Difference between revisions of "All Singing, All Dancing"

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This episode is a Clip Show. It features clips from previous episodes.

"All Singing, All Dancing"

Episode Information Episode number: 189 Season number: S9 E11 Production code: 5F24 Original airdate: January 4, 1998 Couch gag: The floor becomes a treadmill and everyone makes it except for Homer. He falls on the floor and yells "Marge, stop this crazy thing", similar to George Jetson. Guest star(s): Phil Hartman as Lyle Lanley George Harrison as himself (in clips) Showrunner: David Mirkin Written by: Steve O'Donnell Directed by: Mark Ervin DVD features

"All Singing, All Dancing" is the eleventh episode of season 9 of The Simpsons and the one-hundred and eighty-ninth episode overall. It was first aired on January 4, 1998. The episode was written by Steve O'Donnell and directed by Mark Ervin. It guest stars Phil Hartman as Lyle Lanley and George Harrison as himself, both in clips.

Synopsis

"Anticipating a bloody Clint Eastwood-Lee Marvin shoot-'em-up, Bart and Homer are horrified to discover that their video rental, Paint Your Wagon, is actually a musical. Several song and dance moments from seasons past are recalled."

Plot

Homer rents the family the movie Paint Your Wagon. He and Bart expect to see a violent Western starring Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood. However, the movie turns out to be a musical. This causes Homer to dispose of the tape and condemn singing, but Marge says that Homer often sings. To prove her point, she tells of past occasions of Homer and other Springfieldians breaking into song.

Ultimately, this allows clips of the following songs from these episodes to be shown:

• "Baby on Board" from "Homer's Barbershop Quartet";
• "We Put the Spring in Springfield" from "Bart After Dark";
• "Springfield, Springfield" from "Boy-Scoutz 'n the Hood";
• "Who Needs the Kwik-E-Mart?" from "Homer and Apu";
• Krusty's version of "Send In the Clowns" from "Krusty Gets Kancelled";
• "See My Vest" from "Two Dozen and One Greyhounds";
• "The Monorail Song" from "Marge vs. the Monorail";
• "In the Garden of Eden" (from "Bart Sells His Soul";
• "We Do (The Stonecutters' Song)" from "Homer the Great".

The family's singing motivates Snake Jailbird to come in; he is bothered by the Simpsons' singing and constantly tries to kill them, ironically doing his own singing. At first, when he wanted to kill them, he didn't have a gun, so he left to get one. Later, he came back with a gun and pointed it at the Simpsons but had no bullets so he left again to get ammo. Near the end, he was finally going to kill them, but the singing ended and he had no reason to kill them, so he left again. But when Marge was pulling down the banner, she was humming the main theme, so Snake fired a bullet, breaking the glass. Marge then quickly said that she was done singing (or humming). During the closing credits, Snake can be heard trying to prevent the theme music from playing in the background, having grown annoyed with music over the course of the episode.

Production

Dan Castellaneta voiced both Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin. Normally when the writers parody something, they watch it and try and work out what they can do. However, they didn't do this with Paint Your Wagon and just parodied it based on what they thought the movie should have been about.^[1] Hank Azaria, who voices Snake Jailbird, says that it's hard to sing, or even have inflection, as Snake.^[2] David Mirkin had to fight with the censors to let them get away with Snake pointing a gun at Maggie. This led to the episode getting a G-rating.^[1]

Reception

Composer Alf Clausen was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Direction in the 50th Primetime Emmy Awards. However, the episode lost to the 70th Academy Awards.^[3]

Reception of the episode from the fans is generally low, having a 5.0 rating on IMDb^[4] and a 6.0 rating on TV.com.^[5]

References

Wikisimpsons has a collection of images related to "All Singing, All Dancing".