As an artist myself, the pressures of the art field can certainly be a deterrent in following your dream, and for a lot of people, this can even lead to a major career change into something "safer." Is it better to do what you truly want to do while risking being in financial trouble for much of your life, or is the security of a less-exciting job necessary to keep an artist's head above water?
Lisa herself has seemed aware of struggles in the art field herself:
Well, I'm going to be a famous jazz musician. I've got it all figured out. I'll be unappreciated in my own country, but my gutsy blues stylings will electrify the French. I'll avoid the horrors of drug abuse, but I do plan to have several torrid love affairs, and I may or may not die young. I haven't decided.
This is actually a very good premise and has the makings of an insightful exploration of the conflict between staying true to oneself and supporting oneself, and Lisa's the perfect contender for that role of exploration.
Things start off on a promising note with a brief but entertaining scene in OFF's living room late at night. The usual bad parenting line from Homer was good ("It's 5 AM, you kids should've been asleep a half hour ago") and the reactions of Springfield Elementary's geekiest were also fun to see (as well as Maggie's diaper in a well-timed poop joke). But beyond this somewhat intriguing premise of Krusty receiving the Nobel Prize, things start to slip quickly. Homer accompanies Krusty for the same reason he was hanging around Burns in Weekend at Burnsies--he's easily amused by bad jokes. Okay, I guess I can buy that for a lighthearted B-story. But Bart's inclusion was just laziness...it's literally a case of "Sure, why not?" This is the kid that saved his career like eight times. Would it kill the writers to have a little continuity? And yeah, maybe Krusty acknowledging Bart's constantly helping him over the years might be too much, so why not have both Homer
and Bart be the ones laughing at Krusty's routine? Bart idolizes the clown, I can't see him not at least scrounging up a pity laugh at his flop-sweat-filled act.
Anyway, Bart's unusual inclusion is not really a big deal compared to some of the later issues of the episode, so let's move on. In a sort-of-neat method of tying together the two plots (at least for a moment), Lisa mutters how unfair it is for Bart to go on this cross-continent adventure that's likely full of educational value. This moment was really too much, though--Lisa's spells out everything in a far-too-obvious way; one of the biggest offenders of "show, don't tell" I've seen in the show, as we get a paragraph of exposition from stuff that's better off implied. It also makes Lisa uncomfortably self-aware for my tastes, and even a little whiny.
And that leads me into one of the main issues of the episode: when you're making a story like this, which is about Lisa's passion, and finding her place in the world, focusing on a possible future career for herself, and exploring the positives and negatives of those choices,
you've got to make your lead endearing. Lisa wasn't at her most insufferable, but throughout the entire episode, she did feel too shallow altogether and not particularly relatable, sympathetic, or charming (unlike, say, Moaning Lisa which nails all three, and even shares a very similar scene with this show). Let's take a look at what could've been improved with Lisa:
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The setup. Something a little more subtle would've gone a long way. I can understand Lisa's frustration at Bart and Homer's commonplace journeys (especially when the show acts like it's a regular thing that they're flying across the country for some minor reason again. Remember when The Simpsons made a huge deal out of traveling to a neighboring town, much less a neighboring continent?)...but the whining was pretty much out of nowhere.
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Lisa at arts camp. As others have pointed out, the viewer gets to see a quick slideshow/list joke (gah, another one) of what Lisa's been up to at camp...yet we never get to really feel her passion for it. What void does this fill in Lisa's life? What friends has she made that she can relate to? The only people there besides the counselors were these completely one-dimensional guest stars. I'd suggest axing the Glee thing entirely and adding a couple kids that are similar to Alison Taylor--someone Lisa can relate to on an artistic and intellectual level, and that she'd believably miss being around. But no, the show needs ratings or something. Who cares about these Glee kids? They're guest stars, we know we'll never see them again, and right from the beginning they have zero personality outside of happily accepting Lisa. The extra character
weight of this episode was just absent, and it can largely be accredited to the lack of showing us how the camp reached Lisa on a personal level (instead, we get camera pictures). I mean, really, the emotional core of Elementary School Musical arguably sits in a
list joke. This is not good.
