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The Crepes of Wrath
The Simpsons Season 01, Episode 11
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
This might be the first time I've seen Homer actually care that there's a mess.
I don't know about kids these days, but I certainly loved fireworks as much as Bart loves his cherry bombs. I wonder if kids are branded as terrorists these days if they have 'em.
Man I wish I could have gotten myself expelled into a student exchange program. Alas, the missed opportunities.
Oh, I don't think I'd ever noticed this before. This is probably my favorite joke in the series so far! Bart: "<sigh> the life of the frog, that's the life for me." Marge: "Bart, how would you like to spend the next three months living in France?" It's so good! What kid could possibly get this joke? I've seen this episode several times over the course of the last two decades and I never caught it before.
I love the famous paintings they drive through.
The uncle is César and the nephew is Ugolin. I love the Simpsons remake of Jean de Florette maybe even more than the original. France wasn't big enough to contain ces douches. Again, no kid would have gotten this joke.
Principal Skinner: "In this way and only in this way can we hope to better understand our backward neighbors throughout the world". These were the final years of the Cold War, and even the Simpsons lighthearted take on it reveals a world that seems pretty foreign, but the American swagger, that's still pretty recognizable.
Adil does the finger-tent of doom and says "excellent" evilly. Has Mr. Burns even done this yet? Also, I want to know how Adil got his satellite transceiver through customs.
I've always had this fantasy that I could magically learn a language by osmosis like Bart learns French in this episode. I love how the policeman is pretty unfazed by the child abuse but is incensed by adulterating the wine.
"Zut alors! Le prison!"
I like that the American counterpart spy to Adil looks a lot like Bart. Lisa's comment about Bart's first unselfish act makes me think of the later Thanksgiving episode where she waits for Bart to once again commit an unselfish act.
CONCLUSION
I love this episode. A lot of the episodes that center around Bart aren't the greatest, but this one is amazing. I wonder why Bart never again speaks French, but I guess that's part of the format.
I think this episode may be the first political episode they do, not that they're really espousing much other than America = good. Still, it's nice to get away from the episodes about the Simpsons being a loving family or Homer loves Marge, etc.
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 trips over Bart's skateboard and falls down the stairs, crippling his back, and is confined to the couch for several days. Marge punishes Bart by forcing him to clean his room and as he does, he discovers an old cherry bomb among his things. At school the next day, he decides to flush it down the toilet in the boys' restroom with friends, Milhouse, Richard and Lewis. On that day, Principal Skinner's mother accompanies Skinner to school. Bart ends up pulling his prank at the same time as Principal Skinner's mother is in the girls' restroom. The resulting explosion blows her off of her seat and enrages Skinner. In order to punish him, Skinner proposes deportation to Homer and Marge, by having Bart participate in a foreign exchange program. They decide to send Bart to France, while the Simpsons host a student from Albania, named Adil Hoxha. Bart is shown a picture of a lovely château in the heart of France and he immediately agrees to go, much to Homer and Skinner's delight.
In France, Bart arrives at the "beautiful château", which is actually a dilapidated farmhouse on a run-down vineyard. He is greeted by the two unscrupulous winemakers, César and Ugolin, who proceed to treat him like a slave. Bart is starved while being made to carry buckets of water, collect and crush grapes, sleep on the floor, and test wine contaminated with antifreeze.
Meanwhile, in Springfield, Adil arrives and turns out to be a sweet and helpful boy. Homer immediately takes a shine to him, and it is noticeable that he is a better son and role model than Bart ever was. Unbeknown to the family, Adil is actually a spy sent by his government to obtain blueprints of the Springfield nuclear plant's reactor. Homer unwittingly takes him on a tour of the power plant and thinks nothing of the many photographs Adil takes, which Adil sends home by a secret fax machine in Bart's tree house.
When Bart is sent by his captors to Paris to buy a case of antifreeze, he sees a gendarme and tries to ask for help, but the gendarme does not understand English, and only gives Bart a piece of candy. Bart walks away, despairing over his own stupidity, then unconsciously begins speaking French to himself. Realizing he has become fluent in the language, he runs back to the gendarme and tells him everything. The wine-makers are swiftly arrested and Bart finishes his stay in France being hailed as a hero. Back in Springfield, Adil is caught by the FBI. Bart returns to his family, bringing them gifts from France.
Accessed from Wikipedia on Feb. 20, 2010