El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer
"El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer"
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Episode Information
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- "''"Find your soulmate, Homer."
"
"El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer (The Mysterious Voyage of Homer)" (a.k.a. The Mysterious Voyage of Our Homer) is the ninth episode in the eighth season of The Simpsons. It features surreal animation as Homer has an elaborate chili-induced hallucination. A more accurate translation of the episode title from Spanish is "The Mysterious Trip of Our 'Jomer'." Nuestro is Spanish for "our," and "Jomer" is a Spanish pronunciation wordplay on "Homer" (in Spanish, the letter J is pronounced as an English H).
Special Guest Voice Johhny Cash provides the voice of Homer's Spirit Guide, who appears to him as a coyote during his hallucination.
Plot
It's time for the annual Springfield Chili Cook-Off. Marge tries to keep Homer from finding out about it, due to his drunken behavior at last year's Chili Cook-Off. Homer learns of it anyway, however, and Marge agrees to go after Homer promises not to drink any beer. At the Chili Cook-Off, Homer demonstrates an extraordinary ability to withstand hot foods, until he falls victim to Chief Wiggum's chili spiked with "The Merciless Peppers of Quetzlzacatenango." The peppers bring on a mescaline-esque hallucination in a bizarre world wherein Homer encounters a snake, a tortoise, a pyramid which grows to an enormous height, and even destroys the sun. He meets his spirit guide, a coyote voiced by Johnny Cash. The coyote advises Homer to find his soulmate, and questions Homer's assumption that he has already found her in Marge.
When Homer regains his senses, he rationalizes his dream. For example, he compares the desert he wandered in to the real-life location where he woke up (a golf course's sand trap) and the pyramid to the course's pro shop. After returning home, he finds Marge (who thinks that he got drunk, thus breaking his promise) angry with him for his odd behaviour at the cook-off. Feeling that Marge doesn't understand him at all, and remembering the coyote's words, Homer sets off on his own quest to find his soulmate. After looking among the patrons in Moe's Tavern and responding to a Personals ad placed by "GBM," Homer happens to see the lighthouse and concludes that the lighthouse operator must be the loneliest guy in town.
Homer goes to the lighthouse and is elated to see a sign reading "This lighhouse operated by EARL." Shouting "No more loneliness for Homer and Earl," Homer goes inside to meet his new friend. He is frustrated, however, to discover that the lighthouse is operated by a machine: E.A.R.L., short for Electronic Automatic Robotic Lighthouse. Homer destroys the lighthouse's light in a bout of recklessness, but Marge arrives and they fix it, warning a ship that's just about to run aground. They decide they really are soulmates, and Homer mocks what he calls the “space coyote.” Unfortunately, the ship runs aground anyway, spilling its precious cargo of hot pants.
