Rate & Review: "The Old Blue Mayor She Ain't What She Used to Be" (WABF20)

How would you rate this episode?


  • Total voters
    58

Brad Lascelle

A Fixture in Online Simpsons Fandom Since '93
Global Moderator
Joined
Mar 9, 2008
Messages
5,688
Location
Kitchener, ON
Lz3khQS.jpg


Season 29, Episode 6
Original Airdate
: November 12, 2017
Writers: Tom Gammill & Max Pross
Director: Matthew Nastuk
Showrunner: Al Jean
Synopsis: Frustrated with the local government, Marge decides to run for Mayor. To win public support, she begins making Homer the butt of her jokes.

Previous R&R
Next R&R

R&R Poll Average Score: 2.88 / 5 (as of September 24, 2021 / 50 votes)
IMDB User Rating: 6.3 / 10
 
Last edited:
* Amusing vaudeville couch gag
** Speech Thewapist
* "Thank you for the used porn"
** Wilheim scream
* "Thanks Obama"
--- Holy crap Marge's singing voice is atrocious
End of act 1, mediocre. 6.5/10.
Act 2 had no funny jokes, none!
* Harpooned Homer
* I'm with HAIR
Closing Thoughts:
Dull, dull, DULL.
The plot was insanely thin and dull. It felt a lot shorter than 22 minutes, and not in a good way. The story was overall extremely rushed, having no coherency or depth or anything to hold on to.
Humor was bad too, the 1st act was okay humorwise, but the 2nd and 3rd acts were near-laughless.
Also Marge should never sing.
3/10.
 
Last edited:
Again I say, the episode's title makes me think of this moment from when the Simpsons was WAY better...

At least I saw that old Jewish man in the audience at the mayoral debate at Springfield Elementary.
 
Well that was pretty bad. Marge becomes mayor apropos of nothing besides Lisa saying “HEY YOU SHOULD RUN FOR MAYOR,” and there was no conflict until the third act when she started making fun of Homer. She was elected with almost no buildup, and there was very little substance throughout the entire episode. Kavner attempting to sing was particularly painful, and at the end, she just sees a picture of Homer and decides to stop using him as a joke. No buildup, no payoff, nothing. They could’ve used some time they took instead to have a full intro and a long couch gag, but that would’ve taken some effort. Worst of the season. 1/5
 
Well, that was once again another mediocre mess from the same duo who brought us the incredibly bland Whistler's Father and the very mediocre season 28 premiere. The start was kinda decent imo with some decent gags. However, the rest of the episode pretty much fell on its face. The episode turns out to actually be about Marge trying to maintain public support. But then, the writers had to tack on a marriage crisis where Homer "becomes the butt of Marge's jokes". This doesn't go anywhere and is hastily resolved at the end. However, the episode once again had some decent animation although that can't save the episode. As for humor, it was pretty meh. There were some okay gags like the Speech Theeapist although most of them were towards the first third. Extra note, why was Marge singing even a thing?

Probably the 2nd worst or worst episode of the season so far. 2/5 or C
 
Last edited:
The caption cards on the couch gag have Grampa, Mr. Burns, Itchy, and Scratchy in the corners.

"This year, a turkey will pardon the President" - how many people responded, "I didn't know Trump could pardon himself"?

The couch gag had a copyright date of 1917.

There is no music or lyrics credit for Marge's campaign song, like there was in the "Clausen days."

So, does this mean every episode with Quimby back as mayor takes place in 2022 or later?

Frink's breakdown of Springfield:
Socialist Plumbers for Jesus
Time-Traveling Libertarians
Gluten-Free Bakers
Old Men Paralyzed on the Left Side
People Who Lie About Not Having Cats
Non-Conservative Cellists
Know-Nothing Brain Surgeons
Non-Voters

Marge's campaign song:
I'm Marge Simpson, and won't ya vote for me
Whatever your obsession is, is my priority
From widows to your lunchpail Joes, to vets of foreign wars
There's no single issue voter my campaign won't ignore
From soccer moms to Mafia Dons
I'll give you what you need
I'm Marge Simpson, and won't you vote for me - yeah!
 
I feel like an episode with this premise should have been more interesting than it was but I guess that's HD Simpsons for you. Marge being the mayor doesn't really lead to anything funny or like anything at all really. She gains support by making fun of Homer, which I think is supposed to be political satire but man does it fall flat. Also Kavner should not sing. Ever. 2/5

Oh hey the monorail came back. Plus I kinda chuckled at that guy falling into the cactus patch. Maybe it was the Wilhelm scream.
 
