Sunday, Cruddy Sunday
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"Sunday, Cruddy Sunday" is the twelfth episode of The Simpsons' tenth season. The episode aired on January 31, 1999, after the sneak preview of Family Guy, on the same day as Super Bowl XXXIII. The episode title is a take-off on the U2 song title "Sunday Bloody Sunday".
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[edit] Synopsis
When Bart and Lisa go with the students of Springfield Elementary on a field trip to the post office, Bart gets a piece of undeliverable mail as a souvenir, which is a Val-U-Qual coupon book, which he gives to Homer. He uses one of his coupons at a tire business on a free wheel balancing, and is told by the "customer care specialist" that his car will not take a balance. This man informs Homer that he will need four new tires because legally they cannot let customers drive off with faulty tires. Homer reluctantly accepts. He meets a man named Wally Kogen, a travel agent who only came into the business to get a roadside package. He shares with Homer how he got shafted and the two form a bond. They go to Moe's for a beer, watching a special on the Super Bowl. Wally says his travel agency has a charter bus going to the game and suggests to Homer that he can fill the bus and ride for free. They ask Moe to come to the Super Bowl, and he agrees (knowing that his "favorite team" the Atlanta Falcons is in it), as do Lenny, Carl, and other prominent men of Springfield.
The posse, led by Homer, along with Bart, go to the Super Bowl at Miami's Pro Player Stadium on the bus and arrive for pre-game festivities with Rosey Grier (offering sermons), "Take a leak with NFL greats", Troy Aikman (drawing caricatures of everyone he sees on a dune buggy), and catch a pass from Dan Marino. Expecting to get in the game, they are stopped when a scalper offers them tickets. Homer threatens to give the man a caning. They check in, but realize that the tickets they have are made of biscuit. When Bart sees the halftime show costumes they use them to knock over the guards and rush into the stadium. However, stadium security confronts them, and they are locked up in the stadium jail.
Homer's posse, in jail, is freed when Dolly Parton (whom Kogen knows) uses her extra-strength makeup remover to dissolve the lock and release them. As they are freed, they run into a skybox suite and get a view of the game (and plenty of snacks), until Rupert Murdoch arrives and confronts them, as he owns the skybox. He gets guards to seize them, but Homer's posse runs away and head to the field, until they get lost in the sea of players when they win the Super Bowl. The group ends up in the locker room, and everyone has a Super Bowl ring on one of their hands at game's end. Homer is hoisting the Vince Lombardi Trophy.
Meanwhile, when Homer and Bart are on the bus, Marge and Lisa try to find their own crafting activity. They use a product, "Vincent Price's Egg Magic", for their activity time. They succeed, until they realize that the product was shoddy because the feet were not included, even although the box states, "Feet Included". They call a help-line number on the box and are greeted with the voice of Vincent Price - who, in a slightly unsettling manner, assures them that his grandson Jody will bring the missing feet to them.
The episode ends with John Madden and Pat Summerall analyzing the events of the episode. Despite endorsing the character Wally Kogen and the subplot, they are infuriated by a Super Bowl episode guest starring Dolly Parton that does not feature "any football or singing". Madden declares the episode a slap to the show's fanbase, who he says have taken "so much nonsense" from the program. They eventually leave on a bus, nonsensically (as Madden comments) driven by Vincent Price.
[edit] Trivia
- This episode was animated long before anyone knew who would go to Super Bowl XXXIII. The producers emphasized this by the deliberately obvious audio splicing in Moe's Tavern, and the awkward way the men held the beer mugs in front of their mouths (so you couldn't read their lips).
- Homer owns the Denver Broncos after receiving them as a gift from Hank Scorpio in You Only Move Twice. Coincidentally (intended or not), Homer wanted the Denver Broncos to win the Super Bowl.
- This episode took place around the time of the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal. This is referenced in the audio splicing in the bar, "I hear President Clinton (muffled) is going to be there with his wife Hillary, the producers suggesting that they did not know who would be in office and if Hillary would still be his wife when the episode aired.
- It also referenced in Al Gore measuring up the Oval office curtains when Homer hangs up on President Clinton's congratulatory phone call.
- On the tour of the post office, Nelson asks Postmaster Bill "Ever been on a killing spree?". This alludes to the act of going postal.
- The song that is played while Homer waits for his car is the popular "Spanish Flea" by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. Coincidentally, Julius Wechter, who wrote that tune, died the day after this episode aired.
- The coach in Homer's fantasy about going to the Super Bowl bears a striking similarity to long-time Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry.
- The show features a deliberate obfuscation of the location of Springfield. When Marge is on the phone with the Vincent Price's Egg Magic people, she is instructed to leave her address in order to get feet that were advertised on the box as being included but had been left out. Marge says the beginning of the address but when she gets to the city and state, Maude walks into view causing Marge to say, "Springfield...Oh, Hi ya, Maude!" (Obviously meant to sound like "Ohio".)
- The people Homer brings to the Super Bowl are:
Bart
Comic Book Guy
Bumblebee Man
Ned Flanders
Lenny
Carl
Moe
Barney
Apu
Squeaky Voiced Teen
Reverend Lovejoy
Krusty the Clown
Dr. Nick Riviera
Sideshow Mel
Jasper
Kirk Van Houten
Dr. Hibbert
Captain McCallister
The blue haired lawyer
Charlie
Chief Wiggum
Principal Seymour Skinner
Crazy Old Man
- The episode claims that the extra four digits in ZIP codes are used as "citizen relocation codes".
- On Fox's original network airing, the commercial at the start of the third act is for the Catholic Church. For subsequent Fox airings, it was changed to "The Church" after pressure from the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights; all other broadcasts used the original line, however.
[edit] Cultural references
- The title of this episode comes from the U2 song "Sunday Bloody Sunday"
- The name Wally Kogen is a nod to Simpsons writing team Jay Kogen and Wallace Wolodarsky, who penned the previous Super Bowl episode, "Lisa the Greek". Football players named Kogen and Wolodarsky were also mentioned in "The Telltale Head", "Bart vs. Thanksgiving" and "When Flanders Failed".
- The "Vincent Price's Egg Magic" kit is a reference to the "Vincent Price's Shrunken Head" kits, which were a popular toy in the 1970s. The set allowed you to turn a peeled apple into a "shrunken head" of sorts using the provided tools and some household items.
- Marge describes one of the eggs as "egg-cellent", which is one of the catchphrases of Egghead, a Batman villain who was played by Vincent Price.
[edit] Winners
The winning team in this episode is wearing red uniforms. In Super Bowl XXXIII, the Denver Broncos (who wear blue uniforms, and white uniforms in the Super Bowl) defeated the Atlanta Falcons (who wore red uniforms until 1990, and from 2003 to the present). However, in the episode "You Only Move Twice", which aired in 1996, the Denver Broncos are seen wearing red uniforms also. That may be a variation of their old uniforms, which were actually orange in color, and used until 1997.
[edit] External links
- "Sunday, Cruddy Sunday" episode capsule at The Simpsons Archive
- "Sunday, Cruddy Sunday" at the Internet Movie Database
