"Duffless" | |
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The Simpsons episode | |
Episode no. | Season 4 Episode 16 |
Directed by | Jim Reardon |
Written by | David M. Stern |
Production code | 9F14 |
Original air date | February 18, 1993 |
Guest appearances | |
Episode features | |
Chalkboard gag | "Goldfish don't bounce" [1] |
Couch gag | Maggie is seated as the rest of the family "overshoot the mark" and run past the edge of the film and return to the couch. [2] |
Commentary | Matt Groening Al Jean Mike Reiss David M. Stern Jim Reardon |
"Duffless" is the sixteenth episode of the fourth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons . It originally aired on Fox in the United States on February 18, 1993. Homer gets arrested for drunk driving, and Marge asks him to stop drinking beer for a month. Meanwhile, after Bart ruins Lisa's science fair project, she attempts to get revenge by proving that he is dumber than a hamster.
The episode was written by David M. Stern, and directed by Jim Reardon. [2] It had a positive reception.
While having breakfast with her family, Lisa shows them her project for Springfield Elementary School's upcoming science fair, a steroid-enhanced tomato she hopes will solve world hunger. At school, three days before the fair, Lisa leaves her tomato in Bart's care for a moment and he hurls it at Principal Skinner's butt. When Lisa returns, she is furious that Bart destroyed her project. She asks Marge for help, who suggests she run a hamster through a maze. Inspired, Lisa decides to run a series of tests on a hamster and Bart to determine who is smarter. After two easy tests, the hamster leads two to zero.
Homer sneaks out early at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant and accompanies Barney on a tour of the Duff brewery. Afterward, Homer refuses to let a drunk Barney drive home and forces him to hand over his keys. On their way out of the parking lot, their car is pulled over by police Chief Wiggum, along with Eddie and Lou. After administering a field sobriety test on Homer, which he passes, the policemen tell Homer he is free to go. However, as revenge for not being allowed to drive, Barney tells the policemen to give Homer a breathalyzer, which detects that Homer has recently had alcohol. Homer is arrested, loses his license, and is ordered by a judge to attend traffic school and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. In bed, Marge gives Homer a magazine quiz about his drinking. Hearing Homer's answers, Marge asks him to give up beer for a month, and he reluctantly agrees.
Bart discovers Lisa's plans to humiliate him at the science fair and pre-empts her project with a project of his own, "Can hamsters fly planes?", showing her hamster in the cockpit of a miniature plane. Despite Lisa's objection concerning the lack of scientific merit, everyone is distracted by how cute the hamster is, and a proud Skinner hands Bart the winning ribbon.
During the month that Homer spends without beer, he loses weight and saves over $100. After being sober for a month (despite many temptations), Homer goes back to Moe's, despite Marge's declaration that she would like to spend time with him in that moment. Homer orders a beer at Moe's, but thinks about what Marge said to him and leaves after a steady, appraising look at Barney and the other barflies. Homer and Marge ride a bike into the sunset, singing "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head".
