Boy-Scoutz 'n the Hood

"Boy-Scoutz 'n the Hood"
The Simpsons episode
Episode no. 89
Directed by Jeffrey Lynch
Written by Dan McGrath
Showrunner(s) David Mirkin
Production code 1F06
Original air date November 18, 1993
Couch gag The family's eyes all run in darkness - and when the lights come on, the bodies run in after the eyes. The bodies sit down on the couch and lean forward, sticking their eyes in their sockets with a popping sound.
Guest actors Ernest Borgnine as himself
Commentary Matt Groening
David Mirkin
Dan Castellaneta
Yeardley Smith
George Meyer
Bob Anderson
David Silverman

"Boy-Scoutz 'n the Hood" is the eighth episode of The Simpsons' fifth season. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on November 18, 1993. In the episode, Bart, intoxicated from an all-syrup squishee, mistakenly joins the Junior Campers, a Boy Scout-style organization that's not affiliated with the Boy Scouts of America. After finding advantages to being a member, Bart gets taken in by the group and eventually goes rafting on a father-son outing with Homer.

The episode was written by Dan McGrath and directed by Jeffrey Lynch. Ernest Borgnine guest starred in the episode as himself. He recorded his lines at the Village Recorder in West Los Angeles. The episode makes cultural references to the films My Dinner with Andre, The Terminator, On the Town, Crocodile Dundee, Deliverance, Friday the 13th, and Boyz n the Hood (in the title) as well as the song "Sugar, Sugar" by The Archies. Since airing, the episode has received mostly positive reviews from television critics. It acquired a Nielsen rating of 13.0, and was the highest-rated show on the Fox network the week it aired.

Plot

After being forced to leave the amusement arcade for being out of money, Bart and Milhouse find $20 that Homer lost and order a Super Squishee made entirely out of syrup from Apu at the Kwik-E-Mart. With their senses reeling from the high sugar content of the drink, they spend the rest of the money on a night out in town. The next morning, Bart wakes up with a hangover and realizes that in the revelry of the night before he joined the Junior Campers, a Boy Scout-style organization that is not affiliated with the Boy Scouts of America.

Although Bart initially intends to drop out of the group as soon as possible, he decides to attend a meeting to avoid a pop quiz at school. Bart dislikes the first meeting, but when he finds out that he gets to have a pocket knife, he decides to keep attending. After a while, Bart starts to enjoy being a member of the Junior Campers, which Homer mocks him relentlessly for. Next, a father-son rafting trip is to be held, so Bart has to bring Homer. Homer does not enjoy the experience, especially when he learns that he and Bart have to share a raft with Ned Flanders and his son, Rod. Due to Homer losing the map after making it into a makeshift hat, they accidentally take the wrong turn and find themselves lost at sea. They stay stranded with no food or water for several days, as no rescue is forthcoming; the Springfield Police Department refuses to search for them because the Coast Guard boat they were using is out of refreshments. After several other failed attempts at being rescued or finding food, the raft springs a leak after Homer accidentally drops a pocket knife he was intending to gift to Bart. All seems lost, but then Homer smells his way to a Krusty Burger on an off-shore oil rig. They are saved, and Bart is proud of his father.

Meanwhile, the other Junior Campers, led by Ernest Borgnine, take the correct route, ironically they end up in an even worse position: after finding themselves trapped in a dark, tangled swamp (while being hunted by mountain men), they are attacked by a bear that Borgnine tries but fails to fight off (due to Homer stealing his Swiss Army Knife), and they finally flee to an abandoned summer camp. At the camp, they start singing songs, but are soon attacked by an unseen figure lurking in the woods, and their fates are left unknown.

Production

Ernest Borgnine guest starred as himself in the episode.

