EPISODE REVIEW: Homerarazzi

Topic: Narm!

Users: @gkscotty @Graham @SuzyQ Beb Chris Enhas fellranger Tony

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[Lisabella]

Of course, this review includes SPOILERS!  So if you haven't seen the ep and you continue reading this post, I'll assume you're willing to be spoiled.

Summary: Homer celebrates his birthday and is alarmingly unable to blow out his candles.  He falls asleep, goes face-first into his cake and ignites his party hat, starting an inferno in the Simpsons home.

The fire department, who've been there six times that month, suggest the family take fire prevention precautions.  Homer buys the family a fireproof safe; the family places the following items inside:

Homer: the bottle of Wookie Collogne he wore on his first date with Marge.

Marge: the family album

Lisa: her Malibu Stacy convertible

Bart: his walking, talking Krusty doll.

When Homer shuts the safe, he triggers the Krusty Doll's walking mechinism.  He falls into the front seat of the converible, triggering the headlights to go on, which heat the bottle of cologne to the point of explosion.  It causes a fire and burns Marge's beloved memories to a crisp.

A saddened Marge asks the family to restage its beloved memories, and when they later leaf through the album they notice Boobarella and Duff Man on a date in the background of Marge and Homer's anniversary picture.  Since this version of Duffman has a life partner, Homer sees dollar signs and takes the photo to a local tabloid.

The tabloid publisher likes what he sees and hires Homer as a staff photographer.  With Lisa and Bart as assistants, he takes the local scene by storm, annoying most every celeb in town with his shutterbugging.  He finally goes too far when he interrupts the wedding of Rainer Wolfcastle. 

Swearing revenge, Wolcastle gathers the local celebs to get back at Homer.  They hire Enrico Irritazio, the world's most invasive paparazzi, to follow Homer around and take unflattering photographs of him, which are published in a Homer-centric tabloid.

Embaressed, Homer finds out that his editor sold him out when the celebs offered him money.  He fires Homer and orders him to give back his camera. 

Springfield's elite gathers to celebrate their victory and Homer, nearby in Moe's Tavern, is unable to take their gloating.  He borrows a camera from Moe and decides to crash the party.  The celebs think they're free to do whatever they please, and when Homer bursts in on the party and begins taking photos he catches the lot of them doing incredibly embaressing things. 

Homer and Rainer come to an agreement; Homer won't publish the photos if the celebs will treat their fans with humility and respect. 

Agreeing, Rainer invites the Simpsons to a cook-out.  During that cook-out, Marge pitches Rainer a movie idea, Mrs. Mom - while he doesn't read the script he rips off the title and rewrites the idea, resulting in a box office hit.

THOUGHTS:  This is a middling episode for me, with some nice moments.  Notable were the couch gag (Fantasia for the win!), Homer's attempt to get Drederick Tatum's picture, and the Voyager finale party.

I LOVE the idea of Paris Texan - it may guarantee that Ms. Hilton never appears on the show, but I don't think Al Jean should care.

Yay, a new Jon Lovitz character!  Why he doesn't consider becoming a semi-regular voice talent on the show is beyond me. 

Moe's back to being creepy and aggressive instead of pathetic!

On the negative side, there was a strange mix of Scully-like humor (the self-refferential "unless it's causing the cologne to explode!" line from Homer; the semi-jerkassy moment with Betty White) with decent jokes and sensible plotting and the return of improving characterization.  There is a slight improvement as we go along in this season - some of the writing was fairly awful in the early months, and it's still a little uneven, but it's getting better.

Also, it's a big stretch that Marge doesn't have negatives lying around.  How many people store negatives with their albums.  Unless all of the Simpsons' photos were taken by Poloroid cameras (and not by relatives who could also provide them with the means of copying the pictures or negatives).

And enough with the total downer endings, guys.  I'll take them over the nonsensical nightmares of the Scully era, but if you can't make them touching or thought provoking they just sit there, depressing the viewer.  Also, while Rainer has been a little TOO involved with McBain to the point of confusing himself with the character, has been shown to be an avaracious overspender, has been shown to have a huge temper, I've never gotten that kind of weasly vibe off of him before.

POSSIBLE CHANGES TO CANON: Sideshow Mel is divorcing Barbara!  Sad!

BEST BIT: Nothing stands out too strongly for me, but I liked what I listed above, plus Marge's inability to leave a tabloid alone.

RATING: C+.  If you can ignore the incidental jerkassy stuff from Homer, this is a nice, comfortable episode that isn't anything particularly special, and it even has a nice moral for the celebrity viewer.  Could be funnier, but it could've been "When You Dish Upon a Star." *SHUDDER!*.  Watch the whole ep, but fast-forward the Betty White stuff unless you can tolerate it.

[Stretch Dude]

I actually thought Homer was being more clueless than jerkassy in the Betty White scene. (Never mind the fact that he never met Paul McCartney...)

Also, Jon Lovitz seemed underused to me, which is sad cuz he rules. I loved his delivery on the line, "And I shall be a GOD in your eyes!"

All in all, I agree with Missy. Not incredible, but not god-awful either.

[Lisabella]

Jon Lovitz was pretty underused - which is a shame - something like only three scenes in the entire ep had his new character?  It was a bit of a letdown.  He's always fun in whatever they put him in on the show.

[Meghan]

 I thought the helicopter scene was pretty funny, and a great job they did poking fun at a "Paris Hilton"-like character. Lisa asking to tie the rope on just as Homer is already sky diving down to the waterfall? HAH! But something bothers me, the lack of Maggie's presence...

 Did anyone else notice that?

 Even when they did their "1987" reactment picture taking.

[Lisabella]

Whenever Maggie dissapears, a wizard did it 

(Or the animators weren't instructed to storyboard her in, either-or...)