Ariel Ponywether has been a fan of The Simpsons since the first time Bart was ten. Kredit Kookies: Chalkboard Gag: None: Couch Gag: Wile E. Coyote paints a fake couch onto the wall + Homer smashing into it while the rest of the family can sit = best reference-based-joke ever!
We open on Bart’s bedroom at night. He’s sleeping soundly when a large snake slithers into his room. “Barrrrt!” calls the snake, and Bart shrieks in response. The “snake” is Homer, who unzips his costume and tells Bart to hurry up and get dressed – the family’s headed to the midnight release party of the final Angelica Buttons book. Lisa appears, dressed happily in an Angelica costume, and Bart refuses to come in costume. Homer tells Bart that “all of the nerds are doing it!”
In line at the local Bookachino shop, Homer (dressed as Greystache), Marge, Lisa (dressed as Angelica) and Maggie are all in costume, while Bart defiantly wears a tee-shirt reading “Magic Isn’t Real”. Lisa wins a wee duel of wits with Comic Book Guy, who calls out her costume as inaccurate, only to find out Lisa’s dressed as the book’s version of Angelica.
The owner of the shop appears, unlocks the door and tries to start a ribbon-based hand-out system- nothing doing, as Homer charges the door. There’s a mêlée, but Lisa, Bart, Marge and Homer all manage to get their books (Homer by snagging his from Milhouse, who’s forced to read the book aloud to Nelson).
Back in the car, Lisa skim-reads the entire book to her family. “Angelica Buttons and the Deadly Denouement” also features a happy ending, and everyone’s momentarily satisfied; they pitch the books out of the car and head home (?!).
Once back at Casa De Simpson, Homer suggests they all watch TV together, which they do. Late-night TV offers an Entertainment Tonight re-run, which they all mock together, until Marge is distracted by a commercial for the Chazz Busby Dance Academy. Marge instantly swoons at this news.
Upstairs, she and Lisa are sifting through Marge’s childhood memorabilia near an upstairs closet. Marge pulls out a box she calls her “shattered dreams box”, which is stored in her “disappointment closet” (oy). Marge had many dreams in her youth, as previous episodes have told us – among them was to be a ballet dancer. That one was dashed by her uneven development (she holds up a bra that proves her breasts developed independently of each other), which threw her off-balance. Homer peeps upstairs to comfort Lisa – she’s got his boobs, so she shouldn’t worry. Lisa encourages Marge to pursue her dream – she’s elated, though Homer’s dismayed to learn she’s not gonna be a go-go dancer.
At Busby's Studio the next day, Marge is one of a few hopefuls. Chazz seems to be pleased by her performance, but he secretly hates her for her skills.
At home, the Wacky Subplot commences, as Bart discovers that Homer’s been making bootleg beef jerky in the basement. They bond over the making a fresh batch, and Homer’s hobby becomes another Simpson Boys Project.
At the studio, Marge gets her leg caught in the practice bar, and Chazz leaps on her first mistake and dismisses her. An outraged Lisa confronts Mr. Busby – her firm posture causes him to offer her a spot in the troupe. Marge jumps in and accepts in Lisa’s stead.
In further classes, Lisa proves an unskilled dancer (unsurprising from her previous experiences as a hoofer). Busby calls for a break in frustration, and Lisa and her fellow dancers take a break in the alley. Lisa soon learns she’s the only girl in the class who isn’t addicted to nicotine. A dancer sees her smokeless and offers her a cig, but Lisa says fresh air is better – in inhaling a lungful, she accidentally consumes second-hand smoke. Once they get back inside, Lisa soon discovers she’s improved significantly.
At Bart’s encouragement, Homer brings Apu to the basement and puts on a slide-show in an attempt to convince him to buy their jerky. Unfortunately, their full stock has disappeared, and Homer’s presentation is less than convincing. A miffed Apu leaves, and Homer’s on the warpath. Bart notices a hole’s been chewed in the door, and there’s a trail of pawprints leading outside. “So?” he says.
So Homer instantly blames Ned and goes nextdoor to confront him. Ned shows Homer that he couldn’t possibly have taken his jerkey – he’s been too busy blacking out all of the “goshes” and “hecks” out of the Flanderspawn’s Hardy Boys books. Bart grabs Homer by the sleeve and points out a fleeing raccoon; the Simpson men are on the hunt!
Asleep in bed that night, Lisa’s haunted by visions of her feminist icons, all of whom were smokers – the final vision she receives is of an older her, who finally convinces her to give in and consume second-hand smoke (yes, this is the second appearance in a row for hag!Lisa).
On night patrol out in the Simpson’s yard, Homer and Bart lay a trap for the raccoons – a box trap filled with sleeping pill-laced beef jerky. Homer eats it himself, of course, but he has a backup plan involving a crossbow. Homer isn’t coherent enough to operate it, however, and ends up falling into a sleepy heap in his own yard.
On night patrol out in the Simpson’s yard, Homer and Bart lay a trap for the raccoons – a box trap filled with sleeping pill-laced beef jerky. Homer eats it himself, of course, but he has a backup plan involving a crossbow. Homer isn’t coherent enough to operate it, however, and ends up falling into a sleepy heap in his own yard.
The following day, Marge drives Lisa to dance practice in the Lady Simpmobile, which is filled with ballet-dancer ephemera. Lisa wants to back out, but Marge’s strong pride in her forces Lisa to keep dancing.
