HANK RANKS No. 30

My 1 Favorite Episode From Each Of The Simpsons' First 20 Seasons

I consider The Simpsons the greatest television show of all time, and while it isn't as consistently brilliant as it was in earlier seasons ( 8 is my favorite), it is still reliably entertaining, and still capable of a good surprise from time to time, and at least 1 or 3 episodes every season that are destined to be classics. If you say The Simpsons sucks nowadays, I'd say you're just an ingrate.

These are not my 20 favorite episodes of The Simpsons of all time. If it were that list, half of them would probably be from Season 8. No, this is a list of my favorite episode from each of the first 20 seasons of the show. It's not ranked, but simply listed in reverse chronology, so this probably shouldn't be called a HANK RANKS, but whatever.

For the record, Homer Vs. The Eighteenth Amendment is my absolute. Favorite. Episode. Ever.

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20: No Loan Again, Naturally [#LABF03 - 08Mar09] Wherein Homer takes out another home equity loan to pay for his annual Mardi Gras party, after which the Simpsons lose their house. Ned Flanders buys and then rents it back to the Simpsons, who proceed to take advantage of Ned by making him constantly make repairs at all hours of the day and night, which finally leads Ned to evict the Simpsons once again. Lenny: "Homer, I always wonder - how can you afford this party year after year?" Homer: "Because, I have this magical thing called a 'home equity loan'. I borrow all the money I want, and the house gets stuck with the bill... Hehehehe...Sucker." Lenny: "Hm? I'm not sure that's how it works." Homer: "Fine, mister sceptical, give me back your beads."

19: The Debarted [#KABF06 - 02Mar08] Wherein Principal Skinner slips a mole (voiced by Topher Grace) into Springfield Elementary to befriend and spy on the "Bart Simpson Operation" to get five steps ahead of their pranks. Bart initially suspects Milhouse is the mole, before catching on to the real culprit. Meanwhile, Homer gets a sweet ass loaner car that he doesn't want to return. Bart: "Look new kid, I'm the head hamster in this habitrail, capiche?" New Kid: "Well, maybe there's a new guinea pig in your cage. Capiche that?" Bart: "Oh, I capiche, I capiche just fine." New Kid: "Well, you just keep on capiche-ing." Classmates (in unison): "Oooooooooh!"

18: 24 Minutes [#JABF14 - 20May07] Wherein Jimbo, Dolph and Kearney plan to detonate a stinkbomb at a Springfield Elementary bake sale, and it's up to the school's Counter-Truancy Unit (CTU) to stop their dastardly plan. Starring Bart as Jack Bauer, and Lisa as Chloe O'Brien in this homage to 24. Featuring the voices of Kiefer Sutherland and Mary Lynn Rajskub. Marge: "If someone did eat Bart's shorts, they'd have a tummy full of pocket garbage!"

17: My Fair Laddy [#HABF05 - 26Feb06] Wherein Lisa is Henry Higgins to Groundskeeper Willie's Eliza Doolittle in The Simpsons' own warped version of My Fair Lady. Meanwhile, the company that makes Homer's blue pants no longer makes Homer's blue pants. Coach Krupt: "Today we're going to play a game that's as old as pain itself...BOMBARDMENT!" Millhouse: "I'm intrigued. What are the rules?" Coach Krupt: "Duck or die! BOMBARDMENT!!"

16: Sleeping With The Enemy [#FABF19 - 21Nov04] Wherein a disastrous party thrown for Bart leads Marge to believe she's been overmothering her children, so she turns her attentions to somebody else who might need some mothering - Nelson Muntz, who actually moves into the Simpsons' home, creating all sorts of weird dynamics and strange situations as a result. Meanwhile, Lisa has a big butt. Ralph: "Duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck..." Bart: "Say 'goose' you stupid freak!" Ralph (running from room): "Waaaaaaaaaaahhhh!"

15: Diatribe Of A Mad Housewife [#FABF05 - 25Jan04] Wherein Marge writes a romance novel with thinly veiled characters who's actions suggest that she is in love with Ned Flanders, an idea that gets the whole town gossiping. Will Homer read the book and get jealous, or will his new job as an ambulance driver take up all his time? I won't say, but I will say this episode guest stars Thomas Pynchon. Homer: "Marge! I figured it out! Lee Harvey Oswald wanted to steal the Jack Ruby." Marge: "Jack Ruby was a man, not a jewel." Homer: "Ooh, I was so close."