Bart's go-go ray idea was "stolen" from the opening credits of Jonny Quest . [3] Mike Reiss said they did not want to show the hamster getting shocked but had to for plot purposes. [4] The first line Richard Nixon says, during the Duff commercial, was taken verbatim from the Kennedy-Nixon Debate during the 1960 Presidential Campaign. [5] Adolf Hitler's head, among other things, can be seen going by in bottles of Duff when the quality control man is not paying attention. [5] The Troy McClure driver's education film title Alice's Adventures Through the Windshield Glass was pitched by Frank Mula. [6]
The episode contains the first appearance of Sarah Wiggum. [7] The episode also contains a two-second snippet of footage from "Bart the Daredevil": a close-up of Homer making a disappointed face and saying "D'oh!" when he gets arrested. [8]
When Bart reaches for the cupcakes and collapses, it is a parody of a scene in A Clockwork Orange where Alex, a predator who has been conditioned to hate sex, reaches for a woman's breasts. [4] Duff is shown to be a sponsor of the 1960 United States presidential debates. The Duff clock is a parody of the "It's a Small World" clock. [9] Troy McClure mentions having been in the driver's ed film Alice's Adventures Through the Windshield Glass, a play on Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass . In the Duff TV ad, a group of women are leading an anti-sexism protest in front of the McMahon and Tate building, a reference to the advertising agency from Bewitched . [4] Homer's song "It was a Very Good Beer" is to the tune of "It Was a Very Good Year" (1961); [10] one of its lyrics is "I stayed up listening to Queen." [2] Bart sitting in the chair stroking the hamster is a reference to James Bond villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld, who sits in a chair and strokes a cat. [4] Lisa imagines Bart as a hamster trapped in a maze saying "Help me! Help me!", a reference to The Fly (1958). Lisa claims she was laughing at a joke from Herman's Head , which featured Lisa's voice actor Yeardley Smith and fellow cast member Hank Azaria. Bart makes several actions reminiscent of The Three Stooges throughout the episode, saying "Certainly" à la Curly. The penultimate scene, where Moe points to customers declaring they will "be back" before pointing toward and addressing the viewer (revealed via cutaway to be Barney) is a parody of the end of Reefer Madness . [4] The final scene, of Homer and Marge cycling off into the sunset to "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head", is a reference to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). [1]
"Duffless" aired during February sweeps and finished 19th in the weekly ratings for the week of February 15–21, 1993 with a Nielsen rating of 15.2 and was viewed in 14.2 million homes. [11] It was the highest rated show from the Fox Network that week. [12]
Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood called it "A superb episode with a sincere message. Homer is excellent throughout, but it is the cameos by Principal Skinner and Edna Krabappel that steal the show, especially the latter's reaction to Milhouse's Slinky." [2]
Nathan Rabin writes: “'Duffless' flirts with a truly downbeat ending when Homer returns to an even-more-depressing-than-usual Moe’s (no mean feat considering that even at its liveliest and most upbeat, the bar is a pit of bottomless sorrow) to the bitterness and resentment of Moe and the sour apathy of the barflies Homer deludes himself into thinking are his friends, even if they can’t be bothered to remember his name.
The episode pulls back from that bleak void, however, by having a humbled and at least slightly wiser Homer turn down the beer he’s been lusting for, temporarily of course, so that he can go bike riding with Marge to the gentle strains of 'Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head.' It’s a bit of a cheat, since we know that Homer’s sobriety is only temporary. Then again, it was awfully ballsy for an animated family sitcom in 1993 to make an entire episode around a lead character’s alcoholism and drunk-driving conviction so the show can be forgiven for not being quite as uncompromising in its depiction of Homer’s alcoholism as it could be." [13]
Entertainment Weekly ranked the episode eleventh on their list of the top twenty-five The Simpsons episodes: "Not only does 'Duffless' tweak an unrelenting alcohol culture (a billboard flips between 'Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Drunk' and 'It’s Always Time for Duff'), it deftly depicts poignant, if grudging, emotional growth for Homer: After bemoaning his newfound sobriety at a baseball stadium ('I never realized how boring this game is'), he forgoes a reward beer to bike into the sunset with Marge." [14] Reviewing the season in 1993, Ken Tucker wrote that "the Simpsons aren’t winking, rib-cage-nudging rebels; if anything, they’re touchingly sincere. Groening and company want to suggest that family life is so complicated, so full of inarticulated desires and fears, that it can never be reduced to a mere collection of wisecracks." Referring to "Duffless" and "Selma's Choice", he writes "The closest the series has ever come to offering a 'message' has been in a few episodes this season that mercilessly satirize the alcohol industry in the form of the profoundly cynical 'Duff' beer company...the show has Homer trying to give up Duff for a month, with great difficulty. The episode is hilarious, in part because it makes alcoholism seem like such an absurd horror, you have to laugh." [15]
Homer Jay Simpson is the protagonist of the American animated sitcom The Simpsons. He is voiced by Dan Castellaneta and first appeared, along with the rest of the Simpsons, in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987. Homer was created by the cartoonist Matt Groening while he was waiting in the lobby of producer James L. Brooks's office. Groening had been called to pitch a series of shorts based on his comic strip Life in Hell but instead created a new set of characters. He named the character after his father, Homer Groening. After appearing for three seasons on The Tracey Ullman Show, the Simpsons received their own series on Fox, which debuted on December 17, 1989.
