Union Strikes, Blackouts and Dental Plans

When writing about Union Strikes and Blackouts you’d be easily be forgiven for thinking that the topic of choice would be modern day Britain. While certainly topical and while I’m sure my uneducated opinion on the whole situation would be invaluable to readers, I think instead I’ll stick to a topic that I’m better versed in. I’ll be looking back on The Simpsons episode ‘Last Exit to Springfield’ released 29 years ago in 1993.

Though released before I was even born, this episode has always been one of my favourites. It seems like I’m not alone in this belief with the episode being rated at the top of many lists as the best Simpsons episode of all time. On re-watching it, the episode had me laughing from the start to finish, even though I knew many of the quotes, I felt there wasn’t a single joke that fell flat or seemed outdated. The focus on only a select number of characters, allowed Homer to successfully come across as the loveable idiot who’s given great responsibility and like the drunken master, stumbles head first into absolute victory over the ‘evil’ Mr. Burns. The happy ending feels earned and rewarding for both the characters and the viewer.

Memorable Lines

On re-watching the episode I realised that the episode contained some of my favourite moments and memorable lines including:

• The Dentist asking Ralph ‘Why must you turn my office into a house of lies?’

• Mr Burns reading out the written prose of a chimp on a typewriter: ‘It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times!’ – of course it being the line which inspired the name of this blog

• Grampa’s whole part about ‘telling stories that don’t go anywhere’

• Even Lisa’s ‘Union Strike Song’ has been stuck in my head since re-watching the episode and forced me to pick up my guitar and try play it. Being only 3 chords I picked it up quickly but failed to capture the moment on my own.

Cultural References

I remember watching this episode as a young child and understanding next to none of the references but still laughing my socks off. The ‘blurst of times’ scene works on it’s own premise without needing to understand the reference to the Infinite Monkey Theorem or Dicken’s work but of course on the re-watch the gag is all the better for it. It’s the same for many of the scenes such as Don Homer or Burns and Smither’s ‘Get Smart’ scene, which I only picked up on after watching the Steve Carell 2008 movie version, but I likely thought at the time that they had stole it from the Simpsons.

This was the cultural behemoth that The Simpsons was during my childhood and something that Conan O’Brien recently discussed on his podcast ‘Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend‘, joking that his son falls into a similar bracket, knowing famous movies and references only from spoofs on the Simpsons.

The only ones that I picked up without prompts were:

• Godfather II reference with Homer as the Don.

• Beatles ‘Yellow Submarine / Lisa in the Sky’ when Lisa is put under by the Dentist.

• ‘Get Smart’ when Burns and Smithers go through endless doors to reach the off switch for the plant. Sliding down the poles at the end is a reference to the ‘Batman’ TV show.

However, even now there were plenty that I missed out such as:

• The title itself is a homage to Hubert Selby Jr.’s novel ‘Last Exit to Brooklyn.’
• An American football player trips over the body of the previous union president, which is an homage to Jimmy Hoffa, an American labour union leader who disappeared in 1975.
• Mr. Burns’ outfit in the flashback to his childhood is based on Buster Brown, a comic-strip character from the early 1900s.
• The scene where Lisa first gets her braces and asks for the mirror is a spoof of the Joker’s transformation in Tim Burton’s ‘Batman’

• There’s also references to Citizen Kane, Captain Ahab in Moby Dick, Three Stooges, the Grinch and American Psychologist Joyce Brothers. All of which went over my head as a child and even today.

The episode is stuffed with clever lines and references that work together well without becoming a skit show or straying too far from the main story. It’s for that reason that it holds a dear place in my heart.