Love Is a Many Strangled Thing
Encyclopedia
"Love Is a Many Strangled Thing" is the seventeenth episode of The Simpsons
' twenty-second season
. It aired on the Fox network
in the United States on March 27, 2011.
for the whole family. During the game, everybody starts to dance in front of the screen, but Bart does not want to dance, saying that the song "Everybody dance now" is too pushy for his liking. Homer tries do make him dance by tickling him but he inadvertently humiliates Bart in front of the stadium crowd when he tickles Bart until he urinates in his shorts. To make matters worse, the stadium owners took pity on Bart and tried to dry his shorts off by opening the roof, but Russian spy satellites captured the image of Bart with wet shorts. This lead not only to Bart being humiliated on the Internet
, but also to the Russian government seeing this as a sign of U.S. weakness and sending in war ships against it. Later at night, Marge scolds Homer for hurting Bart's feelings and self esteem and encourages him to enroll in a fathering enrichment class taught by therapist Dr. Zander. During the class, Homer casually mentions that he often strangles Bart for his mischievous behavior and that this has been a habit since Homer's own childhood (strangling his father when he angered him). Shocked to learn of Homer's violence towards Bart, Dr. Zander conducts a series of treatments in the next sessions with the help of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
to teach Homer what it feels like to be young, small, and helpless: by strangling him mercilessly all the time, including playtime and even going as far as the point of letting Kareem's friends to strangle Homer as well.
Unfortunately, the therapy works too well
and Homer can no longer strangle Bart, even when needed, because he is traumatized by the therapeutic session. Realising that the sessions have turned Homer into a pushover, Bart takes advantage of Homer and becomes a school bully, as the school can no longer count on Homer's aggressiveness to protect them and punish Bart's pranks. Seeing Bart's abuse towards Homer, Marge decides to take Bart to Dr. Zander to changes his ways, but to her shock, she finds out that Zander has become homeless due to the current economic downturn (along with other luxury professionals). Marge begs Dr. Zander to fix Bart and Homer for $20 and a can of beans. Zander accepts.
Dr. Zander takes Bart and Homer on a trip while Marge and Lisa spend their time watching sad horse movies. During their trip, Zander tries several exercises to encourage Homer to have confidence in Bart but, unfortunately, Bart often abuses Homer's ignorance and enjoys when he gets hurt
, much to Zander's frustration. The ultimate test on Bart's and Homer's relationship is that Bart must save his father from being hanged in a tree, but Bart is more concerned with playing his game than looking out for Homer's welfare. Dr. Zander, realizing just how annoying and sociopathic Bart is, gets fed up and decides to strangle Bart. But fortunately, Bart's neck is already too strong due to Homer's previous bottlenecks, and Bart manages to free Homer, who saves him. In revenge for Zander's behavior, Homer and Bart sue the Doctor and take from him the only thing that he has left: a hole in a large tree, a place where Homer and Bart finally reconcile and bond.
theme in place of usual theme, with the Planet Express ship
flying across the screen. Futurama is another animated series created by Matt Groening
, and was officially renewed for a seventh season the same week the episode aired.
At the closing of the credits, there is a dedication "To the Memory of Elizabeth Taylor
" beneath a picture of Maggie Simpson
. Taylor voiced Maggie's first word, "Daddy", in the fourth season episode "Lisa's First Word
".
This marked a slight rise in the ratings from the previous episode, "A Midsummer's Nice Dream
".
The A.V. Club
writer Rowan Kaiser called the episode "solid" commenting that "There was just a consistent stream of amusing lines, steadily increasing in frequency, until I realized that I'd been chuckling essentially from the start of the second act until the end of the fourth". He ultimately gave the episode a B+, the lowest grade of the night after American Dad and Bob's Burgers
.
The Alice Cooper song "No more, mr nice guy" is playing as homer first starts to get strangled.
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...
