Special Edna
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| The Simpsons episode | |
| "Special Edna" | |
| Episode no. | 298 |
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| Prod. code | EABF02 |
| Orig. Airdate | January 5, 2003 |
| Written by | Dennis Snee |
| Directed by | Bob Anderson |
| Chalkboard | None |
| Couch gag | The family is dropped into hot oil, deep fried, dropped onto the couch, and salted. |
| Guest star | Little Richard |
| SNPP capsule | |
| Season 14 November 3, 2002 – May 18, 2003 |
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| List of all Simpsons episodes... | |
"Special Edna", also titled "Love and Marking", is the seventh episode of The Simpsons' fourteenth season. The episode aired on January 5, 2003. The episode's title is a play on Special Ed.
[edit] Synopsis
Mrs. Krabappel tells the class to write a paper on World War I and submit it in 3 weeks. Martin suggests that they have it typed and have it at least 10 pages long. For this, he suffers at the hands of Nelson. After class, Mrs. Krabappel goes to Principal Skinner's office so that they can go on their apple-picking date. Skinner's phone rings and it's his mother, with one of her crazy requests. He blows off the date to attend to his mother, much to Edna's displeasure.
At the Simpson household, Bart decides to get down to doing the paper, but is distracted by wrestling. Later, he goes to the library for reference. However, when he sees that someone has paid for 99 photocopies and left, he can't resist playing a prank and photocopies 99 copies of his butt. The next day, at church, the church-goers open their Bibles, only to see Bart's butt mooning them. At home, when he is about to start, Milhouse, on a Black Hawk helicopter piloted by his uncle, comes along and invites him for a ride. Milhouse says it's Bart's only opportunity as his uncle "will probably be court-martialled for this", so Bart goes.
Three weeks are almost done, and Bart still hasn't even touched the assignment. The day before the date of submission, he asks Grampa for help. However, Grampa's story about his WWI experiences (him as a 4-year-old in the trenches) is anything but educational, but Bart writes it down anyway and adds some advertisement pages so that he can make it 10 pages. At school the next day, Mrs. Krabappel rejects his paper and tells him to stay back after school and do it correctly. After school, Bart finishes the assignment and hands it in. Skinner arrives and asks Edna if she is ready for their date. But again his mother calls and he has to postpone the date (by 3 hours!). Bart consoles Mrs. K, and offers to accompany her to the movie, to which she agrees reluctantly, though she is grateful later.
At home, Lisa suggests that Bart do more things for his teacher, like nominate her for the Teacher of the Year award. So he sends in her nomination. When the organisers realise that Edna Krabappel has actually managed to teach Bart Simpson (who was thought of as an "urban legend"), they accept her nomination. The next day, Mrs. K gets a surprise as she enters her class and she is informed of her nomination for Teacher of the Year. In the ensuing press conference, she thanks Bart and wonders if she will teach if she does win, to Skinner's surprise. He is about to congratulate and praise her, when he gets another call from his mother, prompting him to stop the press conference. Bart informs his family that, since he nominated Mrs. K, he and his family are going to Orlando. The family is excited at first, but when they find out where the awards show is being held (The EFCOT Center, a parody of the EPCOT Center), they are less than enthusiastic.
In Orlando, at the EFCOT Center ("When all other places are booked"), Marge and Lisa go for a "World of Tomorrow" ride, which was a 1960s vision of the world in 1984. It turns out to be a Jetsons-like world, where Eastern Air Lines runs the world. Homer and Bart go on an electric car ride, sponsored by "the gasoline producers of America," which tells them that it can't go very fast and it makes them look gay.
At Springfield Elementary, Skinner feels a bit despondent, thinking that Edna could leave the school. Groundskeeper Willie tells him to go to Orlando and win her over. He even lends Skinner his sportscar. Skinner races to Orlando. Later, in Orlando, as Homer and Marge enjoy the fireworks display, Edna feels lonely, until Skinner arrives. As they kiss, they are interrupted by Agnes, who Skinner brought along. Edna does not want to talk with Skinner.
In the preparation for the ceremony, Skinner is shocked when he hears that the winner of the award will win enough money so that he or she will not have to teach again. He requests Bart to help sabotage Mrs. K's chances of winning, and help protect his love for her. At the ceremony, when Little Richard (wearing a lot of rings) presents the Teacher of the Year award, the students who have each nominated one of the three finalists must ask a question to the student that nominated that certain teacher, and Bart is asked what Mrs. K would like to teach the world the most. He pretends that he is illiterate, until Skinner (who feels guilty about ruining her chances) tells the truth and admits that it should be Edna who should be Teacher of the Year because he says that if she could teach him to love, she can teach anyone anything. With one of Little Richard's rings (Skinner could not afford one on his salary even after 2 months), Skinner asks Edna to marry him, and she agrees. However, though she loses the award, she looks forward to marrying Skinner.
Later, Homer tries to bust out of the EFCOT Center and visit Walt Disney World, setting off alarms and searchlights, and warnings from a voice that sounds just like Mickey Mouse. He buys an expensive churro and runs off.
[edit] Trivia
- Grampa says he lied about his age to get into World War I. Walt Disney did the same thing, but Disney was only 16 years old; Grampa looks about four.
- The Simpson family receives a free trip to Orlando, Florida. In the episode, "Kill the Alligator and Run", they were banned from the state of Florida.
- When Lisa mocks Bart for befriending Edna, she quotes a line from the Simpsons' hit single "Do the Bartman".
- The dog Rover in the Rainier Wolfcastle movie resembles the dog from "The Lastest Gun in the West".
[edit] Cultural references
- This episode features a parody of EPCOT Center. A sign outside the park reads "When Every Other Place is Booked," and Homer bemoans that EPCOT is "even boring to fly over!"
- The "Ride Of Broken Dreams" is a mockery of the Enron scandal. The ride goes up for quite a distance, then suddenly drops steeply and levels out for a while and then drops down into a poor house shed.
- The attractions shown in the episode are:
- Honey, I Squirted Goo on the Audience!, a parody of Honey, I Shrunk the Audience
- Great Moments with Mr. Eisner, a parody of Disneyland's Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln
- The FutureSphere, a parody of Epcot's Spaceship Earth
- The Home of Tomorrow, a parody of Disneyland's Monsanto House of the Future
- The building where the award ceremony is held is an exact likeness of Epcot's Horizons.
- The World of Tomorrow attraction has some basis in the former Magic Kingdom attraction If You Had Wings, which was sponsored by Eastern Airlines
- The Electric Car of the Future, a parody of Test Track
- The nighttime fireworks/laser display being watched by Homer and Marge is a parody of Epcot's Illuminations show, taking place in a facsimile of Epcot's World Showcase.
- The "World of Tomorrow" ride parodies the fact that most of Epcot's attractions were sponsored by huge corporations (General Electric, AT&T, Exxon, United Technologies) that used their attractions to offer a very clean version of themselves and how they were bringing the future to the American public.
- The teacher who was awarded the title "Teacher of the Year" was vaguely reminiscent of Jaime Escalante and the 1988 film Stand and Deliver, where Escalante indeed taught intercity school students that differential equations were more powerful than bullets.
- When Homer and Bart ride the electric car, the gay robots say "One of us! One of us!" This is homage to the classic line from the 1932 film Freaks.
- Edna mentions that she accidentally showed the "R-rated version of Romeo and Juliet", which is a reference to the 1996 film, which was actually rated PG-13.