Those are the two major points, as the stuff afterward (Lisa trying to express herself in music class, Lisa feeling down at dinner) wasn't too bad and would've been a decent build-up to her running out if only we had related to her a little more. But anyway, Lisa hits the road and learns the ugly truth about us artists, and the rest of her story is decently handled. But still, the whole first half of this set-up is just not done well and makes everything afterward feel cheap and rushed.
In short, the script feels like a first draft.
Writing is a tricky process; things need to have a natural flow, and your scenes need to support each other to make for a compelling story and a cohesive whole. This episode did pretty well with the skeletal structure of Lisa's journey, but it fumbled in the details, and a few extra minutes would've been much better served supporting Lisa's story than wasted in the subplot.
This is already running long, so let's make this quick: ANOTHER lame list joke (gah, enough already), A Very Family Guy Reference Gag (I don't use the term lightly but that's
exactly what the Electric Company joke was--it went on far too long and it was cryptic to anyone who hadn't seen the show), and a completely nonsensical ending (seriously, can someone please explain to me how that video got Krusty off the hook?). The entire sting was just way too ridiculous to buy, and the lack of laughs added up to a subplot that should've just been left on the cutting room floor. Bart and Homer can get by without an adventure every now and then.
The songs were a mixed bag. The first one sort of bothered me with how basic it was. Here're the full lyrics:
I love the elegant pearls you wear,
And the starfish-shape that constitutes your hair.
You'll be staying in Cabin Twelve,
And we think that you'll be very happy there.
You're gonna like Arts Camp, Lisa.
Marge paid with her debit Visa.
Art, art, art and education. (repeat 4x)
I'm getting into nitpicky territory here, but I gotta with comedy-centric songs (of which I've churned out a couple of my own): if you have a repeating background chorus, it just works better for comedy if there're different words than the same stanza over and over. That way you can pick up extra jokes on repeat. They even missed a really easy rhyme with "Registration." Not to mention the kids' soulless expressions made everything kinda boring to watch.
Also, what's with the "tell joke" + "show joke right after" structure lately? We learn Krusty stole his jokes from a European clown. Pretty funny, but then they have to go and show the clown, who's right there for some reason, beat Krusty and the viewer over the head. Likewise, the fat camp line was a pretty fun one-liner...but again, then it cuts away to us seeing the thing just described, and it loses all punch, quickness and subtlety. It's just like with Homer's stomping setting off car alarms from last season--it would've been much funnier to see a callback to it later in the episode than immediately after the line.
And maaaaaan I'm tired of jokes like this:
"We don't put 'euro' in front of everything. Euro-guards! Take him away in euro-cuffs."
Self-contradicting stuff is well-worn territory, and I can generally see it coming a mile away.
Okay, this is already super-long, so time to shoot through the good stuff in the ep: Marge overshooting the sign, I liked that a lot for some reason. Maggie's cigar pacifier was cartoony but still pretty fun. But most central to the laughs were Bret and Jemaine, who stole the show as...well, slightly more pathetic versions of themselves. They had plenty of funny lines ("Your dog is dead!"), and the song about artists in the middle felt extremely FotC to me, which is a good thing. I loved the s'more line in particular: "Three layahs, mutha nature!" The delivery really helped sell their stuff and made for a slightly different brand of humor than the usual Simpsons material. This is exactly how a guest star should be used in the first place!
Okay, enough of this. All in all, it was a missed opportunity that seriously needed some heavy editing to make the ambitious premise really hit home. Even though this isn't among the flat-out WORST episodes of the Jean era, it's made me a lot more pessimistic about the show than many of those because...well, it doesn't feel like a one-off dumb idea (Greatest Story Ever D'ohed). I get the feeling that they wanted a character-driven Lisa episode with a good premise, and this was all they could do with it. It's a little distressing. Let's hope things get back on track.
(I liked the couch gag though)
2/5, D+/C-
I gave it a 3. I thought the songs were funny and the switching betweens plots was done well.
This was the FIRST episode I ever let my kids (10y, 7y) watch (after I reviewed it). They only objectionable parts were Krusty's language (Shut up, etc.)
M@
Interesting. I guess thinking back on it, there wasn't really anything too bad in terms of objectionable content for younger children. But I still think there are several season 2-era episodes that are both more family friendly and of a higher quality (Bart Gets an F comes to mind).