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Difference between revisions of "Helter Shelter"

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{{episode
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{{EpisodePrevNext|Large Marge|The Great Louse Detective}}
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{{For2|the location|Helter Shelter (building)}}
|originalAirdate=
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{{Episode
|blackboardText=
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|image= Helter shelter.png
|couchGag=.  
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|number= 296
|specialGuestVoices=
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|season=14
Written By=
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|snumber=5
|Directed By=
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|prodcode= DABF21
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|airdate= December 1, [[2002]]
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|blackboard= "Milhouse did not test cootie positive"
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|couchgag= A computer mouse drags Homer, changes the color of the walls and replaces the Marge's boat painting with the Mona Lisa.
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|guests= [[David Lander]] as [[Squiggy]]<br>[[Larry Holmes]] as {{Ch|Larry Holmes|himself}}
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|showrunner1= Al Jean
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|writer= [[Brian Pollack]]<br>[[Mert Rich]]
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|director= [[Mark Kirkland]]
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|DVD features=yes
 
}}
 
}}
  
"'''Helter Shelter'''" is the fifth episode from [[Season 14]] of ''[[The Simpsons]]'' that aired December 1, 2002.  
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"'''Helter Shelter'''" is the fifth episode of [[season 14]] of ''[[The Simpsons]]'' and the two-hundred and ninety-sixth episode overall. It originally aired December 1, [[2002]]. The episode was written by [[Brian Pollack]] and [[Mert Rich]] and directed by [[Mark Kirkland]]. It guest stars [[David Lander]] as [[Squiggy]] and [[Larry Holmes]] as {{Ch|Larry Holmes|himself}}.
  
==Plot==
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== Synopsis ==
After [[Homer Simpson|Homer]] suffers a brain injury at work, [[Montgomery Burns|Mr. Burns]] offers his family tickets in a luxury sky box at a [[wikipedia:ice hockey|hockey]] game as compensation. [[Lisa Simpson|Lisa]] receives a player's hockey stick for shouting advice to him during the game. However, [[wikipedia:termites|termites]], which were living in the stick, end up eating away at the entire Simpson house. An exterminator says their house should be tented and fumigated, and they cannot return for six months. However, the family has no place to go. They tried to stay with Lenny and then Comic Book Guy but their apartments were too weird. At Moe's, their last resort, [[Barney Gumble|Barney]] and [[Carl Carlson|Carl]] inform the Simpsons about a reality show, where a family is put in a [[wikipedia:Victorian architecture|Victorian]] house, where they must live like it was the year 1895. Homer is reluctant at first, but then they go to the reality show.
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{{Desc|The Simpsons attend a hockey game and Lisa brings home a souvenir hockey stick, but the stick has Russian termites, which quickly infest the whole house. When they learn that the house needs to be fumigated and will be uninhabitable for six months, the family look for another place to live and join a reality TV show where they must live like a family from 1895.}}
  
At the studio, the executives screen many families and finally they settle on the Simpsons, after viewing Homer's overreactions over nothing. They are taken to the Victorian house and shown around by the Network Executive, who says that they will be filmed round the clock. The only thing of the 20th century there is a "[[wikipedia:Confessional|Confessional]] Room", which is a small room with a video camera where they say what they feel about the lifestyle. The family struggles with all of the drastic changes in their daily life and are pretty miserable, much to the delight of the show's audience. Homer tries to lighten up the family, saying they should be glad on TV, and begin to conform to their new lives cheerily. This is not deemed as entertaining, however, and viewership begins to drop. In attempts to save the show, the executives decide to introduce Squiggy from ''[[wikipedia:Laverne and Shirley|Laverne and Shirley]]'' into the household. But even his presence (and that of a taser which he uses on Homer) does not boost the ratings. Finally, one of the executives comes up with an idea. The house is airlifted at night and put into a river.
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== Plot ==
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[[File:Helter shelter1.png|250px|thumb|left]]
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When Homer is injured at work, his compensation is the use of a luxury sky box at a Hockey Rink. The family enjoys the luxuries, but [[Lisa]] is bored and joins the masses rink side. She gives one of the players some score tying advice and is rewarded with a goal for the [[Ice-O-Topes]] and one of their players, Kozlov's, hockey "tree". The stick is mounted in Lisa's room where later that night termites break out of the stick and do much damage to the family home. Until the Russian no-wood-nick termites can be thoroughly exterminated, which will take six months, the Simpson family is left homeless.
  