14: How I Spent My Strummer Vacation [#DABF22 - 10Nov02] Wherein Homer (and plenty of secondary characters, as usual) goes to Mick Jagger's Rock'n'Roll Fantasy Camp, and we are served every lame Rock cliche, pun and bad joke imaginable, but there are a ton of special guests willing to make fun of themselves, so in the end it's fairly fucking epic. Homer: "Uh, Mr. Seltzer?" Brian Setzer: "It's 'Setzer'." Homer: "No, I think it's Seltzer."

13: Weekend At Burnsie's [#DABF11 - 07Apr02] Wherein Homer gets into a beef with some crows, ends up on medicial marijuana, and the remainder of the episode is, well, Homer on dope. And the stoners rejoiced! Not even an appearance by Phish could ruin gold like this. Homer: "For me, the '60's ended that day in 1978."

12: Worst Episode Ever [#CABF08 - 04Feb01] Wherein Comic Book Guy has a heart attack, which leads to Bart and Milhouse "babysitting" the Android's Dungeon until Comic Book Guy can return. While he recovers, Comic Book Guy dates Agnes Skinner, and Bart and Milhouse find his secret stash of bootleg videos, many featuring popular townsfolks in embarrassing situations. Comic Book Guy: "Is there a word in Klingon for loneliness? [looks it up in a little book] Ah, yes - Gar-dacchk!"

11: Behind The Laughter [#BABF19 - 21May00] Wherein a VH1-styled expose show called Behind The Laughter takes a raw and candid look behind the scenes of America's favorite family, The Simpsons. 10000% meta. Marge: "Nobody told us how tough it is to raise kids. They almost drove me to fortified wine." Homer: "Then we figured out we could park them in front of the TV. That's how I was raised, and I turned out TV."

10: Lard Of The Dance [#5F20 - 23Aug98] Wherein Homer (and Bart) get into the grease recycling business. Meanwhile, Lisa is chosen to introduce a new student at Springfield Elementary, and this new girl, Alex (Lisa Kudrow), quickly becomes the most popular girl in school, much to Lisa's chagrin. In the end, a massive grease explosion during a school dance makes everything right again in Lisa's world. Ralph [catching a flake of grease on his tongue]: "This snowflake tastes like fish sticks!"

09: The Cartridge Family [#5F01 - 02Nov97] Wherein Homer gets a gun, and kablammo! Ya get one of the darker episodes in Simpsons history. Lenny: "Assault weapons have gotten a lot of bad press lately, but they're manufactured for a reason: to take out today's modern super animals, such as the flying squirrel, and the electric eel."

08: Homer Vs. The Eighteenth Amendment [#4F15 - 16Mar97] Wherein the frontpage of the Springfield Shopper screams ALCOHOL PROHIBITED IN SPRINGFIELD and Homer becomes "The Beer Baron". Homer: "To alcohol - the cause of, and the solution to, all of life's problems."

07: 22 Short Films About Springfield [#3F18 - 14Apr96] Wherein a bored Bart and Millhouse wonder if anything exciting actually ever happens in Springfield, and a subsequent series of vignettes involving a number of secondary characters answers that question in the affirmative. Mr. Burns: "Oh, Tuttle's Sunday trousers! Fear not, I'll get you to a hospital - the only way I know how. Smithers, you infernal ninny, stick your left hoof on that flange, now! Now, if you can get it through your bug-addled brain, jam that second mephitic clodhopper of yours on the right doodad! Now pump those scrawny chicken legs, you stuporous funker!"

06: Lemon Of Troy [#2F22 - 14May95] Wherein some ne'er-do-wells from Shelbyville steal Springfield's lemon tree, and Bart leads a group of friends on a recon mission into the rival town to bring it back home. Radical. Bart: "That lemon tree's a part of our town, and as kids, the backbone of our economy. We'll get it back, or choke their rivers with our dead!"

