Rate & Review: "The Great Louse Detective" (EABF01)

How would you rate "The Great Louse Detective"?

  • 1/5 -- I'd rather watch "Day of the Jackanapes" again.

    Votes: 19 6.6%
  • 2/5 -- Needs more rake.

    Votes: 34 11.8%
  • 3/5 -- Somewhere between "Cape Feare" and "Day of the Jackanapes"

    Votes: 69 23.9%
  • 4/5 -- The only thing missing was the score from the "H.M.S. Pinafore."

    Votes: 110 38.1%
  • 5/5 -- The perfect episode (.....for revenge.)

    Votes: 57 19.7%

  • Total voters
    289
Seeing how this thread is about this particilar episode...

I am trying to figure out the name of the music piece that is played when the people come in to the simpsons house to tell homer he has been crowned the king of mardi gras or whatever the festival was?

My appreciation in advance
 
"When the Saints Go Marching In"?

Lol i went to imdb and found that there. I'm surprised to see how quick my question got a response. Did you know that off the top of your head ? Or did you have to watch that clip to know what ibwas talking about?
 
Lol i went to imdb and found that there. I'm surprised to see how quick my question got a response. Did you know that off the top of your head ? Or did you have to watch that clip to know what ibwas talking about?

I tried to remember what the tune sounded like and when I did I immediately recognized it as being that song.
 
This is easily one of the best post-classic Sideshow Bob episodes and it's the only episode after Sideshow Bob's Gleaming to do something different until Funeral for a Fiend came out. (Brother from Another Series doesn't count as it's just Cecil that wants to kill Bart instead of Bob.) This episode has a really great plot and it has a lot of hilarious moments like the running gag where Sideshow Bob gets zapped, Homer beating up his own dummy and the swordfish museum. I'm not sure how most people feel about the twist where the killer is revealed to be Frank Grimes son, but I thought it was a great twist. After just recently revisiting this episode, I underestimated how great this episode is because it's one of the best post-classic Sideshow Bob episodes. 10/10
 
It had it's funny moments but I found myself bored and not laughing at some jokes that tried too hard to be funny. 3/5
 
This episode's plot didn't make any sense - Grimes somehow has a son who is trying to kill Homer, and who decides to do so by rigging a Mardi Gras election so that Homer wins and rides on a float that doesn't have working brakes so he rolls down a hill and doesn't get off and dies by hitting a swordfish museum. Eh? This episode fails completely as a "murder mystery", because rather than being a made up of a coherent set of clues and red herrings that eventually connect in a logical manner after the characters search for the truth, its just a bunch of stuff that happens/gags, with "clues" abruptly and awkwardly popping up when the writers realise they need to advance the plot. This episode really doesn't make use of Bob at all. The idea of him helping the Simpsons is interesting, but I'm not even sure John Frink and Don Payne know who Bob is. He has these flat, sterile lines - mostly used to deliver dry exposition - that have not an ounce of the poetic eloquence and verbosity that makes Sideshow Bob such a special character. Grammer does a good job with what he has, but he has very little to work with. As well as these fatal flaws, the episode has very little in terms of actual comedy. You have these strange and outlandish attempts at slapstick, with Maggie being sucked up by a hoover, Bob being repeatedly (and rather tediously) electrocuted, as well as a dragged out montage of Moe's pickled egg jar and some cheap gross-out jokes involving (sigh) Homer's grossly shrivelled body, Rainier Wolfcastle's penis, some guy's exposed skull... The more I think about this episode, the more I am disappointed in how lazy, cheap and generally lame it is.

Somehow, despite this this glut of bizarro wackiness, the show has some time to spare - which it fills with a pointless and incredibly boring scene that manages the incredible feat of making less sense than the rest of the episode! Bob - a convicted felon: one who was let out on the promise of finding a man attempting kill Homer (a stupid and nonsensical premise itself), who we have been explicitly told is going back to prison after he accomplishes this, who has been shot with rhino tranquillisers and is being taken back to prison by the police as the episode ends - somehow ends up in Bart's bedroom, attempting to kill him. He then magically realises he cannot do this because he's grown attached to Bart, in a moment that is neither funny nor touching nor used to advance the plot of the episode. It exists only to allow a song to take place! Now, I like that that's a convention of Bob episodes, but were they really so lazy that they couldn't find a way to fit a song somewhere into the actual episode in a way that actually fits in with what's happening? Because the answer to that question is "yes, yes they were", the song really has nothing to go on and is thus completely meaningless and ineffectual. This could be excused if it were funny or interesting somehow, but it isn't. Its shockingly bland and makes the already erratic and disjointed nature of the episode even more jarring. When they needed to fill some time in "Cape Feare", another Bob episode, they did so with one of television's greatest, funniest and most iconic pieces of slapstick ever - the rake gag. They may as well have filled the spare time in this one with three minutes of a blank screen. It would've been just as boring, but less confusing and inoffensive.

