Difference between revisions of "Brush with Greatness"

Revision as of 14:41, July 16, 2010

""Hey Mom, these paintings are good. While I know first-hand how fragile young talent is, I'd love to hear the particulars of how your gift was squashed.""

―Lisa to Marge

Brush with Greatness is the eighteenth episode of Season 2. It first aired on April 11, 1991. The episode was written by Brian K. Roberts and was directed by Jim Reardon. Beatles member Ringo Starr guest starred in it as himself, while Jon Lovitz starred as Marge's art teacher, Professor Lombardo.

Marge's interest in art is reawakened when Homer finds old portraits of Ringo Starr that Marge painted when she was a teenager. Meanwhile, Homer begins exercising after getting stuck in a water park ride and humiliated on the evening news.

Plot

After Bart and Lisa see Krusty do his show at the Mt. Splashmore water park, they ask Homer if they can go there. Homer gets annoyed, but reluctantly decides to take them there. The family goes to Mt. Splashmore, where they ride H2WHOA!, a crowded water slide. As Homer goes on H2WHOA!, he gets lodged in a section of a pipe. After the rescue crew removes him from the ride, with the help of a large crane, he realizes that he needs to lose weight and announces that he will go on a diet.

While Homer is looking for his weights, Bart stumbles on paintings of Ringo Starr that Marge made as a student in high school, when she had a crush on him. Lisa asks Marge what her painting talent was as a schoolgirl, and she says that as a high school student, she was scolded for doing a painting of Ringo Starr. She also recalls sending a painting to him for an "honest opinion", which she also recalls never actually got a response. Lisa suggests that Marge take a painting class at Springfield Community College, which she does. She makes a painting of Homer, which her professor, Lombardo, praises. It wins the college art show.

Meanwhile, Mr. Burns grows exasperated as a number of hired artists fail to paint a suitable self-portrait of himself for installation in the Springfield Museum of Fine Arts. After seeing Marge's winning painting in the newspaper, Smithers has Mr. Burns consider Marge. She reluctantly agrees, as long as Burns insists that the painting portray him as a beautiful man. During the sessions to paint him, Burns constantly heckles different members of the Simpsons family, causing Marge's patience to wear thin. When Homer finds out that he weighs 239 pounds, which is 21 less than what it previously was, Burns insults Homer by calling him 'the fattest thing he's ever seen.' After this incident, Marge insists that Mr. Burns can leave. Marge concedes that given Mr. Burn's personality, she can't paint a beautiful picture of him. Homer encourages Marge to finish the painting, and in the mail she gets a reply from Ringo Starr, who answered her letter, and apologizes for replying late. He praising a picture she sent him years earlier. She finishes the painting, and at the opening of the Burns Wing, she unveils the painting. The painting depicts a naked, frail, and weak Burns. The people are shocked, until Marge explains that it depicts what Burns actually is: that despite all his evil, he is at the end of it all a vulnerable human being which will, one day, be no more, something as beautiful as anything else in the world. Everyone, even Burns, who is at first outraged but then accepts his new glory, praises Marge's painting.

es:Brush With Greatness