Simpsons – Bonfire of the Manatees (s17e01)

“Bonfire of the Manatees” is the first episode of The Simpsons’ seventeenth season. It originally aired September 11, 2005. It was the first episode to air in September and first non-Halloween episode to start out the season since season 11’s “Beyond Blunderdome”. This was the second time this name for the episode was seen in Simpsons media. A mission in The Simpsons: Hit & Run, which predated this episode, was also titled “Bonfire of the Manatees.”

Chalkboard: “Does any kid do this anymore?”
Couch gag: Homer is held up at a security checkpoint in the living room, while everyone else passes through
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Synopsis

Homer gets into trouble with football gambling debts. As compensation, Fat Tony wants to use the Simpson home for shooting the adult film Lemony Licket: A Series of Horny Events (a play on a book series written by Lemony Snicket). Homer gets Marge and the kids to leave the house by sending them off to “Santa’s Village.” Marge and the kids return home to find the production is still underway. Marge, outraged by Homer’s latest bit of idiocy, leaves. Homer, home alone with the kids tries to figure out what to do next. Just when Marge is about ready to reconcile with Homer, she encounters Caleb Thorn, a good looking scientist with a passion for saving the endangered manatee. Homer and the kids go on a quest to find Marge and they stop and stay with some “country cousins,” meanwhile Marge is finding herself while helping to save manatees. Homer tries to win Marge back by saving a herd of manatees from a gang of jet skiers. His effort pays off as Marge takes home an endangered species of her own, “the endangered devoted husband”. The family decides to take a mini-vacation and Homer gets a manatee sent to the power plant to fill in for his job for the next few days. When he is about to die of dehydration, Mr. Burns and Smithers help him by washing him like a car.

Cultural references

• The title is a take off on the Tom Wolfe novel and Brian De Palma film, The Bonfire of the Vanities. Wolfe would later appear as himself in “Moe’N'a Lisa“.
• The title of the adult film Fat Tony wants to shoot (Lemony Lick-its A Series of Horny Events) is a spoof of the popular book series and movie Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events (even though when they show the filming of it, it is actually about two sexy female (possibly lesbians)astronauts, trying to get to planet Satisfaction.)

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonfire_of_the_Manatees