4.1 Kamp Krusty
Bart pledged to get Cs on his report card if his parents would let him go to Kamp Krusty. Of course, he fails, but Homer agrees to let him go to get rid of him for the summer.
There’s a lot early in this season about Homer’s inconsistency as a parent and his inability to follow through. It feels like padding here. The actual Krusty stuff is a great satire on celebrity endorsements and product placement, but it’s jarring anytime the show has its characters graduate or move up in grade since the next episode will invariably put them back where they started.
4.2 A Streetcar Named Marge
Hard to believe they crammed so much into less than thirty minutes: Marge’s hidden talent, the parallels between her life and Blanche’s, Ned’s secret passion for theater, Llewlyn Sinclair (played with aplomb by Jon Lovitz), the musical numbers. Maggie’s side adventure at day care is one of her shining moments (including the perfect Hitchcock reference at the end). This is a homerun.
4.3 Homer the Heretic
Homer doesn’t go to church and enjoys himself more than his family who sit through a freezing church service. He decides to permanently forgo church and has a dream / vision of God who, though disappointed, agrees to let him worship in his own way. Later, when Homer falls asleep and accidentally sets his house on fire and his friends save him, Homer sees this as an act of God and decides to go to church again.
It’s a nice, gentle satire of holier than thou religious types. And the show’s subtle touch to give God five fingers is really cool.
4.4 Lisa the Beauty Queen
Lisa thinks she’s ugly, so Homer encourages her to enter a beauty contest sponsored by Laramie cigarettes. The satire of vacuous beauty pageants is spot on and I loved the Bob Hope cameo, but Lisa would never condescend to being in a beauty pageant and the jokes feel like low hanging fruit.
4.5 Treehouse of Horror III
Another fantastic Treehouse episode. Evil Krusty doll is great and the denouement of the segment: flipping his mode from evil to good is a masterstroke. I love Homer as King Kong, and the zombie segment has some great parts especially when the dead return to their graves. These episodes, focused on parodies of familiar tropes, really show the possibilities of the show. Fantastic work.
4.6 Itchy and Scratchy: The Movie
Bart is constantly pushing boundaries and Homer shows a remarkable inability to follow through on any punishment (a recurring theme of season four). In this episode, Bart pushes too far and Homer forces him to miss seeing Itchy and Scratchy: The Movie. This proves to be a turning point in Bart’s life and propels him to a successful career.
Even by this point, Itchy and Scratchy episodes were becoming tiresome. I loved the debut of Bumblebee Man (one of the most inexplicable characters in The Simpsons universe), but Homer’s evolution as a parent and his consistent inability to provide any discipline for Bart is annoying. It’s a middle of the road episode for me.
4.7 Marge Gets a Job
Bored Marge is a not interesting to me. Here, she gets a job at the nuclear power plant, quickly proves herself to be a valuable asset, and catches Burns’ eye. It makes little internal sense Burns wouldn’t remember who Marge is, and his sudden attraction to her is weird. Bart’s B story is a little bland as well. The best part of the episode is Tom Jones guest spot.
4.8 New Kid on the Block
Sara Gilbert does a great job as Laura Powers, the new next door neighbor, and I appreciated her infatuation with Jimbo. Bart developing a crush is a natural development and works a lot better than last season’s similar experimentation with Milhouse, but I enjoyed the B story more. Captain McCallister’s initial appearance is great: of course Homer would test the limits of an all you can eat buffet. The court case is a highlight, and Marge breaking down in embarrassment when questioned about what they did when they were kicked out is very funny. Especially when she admits they resorted to fishing at 2 AM because Homer was still hungry.
4.9 Mr. Plow
Homer foolishly buys a truck and starts a snow plowing business. It’s a huge success, until Barney opens a competing business as The Plow King. Every Simpsons fan has fond memories of this episode. The Mr. Plow jingle, the focus on Barney, Adam West, Linda Rondstadt, the local commercial parody, and the end when Marge asks Homer to wear the Mr. Plow jacket to bed.
4.10 Lisa’s First Word
I love the way this episode elevated Bart and Lisa by making her first word his name. Homer gets a much deserved win as a parent with Maggie calling him Daddy (famously voiced by Elizabeth Taylor). This is a solid family flashback and reinforces much of the dynamic we already know. I love the family house hunting and the use of Grandpa to pay for the house only to be kicked to the curb less than a month later.
4.11 Homer’s Triple Bypass
An unfunny concept: Homer is an overweight glutton who’s overdue for a heart attack. Dr. Nick is funny and provides a few gags and I enjoyed some of Dr. Hibbert’s stuff, but this is a clunker.
4.12 Marge vs. the Monorail
Leonard Nimoy. “I call the big one Bitey.” The song and dance parody of The Music Man. Lyle Lanley. The pot hole on Main Street. The solar eclipse. “Donuts, is there anything they can’t do?” It’s frequently cited as among the series best and it’s still remarkably funny over a quarter century later.