That afternoon, Homer and Bart follow the raccoon to a hollow tree stump. Bart wants to give up but Homer reminds Bart that he’s never lost a battle with nature – “remember the worms?” We pan over to a statue of several worms bowing to Homer. Bart peers into the tree stump and points out that the raccoon is feeding his family with the jerky (The Lisa!Raccoon is even a vegetarian!) – when Homer realizes the raccoon and his family look exactly like Homer’s own, he emotionally feeds him as much jerky as he wants.
Lisa’s jonesing for a second-hand smoke as she practices – the more she concentrates on her craving the worse a dancer she is. When break-time is finally called it’s too windy for her to suck in any fumes. Desperate, she picks up on of the ballerina’s butts and prepares to inhale – only to be confronted by a shocked Homer.
Lisa and Homer have a powwow on the way home. Homer strongly tells Lisa he’s against her smoking – especially when the “sturgeon general” told her not to. Homer enters the kitchen, ready to tell Marge he’s taking Lisa out of the class, but Marge has been so fulfilled by Lisa’s dancing that he can’t bring himself to do so.
Homer tells Lisa she can keep up with her lessons, but as he leaves her at the school he leaves behind Bart. She figures out he’s there to spy on her and ditches him in the parking lot; by the time breaktime rolls around she’s too nicotine-deprived to care if he’s disappeared or not. Bart indeed has remained on the premises, and he emerges from a dumpster filled with used legwarmers in full army regalia. He and Homer communicate by walkie talkie, and they arrange to rendezvous. Lisa is pressured by the other girls to join them in smoking, and she nearly gives in but her skin is saved by the conclusion of the break.
Homer and Bart then engage in “operation crazy plan”, which involves releasing the B-Plot Beaver Family into the girls’ locker room the night of their first recital. The beavers have been trained to retrieve all of their cigarettes, which Homer promptly throws through the open motel room window of Mayor Quimby (Major Q has one of his prayers answered; the other, involving his latest armcandy and her unplanned pregnancy, remains unanswered).
The first act of the ballet goes smoothly, and the girls go for their celebratory smoke break. Panic takes over when they realize all of their cigarettes are gone. Called up for a second act, they’re distracted by and debase themselves in the hope of finding gum under the seats of their patrons. Some ballerinas even roll up and smoke programs.
Lisa announces that she’s had enough, and makes a public speech in which she calls ballet a horrible, corrupting influence, throws her pointe shoes at Busby, and quits. Chazz leaves the recital and his school for good, jazz-dancing his way to another world in a public bus.
The next morning, Lisa’s smoke-free thanks to some Hello Kitty nicotine patches. Marge states she’s proud of Lisa and learned it’s wrong to live your dreams through your kids. Homer, however, hasn’t learned a similar lesson – it’s still Bart’s duty to become a masked lucha libre wrestler in Mexico named "El Guapo". Bart practices his grimacing and posing as we fade to black.
Red Dress Press: Another middling episode, one that’s high on the “meh” quotient than most. The best parts of the episode simply featured OFF spending time together, in much the same vein as in previous episodes.
Another high point was everything related to Angelica Buttons– the writers and producers have clearly experienced the Potter Craze and lampoon it correctly, and it’s too bad they didn’t think of this back when the Potter craze was young and had more volumes to run through. I was disappointed to see OFF fling the books out of their car after they were finished with them, though. Canonical behavior for Homer and Bart; not Marge and certainly not bookophile Lisa.
The Fosse-alike dance teacher was quite a hoot. A number of good “All That Jazz” references lift his segments above the ordinary.
The very best parts all involve Homer’s strong defensive response to Lisa’s smoking. It’s so rare lately that he shows how much he cares about his kids, and when he kicks butt and takes names in pursuit of her safety we’re reminded of why we liked Homer back in the frosty chocolate milkshake days.
The episode’s biggest stumbling blocks lie with Lisa’s naivety and the Homer/Raccoon subplot. The later, while fun and wacky, goes nowhere. At least the raccoons figure mildly into the ballet plot, but Homer and Bart could have handled the situation without them.
The former is difficult to deconstruct in its failings. Lisa can be believably childish, but she’s driven by science. That she would actually believe second-hand smoke made her a better dancer is a highly illogical turn. Did the episode seek to make a Family Guy-like joke and actually state that the nicotine DID make Lisa better dancer? The point was frustratingly unelaborated upon.
Another negative point: Marge already learned a lesson about projecting her wishes onto Lisa in several episodes, including “Moaning Lisa”. It’s been a point of conflict between them so many times that you have to wonder why the writers keep going back to that well.
Did It Fail at Masonry?: Ultimately, the episode isn’t worth recommending. If you tape, fast forward through the subplot and watch the Angelica Buttons scenes and the stuff with Homer and Bart’s surveillance of Lisa.
What The Screwballs Think: "Smoke on The Daughter" was seen by an estimated 7.3 million, a total that hasn't yet been confirmed because the show aired on delay after a NASCAR event.
Springfield Shopper: This is a Krusty Klassik Rekap of a season nineteen episode. Keep your eyes peeled for recaps of "He Loves To Fly and He D'Oh's" and "Homer of Seville", which should be on the site by July 6th, and "Midnight Towboy" and "I Don't Wanna Know Why the Caged Bird Sings", which will be recapped on the site by August 23rd.