7. The Call of the Simpsons

Episode Title: "The Call of the Simpsons"
Episode Number: 7
Original Air Date: February 18, 1990

Plot Synopsis: Stupid Flanders gets a new RV, which makes Bart and Homer (particularly Homer) really jealous. Flanders tells Homer that he bought it on credit, which makes Homer immediately drag the family down to the local RV lot. Homer learns that "The Ultimate Behemoth" is a little bit out of his price range, and that he has credit so bad it makes a siren go off. The RV salesman talks Homer into buying a much smaller, cheaper RV that essentially looks like one of those tiny U-Haul trucks, only tinier and more broken. Seconds into a great vacation in their new RV, Homer essentially drives that new RV right off a cliff. Homer and Bart then fall off a separate cliff, getting separated from Marge, Lisa and Maggie and getting stranded in the woods. Maggie ends up befriending a family of bears for some reason. Marge and Lisa aren't really concerned about any of these developments and have a quiet, lovely time while Homer and Bart try to fight their way back to civilization. A naturalist ends up mistaking Homer for Bigfoot (as you do), which results in a local tabloid offering a $5000 reward for more information. As you've probably already guessed, the zillions of people who are after the reward end up saving Homer and Bart, but not before some scientists capture Homer and decide that he is either a "below-average human being" or a "brilliant beast" when they legitimately can't figure out if he's Bigfoot or not.

Overall Thoughts: One thing I'm noticing about these early episodes is that while a lot of the visual gags are falling flat (at least for me), the dialog is consistently pretty great. Spoken jokes are often much, much funnier than the big comic set pieces. And this episode is filled with both great dialog and big, comic set pieces that fall pretty flat.

I was surprised to learn that this episode was written by the great John Swartzwelder. If you think of all your favorite episodes from the first ten or so years, his name is probably on them. In a way, that's probably why a lot of the dialog works so well. The surprising part is that the camping side of the episode was presumably his as well, which... doesn't work so well.

What Works:  As I kind of already said, the spoken jokes and dialog are great. I think I'd be having a way better time thus far if I were just listening to these episodes instead of watching them.

I really like the character of the RV salesman. I know "The Simpsons" will eventually introduce a lot of shady business characters later on, but this one in particular is really fun. I wish he would have showed up again (disclaimer: I have no idea if he shows up again sometime in the next 24 years). Wikipedia told me that the RV salesman was voiced by Albert Brooks in his first appearance on the show, which is notable, I suppose.

What Doesn't Work:  The Simpson family trapped in the woods just isn't a very compelling story. There are no real stakes (not that there are ever any "real stakes" in a show like this, I guess, but you know what I mean) and the writers use this "fish out of water" scenario to set up a bunch of jokes that I just don't think are very funny.

This episode starts in a really great, grounded way. In particular, it begins with two pretty interesting elements: Homer is jealous of Flanders and Homer has bad credit. "Jealousy" and "Poor Money Managing Skills" were, to my knowledge, not necessarily topics grappled with in a legitimate way in animation at the time this episode was airing. The show has always been really good at dealing with these types of issues. The problem is that it takes them and uses them as an opportunity to tell the cartooniest story so far - the Simpsons are stranded in the woods and "madcap hilarity" ensues. Bart and Homer fall off a cliff. Maggie calms a bear with a pacifier and ultimately befriends (and sort of becomes the leader of) the bear's family. These are elements that, in my opinion, just don't work. I'm not saying that I want "The Simpsons" to be a gritty family drama. I'm saying that I want the show to stop taking cool elements of its character's personalities and using them in the dumbest ways possible.

However, I will say that this is likely a complaint that I only have because I know what the show would become. If I were watching this as it aired, I probably wouldn't worry too much about it. In terms of the first season, it's definitely the weakest episode so far. However, there's still decent enough stuff here to make it an alright episode.

Closing Thoughts:  Unless I'm missing something, this episode is unique in that it includes a "couch gag" that doesn't actually have that "gag" part. Everyone makes it to the couch safe and sound, and nothing even remotely wacky happens.

Also of note is that Flanders continues to not be a religious nut in these early episodes. It's interesting to me that such a defining aspect of that character's personality wasn't present at all during the first season. He's just a regular guy who, when compared to the Simpsons, is rich.

Also, while this has no bearing on the episode itself, I clearly remember having a few of the "Burger King" toys from the time that were centered around this episode. Now that I've seen that previous sentence typed out, I realize that it has no bearing on anything at all.

Final Grade (out of 10): 5