The Simpsons are shocked to find what had happened the next morning, and the house finally washes up on shore and falls apart, with Squiggy in it. The network crew is filming it and loving the drama that unfolds. They then break for lunch, but deny the Simpsons any of it. Later on, the family is confronted by a bunch of savage-looking people, who turn out to be contestants in other reality shows, whom the network ditched after they failed in their tasks. They decide to overpower the crew and return to civilization. Together with the Simpsons, they attack the crew, overpowering them. Homer then tried to crush the helicopter with a giant boulder but he was pushed into the ground. Finally at home, Homer decides to watch scripted TV shows, as he has had it with reality shows, but the family finds more pleasure in watching him continually spraying himself in the eye with the hose.
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The family tries a number of options like staying with [[Lenny]] and [[Comic Book Guy]], but due to these men's strange lifestyles, they end up trying out for a home on a TV show where they are required to live as though they it was the year 1895. They pass the audition and face various hardships. However, they soon cooperate with each other and start living an ideal 19th century life. When the "1895 Challenge" sinks in the ratings, the producers try to stir things up by adding the character of Squiggy from ''Laverne and Shirley''. When that also fails, they relocate the house to a river and watch it float downstream, without warning the Simpsons beforehand. (Squiggy is presumed lost.)
  
==Trivia==
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Eventually the house comes to shore and falls apart. The family finds themselves without food and shelter as the TV crew eats away. They encounter a tribe of lost people from another reality program and together they fight the TV crew and producers and return to civilization, where they believe they can find quality scripted television, which soon fails.
*This is the last time to date that Bart has prank called Moe, this time via [[wikipedia:morse code|Morse code]].
 
*This is the last episode to be traditionally inked and painted; for the episodes after it would be animated via digital ink and paint.
 
*Homer's line "Where's that kid with my latte?" was used earlier in "[[Beyond Blunderdome]]".
 
*This is the third time [[wikipedia:Bill Cosby|Bill Cosby]] has been parodied on The Simpsons. There is an extra gag in that the Cosby family are losing ratings on their reality show, so the producers decide on the Simpsons; in the early years, ''[[wikipedia:The Cosby Show|The Cosby Show]]'' was a ratings rival with ''The Simpsons''.  
 
*When the family realizes that they are seeing a hockey game, the are discouraged and disappointed, yet in "[[Lisa on Ice]]", the family seems to have an interest in the game.
 
*When Kozlov hands Lisa his hockey stick, it says "КОЗЛОВ" - the real [[wikipedia:Russian language|Russian]] spelling of Kozlov.
 
*The Russian hockey player seems to be [[wikipedia:Atlanta Thrashers|Atlanta Thrashers']] [[wikipedia:Vyacheslav Kozlov|Vyacheslav Kozlov]].
 
*If you look closely, you can see a crossed hammer and a hockey stick on Kozlov's hockey stick, an obvious reference to the Soviet symbol of the hammer and sickle.
 
* In this episode Homer is upset that 1895 is too late to [[wikipedia:Abraham Lincoln assassination|save Lincoln]] and too early to [[wikipedia:John F. Kennedy assassination|save Kennedy]], and in [[Today I Am a Clown|Today, I am a Clown]] he again fantasizes about doing both.
 
  
==Episode Goofs==
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== Production ==
*At one point when Bart is in the video confessional booth, he complains of boredom and says "[[wikipedia:Mutt & Jeff|Mutt & Jeff]] Comics are not funny! They're gay, I get it!".  However Mutt & Jeff was first published in 1907, 12 years after the shows 1895 setting.
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<gallery>
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File:DABF21 Script.jpg
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</gallery>
  
==Cultural references==
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{{Images|ep=yes}}
* The title is a play on the [[wikipedia:The Beatles|Beatles]] song "Helter Skelter," a famous song which, it was claimed by prosecutors, was indirectly connected to the murders carried out by [[Wikipedia:Charles Manson|Charles Manson]] and his "family". "Helter Shelter" had earlier been the name of the shelter in the episode "[[Homer Loves Flanders]]".
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{{season 14}}
* The scene where the Simpsons are waiting for time to fly by mirrors the opening sequence of ''[[wikipedia:King of the Hill|King of the Hill]]''.
 
* "Squiggy" being sent to boost their ratings is a reference to a lot of television shows sending in newer characters to save the show from being cancelled (often with disastrous results), such as Cousin Oliver on ''[[wikipedia:The Brady Bunch|The Brady Bunch]]'', Seven on ''[[wikipedia:Married...With Children|Married...With Children]]'', and Smitty ([[wikipedia:Adam Sandler|Adam Sandler]]'s character) on ''[[wikipedia:The Cosby Show|The Cosby Show]]''
 
* A member of the crew says 'I can't eat any more kangaroo testicles'. This is a reference to ''[[wikipedia:I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!|I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!]]''
 
