Goo Goo Gai Pan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2009) |
| The Simpsons episode | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| "Goo Goo Gai Pan" | |||||
 |
|||||
| Homer, Selma, Ling, and Madam Wu (Lucy Liu) | |||||
| Episode no. | 347 | ||||
| Prod. code | GABF06 | ||||
| Orig. airdate | March 13, 2005 | ||||
| Written by | Dana Gould (under the name Lawrence Talbot) | ||||
| Directed by | Lance Kramer | ||||
| Couch gag | The living room is dark, with many eyes present. The lights go up, and many secondary characters appear behind a banner that reads, "Surprise!" The Simpsons come in and the characters yell, "SURPRISE!" Homer suddenly has a heart attack and passes out. | ||||
| Guest star(s) | Robert Wagner as himself Lucy Liu as Madam Wu |
||||
|
|||||
"Goo Goo Gai Pan" is the twelfth episode from the sixteenth season of The Simpsons, which originally aired on March 13, 2005.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
Selma gives Mr. Burns his driving test to replace his old license, which expired in 1909. During the test, she experiences a hot flash (so hot that she melts snow in a matter of seconds) and is later taken to the hospital. Dr. Hibbert tells her that she is experiencing menopause (which is explained in a video with Robert Wagner). She is saddened that now she cannot have children. Patty suggests that she adopt a child. She almost manages to adopt one of Cletus' many babies, but that falls through after Cletus reclaims the child. Lisa advises Selma to adopt a child from China. Although her forms are in order, Selma learns that she has to be married to legally get a child. When she finds out that the agency-person knows who MacGyver is, she puts down the second name she can think of: Homer Simpson.
She sponsors a trip to China for the Simpsons. While on the plane, Selma informs Homer that he must pretend to be her husband. As the Simpsons fly into Beijing Capital International Airport, Homer looks out the window and sees a statue of a Chinese take-out carton and says, "It makes the Lincoln Memorial look like crap." He is shocked, but later decides to do it for Marge. When they arrive, Selma claims that Bart and Lisa are their own children and Marge is their nanny. The Chinese adoption agent, Madam Wu (voiced by Lucy Liu), tells them that they will get a baby in a few days. The Simpsons visit the Great Wall of China and take in a Chinese production of Death of a Salesman which leaves Homer weeping and declaring that he finally "gets this play." When asked about his job in America, reasoning that he has no chance of being outed, Homer claims he is a Chinese acrobat.
As luck would have it, at an acrobatics show, it is announced that the main performer had a sudden attack of "outspokenness" and suffered a "bullet-related death". When people start to realize that the Communist Party of China is not infallible and start questioning everything, Homer is told to perform to forestall an impending riot. The stunt (named "Chair Man Wow") involves being catapulted onto a high stack of chairs. The stunt goes off smoothly, but Homer's over-enthusiastic chanting of "U-S-A!" causes the stack to topple and he gets severely injured and is treated in a hospital, where he is treated with acupuncture needles (which are revealed to actually be porcupine quills). There, Selma gets her daughter, whom she names Ling, who likes to grab Homer's eyes. Selma thanks Homer for doing the right thing and decides to leave him to snuggle with Marge for a while. When everyone leaves, Homer and Marge snuggle. Unbeknownst to them, Madam Wu is watching them through holes in the nose of a portrait of Chairman Mao.
As the Simpsons and Selma are about to leave, Madam Wu arrives and takes Ling away, as Homer and Selma aren't married. At the airport, The Simpsons try to console a despondent Selma. Lisa has an idea of getting Ling back. At the nursery, they dress and spray paint Homer as a cross-legged golden Buddha statue. According to the customs of feng shui, the Buddha statue must be taken indoors. The Chinese guards try pushing him in, but he is too heavy. They insert a hook into his nostril and drag him into the nursery, which is very painful for Homer. When they leave, Homer goes inside the nursery to search for Ling.
The Simpsons, Selma and Ling pass through Tiananmen Square, a place where, according to the Chinese shown in the episode, "nothing happened" in 1989. Suddenly, Madam Wu, in a tank, confronts them and demands the baby back in a way similar to the Tank Man. After an impassioned speech from Selma, Madam Wu agrees to allow Selma to adopt Ling. Apparently, Wu herself had been raised by her mother alone, as her father was choked to death by a ping-pong ball the day before the Heimlich maneuver was invented, explaining her leniency (though she does stop Homer from smuggling a giant panda cub out of China). Selma, Ling, and the Simpsons depart China by junk except for Bart, who has been replaced by a Chinese child spy who is masquerading as him to deceive Homer. The episode ends with 3 dragons flying in the sky and singing and playing an erhu.
[edit] Trivia
In this episode, Homer refers to Marge as his nanny. Marge calls Homer Mr. Simpson. This may refer to Fran Drescher's The Nanny in which Fran calls Maxwell Mister Sheffield.
[edit] Reception
The episode has become study material for sociology courses at University of California Berkeley, where it is used to "examine issues of the production and reception of cultural objects, in this case, a satirical cartoon show", and to figure out what it is "trying to tell audiences about aspects primarily of American society, and, to a lesser extent, about other societies." Some questions asked in the courses include: "What aspects of American society are being addressed in the episode? What aspects of them are used to make the points? How is the satire conveyed: through language? Drawing? Music? Is the behavior of each character consistent with his/her character as developed over the years? Can we identify elements of the historical/political context that the writers are satirizing? What is the difference between satire and parody?"[1]
[edit] References
- ^ Thomas B. Gold (2008). "The Simpsons Global Mirror". University of California Berkeley. http://sociology.berkeley.edu/documents/undergrads/syllabi/Soc190_1.pdf.
 |
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: "Goo Goo Gai Pan" |