05: Homer & Apu [#1F10 - 10Feb94] Wherein Homer gets food poisoning from some expired ham (and later a 10 pound bucket of shrimp) at the Kwik-E-Mart, goes undercover for Kent Brockman's Bite Back show, which gets Apu fired, who is then replaced by actor James Woods, who is preparing for a role as a convenience store clerk. Meanwhile, Apu lives with the Simpsons, a song is sung, and Homer finally gets Apu his job back. Apu: "I have come to make amends, sir. At first, I blamed you for squealing, but then I realized, it was I who wronged you. So I have come to work off my debt. I am at your service." Homer: "You're...selling what now?" Apu: "I am selling only the concept of karmic realignment." Homer: "You can't sell that! Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." [slams the door] Apu: "He's got me there."

04: A Streetcar Named Marge [#8F18 - 01Oct92] Wherein Marge plays Blanche DuBois in a local production of A Streetcar Named Desire, Homer feels neglected and gets annoyed, and Maggie goes to Ayn Rand School For Tots in the meantime. Lionel Hutz: "Lionel Hutz, Attorney at Law. I'm filing a class-action suit against the director on behalf of everyone who was cut from the play. I also play Mitch!"

03: When Flanders Failed [#7F23 - 3Oct91] Wherein southpaw Ned Flanders quits his job and opens The Leftorium at the Springfield Mall, which fails spectacularly before Mr. Burns saves the day. As a lefty myself, I wholeheartedly echo Mr. Burn's "huzzah!" for good ol' Ned. Mr. Burns [to a tin can]: "Ah, the worm has turned, has it not my tin-plated friend? Look at you, you were once so proud. Feel the wrath of the left hand of Burns!"

02: Treehouse Of Horror (The Simpsons Halloween Special) [#7F04 - 25Oct90] The very first Treehouse Of Horror, wherein Bart and Lisa actually do tell each other scary stories in Bart's treehouse, stories about the Simpsons' night in a haunted house, the Simpsons' abduction by Kang and Kodos, and the truly classic telling of Poe's "The Raven" starring Homer. Lisa [reading crumpled message thrown through vortex from another dimension]: "Quit throwing garbage in our dimension!"

01: Simpsons Roasting On An Open Fire (The Simpsons Christmas Special) [#7G08 - 17Dec89] The very first full episode of The Simpsons, wherein Bart gets a tattoo, Homer doesn't get his Christmas bonus, and a 99-to-1 longshot named Santa's Little Helper joins the family and really is the miracle that saves the Simpsons' christmas in the end. Bart: "Aw come on, Dad. This could be the miracle that saves the Simpsons' Christmas. If TV has taught me anything, it's that miracles always happen to poor kids at Christmas. It happened to Tiny Tim, it happened to Charlie Brown, it happened to the Smurfs, and it's going to happen to us!" Homer: "Well, okay, let's go. Who's Tiny Tim?"

Hotcha! Hank

Considering "Ralph"

You know, a sufficient amount of fuss has been made about the names Sarah and Todd Palin gave to their five children, and plenty of stale and pedestrian jokes have been made about such on late night television and elsewhere, but I don't agree with any of this poo-pooing and tittering, so I would like to take this opportunity to say that the names she gave those kids are really the only thing I actually like about Sarah Palin...That and the fact that she looks alot like the woman who is #3 on my 2008 Laminated List, but that's an entirely different issue I won't get into now, or ever...

"Consider for a moment the beauty of the name 'Ralph.'" - Frank Zappa on The Joan Rivers Show

By now you should be aware of my great love for Frank Zappa, naming this very HOT POOP blog after one of his songs after all, and I happen to agree with Frank's philosophy on names and the naming of things, be they children or studios or your favorite fountain pen or touring vans or sandwiches, or all ten of your wife's toes...Life's too short to be boring, first of all, and secondly, what kind of leg up are you giving your child if you name him Ralph or Steve or Brian? Those are names custom made for Accounts Payable, you know? But more to Frank's point, "Ralph" is just an ugly fucking name.

Frank Zappa named his four children Moon Unit, Ian Donald Calvin Euclid, Ahmet Emuukha Rodan, and Diva Thin Muffin Pigeen...