The Simpsons (season 22)
The Simpsons twenty-second season began airing on Fox on September 26, 2010 and ended on May 22, 2011. The Simpsons was renewed for at least two additional seasons during the twentieth season leading up to this season. The cast is currently signed through the 25th season. On November 11, 2010, the...
. It aired on the Fox network
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
in the United States on March 27, 2011.
Plot
After saving Mr. Burns' life, Homer wins tickets to a NFL game between the Springfield Atoms and the Miami DolphinsMiami Dolphins
The Miami Dolphins are a Professional football team based in the Miami metropolitan area in Florida. The team is part of the Eastern Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
for the whole family. During the game, everybody starts to dance in front of the screen, but Bart does not want to dance, saying that the song "Everybody dance now" is too pushy for his liking. Homer tries do make him dance by tickling him but he inadvertently humiliates Bart in front of the stadium crowd when he tickles Bart until he urinates in his shorts. To make matters worse, the stadium owners took pity on Bart and tried to dry his shorts off by opening the roof, but Russian spy satellites captured the image of Bart with wet shorts. This lead not only to Bart being humiliated on the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
, but also to the Russian government seeing this as a sign of U.S. weakness and sending in war ships against it. Later at night, Marge scolds Homer for hurting Bart's feelings and self esteem and encourages him to enroll in a fathering enrichment class taught by therapist Dr. Zander. During the class, Homer casually mentions that he often strangles Bart for his mischievous behavior and that this has been a habit since Homer's own childhood (strangling his father when he angered him). Shocked to learn of Homer's violence towards Bart, Dr. Zander conducts a series of treatments in the next sessions with the help of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is a retired American professional basketball player. He is the NBA's all-time leading scorer, with 38,387 points. During his career with the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Lakers from 1969 to 1989, Abdul-Jabbar won six NBA championships and a record six regular season...
to teach Homer what it feels like to be young, small, and helpless: by strangling him mercilessly all the time, including playtime and even going as far as the point of letting Kareem's friends to strangle Homer as well.
Unfortunately, the therapy works too well
Ludovico technique
The Ludovico technique is a fictional aversion therapy from the novel A Clockwork Orange administered by Dr. Brodsky with the approval of the UK Minister of the Interior. It involved forcing a patient to watch, through the use of specula to hold the eyes open, violent images for long periods of...
and Homer can no longer strangle Bart, even when needed, because he is traumatized by the therapeutic session. Realising that the sessions have turned Homer into a pushover, Bart takes advantage of Homer and becomes a school bully, as the school can no longer count on Homer's aggressiveness to protect them and punish Bart's pranks. Seeing Bart's abuse towards Homer, Marge decides to take Bart to Dr. Zander to changes his ways, but to her shock, she finds out that Zander has become homeless due to the current economic downturn (along with other luxury professionals). Marge begs Dr. Zander to fix Bart and Homer for $20 and a can of beans. Zander accepts.
Dr. Zander takes Bart and Homer on a trip while Marge and Lisa spend their time watching sad horse movies. During their trip, Zander tries several exercises to encourage Homer to have confidence in Bart but, unfortunately, Bart often abuses Homer's ignorance and enjoys when he gets hurt
Sadistic personality disorder
Sadistic personality disorder is a diagnosis which appeared only in an appendix of the revised third edition of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders . The current version of the DSM does not include it, so it is no longer considered a valid...
, much to Zander's frustration. The ultimate test on Bart's and Homer's relationship is that Bart must save his father from being hanged in a tree, but Bart is more concerned with playing his game than looking out for Homer's welfare. Dr. Zander, realizing just how annoying and sociopathic Bart is, gets fed up and decides to strangle Bart. But fortunately, Bart's neck is already too strong due to Homer's previous bottlenecks, and Bart manages to free Homer, who saves him. In revenge for Zander's behavior, Homer and Bart sue the Doctor and take from him the only thing that he has left: a hole in a large tree, a place where Homer and Bart finally reconcile and bond.
