Marge Be Not Proud
From Simpsons Wiki
"Marge Be Not Proud" is the 11th episode of The Simpsons' seventh season. The title of the episode is an allusion to John Donne's Holy Sonnet 10 that begins with the line, "Death, be not proud."
This is the second-ever The Simpsons Christmas themed episode and the third one with a shoplifting theme. There was a six-year gap between the first Christmas episode, "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire", which was also the first-ever Simpsons episode, this episode aired on the same date as that one had, six years earlier. The writers had been thinking about doing a second Christmas show for many years, but no one wanted to take it on because they thought that they would just be repeating the first episode. After this episode, new Christmas episodes were made almost every following year. Previously, one of the Tracey Ullman shorts featured Bart stealing candy bars and "Marge in Chains" centered around Marge going to prison for accidentally stealing bourbon from The Kwik-E-Mart.
A line in this episode, "If I wanted smoke blown up my ass, I'd stay at home with a pack of cigarettes and a short length of hose." is cut by Fox Broadcasting Network. All others leave this line intact.
The audio commentary for the episode reveals that guest star Lawrence Tierney's recording session was a very intimidating and stressful experience for the crew. Josh Weinstein recalls it as "the craziest guest star experience they've ever had", and involved "talking him out of bad ideas and trying to explain to him all these crazy jokes". In addition to yelling at and intimidating employees of the show, Tierney made unreasonable requests such as abandoning his distinctive voice to do the part in a southern accent and refusing to perform lines if he did not get the jokes.
Plot
While the family watches a Christmas special hosted by Krusty the Clown, Bart sees a commercial advertising the fighting game Bonestorm, and decides he must have it. However, Marge forbids it, since the Mortal Kombat-type game costs too much and glorifies violence too much.
Other attempts to obtain the game fail. At Android's Dungeon, the Comic Book Guy tells Bart all available copies of the game have been rented, however multiple copies of the golf game Lee Carvallo's Putting Challenge, which is portrayed as being incredibly boring, remain. Passing it up, Bart later learns that Milhouse has the game and comes over to play, but Milhouse quickly has Bart thrown out.
Discouraged, Bart visits the local Try-N-Save discount store. Inside in the electronics section, a spoiled kid (Gavin) demands that his mother buy him Bonestorm (she gives in), and sees Jimbo and Nelson shoplifting from the store. Bart sees the video game case has been left open. Characters resembling video game stars Mario, Luigi, DonkeyKong and Sonic the Hedgehog encourage Bart to steal the game. Lee Caravallo, however, warns Bart not to steal it: "How's that game going to improve your golf game?" But despite Caravallo's warning, Bart can not resist temptation; he takes a copy of Bonestorm, hides it in his jacket and walks out of the store.
Outside, Bart thinks he's home free, until he feels a heavy hand on his shoulder. He's been caught by the store's security officer, Det. Don Brodka. Bart is taken to a back room, where Brodka calls his parents, leaving a message informing them of Bart's crime. Brodka tells him to leave and never return, or else he'll face criminal charges. Bart races home, barely beating his parents home and managing to replace Brodka's phone message with another tape, and puts the real tape where nobody would ever listen to it: an Allan Sherman case. Bart has avoided trouble, temporarily.
The next day, Marge announces plans to have their family's picture taken at a photographer's studio at Try-N-Save - the same exact Try-N-Save that Bart has been banned from entering! Bart tries to convince Marge to go elsewhere, but the family goes to the Try-N-Save. Bart tries to avoid detection, but Brodka grabs him just as the photographer snaps the picture. He explains to Marge and Homer that their son broke the "11th Commandment": Thou shalt not steal. When Marge tells him that her son is not a shoplifter, the store detective shows them the surveillance tape on one of the TVs in the store. Bart blocks the TV, but the incriminating tape is also playing on all the other TVs for sale, over and over again. Defeated, Bart cries out: "I did it!"
