Marge's Son Poisoning
From Simpsons Wiki
“Marge’s Son Poisoning” is the fifth episode of the seventeenth season of The Simpsons.
Plot
The family is at Paradise Pier, the Ferris wheel of which Marge has been looking forward all her life to riding, only to find out that it is being dismantled with some of its equipment being sold. Homer purchases a dumbbell while Marge gets a tandem bicycle. When Marge wants to take the bike for a ride, she finds that Homer is a less-than-willing participant.
She tries it on her own and falls. Realizing that his mother might actually be lonely, Bart offers to go for a ride with her when she didn't get to ask Lisa at the first place. They ride into an unincorporated part of the county and come upon a small village that features a tea house. Later the tea house closes forever, causing Bart to invite his mother to his treehouse for tea.
Marge redecorates the treehouse and the pair goes off to get a new tea service; Bart gets a Krusty Teapot. Outside the store the bullies, Jimbo, Dolph, and Kearney accuse Bart of being a mama’s boy, which causes Bart to rebel on Marge. Marge goes into a depression and eventually sells the bike.
Feeling bad, Bart offers to team with her in a karaoke contest. While seeing Skinner and his mother perform, Marge has visions of a terrible future for Bart, and she stops the show to let Bart know that he can find his own way of life and that he shouldn’t worry about her; it’s her job to worry about him. To make things better, she gives him a fire extinguisher to spray in front of the audience, including the bullies that teased him. Bart still tries to help her by going home and dialing 9-1 so he will only have to dial another 1 later if he needs to call 9-1-1.
Meanwhile, at Moe’s, Homer shows off the strength in one of his arms he’s gained from working with the dumbbell, and Moe has an idea on how to capitalize on it. Moe takes Homer to the arm-wrestling championships, where Homer readily wins, but finds that he really misses his wife.
Cultural references
- The store Marge and Bart go to is called “The China Syndrome.” A “China Syndrome” is a catastrophic nuclear accident and a 1979 movie of the same name.
- The tea shop Marge and Bart go to, named “The Leaf Garrett Tea Shop” is a reference to Leif Garrett, a teen idol, actor, and singer popular in the 1970s.
- In the “attack of the couches” couch gag, Professor Frink’s couch loosely resembles a war machine from The War of the Worlds.
- The sign for Paradise Pier is identical in design to the sign on Brighton Pier.
- After Bart abandons Marge, the end theme from Midnight Cowboy plays during the scenes where she is lonely; she also takes the tandem bicycle on a bus to Miami, in direct reference to the end scene of the film. Even though no member of the Simpson family may ever enter Florida since the episode Kill the Alligator and Run suggesting the ban against them might have ended.
- While Marge and Bart ride to the tea shop, they sing Sweet Home Alabama by Lynyrd Skynyrd.
- Paradise Pier is one of the “lands” at Disney’s California Adventure, which has been made fun of in several previous episodes.
- At Karaoke night, Apu sings Where Have All the Cowboys Gone by Paula Cole.fr:Les Fils à maman