The three best episodes of the Simpsons

As it’s Friday and therefore almost weekend, I write about something non technical, just an easy to read article about one of my all time favorite TV shows: The Simpsons. I’m pretty sure most people on the world know the iconic family with the yellow skin color. Considering myself an absolute fan of this series I want to present you my personal top five episodes of the Simpsons! Might contain spoilers.

3: Thirty minutes over Tokyo

This episodes was the last episode of series 10 and it originally aired on May 16, 1999. In the beginning of this episode Homer, Bart and Lisa visit the newly opened Java Server (a cabercafé) where Homer gets robbed by snake, who empties his online bank account. Homer then tries to get money by stealing Ned Flanders’ possessions, but he gets caught by Ned. Flanders then tells Homer about a savings seminar. The Simpsons visit the seminar and they learn about a cheap way to travel somewhere by booking last minute at the airport.

Afterwards they book a fly to Tokyo because Homer notices that Flanders wants the tickets. At the hotel we can see homer using a futuristic toilet which is linked to the TV, where the rest of the family can see him almost using the toilet.

The family then continues sightseeing in Tokyo but instead of learning about the local culture, Homer wastes the family’s money on expensive and useless stuff (like a square shaped watermelon, which he drops as he tries to eat it) and the family eats at the america town, an american restaurant.

After eating at the america town restaurant, the family decides to go to a sumo fight where homer gets arrested for attacking an emperor. In the prison Homer and Bart learned speaking Japanese and making origami. The then get out of prison (I love the scene where Homer simply walks through the wall made of paper) and Homer loses the last one million Yen the family had by making an origami swan for Lisa.

The family afterwards has to participate in a Japanese gameshow (which are known to be very obscure). In one game Homer is dressed up as a piñata and Bart, Lisa and Marge have to hit him while the presenter laughs. After they hit homer, the rest of the family gets to see who they hit.

In the show the Simpsons have to play different games where most of the time Homer gets hurt. In the end they win the show and get tickets for a flight back home.

2: The joy of sect

This was the 13th episode of series nine which originally aired on February 8, 1998. In the beginning of this episode Homer takes Bart to the airport to greet the local football team, which has lost their last game. At the airport Homer is being talked to by different religious recruiters but Homer humiliates them. Then he meets two recruiters who are advertising a new religion called Movementarianism. The tell him about the Leader’s plan to build a space ship and fly to a new planet called Blisstonia.

 

 

 

Homer shows interest as they tell him about a free weekend at their resort:

So Homer decides to visit the free weekend with other inhabitants of Springfield. It is pretty obvious that the Movementarianism try to brain-wash the visitors. Most of them fall for the method pretty quickly, but Homer simply is too dumb to realize. The recruiters then convert him by singing the batman theme, where batman was replaced with ‘leader’.

Afterwards Homer signs himself and the rest of the family in and the Simpsons move to the farm of the leader, because Homer gave the Movementarianists the Simpson’s house to open a new ‘welcome center’ in their neighborhood.

On the farm the family has to work hard for every day and they have to live in a large room with all the other freshly converted Movementarianists. Bart, Maggie and Lisa get converted soon pretty quickly and Marge manages to escape from the farm and tells Reverend Lovejoy, Ned Flanders and groundkeeper Willie about the sect. They then kidnap Homer and the children by dressing as the leader. Marge then manages to deprogram the children with fake hoverbikes and Homer with a beer. But Homer gets caught by the Movementarianists.

After they brought him back to the farm he tells the others that he is no longer brain-washed. He then opens the doors to the forbidden barn, where the leader builds the space ship to fly to Blisstonia, hoping to expose the religion as a fraud. To the surprise of the Springfieldians there really was a space ship in the barn and the leader tells everyone that there will be no better life on Blisstonia because of Homer’s lack of faith. The spaceship then falls apart in mid air, revealing The Leader on a pedal-powered aircraft departing with everyone’s money while he makes hovering sounds with his mouth.

In the last seen the family is home again:

1: Springfield files

This is the tenth episode from season eight and it originally aired on January the 12th, 1997 . The episode features a cartoon style Leonard Nimoy right in the beginning who hosts a show about alien activity in Springfield.

Afterwards Homer is seen drinking a lot of beer at Moe’s. Moe then states that Homer is too drunk to drive home (he reaches the ‘Boris Yeltsin’ level in a breathalyzer test), so Homer has to walk home. On his way home, he takes a wrong route and walks through a forest where a lot of good gags happen (See the video below), before he meets a strange, thin, green and glowing creature. Even though the thing tells Homer, that he should not be afraid of him, Homer runs away.

The next morning, Homer tells his family what he saw. But nobody believes him, except for Bart, Scully and Mulder (You know the two agents from the x files, who are featured in this episode). Bart and Homer decide to go to the forest the next Friday to see the creature again. And the green thing appears, but Homer manages to frighten it, by stepping into a campfire, so it runs away. However Bart made a video of the incident and Homer is happy that he finally has a proof of the Alien’s existence. As soon as the other inhabitants of Springfield see the movie, Bart made, they start believing Homer. Everyone believes him, except for Lisa who remains suspicious.

Friday comes again and everyone, including Leonard Nimoy and Agent Scully, goes to the forest. Sure enough, the alien appears again, promising love. The townspeople begin to riot, and charge at the alien. But right before they could attack it, Smithers appears and explains the whole situation:

Mr. Burns gets a medical treatment each Friday evening, so he can extend his live by one more week. The use of strong pain killers leaves Mr. Burns twisted and disoriented. The treatment also gives him a soft, high pitched voice as a result of a vocal cord scraping. Back to his normal self, Burns states that the healthy green glow is an effect of working in the nuclear power plant for several years. Mr. Burns also explains that he doesn’t want to bring peace to the people, but he will terrorize them, which leads Dr. Nick to give him an injection which instantly reverts Mr. Burns to his alien form. The episode then ends with all the characters dancing, which was quite odd.

 

 

All images copyright 20th century fox, material is used for criticism/review purposes only.