It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Marge
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"It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Marge" is the twenty-first episode of the eleventh season of The Simpsons. It aired on May 14, 2000 on Fox. It guest starred Parker Posey as Becky.
[edit] Plot
Each child in Bart’s class is loaned a video camera for a school project to create a movie. Otto drives the school bus to a drive-through restaurant where his girlfriend, Becky, works. Otto proposes to her, and she accepts. On Bart’s suggestion, they decide to have the wedding at the Simpson house and sends out flyers. Marge reluctantly agrees, since she still has everything from Apu's wedding. The wedding is a success up until the point when Otto gets a Poison tribute band (cyanide) to play Nothing but a Good Time. Becky admits to Marge that she hates heavy metal music. At the wedding, Marge suggests to Becky that she gives Otto an ultimatum: it is either her or heavy metal. The wedding is called off as Otto drives off in the school bus with the band. The wedding guests then return the wedding gifts.
Becky stays with the Simpson family on Bart's suggestion, due to the fact that Marge ruined another wedding. Marge consoles her, but begins to worry that her family likes Becky more than her. Eventually, she becomes paranoid that Becky is trying to kill her after her car would not stop on a steep road. Chief Wiggum claims that he cannot help her. Becky and the rest of the family meet without Marge at an ice cream parlour, and Becky tells everyone that she has found a new apartment and is moving out. After she buys an unusually large bowl of ice cream, Homer freaks out upon the presence of so much ice cream and suddenly collapses. Becky gives him mouth-to-mouth but Marge comes in thinking she is kissing him. She grabs a cone and smashes it like a glass bottle to attack Becky. She is arrested and declared insane.
Marge then escapes from the courtroom and becomes a notorious fugitive and butt of jokes. When she goes to the library to see who Becky really is, she realizes that she is insane after finding nothing bad about her. Finally, she returns home, only to find Homer tied up in what looks like an S & M tableau, Lisa's arms and legs stuck to the wall, Maggie stuck in a cage, and Becky holding a knife in her hands. When she is about to "kill" Homer, Marge snatches the knife from her and strangles her. It turns out that Bart is filming a scene in his movie for the school (now a music video). Homer also revealed that while he was fixing Marge's car, he accidentally drained the brake fluid. However when Marge apologizes Becky admits she was going to kill Marge and steal her family, but she had no shovel. After looking for a good shovel, she called it off. The doctors show up and shoot three tranquilizer darts into Marge's neck, which do not take effect. Homer finally shoots an additional dart into her to make her fall asleep after she orders Homer to do scrubbing and mopping, since he was "dressed for the job anyway".
[edit] Cultural references
- When Becky describes where she met Otto at Woodstock 99, a snippet of "Show Me What You Got" from Limp Bizkit is played.
- The title is a parody of the film It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
- The plot is a parody of the film The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, and even Patty and Selma mention the title at one point.
- When Otto is proposing to Becky, he plays the song, Every Rose Has Its Thorn on his boombox, in a nod to a similar scene in Say Anything..., (although in the movie the character with the boombox is not on a bus, and he plays "In Your Eyes" (he is dressed like Otto, however).
- When Otto proposes, he put on a top hat, referencing former Guns n Roses and present Velvet Revolver guitarist Slash.
- Otto's father is a U.S. Navy Admiral, a reference to George Stephen Morrison, Jim Morrison's father who was also a Navy Admiral.
- Krusty's interview scene is a spoof of the "Celebrity Interviews" skit on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Also, the Mad Marge Dancers dancing to Sabre Dance references the Dancing Lance Itos from The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
- Homer sings a variation of David Bowie's song, Changes.
- Otto sends out his wedding invitations on Zig-Zag paper.
- Patty's quote that "The bitterness is strong in this one." is a reference to Darth Vader's quote about Luke Skywalker in the first Star Wars movie.
- When Homer sucks out the wedding cake filling with a straw out of a box labeled "HJS", the "James Bond" theme is played.
- The "Poison" tribute band is named "Cyanide", which is one of the most popular poisons to date.
- Bart says that at school the kids tell each other if you say "Bloody Margie" to a mirror five times she appears and gouges your eyes out. This is a reference to the popular children's rhymes and myths based on serial killers, in particular the Bloody Mary myth.
- Homer's quote that she "mates with men, then eats them", fits the description of a "Black Widow" spider or a Praying Mantis, often also associated with murderous wives.
- Becky later has a cameo in The Simpsons Movie after seeing Bart naked during his skateboard dare.
- When Bart films Homer changing the oil, he talks like Rod Serling from "The Twilight Zone".
- When Marge immediately gets up after being shot with a sleeping dart, the doctor remarks that there was enough tranquilizers in the dart to take out Jonathan Winters. The title of the episode references a comedy show by Winters entitled It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
[edit] External links
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Marge" |
- "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Marge" episode capsule at The Simpsons Archive
- "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Marge" at the Internet Movie Database
