Simpsons – Marge's Son Poisoning (e17s05)

“Marge’s Son Poisoning” is the fifth episode of the seventeenth season of The Simpsons.

Couch gag: Dozens of couches are seen attacking Springfield residents.
Chalkboard: none
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Synopsis

The family is at Paradise Pier, where Marge was looking forward to ride the Ferris wheel all her life, only to find out that it is being dismantled with some of its equipment being sold. Homer purchases a dumbbell while Marge gets a tandem bicycle. When Marge wants to take the bike for a ride, she finds that Homer is a less than willing participant.

She tries it on her own and falls. Realizing that his mother might actually be lonely, Bart offers to go for a ride with her. They ride into an unincorporated part of the county and come upon a small village that features a tea house. Later the tea house closes forever causing Bart to invite his mother to his treehouse for tea.

Marge redecorates the treehouse and the pair goes off to get a new tea service where he gets a Krusty Teapot. Outside the store the bullies, Jimbo, Dolph, and Kearney accuse Bart of being a mama’s boy, which causes Bart to rebel on Marge. Marge goes into a depression and eventually sells the bike.

Feeling bad, Bart offers to compete with her in a karaoke contest. While seeing Skinner and his mother perform, Marge has visions of a terrible future for Bart and she stops the show to let Bart know that he can make his own ways of life and that he shouldn’t worry about her, it’s her job to worry about him. To make things better, she gives him a fire extinguisher to spray in front of the audience, along with the bullies that teased him. Bart still tries to help her by going home and dialing 9-1 so he will only have to dial another one later if he needs to call 9-1-1.

Meanwhile at Moe’s Homer shows off the strength in one of his arms he’s gained from working with the dumbbell and Moe has an idea on how to capitalize on it. Moe takes Homer to the arm wrestling championships, where Homer readily wins, but finds that he really misses his wife.

Cultural references

• The store Marge and Bart go to is called “The China Syndrome”. A “china syndrome” is a catastrophic nuclear accident and a 1979 movie of the same name.
• The tea shop Marge and Bart go to, named “The Leaf Garrett Tea Shop” is a reference to Leif Garrett, a teen idol, actor and singer popular in the 1970s.
• In the “attack of the couches” couch gag, Professor Frink’s couch loosely resembles a war machine from The War of the Worlds.
• The sign for Paradise Pier is identical in design to the sign on Brighton Pier
• After Bart abandons Marge, the end theme from Midnight Cowboy plays during the scenes where she is lonely; she also takes the tandem bicycle on a bus to Miami, in direct reference to the end scene of the film.

Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marge%27s_Son_Poisoning

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