One of those platonic ideals of a Simpsons episode. It's not only hilarious from start to finish, but it has great moments of character-based humor, off-the-wall gags, and the short of mob mentality humor that the show does so well, with a lovely bit of heart to boot. The opening act is really just a showcase for Bart and Skinner, the latter giving into his young prankster ways and the latter succumbing to his sad sack squareness that inevitably seems to afflict poor Seymour.
But from there, it becomes one of those wonderful satires of how people respond to a crisis -- first with hubris, then with despair and desperation, and finally with community. The "Que Sera Sera" moment is one of the sweetest on the show, and the clockwork perfection of the comet not only destroying the "Big Butt Skinner" weather balloon that started all this excitement, but also the bomb shelter that everyone'd abandoned and then disintegrated just as Homer predicted (to the unsettled dread of the Simpsons Patriarch and his offspring), is wonderful. Plus the jokes just never stop hitting, from Homer's delightfully ludicrous thumb-twiddling song, to the animal noise guessing game, to the "Never give up, never think things out" spirit of Springfield. And the asides about military spending and congressional ineptitude is pure Schwartzwelder.
There's nothing especially remarkable about this one compared to some other upper echelon Simpsons episodes -- there's no Bond villains or flashbacks or attacks from Sideshow Bob, but the humor is so dense, and the satire so well-observed, that it becomes an all-timer through sheer force of will.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2016-05-29T18:07:26Z
One of those platonic ideals of a Simpsons episode. It's not only hilarious from start to finish, but it has great moments of character-based humor, off-the-wall gags, and the short of mob mentality humor that the show does so well, with a lovely bit of heart to boot. The opening act is really just a showcase for Bart and Skinner, the latter giving into his young prankster ways and the latter succumbing to his sad sack squareness that inevitably seems to afflict poor Seymour.
But from there, it becomes one of those wonderful satires of how people respond to a crisis -- first with hubris, then with despair and desperation, and finally with community. The "Que Sera Sera" moment is one of the sweetest on the show, and the clockwork perfection of the comet not only destroying the "Big Butt Skinner" weather balloon that started all this excitement, but also the bomb shelter that everyone'd abandoned and then disintegrated just as Homer predicted (to the unsettled dread of the Simpsons Patriarch and his offspring), is wonderful. Plus the jokes just never stop hitting, from Homer's delightfully ludicrous thumb-twiddling song, to the animal noise guessing game, to the "Never give up, never think things out" spirit of Springfield. And the asides about military spending and congressional ineptitude is pure Schwartzwelder.
There's nothing especially remarkable about this one compared to some other upper echelon Simpsons episodes -- there's no Bond villains or flashbacks or attacks from Sideshow Bob, but the humor is so dense, and the satire so well-observed, that it becomes an all-timer through sheer force of will.