Simpson Safari (The Simpsons)

"Simpsons Safari"
""The Simpsons are going to-" (Turns off TV)"
Series: The Simpsons Part of Season: 12 Episode Number: 17 Air Date: April 1, 2001 Writer: John Swartzwelder Director: Mark Kirkland Previous episode: Bye Bye Nerdie Next episode: Trilogy of Error

Simpson Safari is the 17th episode of the 12th season of The Simpsons and was aired on April Fools Day 2001.

Plot

In a frantic search for food Homer finds a box of thirty-year-old animal crackers, which contains a gold giraffe - which means he has just won an African safari.

Why The Simpsons Shouldn't Go on Safari

1. "Jerkass Homer" is at his finest in this episode.
   • Homer instigates the baggers at a grocery store to go on strike after tormenting one of them.
   • Homer calls out the people who made the animal crackers and demands a vacation to Africa in a rude and unfunny way.
   • At one point, he throws a spear at a warrior - who wasn't even going to attack them!
   • Most of his dialogue is rather silly, gross and ridiculous, such as:
     • "So I noticed your house smells of feces..."
     • "The customer's always right. That's what everybody likes about us."
     • "Overtime for bag boys? Ridiculous!"
2. There are too many plot changes in the episode. It starts off with a bagger strike and then it leads to the Simpsons going to Africa, then they go from a tour of Africa to finding a chimp reserve, the place is sieged and conquered by "poachers" who are actually people rescuing chimps, turns out that the "reserve" is none other than a diamond mine where chimps are being enslaved to mine diamonds, and lastly, the Simpsons take diamonds as a bribe and they go home.
3. Major plot hole: The family is unable to get food due to the supermarket going strike, but there a couple of other supermarkets like the Kwik-E-Mart, so why wouldn't they just go to those stores instead?
4. There are a few racist jokes like Lisa's neck becomes extended with rings and Bart gets a disc put in his mouth.
5. Non-racist jokes are pretty lame, like the scene involving the warthog in the car.

Redeeming Qualities

1. The first few minutes of the episode were decent.
2. Unlike in "Kill the Alligator and Run", the plot doesn't consist of random things happening just to get the episode's plot going.
3. There is one funny joke: The Simpsons' tour guide, Kitenge, becomes the country's president, replacing the old president, Muntu, who was just seen as president at the beginning of the episode. When Marge wonders what happened to Muntu, he appears dressed as a flight attendant and says "I don't want to talk about it."

Reception

• The episode was generally not that well-received amongst fans, and currently sits at a 6.8/10 rating on IMDb.
• PhantomStrider ranked this the 5th worst episode of modern Simpsons episodes.
• NoHomers, a fan site of the Simpsons, rated this episode as the 2nd worst episode in 2003.
  • It was the 3rd worst on the 2006 list.
  • It was the 14th worst on the 2011 list.

References

1. ↑ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0701213/
2. ↑ https://youtu.be/_idynX4JK74
3. ↑ https://simpsonswiki.com/wiki/NoHomers.net%27s_50_Worst_episodes#2003
4. ↑ https://simpsonswiki.com/wiki/NoHomers.net%27s_50_Worst_episodes#2006
5. ↑ https://simpsonswiki.com/wiki/NoHomers.net%27s_50_Worst_episodes#2011

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