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- The is a draft and therefore might be crap
The Simpsons episode | |
"Some Enchanted Evening" | |
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Episode no. | 13 |
Prod. code | 7G01 |
Orig. Airdate | May 13, 1990 |
Show Runner(s) | James L. Brooks Matt Groening Sam Simon |
Written by | Matt Groening Sam Simon |
Directed by | David Silverman Kent Butterworth |
Chalkboard | "I will not yell 'Fire' in a crowded classroom."[1] |
Couch gag | The entire family tightly fits onto the couch. No gag.[2] |
Guest star | Penny Marshall Christopher Collins June Foray Paul Willson[2] |
DVD commentary by | Matt Groening James L. Brooks David Silverman |
SNPP capsule | |
Season 1 December 17, 1989 – May 13, 1990 |
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List of all Simpsons episodes... |
- This article is about the Simpsons episode; for other uses see Some Enchanted Evening (disambiguation).
"Some Enchanted Evening" is the thirteenth episode of The Simpsons, but was the first full-length episode to be produced. The episode features Bart's, Lisa's, and Maggie's encounter with the notorious "Babysitter Bandit".
Contents |
[edit] Synopsis
Marge is fed up with Homer's thoughtlessness and explains her predicament on Dr. Marvin Monroe's radio call-in show. Monroe urges Marge to confront Homer about her feelings. Homer, who has heard the call on a radio at work, feels bad and brings home a single rose. Marge's mood immediately softens, and a remorseful Homer decides to treat Marge to a night on the town: dinner at a fancy restaurant, dancing, and staying at a hotel room.
Marge and Homer now needs a babysitter and hire Ms. Botz through a local babysitting service. On Marge's advice, Ms. Botz has Bart and Lisa watching The Happy Little Elves. However, after Ms. Botz leaves the room, Bart tunes into a station airing "America's Most Armed and Dangerous," which is doing a profile of a wanted burglar nicknamed "The Babysitter Bandit." A profile of the suspect shows Bart and Lisa that Ms. Botz is "The Babysitter Bandit." Ms. Botz enters the living room and realizes that her cover has been blown. Bart and Lisa try to hide, but she easily finds them, ties them up and makes them watch "The Happy Little Elves" tape as she goes about her work uninterrupted. Maggie eventually wakes up and goes downstairs, to discover that her siblings are tied up watching TV. Eventually, Maggie frees Bart and Lisa, and they are able to knock out Ms. Botz with a baseball bat.
After tying up Ms. Botz, the kids find all their telephones disabled and go to a nearby pay telephone to alert the authorities. Meanwhile, Marge decides to try to call home to check up on things at home, but get no answer. Worried, she and Homer decide to go home and find Ms. Botz bound and gagged. Homer, thinking his children have gotten the best of another babysitter and unaware of her true identity, frees her and pays her handsomely. After advising Homer to keep an eye on Bart, Ms. Botz makes a clean getaway, just seconds before the Springfield police arrive to arrest her. Homer begins to scold Bart for his behavior toward Ms. Botz until he finds a reporter's microphone shoved in his face, telling him he just freed a wanted criminal.
[edit] Production
Even though this episode aired as the last episode of the first season, it was the first episode in production and was intended to be the first episode to air from the half-hour show. The series is a spin-off from The Tracey Ullman Show in which the family already appeared in a series of animated one-minute shorts. The characters were already created, but had to be further developed in order to carry a half-hour show. The episode was therefore meant as an introduction to the characters. Matt Groening and Sam Simon wrote the script for the episode. Groening is the creator of The Simpsons and Simon is an experience writer and producer who previously had done work on such television series as Cheers. Both are credited with developing the series.
The episode was first directed by Kent Butterworth who had not been associated with the shorts, but previously had directed episodes from Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures. Klasky-Csupo animation studio that produced the shorts was in charge of the animation, with one exception. During the years of producing the shorts, everything was created in-house. Due to the increased workload, production was being subcontracted to the South Korean animation studio AKOM.[3] While character and background layout is done by the domestic studio, tweening coloring and filming is done by the overseas studio.[3]
A debacle erupted when this episode, the first to return from animation in Korea, was screened in front of the production staff at the Gracie Films bungalow. The animation was reportedly so appalling that the executive producer and developer James L. Brooks' initial reaction was, "This is shit." The tension in the room had it almost cleared. The heated argument that ensued between him and Klasky-Csupo animation studio head Gabor Csupo, who denied that there was anything wrong with the animation and suggested that the real problem lay with the quality of the show's writing.
The problem with the animation from the producers' point-of-view was that it did not go by a distinct style envisioned for the show. At the time there were only a few choices for animation style. Usually, they would either follow the style of Disney, Warner Brothers or Hanna-Barbera. Disney and Warner Brothers cartoons had a universe that was bendy and the characters seemed to be made of rubber. The producers wanted a realistic environment in which the characters and objects could not do anything that was not possible in the real world. One example with the early animation being cartoonish was that the doors behaved liked rubber when slammed. The style of Hanna-Barbera featured the use of cartoon sounds, which they did not want either.
The producers considered aborting production on the series if the next episode, "Bart the Genius" turned out as poorly, but fortunately it turned out to suffer only a few, easily fixable problems. Afterwards, the producers entreated Fox to push the air date for the series premiere back several months, which was then switched to "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire", which had to be aired in December, being a Christmas special. This ensured that more time could be spent fixing the animation problems with this episode. Directorial duties for the retakes were handed from Kent Butterworth to David Silverman, who already had considerable experience directing the shorts.