This is a worse version of that Family Guy episode where Lois got elected as mayor. I REALLY knew it was going to the inferior version of this plot, which Proves once and for all that Modern Family Guy >>>>>>> Modern Simpsons, my opinions of course. Seriously, Can this show stop tackling politics already? It's harming America right now, especially what Bart to the Future predicted. Only the gags saved this borefest of an episode, even though I still I didn't liked it. A simple 4/10. Skip it, because political episodes are not worth your time, especially season 20 South Park.
 
I noted this on Discord while this episode was airing in Canada but I sort of wanted to see 22 minutes worth of a Simpsons silent movie parody with the kids heading down to work the coal mine and Bart befriending Satan. Would have been far more amusing then what we wound up with... and they would have saved a mint by not having to pay for any voice actors.
 
ive uh seen better. the kellyanne conway slam was particularly lousy. almost nothing happened in this episode, couldnt have been more obvious that they padded a lame stock plot just to leave the office early.
 
Hoo, boy.

I guess we'll start with the positives. The story was structured nicely, I'll give it that. There was a logical beginning, middle, and end, and there was no B-plot to speak of.

And that's where my compliments end. I'm sorry, but this episode was just atrocious. Let's get the elephant out of the room; what was up with that monorail scene? The city decides to build a new pathway from the tracks of the old monorail, but the train starts to move and destroys some of the town. This would've been fine, at best, a creative part of the episode. It's just so sad to see it for what it blatently is: nostalgia pandering. The way the citizens starting chanting "monorail, monorail", sounded like nothing more than a "Hey, remember this? Well here it is again!" from the writers. It's a cheap way to evoke a positive reaction; that's two episodes in a row now with a throwback to a better scene.
We've got Marge running for mayor here, and while that isn't such a bad idea in context, it's completely ruined by a predictable storyline. It's another Homer embarrassing Marge episode, which is really a shame, because this could've been a pretty interesting concept if Marge was the sole focus. We've got more examples of the citizens being heartless jerks; the only way Marge continues getting support after election is because of her husband. Which makes no sense because she was able to win the popular vote by herself earlier in the episode. That's how the whole episode is: just a bunch of "Huh?" and "Why?"

None of the jokes seemed to land for me, most of them being mean-spirited. The only thing that got a half chuckle out of me was Sideshow Mel wondering why Marge's speech couldn't have been held at town hall. The Wilheim Scream had the potential to be funny, but it's actually ruined by something that I didn't think was possible: the audio quality. The scream sounds way different than the rest of the episode, and it's obvious that it's a stock sound, taking you right out of the episode.

There's another musical montage here, complete with some...painful singing from Julie Kavner. It honestly sounds like she's being choked or strained, and it's hard to listen to without imagining what Marge is going to sound like if the show keeps moving past Season 30.

Not a fun episode. Too mean-spirited to be funny, and a plot that didn't make sense. ​1/5
 
Nostalgia pandering... now there's a good centralized theme to describe the entire WABF production run. The first time we heard the words "Kamp Krustier" should have been the warning sign. Look for more of it next week because we've got a host of Team Homer callbacks to look forward to.
 
Last edited:
This is a worse version of that Family Guy episode where Lois got elected as mayor. I REALLY knew it was going to the inferior version of this plot, which Proves once and for all that Modern Family Guy >>>>>>> Modern Simpsons, my opinions of course. Seriously, Can this show stop tackling politics already? It's harming America right now, especially what Bart to the Future predicted. Only the gags saved this borefest of an episode, even though I still I didn't liked it. A simple 4/10. Skip it, because political episodes are not worth your time, especially season 20 South Park.

Yeah, Modern Simpsons' track record with political episodes has been pretty bad with many of the political episodes being some of the worst episodes of the show like Politically Inept and The Caper Chase.
 
This was definitely an average episode in pretty much every way. The plot about Marge running for mayor after Quimby's town hall meeting following an incident involving the old monorail was a good premise but they didn't really do much with the premise, especially once she got elected and became mayor, and a lot of stuff made poor sense, felt rushed and/or was skimmed over so it felt thin when it should have been meatier (they really should have skipped the complete opening and given more effort to the plot, but the couch gag was kinda nice).

The plot mostly only relied on Marge not being able to fulfill her big promise of getting rid of the tire fire (because of this one guy who's having a selling stand outside it and protesting; really? I think she could have him relocated to some similar place) and selling Homer out once her team decides to use him being his usual self (a goofy idiot who says and does stupid things) to boost her support after her one big failure (and she of course ultimately realizes is wrong and reconciles with her husband but losing her position as mayor). It never really got all that funny except for some of the Homer bits (and I don't buy that Marge didn't have any big plans outside of the tire fire, it just made her seem inept). I liked the opening scene with the monorail tracks having been remade into a promenade which gets ruined by the monorail train which accidentally starts up but it had too much lame in-your-face nostalgia with the "Monorail" chanting, the scientist being thrown into there and so forth, the campaign song interludes were eyerolling filler and I didn't care of the "8 years later" epilogue (it should have had a proper here and now wrap-up epilogue instead).

