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Difference between revisions of "The Call of the Simpsons"

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{{episode
+
{{Tab}}
|image=SimpsonsMPG 7G09.jpg
+
{{EpisodePrevNext|Moaning Lisa|The Telltale Head}}
|productionCode=7G09
+
{{Quote|This is a real adventure!|[[Homer Simpson]]}}
|originalAirdate=18/2/90
+
{{Episode
|blackboardText="I will not draw naked ladies in class."
+
|name= The Call of the Simpsons
|couchGag=The Simpsons all pile on to the couch and nothing extraordinary happens.
+
|image= The Call of the Simpsons.png
|billboard=
+
|number= 7
|specialGuestVoices=[[Albert Brooks]] as [[Cowboy Bob]]
+
|season=1
|Written By=[[John Swartzwelder]]
+
|snumber=7
|Directed By=
+
|prodcode= 7G09
 +
|airdate= February 18, [[1990]]
 +
|blackboard= "I will not draw naked ladies in class."
 +
|couchgag= The Simpsons all pile on to the couch and nothing extraordinary happens.
 +
|showrunner1= James L. Brooks
 +
|showrunner2= Matt Groening
 +
|showrunner3= Sam Simon
 +
|writer= [[John Swartzwelder]]
 +
|director= [[Wes Archer]]
 +
|DVD features=yes
 
}}
 
}}
  
"'''The Call Of The Simpsons'''" is the 7th episode of [[Season 1]]. It was the very first episode shown in the United Kingdom, when [[Sky One]] began airing the show on [[September 2]], [[1990]], as well as being on the first UK VHS release in [[1991]]. The episode deals with The Simpsons' family vacation in their new [[recreational vehicle|RV]].
+
"'''The Call of the Simpsons'''" is the seventh episode of [[season 1]] of ''[[The Simpsons]]''. It originally aired on February 18, [[1990]]. The episode was written by [[John Swartzwelder]] and directed by [[Wes Archer]].
  
==Synopsis==
+
== Synopsis ==
Homer is envious of neighbor [[Ned Flanders]]' new mobile home and goes to [[Bob's RV Round-Up]] to buy one of his own. Because of his poor credit, he only qualifies for a dilapidated one. Thrilled with the new RV, Homer takes his family on an excursion. Driving on remote back roads, he loses control of the camper and comes to a halt on the edge of a cliff. The family abandons the vehicle just before it plummets into an abyss.
+
{{Desc|It's a camping misadventure for [[Simpson family|the Simpsons]]. First, they're lost in the woods and lose all of their camping equipment. [[Bart]] and [[Homer]] try to get help, but are washed down a waterfall, and lose all of their clothes. Meanwhile, [[Maggie]] meets up with some bears, while Homer's confused for [[Bigfoot]] after he goes in a mud pile.}}
  
Stranded in the wilderness, Homer and Bart set out for civilization, unaware that baby Maggie is tagging along. Separated from Homer and Bart, Maggie is soon adopted by a family of bears. Homer and Bart lose their clothes in a fast-moving river and use plants and mud to cover themselves. A nature photographer, mistaking Homer for Bigfoot, vidoes some badly shot footage and flees. Soon the forest is inundated with Bigfoot hunters and souvenir stands. Reporters find Marge and warn her about the hideous creature roaming the woods. When she sees the picture of Homer, Marge identifies the grotesque monster as her husband.
+
== 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 [[Crappy RV|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.
  
Cold and near exhaustion, Homer is captured by hunters, shot with a tranquilizer gun, and taken to a lab for tests. Scientists observe Homer, but are unsure if he is Bigfoot or a below-average human being. They allow Homer to return to his family until they can determine to what species he belongs.
+
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.  
  
==Debut Appearances==
+
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.
Characters making a first appearance in this episode are:
 
  
*[[Rod Flanders]]
+
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.
*Cowboy Bob
 
  
==Miscellanea==
+
== Reception ==
*Flanders makes $27 more a week than Homer does (although this is based on Ned's original job at a pharmaceutical company, not the Leftorium).
+
Sound mixers [[Brad Brock]], [[Gary Montgomery]], and [[Jim Fitzpatrick]] received a nomination for a {{W|Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Comedy or Drama Series (Half-Hour) and Animation}} in the {{W|42nd Primetime Emmy Awards}} for the episode. However it lost to "The Stork Brings a Crane" from ''[[Cheers]]''.<ref>[https://www.emmys.com/awards/nominees-winners/1990/outstanding-sound-mixing-for-a-comedy-series-or-a-special Television Academy - "Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Comedy Series or a Special – 1990"]</ref>
*Signs at Bob's RV-Roundup (formerly RVs R Us): "We want to make friends :-) Not Profit :-(" "We give credit to everyone!"; "Bad Credit. Good!"; "Bankruptcy Shmankruptcy."
 
