Review: The Simpsons ‘Yellow Subterfuge’

Spoilers Below

Well, the New York Giants have finally officially been eliminated from playoff contention. No surprise, considering they lost their first seven games, but it still stings, dammit. Hopefully The Simpsons can lift my spirits…

In this week’s episode, Principal Skinner announced that the best behaved students at Springfield Elementary would get to go on a field trip aboard a submarine (The U.S.S. Tom Clancy – a joke that was probably written before the author’s death this past October.) Since every pupil’s slate would be wiped clean, Bart used this as an opportunity to change his ways.

Unfortunately, Bart slipped up, and ended up enlisting Homer to help him pull off an elaborate revenge prank on Skinner.

In the story’s alternate storyline, Lisa suggested a cash-strapped Krusty begin foreign language versions of his show for extra profit. However, the knock-offs became more successful, and they turned on Krusty after he refused to share the money.

This episode had a surprising number of funny jokes. I loved the throwback reference to Season 12’s “New Kids on the Blecch” with YVAN EHT NIOJ, the buried whoopee cushion gag, and the Dick Fiddler jokes.

Krusty provided some great laughs as well. A couple were drug related: like his initial cocaine comment, as well as the Jamaican Krusty showing a cartoon called The Itchem and Scratchem Blow, basically Itchy & Scratchy…on weeed!

I also enjoyed that Krusty provided his franchise clowns a copy of a guidebook called “How to Catch a Monkey,” and that the Chinese Krusty had a sidekick named Sideshow Mao.

My only complaint is that Springfield Elementary student Wendell is named on Skinner’s list as “Wendell Queasly,” when he already was named Wendell Borton. Odd, no?

Regardless, this was an amusing installment. It wasn’t constantly funny, and there were only few big laughs, but it was still a solid episode. The aforementioned jokes are enough to make this episode worth watching in syndication, and enough to temporarily take my mind off the huge embarrassing failure that is was the 2013 New York Giants.