Rome-old and Juli-eh
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| The Simpsons episode | |
| "Rome-old and Juli-eh" | |
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|---|---|
| Episode no. | 393 |
| Prod. code | JABF08 |
| Orig. Airdate | March 11, 2007 |
| Written by | Daniel Chun |
| Directed by | Nancy Kruse |
| Couch gag | A map of Springfield is shown which then burns and makes way for the family on horses, a parody on the opening of Bonanza. |
| Guest star | Jane Kaczmarek as Judge Constance Harm |
| Season 18 September 10, 2006 – May 20, 2007 |
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*Not yet aired episode scheduled to air in the future. Episode order may change. |
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| List of all Simpsons episodes... | |
"Rome-old and Juli-eh" is an episode of The Simpsons' eighteenth season, which originally aired on March 11, 2007. It was written by Daniel Chun, and directed by Nancy Kruse. Guest starring Jane Kaczmarek as her recurring character Judge Constance Harm.
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[edit] Synopsis
Homer surprises the family with a newly decorated basement, now a rec room with a pinball machine, a ping-pong table and other luxury items, prompting Marge to ask how Homer could afford all this. He says he has a plan and in the next scene files for bankruptcy before Judge Harm, believing that this will save him from paying his debts. Unfortunately, Judge Harm tells him that the bankruptcy laws have changed and under the new laws, he has to pay everything back. When looking though the family's expenses, Homer decides to save a lot of money by moving Grampa out of the retirement home and having him live with the family, the rec room now doubling as Grandpa's room.
One night Homer and Marge go out, and they ask Abe to babysit. Not entirely trusting Abe's competence as a babysitter, Marge also asks her sister Selma to come over and watch Abe watch the kids. During the evening, Abe and Selma end up kissing and eventually fall in love with each other, much to Homer's dismay, who wants his dad to end up old and lonely. Selma's twin, Patty is no happier than Homer about this pairing, and she enlists Homer's help to break them up. Patty impersonates Selma and Homer dresses up as "Mr. Sexface", a Spanish lover-type, and the two arrange for Abe to catch them kissing. Their plan is foiled though, when the actual Selma comes by and catches them. Angry at being manipulated, Abe proposes to Selma. She accepts; they are married and move in together.
With Abe unable to find work, Selma is the sole breadwinner in the family, working hard in her new, more stressful job as department manager at the DMV. Abe, meanwhile, screws up their kitchen with his ignorance of how things work by putting pancake batter into a CD player, a blender cup on the stove, and a tape into the microwave. This makes Selma realize that maybe love is not everything you need after all, and she dances with him one last time. they presumably divorce with Abe moving back to the retirement home.
Kicked out of the rec room, Bart and Lisa order a lot of complimentary shipping boxes from the A.S.S. (American Shipping Services), getting the idea from Ned Flanders, and build a fort out of them. When Wiseguy (who is a delivery man in this episode) becomes angry and asks for them back, they refuse, whereupon he threatens to come back and get them by force. Bart and Lisa think he is bluffing, but in fact he comes back with an army of delivery men and women. Bart and Lisa put up a brave fight, first by releasing a barrage of cardboard tubes to trip the enemies, then using cardboard squares to throw like shuriken. The delivery men set up a siege ladder and Lisa wraps the lead man in tape and pushes the ladder down. They are aided by Nelson, who arrives unexpectedly to aid Lisa, who could have been hit by a barrage of cardboard arrows. He dives down with twin cardboard tubes and fends off a large number of delivery men.
The army swarms while Bart uses a cardboard tube to shoot down enemies with bricks, beehives, egg cartons and Snowball II. The A.S.S. legion fails and flees, but the kids immediately lose interest in their fort and melt it with the garden hose, the Fell Beast lying dead with a cardboard tube sticking out of its stomach.
[edit] Trivia
- The banner outside of the church says "Congratulations Selma and
BobLionelTroyStuBobAbe," a reference to Selma's previous marriages to Sideshow Bob, Lionel Hutz, Troy McClure and Disco Stu. The second "Bob" marriage was never mentioned before, and it is unclear if Selma re-married Sideshow Bob, who tried to kill her. Selma's marriage to Lionel Hutz was never witnessed by viewers; however, Selma mentioned in "Much Apu About Nothing" that her name had already evolved into "Selma Bouvier-Terwilliger-Hutz-McClure," implying that she married Lionel sometime between her marriage to Sideshow Bob in "Black Widower" and Troy McClure in "A Fish Called Selma". Selma's marriage to Disco Stu was mentioned in "There's Something About Marrying". This is also the first in-series reference to either of Phil Hartman's characters since his death. - Grandpa previously dated Selma's mother Jacqueline Bouvier in "Lady Bouvier's Lover". As was the case in this episode, Marge was happy with the arrangement while Homer was not.
- An image of Grandpa marrying Patty and Selma was seen near the end of season 13's "Gump Roast" along with the lyrics: "How 'bout a crazy wedding? Where something happens and do do do do do." There was also a montage at the end of season 8's "The Simpsons Spin-off Showcase" where Troy McClure goes through the "plots" (which are all false) for the next season and mentioned "wedding after wedding after wedding" while an image of Selma marrying various characters is shown.
- On March 17, 2007 (the Saturday after the episode aired), an article appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer in which the author claimed that a reference to Harrisburg in some of the episode's dialogue proved the identity of the Simpsons' hometown to be Springfield, Pennsylvania, as opposed to Springfield in any other state.
[edit] Cultural references
- The title of this episode is a play on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.
- Barts comment on how a bunch of guys in brown shirts can cause so much trouble is a reference to the Brown Shirts of the Nazi Party.
- The battle sequence with Bart, Lisa, and the box salesmen uses the song The Fields of the Pelennor from the The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, and the scene itself is a parody of the battle of Helm's Deep from The Two Towers and the siege of Minas Tirith from The Return of the King. One of the A.S.S. delivery men even flies a Fell beast like the Nazgûl.
[edit] External links
