#it’s like a movie based on a simpson’s or family guy cutaway gag

[curious-minx]

Bob’s Burgers Turns The Back Gas Burner Back On! The Simpsons continue drinking from the historical comedy well.

Fell behind on my Sunday Night animation coverage, mainly because of   wonky network scheduling. I have better working wi-fi now so I can actually watch the episode as they air if they ever air. 

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Ah Sports, the great Schedule Cleaner that has a tendency to push out episodes into another slot on Fox’s Sunday Night. Which is why the Simpsons’ Treehouse ritual won’t be airing until November, and it’s little consistencies like these that help provide some stability and grounding in these shifting, tumultuous 2020 melting calendar dates.

First off, the promise of quality of this third episode of the season 11 is right in the title“Copa-Bob-Bana.” This is also the second episode in a row with an Opening Storefront gag seemingly tailor made to my interests with a Lou Reed Joke and the Drive-By Van gag being a  Talking Heads pun. Promising. When a Bob’s Burgers episode works it is one of the comfier offerings on the TV landscape. This episode follows the more successful formula of Bob & Linda (A)-Plot night out from the house and Belcher Children (B)-plot mild mannered, slightly gross mischief. 

Throwing Kevin Kline’s Fischoeder into the mix is also a highly potent element in a Bob’s Burgers episode. Pile in, Zach Galifinakis’s Felix Fischoeder along with Bill Hader’s Mickey, while also introducing  the most inconsequential  Fischoeder yet with a cousin voiced by David Wain that also looks like David Wain. The more characters the merrier as far as Bob’s Burgers is concerned and the show is doing a pretty fine job at fleshing out this world and maintaining working relationships with these big wigs, Bob’s Burgers is always kind to its regulars. Most importantly, the show realizes the importance of the Belchers getting the occasional small victory  with Bob earning a full month’s rent. Linda adds on a heart breaking aside about how a month’s rent is more than they ever make in a month that really drives home the working class spirit of this series. 

While the grossness and shabbiness of the Belcher children pool party has a tinge of the pathetic about it especially when it’s being filtered and judged through the higher status Chole Barbash (voiced by Brooklyn 99’s Stephanie Beatriz, who knew!), but they still have friends who indulge in their gross, shabbiness instead of making them feel bad about the nice pool that they lack. A surprising amount of pathos and depth from such a silly and simple premise. 

I am not convinced that the show has figured out a fully fleshed out compelling dynamic between Felix and Calvin other than that Felix is pathetic man child and Calvin is the son that mommy loved more. There are only so many more times that this can play out without it becoming completely stale, but Galifinaki’s skillful comedic acting chops prevent Felix from being straight up insufferable. Having Bob and Linda leave at the big climatic brotherly fight at the end of the episode is satisfying and not too tidy. Bob and Linda have boundaries and know that they have no place or justification to help these feuding rich assholes, whereas a lesser show may have had the Belchers involve themselves more in other people’s problems and play the role of faithful human carpet for their landlord. The episode also subverts the teased big musical number between Linda and Calvin by relegating it to the ending credits, but it’s a really great example of John Robert’s singing performance. Linda is hitting notes with a elegance and charm and bouncing off of Kevin Kline effortlessly and it makes me really sad that we’re not getting that Big Movie Musical anytime soon.

4 rusty bathtubs full of wet bread out of 5.

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When I first watched the far more messily titled episode 3 Season 32, “Now Museum, Now You Don’t” I straight up despised it. The second episode in a row that refuses to just be an episode of the Simpsons and instead another episode of historical comedy vignettes. This time based around Lisa being sick at home (with Covid?!) flipping through pages of a coffee table book on the history of Western Art.  Oh joy. There’s also, count em and weep, four different musical numbers. Even better. 

The Simpsons and the game of classical spot the reference art appreciation is a time honored tradition.  That said it is still truly jarring to watch an entire episode based around the show’s art department churning out postcards and merchandise for a Simpsons gift shop. This entire episode is an easy on the eyes visual delight that makes it pretty easy to turn your brain off and appreciate the visual overload. 

Quality visuals and art references alone cannot save the episode from itself, because this episode contains a few of the most stop-you-dead-in-your-tracks awful jokes the show has probably ever had that make Family Guy look as sophisticated and subtle as a New Yorker cartoon. Can anyone convince me that Family Guy hasn’t already had a joke involving Little Caesar being stabbed to death by the Noid? I didn’t think so. Another brutal cut-away gag comes in the form in the Marge Simpson styled as Frida Kahlo segment where she does the clunkiest, club footed walk to a cutaway joke involving Bernie Sanders as a baby condoning his “Bernie Bros..I mean Bernie Babies” about their violence and bullying of the other schoolyard children. Really tells you all that you need to know about the rich ivy-league educated white guys  that have always botched this kind of political commentary on the Simpsons, a show that is supposed to subversive and against the status quo. This kind of criticism against Bernie Sanders is not only horribly out of date, but are even more depressing given the reality of the current election. 

The other really groaner forced attempt at a joke happens when Homer Simpsons’ Diego Rivera hopes to get a writing job on Rick and Morty. A joke that basically murders the episode before a truly visually satisfying  over the credits gag of Moe walking through Van Gough paintings singing a song about the Gracie Films “Shushing Lady.” Now I know the show has played around with adding screams and sound effects to this production credit, but I don’t think I have ever witnessed such a meta moment around a production company logo, perhaps ever, and I must give the episode props for that. 

The important takeaway is that while plenty of people don’t care about the Simpsons and know that it has long since lost its luster over a decade ago, rewatching this episode really tempered down my vitriol and through the duration of the episode I found myself basically having a good time. The flat out bad moments of the forced jokes and lazy writing are now becoming far more pronounced and jarring as the series death marches on, but the visual language and expressiveness of the series this late in its run warrants a glance from anyone who likens themselves to an animation fan. I would still recommend that people skip the previous episode and try to give this one a chance. The possibility that this show will trigger a brain aneurysm with some of its choices is a very real, nearly unavoidable reality, but there are some larfs scattered in the ruins. 

Pass, but just barely, and I swear if the rest of the season continues down this streak of vignette driven episodes I will have to abandon this futile endeavor.