Silverman estimates that about 70% of everything had to be redone. Most of these retakes consisted of changing the backgrounds. The result is an episode where the animation is uneven, because it shifts between the early animation and the retakes. It is still possible to see the doors slam like they were made of rubber. The Fox censors wanted to replace the sentence "the blue thing with the things", because of its sexual context. Due to the fledgling position of the Fox network, Jim Brooks had obtained an unusual contractual provision that ensured the network could not interfere with the creative process by providing show notes,[4] so this was ignored by the producers.
The episode featured a few early character designs. Moe Szyslak has black hair in this episode, which was later changed to grey. Barney Gumble has blonde hair in this episode, which was later change to brown, because it looked weird to have a character with the same hair color as his skin. There is also a few continuity errors, because of the episode being moved back to the last episode of the season. Santa's Little Helper does not appear in this episode, despite being introduced in "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire". The openening starts with a none couch gag in which the family just sits down on the couch. It was intended for this to be the first couch gag and from there it would become wackier.
[edit] Deleted scenes
The Complete First Season DVD, contains some of the original footage that had to be re-done before the episode was aired. No sound effects were included, but the original dialogue tracks can be heard. The quality of the footage was slightly re-mastered for the DVD. Commentary on these scenes explaining why they were redone, was also included.
The scenes featured were:
- The original opening: Marge is talking to Maggie, while cooking breakfast. Homer and the kids rush downstairs and raid the kitchen for food. Bart and Lisa's "tug-a-war" over the last donut is here, but animated differently. Also included is a brief moment where Marge puckers her lips to kiss Homer, but Homer drinks her coffee and slams the door on her lips, leaving a mark. This would explain the kiss mark left on the back of the door later in the episode when Marge and Homer leave for their date.
- Angry Marge: As an angry Marge waits for Homer, Dr. Marvin Monroe's words plays in her in head, while radios circle above her head. This was re-animated with homer heads monstrous visions of home appliances.
- Calling a sitter: An alternate take to Homer's reaction to the old lady on the phone quoting that Homer is a "big ape".
- Dancing: An alternate take of Homer and Marge dancing.
[edit] Guest stars
- Penny Marshall as Ms. Lucille Botz
- Christopher Collins as TV host
- June Foray as receptionist
- Paul Willson as florist[2]
Hank Azaria was at the time credited as a guest star for portraying Moe Szyslak. He became a regular in the second season.
[edit] Cultural reference
- The chalkboard gag sentence is a reference to the old "don't yell fire in a crowded theater" rule.
- "America's Most Wanted" - The "America's Most Armed and Dangerous" show is a parody of the FOX network show. The host of the parody is a John Walsh-soundalike (voiced by Christopher Collins).
- The Happy Little Elves - These elf-like creatures are similar to other fantasy folk-type cartoon characters, most notably The Smurfs and The Care Bears.
- "Jaws" - The ominous-sounding music as Ms. Botz approaches Bart and Lisa is similar to the music that plays when the bloodthirsty shark is about to attack in the movie.
- "Patricia" - Homer hums the song, made famous by Cuban bandleader Perez Prado.
- "Some Enchanted Evening" - The episode title is taken from the title of a song from Rodgers and Hammerstein's "South Pacific" and is also the name of a 1978 Blue Öyster Cult album.
[edit] Reception
According to xxx people thought this episode to be the greatest episode of the first season after the first season ended. However in 2006, IGN.com named "The Crepes of Wrath" the best episode of the first season.[5] The users of IMDb gave this episode an average rating of 7.0/10,[6] while the users at TV.com gave a "great" rating of 8.3/10.[7] In a DVD review of the first season David B. Grelck gave the episode a rating of 1.5/5.0, placing it as one of the worst of the season.[8]. Another DVD review from The Digital Bits calls the behind the scenes story more interesting than the actual episode.[9]
[edit] References
- ^ Richmond, Ray; Antonia Coffman (1997). The Simpsons: A Complete Guide to our Favorite Family. Harper Collins Publishers, pp. 30-31. ISBN 0-00063-8898-1.
- ^ a b c Martyn, Warren; Wood, Adrian (2000). Some Enchanted Evening. BBC. Retrieved on 2007-02-12.
- ^ a b Deneroff, Harvey. "Matt Groening's Baby Turns 10", Animation Magazine, Vol. 14, #1, January 2000, pp. 10, 12.
- ^ Kuipers, Dean (2004-04-15). '3rd Degree: Harry Shearer'. Los Angeles: City Beat. Retrieved on 2006-09-01.
- ^ Goldman, Eric; Dan Iverson, Brian Zoromski (2006-09-08). The Simpsons: 17 Seasons, 17 Episodes. IGN.com. Retrieved on 2007-03-04.
- ^ "The Simpsons" Some Enchanted Evening (1990). IMDb. Retrieved on 2007-03-04.
- ^ The Simpsons: Some Enchanted Evening (1990). TV.com. Retrieved on 2007-03-04.
- ^ http://www.wdbgproductions.com/cinerama/reviews/simpsonsseason1.htm
- ^ http://www.thedigitalbits.com/reviews2/simpsonsseason1.html
[edit] External links
- "Some Enchanted Evening" at The Simpsons.com
- "Some Enchanted Evening" episode capsule at The Simpsons Archive
- "Some Enchanted Evening" at the Internet Movie Database
- "Some Enchanted Evening" at TV.com