If you don't see "Dweezil" on this list, that's because the hospital refused to put that name on the birth certificate...Ian Zappa's name wasn't officially changed to Dweezil until he was five years old, and at his own, Dweezil's, request...As the well-known story goes, he is named after one of Gail Zappa's pinky toes...Seems quite natural to me...Of course, his first official name is derived from three Mothers Of Invention members - Ian Underwood, Donald Preston and Euclid James "Motorhead" Sherwood - and Frank's best friend and graphic artist Cal Schenkel, and I think that's pretty cool...Rather conventional, too.

As for his other three children...Well, I'm not sure what the meaning of Moon Unit might be, though I can tell you that "Unit" is her middle name...The name Moon itself, is quite hippie-ish, which is baffling to me because Frank had absolutely no love for the hippies...Hmmm...Perhaps his wife Gail actually named their eldest child...Again, if you don't consider "Unit", Moon is a pretty conventional name for a year like, oh, 1967...

Ahmet Emuukha Rodan is a damn fantastic name in my book...The first name, Ahmet, is a derivation of the Arabic name Ahmad, meaning "highly praised", and is one of Prophet Mohammad's many given names...Now that's a name to live up to, and again, is an incredibly conventional name in many parts of the world...Emuukha was a name of Frank's own creation, and also the name of one of his groups, The Abnuceals Emuukha Electric Orchestra, and Rodan, of course, was/is the winged dinosaur nemesis of Godzilla...A strong, masculine name, and all in all, a very fine name for a young man with which to make his mark in the world...

Diva Thin Muffin Pigeen was the loudest baby in the the maternity ward, and that's how she got her first name, a name which prefigures the whole "diva culture" that has become prevalent over the past decade or so, and once again Frank proves scarily prescient, and has given her a name readymade for greatness...With a name like Diva, anything seems possible, and probable...As for Thin Muffin, well, who doesn't love a muffin, even a thin one? And let's not forget, Frank's studio is named The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen (UMRK), and as much as Frank loved that studio, and lived much of his life in there, you gotta believe naming his youngest daughter after his studio is a damn fine way to keep her in this thoughts when he's slaving away over tapes down in his dangerous kitchen...Pigeen? Ya got me.

"People make a lot of fuss about my kids having such supposedly 'strange names'. But the fact is that no matter what first names I might have given them, it is the last name that is going to get them in trouble." - Frank Zappa in The Real Frank Zappa Book

Enough about Frank Zappa's kids...What about Sarah Palin's children?

Track...I'm not sure what Track Palin's middle name is, but the name Track is a very strong and masculine name, evoking trackers, and the tracking of animals, or even those who blaze trails through the wilderness...Trackers are smart and sensible and fearless, and so a name like this is outstanding in my mind...Of course, we shouldn't forget father Todd Palin, who happens to race snowmobiles, among other manly, Alaskan pursuits...Racing those snow machines around, ayup, race tracks...All in all, the name Track is an athletic and manly name, a name to aspire to...

According to Sarah Palin, daughter Bristol is named after Bristol Bay, where her and her husband have both pursued commercial fishing careers, a decidedly rugged and demanding occupation in a certainly beautiful body of water, and an Alaskan body of water at that...It is a name that evokes home and hard work and beauty and nature, so how can anybody make fun of that?

There have been no official explanations for her other two daughter's names, Willow and Piper...It has been noted that there is a small Alaskan town called Willow & Piper, and that seems like an easy explanation...Willow isn't an entirely uncommon/unknown name for a girl, and one thinks perhaps of Sci-Fi Fantasy novels, and of course, the lesbian witch character Willow from Buffy The Vampire Slayer...Taken as is, it is another perfectly fine and lovely name for a daughter, as hippie-ish as Moon Zappa, and fairly conventional at heart. And the name Piper is just as conventional, an Old English name that according to my googling, is the 240th most popular name for a girl in the past decade...If I'm not mistaken, actress Gillian Anderson has a daughter named Piper...Of course, the Piper Super Cub is a very popular small engine plane used extensively for tracking and hunting...