*The Ultimate Behemoth RV: two-stories high with a fireplace, a full kitchen, four deep fryers---"one for each part of the chicken," a big-screen television set, and its own satellite, the Vanstar I.
 
*The breaking Bigfoot report interrupts the [[president's address]].
 
*Signs advertising the Bigfoot cottage industry include "[[Half-Man, Half-Ape Burgers]]" and "Get Your Photo Taken with Bigfoot."
 
*The fact that Homer is indeed the [[missing link]] is referenced again in season 16's "[[The Monkey Suit]]".
 
*This is the first episode to feature [[Albert Brooks]] as a guest star. Like all his appearances, he is credited as ''A. Brooks''.
 
*Bart wears his "lucky red hat" for the first time in this episode (but coughs it out multiple times in [[Bart the General]]). Also, this is the only time the hat is totally red (other episodes depict it as red with a white visor).
 
*This is the first episode in which [[Rod Flanders]] appears, but it is very brief, and he does not make a second appearance until the next season, and would not speak again until [[Bart the Daredevil]].
 
*This episode was the theme of a [[Burger King]] promotion including kids meal toys and collectable cups.
 
*At the time of production, the writers and producers felt that this episode had the potential to be made into a two-part story. However, they eventually decided to make it as a single episode.
 
{{ListGenBot-SourceEnd}}
 
*The scene with [[Bart]] and [[Homer]] making a trap was used in the season four episode [[So It's Come To This: A Simpsons Clip Show]] (the first clip show on The Simpsons). The part where Homer is naked after losing his clothes in the waterfall dive was used during the "hardcore nudity" montage at the end of the season seven clip show episode [[The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular]].
 
*In the United Kingdom, this was one of the first episodes released on video cassette in the early 1990s (on a tape paired with [[Bart the Genius]]), and thus was many viewers' introduction to the series (especially in the days before the series was shown on [[terrestrial television]]). A second tape featuring [[Bart the General]] and [[There's No Disgrace Like Home]] was released at the same time.
 
  
==Cultural references==
+
== In other languages ==
*The tune for the camping scenes is called "[[The Happy Wanderer]]".
+
{{LanguageBox
*The episode title is a reference to the novella "[[The Call of the Wild]]" by [[Jack London]].
+
|fr=yes
*When Homer is shot with tranquilizer darts, his last words to Bart before he loses consciousness are "Avenge my death." This is similar to [[Harry Dean Stanton]] yelling out to his two sons in [[Red Dawn]].
+
|frName=L'Abominable Homme des bois
*When the camper is filming the deer grazing in the mud which Homer falls into, there is a short excerpt from the main theme of Claude Debussy's 'Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune'
+
|frTrans=The Abominable man of the woods
 +
|qu=yes
 +
|quName=Les Simpson, coureurs de bois
 +
|quTrans=The Simpsons, Woodsmen
 +
|de=yes
 +
|deName=Vorsicht, wilder Homer
 +
|deTrans=Caution, Wild Homer
 +
|es=yes
 +
|esName=El abominable hombre del bosque
 +
|esTrans=The Abominable Man of the Forest
 +
|la=yes
 +
|laName=La llamada de Los Simpson
 +
|laTrans=The Call of the Simpsons
 +
|it=yes
 +
|itName=Il richiamo dei Simpson
 +
|itTrans=The Call of the Simpsons
 +
|br=yes
 +
|brName=Chamando os Simpsons
 +
|brTrans=Calling the Simpsons
 +
|hu=yes
 +
|huName=Vissza a természetbe
 +
|huTrans=Back to the Nature
 +
|jp=yes
 +
|jpName=ホーマー自然に帰る
 +
|jpTrans=Homer Returns to Nature
 +
}}
  
