There's No Disgrace Like Home

I think this is the funniest episode so far. There are glimmers of potential here hinting at how great the show will eventually become.

This time we examine the Simpsons family as a whole unit. I love the segments where perfect idealised families are contrasted to the Simpsons.

It's interesting that at this early stage it's actually Homer fighting to save the family by selling their TV. Very out of character for him.

Ultimately the message seems to be that it's them against the world. Although they are far from perfect, they bond and find common ground over the things that others would judge as being undesirable. Such as shovelling in food and overdosing on television while constantly bickering. I can definitely relate more to this reality, as I'm sure most families can which is why the show became so successful.

I particularly enjoyed Marge's post-punch bacchanal.

We also get a bunch of great Mr Burns moments. Even though he doesn't really conform to the character of Mr Burns that the show will later develop.

I continue this string of reviews once again by repeating myself, this season of the Simpsons has a certain charm to it! It can only be the certain combination of animation style, strange yet recognisable voices and more wholesome plot lines, like this one that make for one amazing viewing experience.

The fourth episode of Season 1 in the Simpsons is a solid entry in the series. But I was comparing this episode to the modern Simpsons and this seems more....different. I think the creators were testing out different personalities for our favorite dysfunctional family. But nonetheless, this is still a fun episode that has some funny moments and by far my favorite moment is the actual shock therapy that takes place in the episode.

This episode, "There's No Disgrace Like Home", has Homer realizing at Mr. Burn's picnic that his family is not a very good family so he decides to sell the television in order to pay for therapy for him and his family.

Overall, this is a solid episode that has some funny moments. But this is a significant episode because we hear Burns say for the first time, "Release the hounds." Plus we get to meet Itchy and Scratchy for the first time. This is a pretty good and very watchable episode. I rate this episode 8/10.

I like the bit where they zapped each other and drained all the power.

After a Peanuts-like, Simpsons-styled Christmas special, an episode that delved into Bart's psyche (along with "The Simpsons'" relationship to intellectualism) and an episode showing us a bit more about Homer's personality, it was time to look further into the Simpsons relationship to each other as a family unit.

The family has to attend one of Mr. Burns' annual, mandatory company picnics, and doing so, in addition to observing different kinds of behavior from his family at home, makes Homer despondent. He wonders why they can't be like other families, like the ones who ride off from the picnic in glee, with exemplary etiquette, while Heaven shines a special light on them and guides them home.

As they leave the picnic, the Simpsons instead turn into demons and ride through a desolate, Hellish landscape (in one of the first completely surreal sequences of the show, promising the many marvelously hallucinogenic side-trips to come in the series, and even more literally foreshadowing the Halloween specials). After the introduction (without title or other identification) of Itchy and Scratchy to the series, and while Homer is sitting at the bar of an oddly black-haired Moe, Homer sees a commercial for Dr. Marvin Munro's Family Therapy Center and decides to--horror of horrors--hock the television so they can have a session.

It's worth noting that as in episode 3, Homer's Odyssey, this is still not quite Homer as most of us would imagine him down the road. We'd usually think of someone else in the family--either Lisa or Marge, probably--becoming upset that the Simpsons are so unruly. But again, it may be that we've forgotten about Homer's complexities as much as that creator Matt Groening and the writers have changed his personality over the years.

Of course, things do not go as planned at Dr. Munro's. The Simpsons are too dysfunctional for that. Throughout the episode, we're treated to some of the funniest family dynamics of the series, including the family's typical manner of eating dinner and their response to quickly drawing what's bothering them for the psychiatrist (the latter event is also a great opportunity to note just how subtle the show can get--look closely at the differences in the drawings, considering each character's personality and abilities). The family is so dysfunctional that even the normally well-behaved and intellectual one, Lisa, goes off the edge many times--joining Bart in a funny pushing match, goofing off in an intellectual way at Mr. Burns' fountain, and gleefully engaging in the mayhem at Munro's office.

But Groening and the writers cleverly slip in a very benevolent and understanding moral of the story in the end--they show that as screwed up as they may be in some ways, the Simpsons are really a very happy family with a tight bond who function well as a unit. They just don't function in socially normative ways much of the time. The family who earlier slipped off into Heaven did so to emphasize the myth of that kind of family. The Simpsons tend to triumph, happily, in their own manner, just like most real families do.