 1996. Originally released as a pair of interlinkable Game Boy role-playing video games developed by Game Freak, Pokémon has since become the second most successful and lucrative video...
!" Cosby begins incoherently rambling about what Pokémon is whilst flapping his ears. This is a parodied mannerism of Cosby's that is often used on the show. This is also the second time Cosby has been parodied on The Simpsons. Another similar gag was used in the episode Helter Shelter
Helter Shelter
"Helter Shelter" is the fifth episode from the fourteenth season of The Simpsons that aired December 1, 2002.-Plot:After Homer is hit by a falling metal beam at work and suffers a serious head injury, Mr. Burns smartly buys him off with tickets at a luxury sky box at a hockey game as compensation...
.
This sequence involving Bill Cosby's over-exaggerated mannerisms from this and other episodes on The Simpsons (as well as the Family Guy
Family Guy
Family Guy is an American animated television series created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series centers on the Griffins, a dysfunctional family consisting of parents Peter and Lois; their children Meg, Chris, and Stewie; and their anthropomorphic pet dog Brian...
episode "Brian Does Hollywood
Brian Does Hollywood
"Brian Does Hollywood" is the second episode of the third season of the animated comedy series Family Guy. It originally aired on Fox in the United States on July 18, 2001. The episode features Brian as he attempts to make it in show business as a writer once he moves to Hollywood...
") became an internet meme
Internet meme
The term Internet meme is used to describe a concept that spreads via the Internet. The term is a reference to the concept of memes, although the latter concept refers to a much broader category of cultural information.-Description:...
when many parodies on these particular segments became internet memes in their own right, especially on YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
and YTMND
YTMND
YTMND, an initialism for "You're the Man Now, Dog", is an online community centered on the creation of hosted web pages featuring a juxtaposition of an image centered or tiled along with optional large zooming text and a looping sound file...
.
Reception
Colin of Jacobson of DVD Movie Guide gave this episode a mixed review, saying "When Bart and Lisa team up to pursue a goal, the result usually succeeds. And that’s true for “Clod” – at least to a moderate degree. Like most Season 12 episodes, the program doesn’t become truly delightful, but it does more right than wrong, so it ends up as a decent success."External links
- "Children of a Lesser Clod" at The Simpsons.com