Production
The opening sequence of the episode begins with the opening notes of the FuturamaFuturama
Futurama is an American animated science fiction sitcom created by Matt Groening and developed by Groening and David X. Cohen for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series follows the adventures of a late 20th-century New York City pizza delivery boy, Philip J...
theme in place of usual theme, with the Planet Express ship
Planet Express Ship
The Planet Express Ship is a fictional spaceship in the animated series Futurama, which bears the official designation "U.S.S. Planet Express Ship." The ship was designed and built by Professor Hubert Farnsworth and is the sole delivery ship of Planet Express, a delivery service owned by the...
flying across the screen. Futurama is another animated series created by Matt Groening
Matt Groening
Matthew Abram "Matt" Groening is an American cartoonist, screenwriter, and producer. He is the creator of the comic strip Life in Hell as well as two successful television series, The Simpsons and Futurama....
, and was officially renewed for a seventh season the same week the episode aired.
At the closing of the credits, there is a dedication "To the Memory of Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age...
" beneath a picture of Maggie Simpson
Maggie Simpson
Margaret "Maggie" Simpson is a fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons. She first appeared on television in the Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987. Maggie was created and designed by cartoonist Matt Groening while he was waiting in the lobby of James...
. Taylor voiced Maggie's first word, "Daddy", in the fourth season episode "Lisa's First Word
Lisa's First Word
"Lisa's First Word" is the tenth episode of The Simpsons fourth season. It was first broadcast on Fox in the United States on December 3, 1992. In the episode, as the Simpson family gathers around Maggie and tries to encourage her to say her first word, Marge reminisces and tells the story of...
".
Reception
In its original American broadcast, "Love Is a Many Strangled Thing" was viewed by an estimated 6.14 million households, with a 2.8 Nielsen rating and 8% share of the audience between the ages of 18 and 49.This marked a slight rise in the ratings from the previous episode, "A Midsummer's Nice Dream
A Midsummer's Nice Dream
"A Midsummer's Nice Dream" is the sixteenth episode of The Simpsons twenty-second season. It aired on the Fox network in the United States on March 13, 2011...
".
The A.V. Club
The A.V. Club
The A.V. Club is an entertainment newspaper and website published by The Onion. Its features include reviews of new films, music, television, books, games and DVDs, as well as interviews and other regular offerings examining both new and classic media and other elements of pop culture. Unlike its...
writer Rowan Kaiser called the episode "solid" commenting that "There was just a consistent stream of amusing lines, steadily increasing in frequency, until I realized that I'd been chuckling essentially from the start of the second act until the end of the fourth". He ultimately gave the episode a B+, the lowest grade of the night after American Dad and Bob's Burgers
Bob's Burgers
Bob's Burgers is an American animated television sitcom, which premiered on January 9, 2011 on the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series was created by Loren Bouchard and focuses on the Belcher family, who runs a hamburger restaurant. On April 7, 2011, Bob's Burgers was renewed for a second season...
.
Cultural references
Homer has a dream with three pop culture references to parental abuse in the media, but Homer is the abused victim and Bart is the abuser:- Homer is a young Michael JacksonMichael JacksonMichael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...
in the Jackson Five, and Bart is Joe Jackson, Michael's father. - A scene from The Great SantiniThe Great SantiniThe Great Santini is a 1979 film which tells the story of a Marine officer whose success as a military aviator contrasts with his shortcomings as a husband and father. The film explores the high price of heroism and self-sacrifice...
where Bart is Wilbur Meechum and Homer is his son. - A parody of the film PreciousPrecious (film)Precious , is a 2009 American drama film directed by Lee Daniels. Precious is an adaptation by Geoffrey S. Fletcher of the 1996 novel Push by Sapphire. The film stars Gabourey Sidibe, Mo'Nique, and Paula Patton...
with Bart as Mary and Homer as Precious. - In the Springfield Atoms game the stadium makes a reference to Cowboys Stadium
The Alice Cooper song "No more, mr nice guy" is playing as homer first starts to get strangled.