However, even with it's problems I don't think it ever did get that bad or offensive & it actually had some good stuff that I liked. The pacing was fairly good (I think it was right to have it a little more slow paced), there were no unnecessary subplot, it had some nice jokes and gags that got some chuckles out of me (even some of the sillier ones, though Homer getting harpooned and flopping around like a whale was a bit too much), the animation continues to be pretty good and it managed to keep my interest. It the strongest in the first half before starting to slack with Homer being used as a tool for Marge to keep her popularity going strong (speaking of which, it felt like I've seen that story element before).

Overall, it's an mediocre episode for sure but I didn't hate it as it had elements that I liked and those partially made up for the disappointing execution of an otherwise good premise. In a way I feel the same about this one as I did with the previous episode (Grampy Can Ya Hear Me) although this get the edge since it wasn't a mess and was focused on one story, mishandled as it was.

3/5
 
Last edited:
Seriously, Can this show stop tackling politics already?
I have a feeling that as long as the writers and/or Matt are under the impression that this is the only Fox network show "allowed" to slam the right (I think "Fox has to keep its hands off of the show" was one of the conditions for the show being created in the first place, and I have a feeling the minute corporate changes its mind, the show moves to another network), there will always be politics on the show. Besides, without politics, what do you do with Lisa? Pretty much anything environmental is considered an attack on climate change deniers now.
 
Okay so the monorail was brought back out of nowhere?
The way the show is directed is just getting weirder and weirder. As I've already mentioned several times, there's usually no establishing shots or music cues, but now scenes star- JUST LIKE THAT. Like one scene ended and 0,1 seconds later it pops to another scene when Marge says she wants to buy the dude's shop. Add to that the fact that he says no, making that scene pointless anyway. But it just started so abruptly

And why was Marge so obsessed over putting out the tire fire? It's already been mentioned but there was no actual conflict. Like yeah it pollutes the air but it's been there for years and no one even cared about Marge putting it out so just ignore it and put your efforts to doing better mayor... Stuff.
All she did was make fun of Homer a little. What's the big deal?
This was just scene after scene of Marge doing mayor stuff. But it wasn't that terrible or anything. This is one of those episodes that are good when you're just mind-numbingly watching it.

All the negative stuff out of the way, I've never really cared for the sign gags in the intro but this one got a chuckle out of me. As well as Sideshow Mel just thinking about how he prefers the chairs at City Hall.
 
Another average episode with a lot of wasted potential. They had a single plot going, but it felt like they only tried to place gags as much as possible without actually trying to properly structure this episode. With a premise like this, it feels like they left a lot of things out:

- Why was Quimby barely in this episode? And why didn't he even try to compete with marge?
- If he loves being just a regular citizen then why didn't he quit long ago?
- With Marge nominating herself because of sexism, why didn't she actively try to appeal to the female audience?
- Why are Julio, Lindsey Naegal, Sideshow Mel and professor Frink interested in helping her become mayor?
- And why is there a huge lack of focus on the rest of the family? Either helping her aswell or trying to profit from Marge being mayor, which is only done in 1 scene
- Why did Homer never talk to Marge about her using jokes that embarrass him?

While the pacing was alright, they could've done a much better plot and try to expand on things like the ones listed above. Other then that there are some good points that somewhat rasies this episodes ratings: The monorail throwback at the beginning, while having some forced fan service moments shoved in (like the song), had a lot of good moments. Like Kent's protection glass, the talking thrash can, Homer and Wiggum trying to pass by, the monorail riding and causing destruction again. I found the way Quimby uses sexism against Marge as the switch to activate the plot a rather lame approach, they could've just tried to make Marge more interested into local politics. Homer's dream was kinda funny. Kinda mixed with Marge's visits to the yokels and exotic animal owners. The snuggle scene at the celebation felt like just a quick gag. The whole promise with putting down the fires at the tire pile was kinda stupid and lasted for to long. The actual plot kicking in with Homer, while also pretty stupid, had some good jokes like the sandwich named after Homer and him thinking that Krusty uses ''save the whales'' as an insult. Decent ending to a rather average episode at least.

This might be the weakest episode of the season yet, but its not terrible enough to give an extremely low rating. Some salvaging parts are the jokes and giving Marge a larger role for an episode. There's nothing that stood out much and its going to be hard to remember this episode.

