Pygmoelian
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"Pygmoelian" is the sixteenth episode of the eleventh season of The Simpsons. It aired on February 27, 2000.
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[edit] Plot
The family goes to a festival sponsored by Duff Beer (after being tricked into evacuating the house by Homer) and sees Moe Szyslak enter a "Beer-tender" competition. Moe wins and his face is photographed for the Duff calendar, but his picture is blocked out with stickers, because his face is too ugly. Realizing how ugly he is, Lenny and Carl suggest that Moe get plastic surgery. He reluctantly agrees. After his surgery, Moe now has a very handsome face. In response, he confronts old adversaries, including the producers of a soap opera, It Never Ends, saying he never got the part of the character Dr. Tad Winslow because of his ugliness. Incidentally, the actor who plays Dr. Tad Winslow demands he get a raise in his salary, but it is rejected by the producers. In response, Moe tells the producer his story, and he becomes the new Dr. Tad Winslow.
The soap opera goes well, until Moe learns from top-secret future plot lines that his character will be killed off. On the air, Homer and Moe reveal the plot lines. The producers angrily tell Moe that his character was only supposed to die in a dream. They then fire him. As he walks off the set, a set piece falls on his new face, which is destroyed (actually, Moe gets back his original mug after the accident). In a deus ex machina, things go back to normal when Moe returns to his tavern, but the episode gets cut short when Moe wonders why the accident on the set of It Never Ends turned his handsome face back to his normal face instead of damaging it further.
Meanwhile, while Moe is acting, Bart and Lisa discover that Maggie's balloon is gone in the wind. They go after it until it ends up in a gay Republican coalition's office, and they see the pink elephant from the balloon as their mascot. They then give Lisa a bumper sticker telling her to vote for "A Gay President in 2084" as they're realistic.
[edit] Cultural references
- Carl supposedly breaks the fourth wall in the scene when Carl tells to Moe that his ugliness is relevant to Lenny's stupidity, Barney's drunkeness and Homer being lazy, bald and fat, he makes everyone in in the bar cry and then turns to the camera, explaining: "See, this is why I don't talk much." before cutting to commercial.
- The episode title references George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion. The plot of Pygmalion would later be parodied in the episode "My Fair Laddy".
- The sign at Duff Days reads that it's a "Lost Weekend for the Whole Family", a reference to the film The Lost Weekend (which, appropriately enough, is about alcoholism).
- The gay Republican coalition is probably a parody of the Log Cabin Republicans.
- The title sequence of the soap opera It Never Ends is a parody of that of Days of our Lives and The Young and the Restless.
- The eye patch worn by Dr. Tad Winslow refers to the character Steve Johnson or "Patch" from Days of our Lives.
- The flying pig baloon is a reference to the Pink Floyd incident, where at the cover shoot of their album Animals a pig baloon flew unintentionally away.This was also referenced in Lisa the Vegetarian.
[edit] External links
| The Simpsons Portal |
- "Pygmoelian" episode capsule at The Simpsons Archive
- "Pygmoelian" at the Internet Movie Database
[edit] References
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