The Call of the Simpsons

"This is a real adventure!"

- Homer Simpson

"The Call of the Simpsons" is the seventh episode of season 1. It aired on February 18, 1990. The episode was written by John Swartzwelder and directed by Wes Archer. Cowboy Bob and Rod Flanders make their first appearance in this episode.

Plot
The episode begins with Bart doing yard work on a muscle-powered mower while Rod Flanders drives a steering mower. Bart complains to Homer about using obsolete equipment, and Homer retorts it's pointless to keep up with the Joneses. Ned Flanders pulls up in his brand new RV, the Land Behemoth, and shows it off to Homer and Bart. In an effort to try to keep up with Ned, Homer takes the family to Bob's RV Round-Up in search of an RV of their own. Bob, the RV salesman, comes out, introduces Homer to an RV called the Ultimate Behemoth, and gives the family a tour. During the tour, Homer and the kids express their awe of the RV, and Marge worries about the cost. Bob takes Homer into the office to work out a price and run a credit check. It turns out the Ultimate Behemoth's a little out of Homer's price range. So, Bob shows Homer the most run down, beaten up, small RV on the lot and pressures him into buying it, ignoring the disapproval of the rest of his family. Later, after loading up their "brand new" RV, Homer gloats to Flanders about his purchase, and the Simpson family head out to go camping. On the way, Homer take a less beaten path and ignores Marge's suggestions for a map or stopping for directions. Calling his RV an all-terrain-vehicle, and much to the worry of everyone else, Homer plows through a forest and decides to stop randomly in the middle of nowhere. When the RV finally comes to a screeching halt, it ends up teetering on the edge of a cliff. Everyone quickly gets out of the RV, and it plummets over the edge along with everything they brought with them, resulting in a fiery explosion at the bottom of the drop.

The family's now in wild backcountry, lost in the middle of a forest with nothing except the clothes on their backs. Homer tells everyone to relax because he's "an experienced woodsman." He builds a makeshift shelter for Marge, Lisa and Maggie, and takes Bart along with him to find help. Marge and Lisa watch as Maggie follows behind Homer and Bart; however, they're not aware of Maggie behind them. When Homer and Bart hear Maggie sucking on her pacifier, they think it's a rattle snake and take off running scared, and leaving Maggie far behind. Homer and Bart stumble through some brush and end up falling off another cliff and into a raging river below. Meanwhile, Marge and Lisa seem to be just fine: they're tidying up their camp and built a much better shelter for themselves. Cut to Maggie, left all alone; a bear approaches her on its hind legs and roars. Maggie, unafraid, sticks a pacifier in the bear's mouth, which calms the bear down.

After Homer and Bart fall down a waterfall, Homer sees Bart's lucky cap float by, and he thinks Bart drowned. Bart tells a crying Homer, "Don't have a cow, man." Homer's relieved to see Bart alive, and they both realize the waterfall claimed their clothes, leaving them both naked as jaybirds. Back to Maggie, being carried by the bear back to its cave, where she's accepted as one of the group by three other bears. Meanwhile, Homer and Bart look for food after clothing themselves with shrubbery. Homer's attempts at catching rabbits for food fail. Back to Maggie, the bears find another family of campers and steal things from their site, like a bottle and baby toys and bring them back to Maggie. Meanwhile, it's nighttime, Marge and Lisa made themselves a fire, and comment if they were able to do that without any prior wilderness survival skills, imagine what the men did, while miles away, Homer and Bart shiver without a fire and try to go to sleep, while Maggie is sleeping warmly with her new bear family.

The next morning, Homer and Bart look for food and come across a bee hive. When Homer steals some honey, the bees attack him. To stave off the bees, Homer jumps into a muddy stream where a naturalist cameraman's filming footage of a deer. The cameraman runs off scared after seeing Homer covered in mud and screaming incoherently due to the big glob of honey still in his mouth. Cut to a breaking news report claiming the existence of Bigfoot and using the footage of Homer as proof. A $5,000 dollar reward is offered for "Bigfoot's" capture. The next day at the edge of the forest, Bigfoot mania set in: people are selling Bigfoot memorabilia, and the press is everywhere covering the event. Marge and Lisa, found by a park ranger, are surprised to see all of the excitement, and they realize it's Homer, not Bigfoot everyone's after. However, this only serves to further the Bigfoot hysteria because Marge is now tabloid fodder. Meanwhile, Homer and Bart accidentally come across the bear cave with Maggie inside. Just before the bears are about to maul Homer and Bart, Maggie communicates to the bears that everything is okay, warding off the attack. Homer takes Maggie back and, along with Bart, they wander back out into the woods. After a while, Homer is spotted in the forest by hunters looking for Bigfoot and he is shot by a tranquilizer gun. After being tested and studied, he is released to go back home. Dr. Marvin Monroe announces at a press conference the evidence is inconclusive as to whether or not Homer's Bigfoot. They determine he's either "an intelligent beast" or "a very stupid human being". Back in the Simpson residence, Homer and Marge watch the press conference in their bedroom. Homer worries he'll be the butt of the jokes from the guys at work for this, but Marge consoles him by saying he's an "intelligent beast" before they go to bed.