Difference between revisions of "The Crepes of Wrath"

Revision as of 23:56, December 12, 2007

Plot

Bart discovers an old cherry bomb, and decides to flush it down the boy's restroom at the same time as Principal Skinner's mother is in the girl's restroom. The resulting explosion blows Mrs. Skinner of the toilet. In order to be rid of him, Skinner proposes to the Simpsons that Bart should participate in a foreign exchange program. Bart is sent to France, whereas the Simpsons host a student from Albania named Adil Hoxha (possibly a reference to the country's former dictator Enver Hoxha but most likely a fusion of the name of Enver Hoxha and Adil Çarçani, another Communist ruler of the time).

In France, Bart is greeted by two unscrupulous wine-makers who work him worse than their donkey. Bart is made to collect and crush grapes, sleep on the floor, and test wine adulterated with antifreeze.

Adil is actually a spy who is after nuclear secrets, which he intends to obtain from Homer. Homer is happy that Adil is taking an interest in his work, and promptly shows him around the plant.

Eventually, Bart learns enough French to escape his captors and inform the authorities about his captors' plot to sell contaminated wine. The wine-makers are swiftly arrested and Bart is feted as a hero to conclude his stay in France on a satisfying note. Adil is caught by the FBI and is exchanged for a boy who is an American spy caught in Albania.

Trivia

• Seymor's nickname is Spanky according to Mrs. Skinner.
• Adil is from Tirana, Albania
• While Bart is in France he stays at the "Chateau Maison" which means castle house in english.
• The donkey's name is Maurice
• The two men Bart stays with are Cesar and his nephew Ugolin.
• Bart has to go get anti-freeze from 14 Voltaire Street.

References

• The episode's title is a play on John Steinbeck's novel "The Grapes of Wrath" (the movie that is based off the novel, is, like The Simpsons, a Fox property).
• The two winemakers, Cesar and Ugolin, are named after the peasants from the 1986 French films Jean de Florette, and Manon des sources (Manon of the Springs), according to producer George Meyer.

Facts

• Early in the episode, there is some actual dialogue in Albanian between Adil and his family, but later on the dialogue is just gibberish. The dialogue in French is very loosely translated, but correct, however.
• Ugolin whistles the melody of "Alouette" while walking to the fields, but the song, which originates in French-Canada, is not very well known in France and would likely not be known by someone of his class standing.
• In later seasons, Agnes Skinner's personality seems vastly different to her kindly demeanor in this episode. In the DVD audio commentary, Matt Groening offers the theory that her current mean streak can be attributed to being a victim of Bart's prank.