4.13 Selma’s Choice
After her aunt dies, Selma feels lonely and wants to have a kid. She tries dating, but this is predictably disastrous. She goes to a sperm bank, but seeing Barney leave is sobering. To get a feel for raising children, she takes Bart and Lisa to Duff Gardens which destroys her maternal instinct. Instead of children, she adopts a pet iguana: Jub-Jub. I love Jub-Jub and this gives him an interesting origin story, but spinster Selma isn’t as funny as the writers seem to think.
4.14 Brother from the Same Planet
After a falling out with Homer, Bart goes to Bigger Brothers and finds a new dad. Homer responds by finding a new son in Pepe. I don’t mind episodes which explore the family dynamic in an interesting way, but I don’t care for episodes which push too far, and the Lisa’s obsession with Corey is A) out of character, and B) dates the show. I found this to be an exceptionally weak episode.
4.15 I Love Lisa
Lisa feels bad for Ralph and makes him a Valentine which sends the wrong message: he thinks she’s in love with him. The card in question, “I Choo-Choo Choose You,” is rightfully an iconic part of Simpsons lore. Bart pausing the tape of Lisa explaining her true feelings and pointing out the moment you can see Ralph’s heart break is an all time moment. Extra bonus, this is the episode which established Ralph as Clancy’s son. Ralph’s moment in the sun still echoes in the minds of fans a quarter century later.
4.16 Duffless
After Homer goes on a tour of Duff Brewery, he gets arrested for drunk driving. Losing his license, he agrees to give up alcohol for thirty days Despite a rocky start, he experiences numerous positive life changes. Meanwhile, Lisa and Bart have a mini war after he destroys her science project. Lisa’s retaliatory experiments on Bart are humorous and some of the stuff in the Homer story is funny, but Homer is a drinker and taking that away from him, changes who he is. I know some love it, but this was a forgettable, throwaway episode for me.
4.17 Last Exit to Springfield
In order to pay for Lisa’s braces, Homer gets entangled in labor union politics. I loved Lisa’s folk song in support of the union (and I think this is the first time we’ve seen her play the guitar), but the episode was short on truly laugh out loud moments. It’s decent, but not spectacular.
4.18 So It’s Come to This: A Simpsons Clip Show
Loosely tied together by another Homer heart issue, this is a relic of a bygone era. In the age of streaming, a clip show designed to cheaply fill out episode orders is thankfully a thing of the past.
4.19 The Front
Bart and Lisa use Grandpa as a front so they can write an episode of Itchy and Scratchy. Their episode is well received and wins an award, but Grandpa rants about the violence of cartoons in his acceptance speech, alienating his peers and effectively ending their career with the show. The B plot is more interesting. When Homer isn’t invited to his high school reunion because he technically never graduated, he goes back to get his degree.
It’s an okay episode, but feels like a half baked idea. By this point in the show’s run, Itchy and Scratchy felt a little played out.
4.20 Whacking Day
Superintendent Chalmers’s debut was well handled, and having Skinner in a hierarchy is a welcome development. I loved his attempt to cordon off the bullies at the beginning. I love the idea of Whacking Day, I love how much Lisa hates it, and the fact Bart’s new found love of history (thanks to Johnny Tremaine) is the way he figures out it’s a lie. Quimby’s attempt to use the day for political purposes, Nixon’s appearance. Everything about this episode is a highlight.
4.21 Marge in Chains
I love Lionel Hutz episodes. Two quotes from this episode are all time classics. Blue haired lawyer: “Let the record show the witness made the drinky drinky motion.” Lionel Hutz: “He’s had a thing against me since I accidentally ran over his dog…. replace the word accidentally with repeatedly and dog with son.” A lot more hits than misses here.
4.22 Krusty Gets Kancelled
Peak Simpsons. Well before every episode had a pointless celebrity cameo, this is chock-full of delighting cameos. Luke Perry, Bette Midler, Barry White, and, incredibly Johnny Carson. Gabbo is a delicious addition. Julie Kavner was opposed to the heavy use of cameos and boycotted the episode (thus Marge’s lack of dialogue). I’ve also read Yeardley Smith does not care for Marge vs. the Monorail, so it seems the cast doesn’t always understand what makes the show work. At any rate, this is a pantheon episode.
- Marge vs. the Monorail (4.12)
- A Streetcar Named Marge (4.2)
- Krusty Gets Kancelled (4.22)
- Treehouse of Horror III (4.5)
- Mr. Plow (4.9)
- Whacking Day (4.20)
- I Love Lisa (4.15)
- Homer the Heretic (4.3)
- Marge in Chains (4.21)
- Lisa’s First Word (4.10)
- The Itchy and Scratchy Movie (4.6)
- The Front (4.19)
- Lax Exit to Springfield (4.17)
- Selma’s Choice (4.13)
- New Kid on the Block (4.8)
- Kamp Krusty (4.1)
- Marge Gets a Job (4.7)
- Lisa the Beauty Queen (4.4)
- So It’s Come to This: A Simpsons Clip Show (4.18)
- Duffless (4.15)
- Brother from the Same Planet (4.14)
- Homer’s Triple Bypass (4.11)