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The Call of the Simpsons
The Simpsons Season 01, Episode 07
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
The care salesman at the RV place is just so good at what he does. I wouldn't be surprised if certain sales organizations of the shady persuasion use this episode as a training guide.
Is it just me or does the animation quality in this episode seem significantly higher than the quality in the first couple episodes?
In this episode, we are fully exposed to the serendipity of Maggie Simpson and her extraordinary resourcefulness. Frankly, I'm not sure if Maggie's new adopted family of bears isn't an upgrade from the Simpsons.
Homer, naked and believing Bart has died, cries his rage to the heavens above. When people fall in water these days, I always wonder what happens to their mobile phones, but this is season one so it's pretty clear they didn't have to worry about that back then.
Homer's makeshift trap is just brilliant. I remember the very first time I saw it as a child wondering if it wouldn't catapult the intended prey. Turns out it does. This is one of the funniest pieces of physical comedy I can think of in the show.
Homer, seemingly stricken by several of the Ten Plagues, is understandably conflated with the sasquatch. They even have grainy footage of him walking like the famous Bigfoot clip.
I love that Springfield has its own primate research institute. Apparently, they're not so great, because they can't figure out whether Homer is human. Also, why does Dr. Marvin Monroe work there? This is the second time Homer's been explicitly called a North American ape (remember kwyjibo?).
I think I'd rather be a brilliant beast than a below average human any day.
CONCLUSION
This is probably my favorite episode so far. It's the first one that seems like a "real" Simpsons episode where the characters don't deviate much from the canonical versions of themselves. Also, it's just plain funny. Maybe it's because Homer (and to a lesser extent Maggie) is the star of the episode instead of Bart.
THIS EPISODE'S RATINGS
 5/5 donuts from Statler
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RATINGS LEGEND
 = LAME
= BAD
= MEH
= GOOD
= CLASSIC
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PLOT SUMMARY FROM WIKIPEDIA
Homer is envious of Ned Flanders's new RV and goes to Bob's RV Round-Up to buy one of his own. The sly con-man Cowboy Bob tells Homer that because of his poor credit, he only qualifies for a second hand, dilapidated RV. Thrilled with the new RV, Homer takes his family on an excursion. After seeing the gridlock on the freeway, he decides to take a shortcut through the Springfield forest. Marge tells him the road is getting bumpy and that they should retreat, but he tells his family not to worry and then starts speeding. The family, afraid that they might crash, screams at him to stop. He hits the brake and comes to an abrupt halt at the edge of a huge gorge. With the RV tilting back and forth at the edge, the family slowly creeps out of it just before it plummets into the abyss and explodes.
Stranded in the wilderness, Homer and Bart leave Marge and Lisa at the camping place while they set out to search for civilization, unaware that baby Maggie is tagging along. As they stroll through the woods, they hear a noise and assume it is a rattlesnake, when it is actually Maggie behind them sucking on her pacifier, and they run away. Separated from Homer and Bart, Maggie is soon adopted by a family of grizzly bears. While looking for food, Homer and Bart fall into a fast-moving river and had to lose their clothes. To hide their intimate parts, they use plants and mud to cover themselves. Homer finds a bee hive and digs his hand inside it to get the honey out of it, but instead gets stung by bees and he flees in the direction of water, which turns out to be thick mud. Homer emerges from the brown goop and, due to the bee stings, mumbles like an animal at a nearby nature photographer for help. Mistaking Homer for Bigfoot, the man takes a picture and flees. Soon the forest is infested with Bigfoot hunters. Reporters find Marge and Lisa and warn them about the hideous creature roaming the woods. When she sees the picture of Homer, Marge identifies the monster as her husband and tries to clear up the misunderstanding, but the authorities now think that she is married to Bigfoot.
Meanwhile, Homer and Bart smell food coming from inside a cave, and when they enter it they find Maggie with the bears. They grab her and slowly walk away from the bears. Cold and near exhaustion, they begin looking for civilization again, until one of the hunters spots Homer and shoots him with a tranquilizer gun. Homer is then taken to a lab for tests where scientists observe him, unsure if he is actually a below-average human being (which he is) or a brilliant beast. They allow Homer to return to his family until they can determine to which species he belongs.
Accessed from Wikipedia on Feb. 20, 2010