[7.5/10 on a post-classic Simpsons scale] I’m a sucker for these three story episodes. They’re hard to mess-up too badly, given the shortened runtime, lack of need for continuity or character consistency, and more gag-fest bent. This one is no exception, full of mild laughs and nice mash-ups between The Simpsons and famous art figures/movements in an entertaining way.
Lisa as Leonardo da Vinci struggling with what to do with her genius was probably the most interesting and entertaining one for me. There were some good gags and a lot of story and even theme packed into a seven-minute tale. What’s more, the art design for Florence was surprisingly beautiful, rendered in a more realistic style than the show usually goes for!
The impressionist movement segment was also a fun one. It was pretty simple, but made some good gags about the staidness of the art academy at the time and the emotional approach that the impressionists represented. The whole cheese wheel deception bit was too much for me, but it’s a solid tale and the show has fun with Bart and his cohort as the rebellious artists of their day. (Plus Moe as a Toulouse Lautrec was playing to the cheap seats, but worth a few laughs.)
The final full segment, with Homer and Marge as Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo respectively was probably the weakest of the three, but it was still solid. The history gets pretty jumbled, and the episode has some trouble making light of legitimate turbulence, but there’s a solid throughline of Homer-as-Rivera needing to learn to respect Marge-as-Kahlo. Not the best, but still decent.
As for the smaller bits, I got a big kick out of the brief interlude with Maggie and Baby Gerald as both cherubs in Renaissance art and dogfighters in a WWII movie. It’s reminiscent of the neat little Maggie shorts that they’ve put before movies. The closer, with “Vincent van Moe” singing “Barry Barry Night” was a real dud though, with the lamest lyrics and zero yuks to be had.
That said, overall, using art as the connective tissue and subject for one of these three stories outings was a real treat, especially seeing some of the great paintings of history invoked and reimagined for The Simpsons’s world. This doesn’t end up being much more than a lark, but it’s an entertaining lark.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2020-10-12T21:23:44Z
[7.5/10 on a post-classic Simpsons scale] I’m a sucker for these three story episodes. They’re hard to mess-up too badly, given the shortened runtime, lack of need for continuity or character consistency, and more gag-fest bent. This one is no exception, full of mild laughs and nice mash-ups between The Simpsons and famous art figures/movements in an entertaining way.
Lisa as Leonardo da Vinci struggling with what to do with her genius was probably the most interesting and entertaining one for me. There were some good gags and a lot of story and even theme packed into a seven-minute tale. What’s more, the art design for Florence was surprisingly beautiful, rendered in a more realistic style than the show usually goes for!
The impressionist movement segment was also a fun one. It was pretty simple, but made some good gags about the staidness of the art academy at the time and the emotional approach that the impressionists represented. The whole cheese wheel deception bit was too much for me, but it’s a solid tale and the show has fun with Bart and his cohort as the rebellious artists of their day. (Plus Moe as a Toulouse Lautrec was playing to the cheap seats, but worth a few laughs.)
The final full segment, with Homer and Marge as Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo respectively was probably the weakest of the three, but it was still solid. The history gets pretty jumbled, and the episode has some trouble making light of legitimate turbulence, but there’s a solid throughline of Homer-as-Rivera needing to learn to respect Marge-as-Kahlo. Not the best, but still decent.
As for the smaller bits, I got a big kick out of the brief interlude with Maggie and Baby Gerald as both cherubs in Renaissance art and dogfighters in a WWII movie. It’s reminiscent of the neat little Maggie shorts that they’ve put before movies. The closer, with “Vincent van Moe” singing “Barry Barry Night” was a real dud though, with the lamest lyrics and zero yuks to be had.
That said, overall, using art as the connective tissue and subject for one of these three stories outings was a real treat, especially seeing some of the great paintings of history invoked and reimagined for The Simpsons’s world. This doesn’t end up being much more than a lark, but it’s an entertaining lark.