When You Dish Upon a Star (The Simpsons)

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When You Dish Upon a Star (The Simpsons)
We dish that we could have gotten a better celebrity guest episode...
Series: The Simpsons
Part of Season: 10
Episode Number: 5
Air Date: November 8,1998
Writer: Richard Appel
Director: Pete Michels
Previous episode: Treehouse of Horror IX
Next episode: D'oh-in' in the Wind

When You Dish Upon a Star is the 5th episode of the 10th season (actually a leftover from season 9) of The Simpsons, it features Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger playing themselves.

Plot

Keeping Hollywood secrets proves difficult for Homer when he scores a personal assistant job for the husband and wife team, Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger.

Bad Qualities

  1. This episode is an early example of The Simpsons shoehorning a celebrity, and unlike most other episodes that have a celebrity guest in them, this one has Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger playing as themselves.
    • It may not be a bad idea to have the celebrity playing as themselves in the episode, after all, many episodes of the show that have the celebrities play as themselves sometimes manage to still be great in the end, but the main problem with that idea is that they sometimes rely way too much on shoehorning the hell out of them instead of writing a good story for the episode, which was the case for this episode and it would later become problems in more later episodes of the series that have guest appearances, like "Lisa Goes Gaga" and "The Musk Who Fell to Earth".
  2. Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger are both extremely unlikeable in this episode, as they act incredibly mean-spirited towards Homer after he accidentally caused Springfield to know where they live and they end up hating him all because of that.
    • And to make matter's worse, it wasn't even Homer's fault as he told the people in Moe's Tavern to keep the secret, but they break that promise and tell the entire town that Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger live in Springfield.
  3. The concept for the episode is very unoriginal too, as it simply uses the overused "Keep the secret" trope, which has already been done to death on so many other episodes of the series, such as "Homer's Night Out" for example, which already was a bad example of an episode using that trope.
  4. The third act is horrible, Homer starts to become unlikeable and goes jerkass by starting a mobile museum of "Hollywood Jerks" displaying Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger's personal belongings to get back at them, which unfortunately makes Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger hate Homer even more than they did before.
  5. Horrible ending: Homer is court-ordered to keep 500 miles away from any celebrity dead or alive. Realistically, that would mean he'd have to live outside the United States.

Good Qualities

  1. Homer was at least likable during the first half of the episode, and can also be sympathetic too due to Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger unreasonably falling out with him.
  2. The first act about the family going to Lake Springfield is great.
    • There are plenty of funny moments in the first act such as Homer parking over Ned Flanders while he was buried in the sand.
    • There were also some funny lines here, such as Homer's line "I'm soaring, soaring majestically like a candy wrapper caught in an updraft!".
  3. The beginning scene where Homer dreams about him being Yogi Bear is funny, especially the part where he mauls Ranger Ned.
  4. Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger feel some remorse for falling out with Homer (that is before they find out that Homer made the mobile museum of "Hollywood Jerks" displaying their personal belongings).
  5. Later episodes show Homer interacting with celebrities implying that the order was rescinded.

Reception

  • Despite receiving a 7.2 rating on IMDb,[1] the episode garnered mixed reception from fans and critics of the show, many criticized it due to Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger acting extremely unlikable towards Homer.
  • Originally, this episode was the 12th worst episode of the show from NoHomers's worst episodes list,[2] but is now considered the 40th worst.[3]

Trivia

  • This episode was originally meant to air as part of season 9, but it was pushed over to season 10 as a leftover.
  • The final part of the episode shows 20th Century Fox as a division of Disney. Disney would buy out 20th Century Fox in 2019, nearly 21 years after the airing of this episode.

References

  1. ↑ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0701293/
  2. ↑ https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/NoHomers.net%27s_50_Worst_episodes
  3. ↑ https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/NoHomers.net%27s_50_Worst_episodes#2011_List%5B2%5D

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