Simpsons – Burns Verkaufen der Kraftwerk (s3e11)

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This is one of my favorite episodes, as for the lovely German spoken in there.

“Burns Verkaufen der Kraftwerk” (German: Burns to Sell [sic] the Power Plant) is the eleventh episode of The Simpsons’ third season; the title uses incorrect German grammar—see below. The episode aired on December 5, 1991.

Plot
Homer learns he owns stock in the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant and sells his 100 shares for 25 cents apiece to a shady stock broker, netting $25, which he spends on beer. Soon after the sale he learns that the value of the stock was $52 per share. While Homer misses out on the windfall—he could have made $5,200—other employees make small fortunes.

The reason for the stock’s inflated value is because a depressed Mr. Burns wants to sell the plant to pursue other interests. The sale is completed at a value of $100 million to two German businessmen, Hans and Fritz (possibly named after The Katzenjammer Kids), who have been hanging out in Moe’s looking for just such an opportunity (provided the purchase leaves them with enough change to buy the Cleveland Browns). They immediately begin a thorough evaluation of the plant and its employees. When they interview Homer, he is unable to intelligently answer their questions and begins slipping into a fantasy about cavorting through “The Land of Chocolate.” It isn’t long before Homer gets laid off.

A depressed Homer mopes around the house, insisting he is a competent safety-minded worker. Meanwhile, Burns is not having a good time in retirement and decides to go to Moe’s Tavern to have a drink. There, Homer and the other bar patrons, along with Bart (who Marge sent to pick up Homer) mock scornfully at Burns for losing the power plant. Burns realizes that only his ownership of a nuclear plant gave him power over ordinary men and is resolved to buy back the plant.

The German investors, who will make several more silent appearances in Springfield in the future, are more than willing to sell the plant back to Burns because as they say, it will cost another $100 million dollars to bring the plant up to code. Burns, noting their desperation to sell and saying so offers them $50 million for the plant saying that, “you will find it [his offer] most unfair.” Homer is re-hired, and Burns plots his revenge on him at some unspecified point in the future.

Cultural references
Mr. Burns has a photo of himself with Elvis Presley (similar to a real life photo of Richard Nixon with Elvis). The German supervisor, Horst, mentions he looks like Sergeant Schultz from Hogan’s Heroes. Mr. Burns says “I keep my friends close, but my enemies even closer.”, which is a quote of Sun Tzu.

Grammar of the title
The German episode title is generally translated as “Burns Sells the Power Plant.” However, it is grammatically incorrect in two ways:

First, the verb “verkaufen” (“to sell”) is conjugated incorrectly. As the subject of the sentence (“Burns”) is third-person present singular, the verb should be “verkauft” (“sells”). “Verkaufen” is the infinitive form of the verb, as well as the first-person and third-person present plural forms.

Furthermore, the title displays the usage of incorrect gender. The word “Kraftwerk” (“power plant”) is neuter, not masculine, and should therefore be written “das Kraftwerk,” not “der Kraftwerk.” If the noun was in fact masculine (e.g. “Burns sells the television”—“der Fernseher”), the correct wording would be Burns verkauft den Fernseher, as “verkaufen” is a transitive verb and the accusative form of der is den.

A proper German translation of “Burns Sells the Power Plant” would be “Burns verkauft das Kraftwerk.” The title for the dubbed German version was changed to “Kraftwerk zu Verkaufen,” which means “Power Plant for Sale.” In the DVD commentary, Jon Vitti revealed that he just did word replacement from a German dictionary.

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