Speaking of tracking again, we finally arrive at Sarah Palin's youngest child, her infant son Trig. Our first thought when we hear this name is Trigonometry, of course, which just so happens to be the mathematics of triangles, the measuring of their sides and angles...From there, we must consider triangulation, the process of finding the location of a point by measuring angles to it from other known points...Trig Points are beacons placed out in wilderness terrains, especially hills and mountains, to help rescuers locate missing people and vehicles and small aircraft such as Piper Super Cubs...Trig also happens to be an old Norse word meaning "true" and "strong", and again, taken in context like this, is a completely masculine name that makes all the sense in the world to me...Anyways, the baby's full name is Trig Paxon Van Palin, and his middle name Paxon, is named after "one of the most beautiful spots in Alaska" according to Sarah and Todd Palin. But finally, Sarah Palin has joked on record that she chose Van as his second middle name because Van Palin sounds like Van Halen, and being a rather big fan of that band's original line-up, I don't even really consider this a joke at all. Seems perfectly cromulent to me...

My point to all this blather is that I find the names of Sarah Palin's kids to be not only normal, but actually rather striking and powerful...They are names that might be helpful to them in finding their own identities...Names to aspire to...Names to become...They are certainly not boring names...They are not the names of Inventory Managers or Chiropractors, and so all the jokes on late night TV and zipping around the internet just aren't funny to me...

As Frank Zappa noted in his book, it's that last name that's gonna give 'em trouble...Many might think Sarah Palin gave her kids unusual, even funny, names, but whatever obstacles those names might incur, they're nothing compared with being Palins...And the only thing funny about that is Tina Fey...

You Hotcha! Henry Ezekiel Mohaski

Blue Hair Aside...

My immediate and first thought when I initially saw this picture was "Marge and Patty and Selma", the Bouvier sisters from The Simpsons. After having looked at it in a folder on my hard drive for the past few months, I still can't see anything except Marge and her sisters....

Marge is about as hot as I always imagined her.

Hotcha! Hank

Sideways Scuttle Butt Sushi Maneuver

Oh my!

For the record, this 9+ minute chunk of YouTube goodness ranks among my favorite television moments of all time...

This is SCTV, my second favorite TV show of all time (after The Simpsons), and more specifically, this is John Candy playing Gil Fisher, The Fishin' Musician...Among all the brilliantly amazing John Candy characters on SCTV (hmmm, Hank Ranks fodder?), Gil Fisher must rank in the top 10, which is saying more than it sounds like I'm saying if you know what I'm saying.

Anyways, This is The Tubes appearance on The Fishin' Musician, wherein they go fishing for large mouth bass and later perform one of their biggest hits, "Sushi Girl", back at the Scuttle Butt Lodge. It may be nothing more than nostalgia, but like I said, this is one of my favorite moments in TV history.

Now, if only YouTube had The Plasmatics appearance on Gil Fisher's show...

Hotcha! Hank

On The 7th Day Of Christmas...

I give to thee...SEVEN TASTY SCREENGRABS!!!!!!!

In a recent post I wrote about installing a new DVD drive in my ancient PC (5 years is pretty ancient for a PC, right?) which now offers me the ability to do screengrabs from DVDs...The most exciting prospect of this is the possible resurrection of MUCKO!, which fans of Thee ButterScotch Threshold will hopefully remember with some fondness...Anyways, the following seven screengrabs are from some of my personal favorite movies and televisions shows, their DVDs within view and grabbing distance on the shelf next to HOT POOP CENTRAL...If you click on the images below, you can enjoy the full 600x900 pix, which admittedly aren't the highest quality, but may nonetheless be suitable for wallpapers, if yr so inclined...


Brazil


30 Rock

The Simpsons Movie

Strangers With Candy
Blade Runner
SCTV - Count Floyd's Monster Chiller Horror Theater
Arrested Development
Hotcha! Hank

I Think I'll Eat A Mounds

Unregardless, I don't think you have to be a stoner to realize just how flawless this 5+ minutes of The Simpsons truly is. Everything in this tight little lumpen of animated goodness is spot-on perfect...

So, is it lame to link to Simpsons shiz at this point in time? Is the show played out, and what do you make of the Simpson's Movie hitting theaters at the end of this month? I know I'm gonna be there on opening night at the IMAX, but do enough people still care about this show to make the movie a blockbuster? My gut is telling me "yes", but then, I just ate four DingDongs.

Hotcha! Hank