Bartholomew Jojo "Bart" Simpson is a fictional character in the American animated television series The Simpsons and part of the Simpson family. He is voiced by Nancy Cartwright and first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987. Cartoonist Matt Groening created and designed Bart while waiting in the lobby of James L. Brooks' office. Groening had been called to pitch a series of shorts based on his comic strip, Life in Hell, but instead decided to create a new set of characters. While the rest of the characters were named after Groening's family members, Bart's name is an anagram of the word brat. After appearing on The Tracey Ullman Show for two years, the Simpson family received its own series on Fox, which debuted December 17, 1989. Bart has appeared in every Simpsons episode except "Four Great Women and a Manicure".
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"Mr. Plow" is the ninth episode of the fourth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired on Fox in the United States on November 19, 1992. In the episode, Homer buys a snowplow and starts a business plowing driveways. It is a huge success, and inspired by this, Barney Gumble starts a rival company and quickly puts Homer out of business.
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"Lisa's First Word" is the tenth episode of the fourth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. 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 Lisa's first word. Maggie's first word is voiced by Elizabeth Taylor.
"Homer's Barbershop Quartet" is the first episode of the fifth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on September 30, 1993. It features the Be Sharps, a barbershop quartet founded by Homer Simpson. The band's story roughly parallels that of the Beatles. George Harrison and David Crosby guest star as themselves, and the Dapper Dans partly provide the singing voices of the Be Sharps.
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"A Star Is Burns" is the eighteenth episode of the sixth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It first aired on Fox in the United States on March 5, 1995. In the episode, Springfield decides to hold a film festival, and famed critic Jay Sherman is invited to be a judge.
"So It's Come to This: A Simpsons Clip Show" is the eighteenth episode of the fourth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired on Fox in the United States on April 1, 1993. In the episode, Homer plays a series of practical jokes on Bart, and to get even, Bart shakes up a can of Homer's beer with a paint shaker. Homer opens the can, resulting in a huge explosion that lands him in the hospital, where he goes into a coma. At Homer's bedside, the Simpson family reminisce, mainly about moments relevant to Homer's life.
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"The Front" is the nineteenth episode of the fourth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired in the United States on Fox on April 15, 1993. In the episode, Bart and Lisa decide to write an episode of The Itchy & Scratchy Show; after their script is rejected, they resubmit it under the name of their grandfather Abraham Simpson, resulting in Grampa being hired as a staff writer. Meanwhile, Homer returns to high school to retake a failed science course.
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The third season of the American animated television series The Simpsons originally aired on the Fox network between September 19, 1991, and August 27, 1992. The showrunners for the third production season were Al Jean and Mike Reiss who executive produced 22 episodes for the season, while two other episodes were produced by James L. Brooks, Matt Groening, and Sam Simon, with it being produced by Gracie Films and 20th Century Fox Television. An additional episode, "Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?", aired on August 27, 1992, after the official end of the third season and is included on the Season 3 DVD set. Season three won six Primetime Emmy Awards for "Outstanding Voice-Over Performance" and also received a nomination for "Outstanding Animated Program" for the episode "Radio Bart". The complete season was released on DVD in Region 1 on August 26, 2003, Region 2 on October 6, 2003, and in Region 4 on October 22, 2003.
Duff Beer is a brand of beer that originated as a fictional beverage on the American animated series The Simpsons. Beers using the Duff branding have been brewed in a number of countries, resulting in legal battles with varying results. An official version is sold in three variations near the Simpsons Ride at Universal Studios. In 2015, 20th Century Fox, the producer of The Simpsons, began selling licensed Duff beer in Chile, with a view to driving out brandjacking.