The Seven Beer Snitch

"The Seven-Beer Snitch" is the fourteenth episode of The Simpsons' sixteenth season, first aired on April 3, 2005 in the US. It was the lowest rated episode of the sixteenth season, with 7.3 million viewers.

Synopsis

While the family visits Shelbyville, the citizens of Shelbyville call Springfield's residents "hicks." This angers Marge, who suggests to the Springfield Cultural Advisory Board that architect Frank Gehry design and build a new cultural center for Springfield. Impressed with Marge's suggestion (which she printed on stationery with Snoopy), he submits his own design which the town approves. The $30 million project is eventually finished and it opens and closes swiftly because no one in Springfield likes classical music.

This allows Mr. Burns with an idea of his own: take over the space and turn it into a state prison. Although Homer applies for a guard job, he fails the guard test once Otto switches his urine sample (loaded with so many drugs there are only trace amounts of human urine) and Homer's sample. Burns wants Chief Wiggum to bring back some old and forgotten laws in order to fill his prison with convicts. After Homer kicks a can 5 times in a row, he is thrown into jail for illegal transport of litter.

Homer goes to jail, and when he is there, he snitches on Snake's escape attempt. Burns makes Homer a prison snitch. Fat Tony and his goons want to learn about the snitch and tell Homer about a breakout. The guards are waiting outside for the breakout, but a riot from the prisoners who want to get Homer breaks out. It is stopped, with Homer snitching about the prison's conditions.

Meanwhile, Bart and Lisa find out that Snowball II has been gaining weight due largely in part to eating food from another family's house. They also reveal that she has another family. The new family adopts her and names her "Smokey". Smokey likes her new family, and Bart attempts to get her out, but the family fills up Bart with good food.

Trivia

• Frank Gehry is the first architect to appear on The Simpsons. There are several references to his unorthodox designs, such as Gehry crumpling a lertter and throwing it, only to discover that it's the perfect building design.
• Charles Napier plays the warden in this episode.
• You can briefly see a shot of one-off Simpsons character Boobarella while Homer is watching TV in prison.
• This is the second time various family members have gone to Shelbyville. The first was in Lemon of Troy.

Cultural References

• The title is a play on Billy Wilder's 1955 comedy The Seven Year Itch.
• The various prison scenes parody several different movies and TV shows, most notably Oz and Escape from Alcatraz.
• Marge refers to Fat Tony's son as Michael, a possible play at the movie The Godfather.

Quotes

• Snake: No Frank Gehry-designed prison can hold me! Ha, ha!
• Mr. Burns: [After Otto switches his and Homer's urine sample] Simpson! I haven't see so many drugs in a wang, since I ran a Chinese opium den! Crack, smack, uppers, downers, outers, inners, horse tranquilizers, cow paralyzers, blue bombers, green goofers, yellow submarines, LSD Mach-3, and trace amounts of... dewewehhhh, human urine!?!?
• Homer: Fly, Segway! Fly!
• Lisa: They're saying Springfielders are stupid hicks!
  Brandine: It's like lookin' in a mirror.
  Cletus: What's a mirror?
  Brandine: It's a big city word for reversifin' glass.
• Homer: Is that a gang tattoo? I thought those weren't allowed.
  Drederick Tatum: Yes, it's a gang I was in as a kid. GMS, "Galactic Mystery Solvers". Oh, the only mystery we couldn't solve was how not to grow up.
• Fat Tony: Gentlemen, we must determine which of our fellow inmates has become the rodentis incarcenarium.
  Louie: You heard the boss. Find the rat.
  Johnny Tightlips: I found the rat and he's right here.
  Frankie the Squealer: I ain't the rat! I'm the pigeon!
  Legs: I thought you was the mole.
  Johnny: No, you're thinking of that guy who was the canary. But we can all agree. We work in a business with a very rich lexicon.
  Mobsters: Rich lexicon. Yes, very rich.
• Fat Tony (finds Homer and Marge): Well, if it isn't the rat, and his wife, who sometimes drives my son home from school.
  Marge: Oh, you must be Michael's dad. audio clip
• Governor Mary Bailey: Well, since there is no room for you at the prisons you came from, I going to have you all put on a garbage barge where you will bareknuckle box each other until one of you emerges as king of your floating hell.
• Mayor Quimby: You stupid hicks! Why didn't you tell me you hated classical music?
  Carl: We didn't have the time.
  Lenny: The concert hall was designed and built so quickly.
  Quimby: Oh, we're broke, but I have a plan. We change the name of our town to escape our creditors. I need names people!
  Lenny: Lima, Peru!
  Carl: Gotham City!
  Wiggum: Wiggum-ville!
  Barney: Burger King!
• Burns (after Homer agrees to be a snitch): Now, what have you got for me?
  Homer: (whispering) Homer Simpson has become a snitch.
  Burns: (grunt)! Tell me something I don't know!
  Homer (still whispering): Sometimes I go to the movies... alone! audio clip