Bart's parents are very disappointed in him. Homer begins to lecture him, but goes off into a mindless rant about the Police Academy movies, and ending with "stay outa my booze". Marge, however, becomes distant with her son and sends him to bed. Homer decides to punish Bart by grounding him and not letting him leave the house for any reason (not even for school), giving him no eggnog or related drinks whatsoever, and forbidding him to steal again for three months. Later, Bart is left out of family activities, such as decorating the tree and making snow statues of themselves. Further humiliation occurs when Nelson — who helped inspire Bart to shoplift in the first place — returns from yet another shoplifting attempt to mock him.
Bart fears he has lost his mother's love, and decides he must repent. He visits the Try-N-Save, and returns with a bulge in his coat. Marge confronts him after a short chase, ending in a Texas Chainsaw Massacre-esque ending, believing he was shoplifting again, and finds Bart has hidden a handsome picture of himself (as opposed to his usual wacky look in photos) bought as a Christmas present for Marge, with a receipt saying "Paid in full."
Marge is overjoyed, and in gratitude for receiving her Christmas gift so early she gives Bart his, telling him it is the video game "every boy wants" according to the store clerk. Bart eagerly opens the present only to find out it's Lee Carvallo's Putting Challenge. Although he's disappointed, Bart smiles and embraces his mother. Bart plays the putting game over the ending credits for the first (and last) time.
Cultural references
Marge Be Not Proud features a number of references to video games. The fictional golfer Lee Carvallo is patterned after PGA golfer Lee Trevino, who has a game called Lee Trevino's Fighting Golf. In addition, Lee Carvallo's Putting Challenge features digital sports talk commentary in a stilted rhythm that was featured in such games like Joe Montana Sports Talk Football. The commercial for Bonestorm is a parody of the Slim Jim commercials. A wild Santa Claus, who is the game's spokesman, is a take on Slim Jim spokesman "Macho Man" Randy Savage. The commercial also parodies Mortal Kombat, featuring a cameo by a Liu Kang doppelganger who fights against a tank, and one of the characters in Bonestorm looks similar to Goro.
The name for Bonestorm comes from BloodStorm, an ultra-violent Mortal Kombat-styled video game released in 1994. When Bart is debating whether or not to steal the game, he imagines likenesses of Sonic The Hedgehog, Donkey Kong, Mario and Luigi (who are depicted with the opposites of their actual heights) urging him to take it. When Bart is looking at Milhouse's house for the first time and Milhouse is playing the Bonestorm game, notice the shot when Milhouse is being "blown away" from the speakers in his chair. This is a reference to Maxell whose media commonly have the "blown away guy" in a chair.
The "Try-N-Save" discount store takes its name from the Pic-N-Save store chain. The store is modeled after discount stores such as Kmart and Wal-Mart. Among the other games available from Try 'N' Save besides Bonestorm and Lee Carvallo's Putting Challenge are Swim Meet, Save Hitler's Brain, Canasta Master, Operation Rescue, Electronic Biathlon, Angus Podgorny's Caber Toss (incorrectly spelled as "Caper Toss", and probably a reference to the lead character in the sketch called "Man turns into Scotsman" from Monty Python's Flying Circus episode 7, "You're no fun anymore"), Celebrity Tutopsy, SimReich, A Streetcar Named Death, and Robot Stampede.
On the Krusty Christmas Special, Krusty references guest stars including "respected private citizen Tom Landry" and "South American sensation Xoxchitla." Krusty experiences severe difficulty pronouncing the name of the latter guest, who resembles the Brazilian children's television host Xuxa. Xoxchitla also appears as the host of the racy children's program Teleboobies in the episode "Blame it on Lisa".
Bart replaces the answering machine tape with "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah" (causing a confused Homer to ask, "Marge, is Lisa at Camp Granada?"). Ned Flanders appeared in the Time Magazine Person of the century, a reference to the Person of the year annual issue by the same magazine.