As long as Burns makes a convincing-ish argument, the short-attention-span-adled public will forget all about it. On a shitty show, this would be the climax of the third act, and Burns’ shameful undoing, but here, we just gloss over it. It starts with the classic gag of Burns badmouthing the public unaware that the camera is going live. We start with a PSA hosted by Burns in explaining the phenomenon that is Blinky. The Simpsons mocks the ham-fisted, pandering nature of political promotion by managing to spin a widely hated man like Mr. His team seems to be broken into two halves: one to elevate his public image from despicable monster to respectable human being, and the other to make his opponent, the incumbent Mary Bailey, look the other way around. Everything about it is so spot-on in so many ways. The two share an odd emotional moment as Burns explains the dilemma, and Homer inadvertently gets the plot rolling by off-offhandedly mentioning that if Burns were governor, he could do whatever he pleased. We see Burns at his most vulnerable (and a tad inebriated) after this, as does Homer, who has managed to sleep in at work. After a great sequence of inspectors examining the egregious safety violations, they demand Burns bring the plant up to code with a $56 million price tag, or they’ll shut it down. The reporter hits the jackpot in the form of a three-eyed fish (its second appearance, now dubbed Blinky the creature is kind of the show’s unofficial mascot), which clearly has been contaminated by run-off from the nuclear plant. Against the hokey Americana scene of Bart and Lisa fishin’ at the ol’ swimmin’ hole, it looks perfectly at home, and absolutely reeks of Swartzwelder (just look at his comedy novellas for more of this stuff). This episode feels so current, but has classic, old-timey elements to it: the media circus we see in the third act is as accurate now twenty years later, but we begin with a 1930s reporter coming to town looking for a hot scoop. Even with all this, we still work in the Simpson family, who provide running commentary from the common decent man, and inevitably become the undoing of the greedy, wealthy ruling class. This episode is a real tour de force, working as a character examination, a rife on smarmy political tactics and the media feeding into it, and some parody worked in with pieces of Burns echoing Charles Foster Kane. We continue to see the show’s evolution in its greater showcase of the world of Springfield, and a more extended look at our favorite heartless billionaire C. The series shows some growing up this episode in size and scope: we go from one boy’s concern on passing a test to an entire gubernatorial race from start to finish in just a few shows.
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