9.7/10. Just a brilliant, brilliant episode. There's a great laugh every ten seconds, from a newspaper headline that reads "Parade to Distract Joyless Citizenry" to a corporate sponsor saying "A pirate? That's hardly the image we want for Long John Silvers!" The story of the episode has a great mystery, with Lisa getting the bottom of the Jebediah Springfield story with plenty of twists and red herrings. Donald Sutherland is a great guest star, playing a bookish but devoted historian and giving him real character in just a few lines. And even the Homer and Lisa team-up element is very sweet and leads to a lot of great comedy.
And my god, Homer as the town crier is just nonstop hilarity. The way he steals the job in the first place (chooseth Homer, and he shall rock thy world), his general enthusiasm that leads to him criering on the phone, and his sad use of an old alarm clock when he looses the job are all just gold. This episode, as the series so often does, so perfectly captures all the little eccentricities of small town life, whether it be in the form of poorly done educational films about local films or the general jingoistic support of Jebediah in the town.
But what really sets this episode above is it's conclusion. I love Lisa being right and managing to prove it, but deciding that it's not worth bursting everyone's bubble. As much as I love Lisa as a character, she can often be a scold or right for the sake of being right, and in an episode where one intelligent person turns away from the truth for selfish reason, Lisa does the same thing for selfless reasons. It shows maturity, and her realizing that the message of Jebediah Springfield, whoever he really was, has value that transcends his personal history. It's an appropriately "great' resolution, and the way the episode ends with Homer returned to his criering job for the parade (he's not the official crier, but he's just "too damn good" according to Chief Wiggum) and Lisa on his shoulder is absolutely perfect.
It's a wonderful episode that manages to pack in a mystery, an interesting moral, well-observed details about these sorts of town celebrations, great character beats for Homer and Lisa, and oodles and oodles of laughs. This is an all-timer.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2016-12-09T05:29:25Z
9.7/10. Just a brilliant, brilliant episode. There's a great laugh every ten seconds, from a newspaper headline that reads "Parade to Distract Joyless Citizenry" to a corporate sponsor saying "A pirate? That's hardly the image we want for Long John Silvers!" The story of the episode has a great mystery, with Lisa getting the bottom of the Jebediah Springfield story with plenty of twists and red herrings. Donald Sutherland is a great guest star, playing a bookish but devoted historian and giving him real character in just a few lines. And even the Homer and Lisa team-up element is very sweet and leads to a lot of great comedy.
And my god, Homer as the town crier is just nonstop hilarity. The way he steals the job in the first place (chooseth Homer, and he shall rock thy world), his general enthusiasm that leads to him criering on the phone, and his sad use of an old alarm clock when he looses the job are all just gold. This episode, as the series so often does, so perfectly captures all the little eccentricities of small town life, whether it be in the form of poorly done educational films about local films or the general jingoistic support of Jebediah in the town.
But what really sets this episode above is it's conclusion. I love Lisa being right and managing to prove it, but deciding that it's not worth bursting everyone's bubble. As much as I love Lisa as a character, she can often be a scold or right for the sake of being right, and in an episode where one intelligent person turns away from the truth for selfish reason, Lisa does the same thing for selfless reasons. It shows maturity, and her realizing that the message of Jebediah Springfield, whoever he really was, has value that transcends his personal history. It's an appropriately "great' resolution, and the way the episode ends with Homer returned to his criering job for the parade (he's not the official crier, but he's just "too damn good" according to Chief Wiggum) and Lisa on his shoulder is absolutely perfect.
It's a wonderful episode that manages to pack in a mystery, an interesting moral, well-observed details about these sorts of town celebrations, great character beats for Homer and Lisa, and oodles and oodles of laughs. This is an all-timer.