* Not for the first time, this episode of ''The Simpsons'' contains a reference to the 1990s TV character [[wikipedia:Steve Urkel|Steve Urkel]] from the show ''[[wikipedia:Family Matters|Family Matters]]''. When Marge attempts to buy groceries from the Kwik-E-Mart, Apu informs her that he is under instructions from the producers of the reality show to vett her purchases for items that were not available in 1895 (claiming that Oreos were invented in 1896). As such, he deems the breakfast cereal Urkel-O's "delicious, but forbidden."
 
* "Law & Order: Elevator Inspectors Unit" is a reference to the TV show ''[[wikipedia:Law & Order|Law & Order]]'' and its various spin-offs.
 
* One of the figurines sitting on [[Comic Book Guy]]'s shelf is a model of the [[Wikipedia:Planet Express Ship|Planet Express Ship]] from [[Futurama]].
 
  
{{Season 14}}
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[[Category:2002]]
[[Category:Episodes]]
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[[Category:Homer episodes]]
[[Category:Season 14]]
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[[Category:Marge episodes]]
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[[Category:Bart episodes]]
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[[Category:Lisa episodes]]
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[[Category:Episodes written by one time writers]]
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[[Category:Episodes directed by Mark Kirkland]]
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[[sv:Helter Shelter]]

Latest revision as of 13:07, March 28, 2024

Season 14 Episode
295 "Large Marge"
296
"Helter Shelter"
"The Great Louse Detective" 297
For the location, see Helter Shelter (building).
"Helter Shelter"
Helter shelter.png
Episode Information
Episode number: 296
Season number: S14 E5
Production code: DABF21
Original airdate: December 1, 2002
Chalkboard gag: "Milhouse did not test cootie positive"
Couch gag: A computer mouse drags Homer, changes the color of the walls and replaces the Marge's boat painting with the Mona Lisa.
Guest star(s): David Lander as Squiggy
Larry Holmes as himself
Showrunner: Al Jean
Written by: Brian Pollack
Mert Rich
Directed by: Mark Kirkland
DVD features


"Helter Shelter" is the fifth episode of season 14 of The Simpsons and the two-hundred and ninety-sixth episode overall. It originally aired December 1, 2002. The episode was written by Brian Pollack and Mert Rich and directed by Mark Kirkland. It guest stars David Lander as Squiggy and Larry Holmes as himself.

Synopsis[edit]

"The Simpsons attend a hockey game and Lisa brings home a souvenir hockey stick, but the stick has Russian termites, which quickly infest the whole house. When they learn that the house needs to be fumigated and will be uninhabitable for six months, the family look for another place to live and join a reality TV show where they must live like a family from 1895."


Plot[edit]

Helter shelter1.png

When Homer is injured at work, his compensation is the use of a luxury sky box at a Hockey Rink. The family enjoys the luxuries, but Lisa is bored and joins the masses rink side. She gives one of the players some score tying advice and is rewarded with a goal for the Ice-O-Topes and one of their players, Kozlov's, hockey "tree". The stick is mounted in Lisa's room where later that night termites break out of the stick and do much damage to the family home. Until the Russian no-wood-nick termites can be thoroughly exterminated, which will take six months, the Simpson family is left homeless.

The family tries a number of options like staying with Lenny and Comic Book Guy, but due to these men's strange lifestyles, they end up trying out for a home on a TV show where they are required to live as though they it was the year 1895. They pass the audition and face various hardships. However, they soon cooperate with each other and start living an ideal 19th century life. When the "1895 Challenge" sinks in the ratings, the producers try to stir things up by adding the character of Squiggy from Laverne and Shirley. When that also fails, they relocate the house to a river and watch it float downstream, without warning the Simpsons beforehand. (Squiggy is presumed lost.)

Eventually the house comes to shore and falls apart. The family finds themselves without food and shelter as the TV crew eats away. They encounter a tribe of lost people from another reality program and together they fight the TV crew and producers and return to civilization, where they believe they can find quality scripted television, which soon fails.

Production[edit]


The Saga of Carl - title screen.png Wikisimpsons has a collection of images related to "Helter Shelter".
Season 14 Episodes
Treehouse of Horror XIII How I Spent My Strummer Vacation Bart vs. Lisa vs. the Third Grade Large Marge Helter Shelter The Great Louse Detective Special Edna The Dad Who Knew Too Little The Strong Arms of the Ma Pray Anything Barting Over I'm Spelling as Fast as I Can A Star Is Born Again Mr. Spritz Goes to Washington C.E. D'oh 'Scuse Me While I Miss the Sky Three Gays of the Condo Dude, Where's My Ranch? Old Yeller-Belly Brake My Wife, Please The Bart of War Moe Baby Blues