"Boy-Scoutz 'n the Hood" was written by Dan McGrath and directed by Jeffrey Lynch.[1] The episode was recorded at the Village Recorder in West Los Angeles.[2] Ernest Borgnine guest starred in the episode as himself. The staff liked his work on the films Marty and From Here to Eternity, so they asked him to do a guest appearance on the show. Borgnine felt he could not say no to the offer because his grandchildren were fans of the show.[3] In the final scene of the episode, Borgnine plays a guitar and sings campfire songs with the children. Borgnine was a guitar player in real life, so he brought his own guitar with him to the recording studio.[2] Borgnine apologized because he felt that he was not being able to sing very well, but Nancy Cartwright, who provides the voice of Bart, thought his voice "added to the authenticity of his character".[4] The Simpsons's creator Matt Groening thought the recording sessions with Borgnine were "so much fun".[3] Hank Azaria, who provides the voice of Apu, commented that Borgnine "had no idea what the hell he was doing. He's a good actor, and he read his lines just fine, but he had no idea what the show was, no idea what we were doing."[5]

In her book My Life as a 10-Year-Old Boy, Cartwright comments that she was a fan of Borgnine's performance in Marty. She writes that the film had "changed [her] forever", and that it made her "realize that actors have the power through their work to inspire and enlighten others." She recalls that when Borgnine arrived for the recording session, she "lost all coolness" and ran up to him and exclaimed "ohmygod, Marty!"[4]

Cultural references

When Bart and Milhouse visit the local video arcade at the beginning of the episode, Martin Prince is seen playing an arcade game based on the 1981 film My Dinner with Andre. Other games at the arcade include a game based on the 1984 film The Terminator.[1] The "Springfield, Springfield" number performed by Bart and Milhouse on their night out in town is a reference to the musical number "New York, New York" from the film On the Town, starring Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra.[1] During a scene in which Hans Moleman and Moe fight with knives, Hans tells Moe, "You call that a knife? This is a knife!", a reference to a line from the 1986 film Crocodile Dundee.[6] Ernest Borgnine introduces himself a la Troy McClure to the Junior Campers by recalling his role in From Here to Eternity, a film which modern children are unlikely to have seen. During a hallucination, Homer imagines himself singing the song "Sugar, Sugar" by The Archies while dancing with lollipops and ice cream cones.[6] While on the raft, Homer misquotes lines from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner when he says "Water, water everywhere/Let's all have a drink.[7] The scene in which Borgnine and the other rafters drift through a dark forest watched by mountain men is a reference to a scene in the 1972 film Deliverance, and the scene features the music from the film's "Dueling Banjos" scene.[8] The unseen person or creature that attacks Borgnine at the end of the episode is implied to be Jason Voorhees from the Friday the 13th film series.[8]

Reception

In its original American broadcast, "Boy-Scoutz 'n the Hood" finished 35th in the ratings for the week of November 15 to November 21, 1993, with a Nielsen rating of 13.0, translating to 12.3 million households. The episode was the highest-rated show on the Fox network that week.[9]

Since airing, the episode has received mostly positive reviews from television critics. The authors of the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, wrote: "A terrific episode, with Homer so stupid it isn't true, yet still saving the day. Seeing Ned Flanders get it wrong is great, but the show-stealer is a toss-up between Borgnine's great self-deprecating role, the ironic seagull, and the dolphins."[6] DVD Movie Guide's Colin Jacobson called it a "brilliant episode from start to finish". He commented that "We see what an amazing amount of goods and services one can purchase in Springfield with only $20, and we get a fun spoof of scouting. Add to that terrific rivalry moments between Bart and Homer and the show excels."[10] Patrick Bromley of DVD Verdict called the plot of the episode "typically inspired", and gave it a grade of A.[11] Bill Gibron of DVD Talk gave the episode a score of 5 out of 5.[12] TV DVD Reviews's Kay Daly wrote: "And just when you think the Simpsons' creators have taken parody as far as it can go, they air an episode like this. The writers cram the 22-minute episode with allusions to movie genres including disaster movies, Broadway musicals, adventure-suspense and classic teen horror."[8] Adam Suraf of Dunkirkma.net named it one of his ten favorite episodes of the show. He called the musical sequence a "classic".[13] Rick Porter of Zap 2 It wrote in that he was not a "fan" of the episode's second half: "Despite the presence of Borgnine, Homer is a little too aggressively stupid for my taste". He thought the first part was "absolutely brilliant", though.[14]