This episode is just so weak. Everything about it reeks of a show that has run out of ideas for what to do with one of its finest recurring characters, from the stupid and lazy premise of "Frank Grimes's son wants to kill Homer" which is nonsensically wacky and defies the entire meaning of the great episode that Grimes is from, to the silly gags that substitute for plot elements and filler. The best thing I can say about this episode is that, at the start at least, they sort-of tried to give it an plot, that it has one or two decent gags amongst the wreckage, and that Kelsey Grammer makes things a bit different than usual. If only stuff like, you know, the story, the writing, the humour, the mystery, and the characterisations were better, then it might actually be a decent episode. 3/10
 
Probably the weakest Sideshow Bob episode (although I haven't seen The Bob Next Door). It just feels so vapid. It's one of the least funny pre-HD episodes (as Dr. Cactus said, a lot of it is slapstick and potty humour) and there's no suspense given to the plot whatsoever really (even The Italian Bob has a bit). Weak stuff.
 
Well, I've watched the episode with my mother, and I'd like to say that almost the entire thing was perfect. The funniest parts are: Marge accidentally vacuuming up Maggie; Homer eating up bad mail like a burger; the sauna getting locked up and almost killing Homer; Sideshow Bob getting shocked repeatedly whenever something unusual about him turns up (one time he ends up in an afro when the shock remote button got stuck); Homer's friends and family attacking the Homer doll, and Homer himself joining in; memories of Moe and his pickled eggs; spectators trying to sacrifice themselves to save Homer's float from going out of control, all in vain; Bob shooting himself out of a cannon to save Homer, who then wraps his legs around Bob's a$$; the whole spa treatment thing; and the stilts chase scene that ends with Frank Grimes Jr. getting arrested. Speaking of Frank Grimes Jr., the murder mystery about him was so predictable at times (e.g., Marge blurting out that one of the suspects could be Frank Grimes [close]; a mechanic resembling Grimes), yet it's still good. Oh, and the part with Sideshow Bob singing "The Very Reason That I Live" is so pretty good, with some funny parts (my mom was laughing at Bob's "scalawag" part, Homer's "Turn down that original cast recording and go to sleep!" and Bart's brief duet before Bob responds, "This isn't a duet", and Bart puts the tape back on his mouth) and some creepy parts (is Bob hitting on Bart when he dangles the boy upside-down by one of his legs? :P ), but it's so rewarding and fulfilling. With some of the bits a little off, I'd like to give this one a 9.5 out of 10.
 
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first episode with new animation

and this episode could have had a shocking ending had it not been for the tell-a-tale door during the scene at Moes (seriously how can anyone miss the tow-truck) well it was still kind of a twist because HIS NAME WAS FRANK GRIMES JR who we never see again until a future simpsons comics issue

seriously grimey junior, Grimey brought this on himself he caused his own demise he knew better than to touch those without gloves even Homer isn't that stupid

seriously though the Grimeses need to get a life, they didn't care about him when he was alive so why care now......

the more I think about it, the more I think that Grimes tried to fake his own death to get the baby mama off his back but it backfired on him (we don't know what Junior's age is but considering that it was 17 years between the explosion and his death, I'm assuming Junior is between the ages of 17 and 20 likely 18)
 
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The whole thing was a bit scatterbrained and ham-fisted overall, but it definitely has some good points. The mystery element was enjoyable, the score was pretty good, and it has a few nice visuals. For some reason I really like the animation in the scene where Bop is trying to get the remote out of the recharger, but fails and Bart zaps him, and I like this:
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The joke about the killer being on stilts could have been funny if they hadn't milked it so hard.
Likewise with the song at the end. For me it was just too hammy to be funny.

6.5/10 from me.
 
the ending is so fucking insulting
he just pussies out and starts singing...really
 
Meh.

The initial setup is actually interesting with the mystery of who is trying to kill Homer but... Even if you're someone who likes Homer's Enemy (which I sure as hell aren't, and it really is one of those episodes which foretold the show's decline), was anyone asking for a follow-up to that episode (especially when the explanation for Junior's existence is stupid)?

Interestingly, when I first watched this episode back in 2008, I actually stopped after Junior was arrested as I had read a summary of it beforehand and the mention of the song at the end made me think "Wow, that sounds really stupid!". And when I finally did catch it in syndication not too long after that and saw the ending scene, I went "Yep, just as dumb as I figured!". Feels like it was included only because the episode ran short.

That said, if not Brother from Another Series, then I would've preferred this to be the final Sideshow Bob episode (at least until Gone Boy despite that being an episode I don't care too much for).

2/5
 
I actually don't get why so many ppl in this thread complained about the "I've grown a custom to his face" part
That was so good imo
I personally love Sideshow Bob so i really loved this episode, thought it was funny and had a good story, and again, I really liked the song at the end.
 
@Snowy Because it feels like it was only added because the episode ran short and it doesn't really add anything, which can also be said for a number of songs in the modern era (like Diary Queen and Lisa's Belly)
 
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