2.5/5
 
Live commentary:

-Whoa, what's with Ralph's voice? I mean, I get the gag with the "thewapist", but why did Ralph have to sound totally different and weird here? Just an odd joke.
-The Skypark thing was pretty cool to look at it, too bad it didn't last. Also, I thought the monorail was solar-powered so how can it "come back" like that?
-Ah, so Sebastian Cobb's dead now. Cool.
-What was with that really obvious use of the Wilhelm scream when the guy fell in the cactus patch? I mean, was that badly done on purpose?
-So Jasper's dead too...
-The "sexism" scene was too exaggerated and caricatured to be any kind of effective satire.
-I don't mind Marge deciding to run for mayor on Lisa's urging. Marge has gotten "involved" in other episodes (with S.N.U.H. and P.P.A.S.S.C.C.A.T.A.G.) so this seems in character for her. The motivation may have been a little flimsy, but I'll buy it.
-Not sure why there had to be a song. This scene seemed to be a little slow and awkward in general. The idea of her appealing to Springfield's fringe and their issues was funny, though.
-I laughed at Bart and Homer making fun of Lisa :lol:
-The idea of Marge becoming more popular because of Homer's oafish antics was a decent plot. I laughed at some of these scenes. Homer acting like a whale was kind of ridiculous, but I loved that sign someone was holding in the crowd that said "She's With Stupid" lol. And Krusty was actually funny here. It's not a bad conflict either, though it comes a bit late in the episode and we don't see much of Homer's reaction to it (other than standing on the sidelines looking sad while Marge is having a crisis of conscience).

This episode had a number of awkward gags that didn't land. It also had a plot whose conflict didn't show up until the end and wasn't well-developed despite the time allotted by the lack of a subplot. Parts of it were funny, but most of it was just bland.

2/5
 
I thought the episode started well, I didn't mind the nostalgia pandering with the monorail.. but then the story was all over the place and didn't flow gracefully. I'm also wondering why they got this jimmy stewart character at the tire fire store instead of Ol' Gil

I agree that the "sexism" scene was a bit exaggerated, I feel like that was something that could have been valid in the 90s but in 2017 I think it's kind of too old to make any sense.

We've had a few marge episodes where the aim was to empower her ,I Feel like the episode where she becomes a cop was a lot better than this one in that sense.
 
-What was with that really obvious use of the Wilhelm scream when the guy fell in the cactus patch? I mean, was that badly done on purpose?

They were probably trying to copy how "Family Guy" sometimes uses it like that. At least it wasn't that horrible-quality MP3 file downloaded off the Internet that Travis Powers used to use on the show a lot; now it's only in slight low quality. (Until Sound Ideas or whatever releases a clear pristine recording of it on one of their sound libraries, this is what we're probably stuck with.)
 
I liked the callback to the monorail and the questioning of Quimby being the mayor for so long. Act 1 was great though other than I think the story idea was wasted. They didn't fully utilize the plot of Marge being mayor nor the debates at all. Quimby didn't put up a fight and the entirity of what see of her being mayor was basically just pointing out Homer's stupidity. I wish they would do something to change the status quo with Homer and Marge only because it's a bit tiring seeing the two having a marriage crisis every episode.

I am interested if Marge continues to be mayor for at least a few more episodes. They never said when Quimby takes back his position of mayor so hopefully there will be something interesting happening in future episodes.
 
Marge won’t remain mayor. At the very most, they’ll make a passing reference to it, but I doubt even that will happen.
 
I am very disappointed with how this episode turned out. I thought it started off strong and then drifted into stupdity. Why are the citizens of Springfield only supporting Marge because she makes fun of her husband? She was able to win the election without mocking Homer. The whole premise didn't make sense and wasn't funny.

IMO this is easily the worst episode of the season. I think this deserves a 1.5 but gave it a 2 because it started off well and because it was the first episode this season that didn't take a shit on Bart. That said, I didn't care for the gag when Homer was throwing things at Bart and when he hit him with a painting, but at least we didn't have to hear that Bart is a worthless loser.
 
Marge won’t remain mayor. At the very most, they’ll make a passing reference to it, but I doubt even that will happen.
I1GuFzg.jpg


I assumed this meant something but going back to take that screenshot I realized there was an exhibit that mentioned the year 2022, implying she's still mayor by then. I guess she quits being the mayor around season 37.
 
3/5

Positives: the full opening sequence, and the "garden walk" where the monorail used to be
Negatives: another "someone runs for mayor of Springfield" episode? Marge gets impeached? Plus the ending felt tacked on.
 
There are very few episodes where I sit back after watching and think "what the hell was that". This was one of them.

It felt like an incoherent 20 minutes of absolute garbage. Everything just felt way too casual for the significance of the plot. It felt like the episode needed to be twice as long for what they were trying to set up.

I don't understand how this made it through the whole process as-is. A waste of an episode.
 
Back
Top