Kurt M. Koenigsberger analyzed a scene from the episode in his piece "Commodity Culture and Its Discontents", published in the compilation work Leaving Springfield: The Simpsons and the Possibility of Oppositional Culture edited by John Alberti. He commented that The Simpsons' literary and cultural awareness extends to the "conventions of its own medium" in this episode. Bart criticizes an Itchy & Scratchy episode because Itchy stakes down Scratchy's appendages and props his belly to form a tent with faulty knots. With Homer looking on from the couch, Lisa reminds Bart that cartoons do not simply reproduce reality, a point hammered on as a second Homer meanders past the living-room window. Koenigsberger said that "this moment and many others like it reveal a strong sense of self-awareness within the show, an awareness especially characteristic of high modernism."[15]

In the United Kingdom, when the 300th episode was shown, Sky1 held a Golden D'ohnuts evening, in which viewers voted for their favourite episodes to win in each category. This episode won the category of: Best School Jinx.[16]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Groening, Matt (1997). Richmond, Ray; Coffman, Antonia, eds. The Simpsons: A Complete Guide to Our Favorite Family (1st ed.). New York: Harper Perennial. pp. 128–129. ISBN 978-0-06-095252-5. LCCN 98141857. OCLC 37796735. OL 433519M..
  2. 1 2 Castellaneta, Dan (2004). The Simpsons season 5 DVD commentary for the episode "Boy-Scoutz 'n the Hood" (DVD). 20th Century Fox.
  3. 1 2 Groening, Matt (2004). The Simpsons season 5 DVD commentary for the episode "Boy-Scoutz 'n the Hood" (DVD). 20th Century Fox.
  4. 1 2 Cartwright, Nancy (2000). "And Bingo Was His Name-o". My Life as a 10-Year-Old Boy. New York City: Hyperion. pp. 161–165. ISBN 0-7868-8600-5.
  5. ↑ Marder, Keith (1994-04-28). "Real people are models for 'Simpsons' voices". The Times Union.
  6. 1 2 3 Martyn, Warren; Wood, Adrian (2000). "Boy-Scoutz 'n the Hood". BBC. Retrieved 2008-04-12.
  7. ↑ Samuel Taylor Coleridge. "Quote by Samuel Taylor Coleridge: “Water, water, everywhere, And all the boards di...”". Goodreads.com. Retrieved 2016-01-30.
  8. 1 2 3 Daly, Kay (February 11, 2005). "The Simpsons: The Complete Fifth Season DVD Review". TV DVD Review. Retrieved 2009-01-09.
  9. ↑ "Nielsen Ratings". Long Beach Press-Telegram. November 24, 1993. p. C6.
  10. ↑ Jacobson, Colin (2004-12-21). "The Simpsons: The Complete Fifth Season (1993)". DVD Movie Guide. Retrieved 2009-01-24.
  11. ↑ Bromley, Patrick (2005-02-23). "The Simpsons: The Complete Fifth Season". DVD Verdict. Retrieved 2009-01-24.
  12. ↑ Gibron, Bill (December 23, 2004). "The Simpsons - The Complete Fifth Season". DVD Talk. Retrieved 2009-01-09.
  13. ↑ Suraf, Adam (December 18, 2004). "The Simpsons: Season 5". Dunkirkma.net. Retrieved 2009-02-10.
  14. ↑ Porter, Rick (December 31, 2008). "TV reminds you to drink responsibly this New Year's". Zap 2 It. Retrieved 2009-02-10.
  15. ↑ Alberti, John (2004). Leaving Springfield: The Simpsons and the Possibility of Oppositional Culture. Wayne State University Press. p. 46. ISBN 0-8143-2849-0.
  16. ↑ "Sky One host Golden D'ohnut Awards". simpsoncrazy.com. Retrieved 12 May 2015.

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