The Wettest Stories Ever Told
"The Wettest Stories Ever Told"
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Episode Information
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The Wettest Stories Ever Told is the 18th episode of The Simpsons' Seventeenth Season
This is one of several Simpsons episodes which are considered anthology episodes that features mini-stories.
Contents
Synopsis
A dinner at the Frying Dutchman gone wrong turns into an excuse for another anthology show, this time with a nautical theme - Lisa tells about the Mayflower voyage, Bart tells about mutiny in Tahiti, and Homer tells about capsizing cruise ships.
Lisa's Story (The Journey of The Mayflower)
Marge, Bart, and Lisa board the Mayflower to head for the new world, but just as they do, Homer runs ahead of them and hides in a barrel. They see the police looking for him, and they take pity on him as they hear him praying (he is actually praying that the police instead of him). Even so, they take him with them and dress him up like them. Marge immediately grows on Homer, but Moe likes her as well and is instantly jealous of their friendship. To get Homer out of the way, Moe takes him down to the storage room where all the beer is held and tells him to drink whenever a wave hits the boat. He gets drunk, and Captain Flanders and Reverend Lovejoy find him and other passengers partying. Moe blames Homer, and they place him in a stock. Then, a storm approaches, and Flanders gets knocked out. Homer claims that he steers better when he is drunk, and while drinking a bottle of wine, he leads them safely out of the storm. He and Marge get together, and they all make it to the New World. While having the first Thanksgiving with the Native Americans, Flanders says that he's almost sorry for what the Pilgrims will do to them later.
Bart's Story (Mutiny on the Bounty)
The HMAV Bounty sets sail from England, commanded by Captain Bligh (Skinner). Bligh severely mistreats his crew, tossing their mail off or confiscating it for himself. They arrive in Tahiti, where the crew have an unforgettable vacation, (Bligh later orders them to forget the vacation). Willie warns him of a mutiny, but Bligh ignores him. Eventually, First Mate Bart Christian (guess who) leads a mutiny. Bligh now realising Willie may have been right says they could have a suggestion box, before Nelson points out that Bligh already made one out of the head of the last guy who had a suggestion. They send Bligh and Willie off in a lifeboat. Bligh mistreats Willie and taunts him into mutiny and is sent away on a sea turtle who he then starts to mistreat before it dives. Captain Bart orders the crews to set sail for Tahiti...then he throws away the ship's wheel and they crash into Antarctica.
Homer's Story (The Neptune Adventure)
Homer's story takes place on the luxury liner Neptune on New Year's Eve. At midnight, Captain Burns fails to notice a massive freak wave and the ship capsizes. Led by Selma, survivors Homer, Bart, Lisa, Marge, Lenny, Carl, Comic Book Guy, Old Jewish Man (and his wife), and Sideshow Mel ignore Purser Wiggum's advice to stay put in the ball room and decide to climb up the decks to the engine room. While climbing up through the smokestack, Lenny panics and falls to his death. They encounter rooms in flame, tigers, and Homer doing his business in an upside-down bathroom. Jeff Albertson (Comic Book Guy) swims through a flooded deck to help the others get to the engine room, but he has a heart attack and dies. The group makes it to the engine room, but Sideshow Mel's hair is set on fire because of a blowtorch from the rescue team and he passes out. The rest of the original group makes it off the ship, at which point they encounter the walking skeletons of the Bounty crew, who are still trying to get back to Tahiti. Here is the following dialog:
Bart Parody: Can ya give us directions to Tahiti?
Jimbo & Dolph Parodieds: Maybe we should get a new captian that UNDERSTANDS DIRECTIONS!!!!!!!!!!!
Bart Parody: Hey at least I'm not gay for skeleton Kerney.
(camera pans out to reveal that Jimbo & Dolph Paodies rib cages are caught on Kerneys )
Dolph Parody: Our ribs got tangled 75 years ago, thats not gay.
Bart Parody: That's what you want us to think.
Trivia
- In the US, a trailer for the film Poseidon aired during the episode's commercial breaks before Homer's story (a remake of the original film The Poseidon Adventure).
- Among the people on the Neptune are Moe, Disco Stu, Krusty, Kirk (Milhouse's dad), Luigi, Agnes, Apu, Miss Hoover, Barney, and Dr. Hibbert.
- This episode is the third in the seventeenth season to have the word 'stories' or 'story' in it, the other two being Simpsons Christmas Stories and The Seemingly Never-Ending Story.
- After only six weeks, this is another episode in the seventeenth season to be a multi-story episode, or to be split into three sections. This is like the Treehouse of Horror series or other similar three-part episodes like Trilogy of Error, from season 12.
- The fourth wall is broken when Moe tells the audience that Old Englishmen spoke with th at the end of sentences, along with the inclusion of thee, ye and thou. Moe has similarly addressed the audience in one of flashback scenes in, The Way We Weren't.
- Homer and Moe's aggressive competition over Marge's love (as shown in Lisa's story) has been an ongoing gag in the show that especially references to Season 16 (Mommie Beerest).
- At the end of "The Neptune Adventure," we see the crew of the HMS Bounty coming out of the mist, only for them to look like skeletons, a possible reference to Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.
- Bart appears twice in "The Neptune Adventure"; as himself throughout the story, and as Bart Christian/"Capt. Bart-bossa" at the end.
- The original North American airdate was intended to be April 16; however, it was replaced by The Last of the Red Hat Mamas.
- Homer, Marge and Bart are the only characters to appear in all three stories.
Cultural References
- The title of this episode is a reference to the film "The Greatest Story Ever Told".
- This episode also references Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner". In the first story, after the storm breaks off, Homer notices an albatross which he eats. Unlike the poem, this action does not lead to unfortunate incidents. The final act with the appearance of the Bounty could possibly be a reference to the appearance of the ghost ship.
- Homer's story is a parody of The Poseidon Adventure, an action film. There are several similarities between Homer's story and The Poseidon Adventure. Several characters die in ways similar to the movie: Lenny falls off a ladder into surging water and Comic Book Guy dies while trying to tie a rope underwater, both quite similar to the deaths of major characters in the movie. This episode also aired just weeks before the remake of the movie, titled Poseidon, premiered.
- The song played at the beginning of Homer's story is "Rock The Boat" by the Hues Corporation.
- Comic Book Guy's "inspirational music" is "Alone Again (Naturally)" by Gilbert O'Sullivan.
- "Island in the Sun" by Weezer plays during the montage of the Bounty crew in Tahiti.
- When the Bounty crew is in Tahiti, the theme instrumental music that is played is similar to that written in the musical movie South Pacific.
- At the end of Homer's story, the crew of the Bounty reappears as living skeletons, parodying Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.
- Lisa sings a parody of "The Morning After" from The Poseidon Adventure, which foreshadows the upcoming destruction of the S.S. Neptune.
- Burns makes references to Earthquake, The Towering Inferno, The China Syndrome, and The Apple Dumpling Gang, which were popular disaster films of the 1970s (except for The Apple Dumpling Gang).
- The ship in Homer's story is called the Neptune. "Neptune" was the Roman god of the sea; the Greek name for the same deity was "Poseidon".
- Scenes of Bart standing on the mast of the Bounty, and the use of music by Luigi Boccherini, are references to the film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.
Goofs
- Marge is allergic to fish and probably shouldn't be in The Frying Dutchman. Even if she doesn't eat anything, inhaling fish particles in the air and on the tables or dishes might make her very ill.