 +
== References ==
 +
{{Reflist}}
  
==Trivia==
+
{{Images|ep=yes}}
*The motto of Bob's RV Roundup is "We'd rather make a friend than a profit."
+
{{Season 1}}
*The episode marks the first appearance of recurring guest star [[Albert Brooks]]. In this episode, and all of his subsequent appearances he is credited as A. Brooks.
+
{{DEFAULTSORT:Call of the Simpsons, The}}
 
 
==Appearances==
 
===Characters===
 
* [[Homer Simpson]]
 
* [[Bart Simpson]]
 
* [[Rod Flanders]]
 
* [[Ned Flanders]]
 
* [[Cowboy Bob]]
 
* [[Marge Simpson]]
 
* [[Lisa Simpson]]
 
* [[Springfield Bears]]
 
* [[TV Reporter]]
 
* [[Dr. Marvin Monroe]]
 
 
 
===Vehicles===
 
* [[The Land Behemoth]]
 
* [[Ultimate Beehemoth|The Ultimate Behemoth]]
 
* [[Used RV]]
 
  
===Locations===
+
[[Category:1990]]
* [[742 Evergreen Terrace]]
+
[[Category:Homer episodes]]
* [[Bob's RV Round-Up]]
+
[[Category:Bart episodes]]
* [[Springfield National Forest]]
+
[[Category:Primetime Emmy Award nominated episodes]]
 +
[[Category:Episodes written by John Swartzwelder]]
 +
[[Category:Episodes directed by Wes Archer]]
  
 
+
[[de:Vorsicht, wilder Homer]]
{{Season 1}}
+
[[sv:The Call of the Simpsons]]
[[Category:Episodes]]
 
[[Category:Season 1]]
 

Latest revision as of 13:01, March 28, 2024

Season 1 Episode
006 "Moaning Lisa"
007
"The Call of the Simpsons"
"The Telltale Head" 008
"This is a real adventure!"
Homer Simpson
"The Call of the Simpsons"
The Call of the Simpsons.png
Episode Information
Episode number: 7
Season number: S1 E7
Production code: 7G09
Original airdate: February 18, 1990
Chalkboard gag: "I will not draw naked ladies in class."
Couch gag: The Simpsons all pile on to the couch and nothing extraordinary happens.
Showrunners: James L. Brooks
Matt Groening
Sam Simon
Written by: John Swartzwelder
Directed by: Wes Archer
DVD features


"The Call of the Simpsons" is the seventh episode of season 1 of The Simpsons. It originally aired on February 18, 1990. The episode was written by John Swartzwelder and directed by Wes Archer.

Synopsis[edit]

"It's a camping misadventure for the Simpsons. First, they're lost in the woods and lose all of their camping equipment. Bart and Homer try to get help, but are washed down a waterfall, and lose all of their clothes. Meanwhile, Maggie meets up with some bears, while Homer's confused for Bigfoot after he goes in a mud pile."


Plot[edit]

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.

Reception[edit]

Sound mixers Brad Brock, Gary Montgomery, and Jim Fitzpatrick received a nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Comedy or Drama Series (Half-Hour) and Animation in the 42nd Primetime Emmy Awards for the episode. However it lost to "The Stork Brings a Crane" from Cheers.[1]

In other languages[edit]

Language Name Translation
Germany.png Deutsch "Vorsicht, wilder Homer" Caution, Wild Homer
Spain flag.png Español "El abominable hombre del bosque" The Abominable Man of the Forest
Hispanic America.gif Español "La llamada de Los Simpson" The Call of the Simpsons
France.png Français "L'Abominable Homme des bois" The Abominable man of the woods
Flag of Quebec.svg.png Français "Les Simpson, coureurs de bois" The Simpsons, Woodsmen
Italy Flag.png Italiano "Il richiamo dei Simpson" The Call of the Simpsons
Brasil Flag.png Português "Chamando os Simpsons" Calling the Simpsons
Hungary flag.png Magyar "Vissza a természetbe" Back to the Nature
Flag of Japan.png 日本語 "ホーマー自然に帰る" Homer Returns to Nature

References[edit]


The Saga of Carl - title screen.png Wikisimpsons has a collection of images related to "The Call of the Simpsons".
Season 1 Episodes
Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire Bart the Genius Homer's Odyssey There's No Disgrace Like Home Bart the General Moaning Lisa The Call of the Simpsons The Telltale Head Life on the Fast Lane Homer's Night Out The Crepes of Wrath Krusty Gets Busted Some Enchanted Evening