Marge Gamer

"Marge Gamer"
The Simpsons episode
Episode no.	Season 18
Directed by	Bob Anderson
Written by	J. Stewart Burns
Original air date	April 22, 2007
Episode features
Couch gag	A copy of The Springfield Shopper spins into frame. The headline reads, “COUCH GAG THRILLS NATION” with a photo of The Simpsons on the couch

Marge Gamer is the seventeenth episode of The Simpsons' eighteenth season, which was originally broadcast on April 22, 2007. It was written by J. Stewart Burns and featured a guest appearance from Brazilian football star Ronaldo. This episode was first broadcast three days after the twenty-year anniversary of the first ever appearance of The Simpsons on television, in the Tracy Ullman short Good Night.

Plot

Marge is embarrassed at a Parent-Teacher Association meeting because she does not have an e-mail address, and she decides to buy her own computer. She is quite taken by the Internet, and starts playing a Fantasy MMORPG called Earthland Realms after refreshing her e-mail and finding an ad for it. The game has her interacting with practically the whole town of Springfield, including Apu the gem trader, Seymour Skinner the turkey, Moe who looks like a troll but is not, Mrs. Krabappel the enchantress, Snake the Cobra King, Chief Wiggum the pig man, Smithers the Barbarian, Comic Book Guy the fully armored crusader-like warrior, and Sideshow Mel as a creature who looks surprisingly like a Tauren. Suddenly everyone hides and closes the windows of their shops and houses as a knight atop a black horse named "The Shadow Knight" appears. Apu grabs Marge and Skinner is flamed by the knight's flame sword. It turns out he is the most powerful and deadly character in the game. While off the game, Marge does the laundry and unintentionally hears Bart say "Another senseless killing by the Shadowknight", learning that he is the Shadowknight. After this, she states "My son is an evil knight! The most successful evil knight in the whole of Earthland Realms. Not bad!"

Meanwhile, Homer referees Lisa's football game and his subpar skills frustrate Lisa. Stung by her criticism, he learns the rules of football and becomes a better referee, briefly impressing Lisa. Lisa twice pretends to be fouled hoping that Homer would admit it. At first he does but when Ronaldo points out that Lisa is a "flopper", Homer gives Lisa a yellow card. When she rips up the yellow card, he gives her a red card for bad sportsmanship and throws her out of the game. As a result, Lisa gets mad at him.

Marge goes to the Shadowknight's castle and meets Milhouse, cursed to look like a female servant as a result of an evil spell. In the online game Marge constantly frets about Bart, who goes around causing carnage, and redecorates his "trophy room" with the Hello Kitty expansion pack. Bart smashes all of these decorations with his weapon and accidentally kills Marge's character in his fit of rage, severely disappointing Marge.

Homer and Bart go to Moe's Tavern to escape their troubles. Moe gives quality advice to Homer and Bart. After Homer says" What have you done with the real Moe?!", it is revealed that Moe is actually trapped and tied up. Acting on Moe's advice, Bart makes up for killing his mother's character by reviving her with two thirds of his life force. While "Elf Marge" tends to the Shadowknight, the other characters raid the castle to take advantage of his weakness and graphically kill him. Homer gives Lisa a BBC documentary produced in cooperation with Canal+ about "floppers",in the intent to her forgive him, and she realizes that she was at fault, But, in stent to forgive homer, she apologizes for her injustice against Homer. Marge refuses to come outside as the rest of the family plays soccer outside with Ronaldo. Feeling sorry for Bart, she becomes the new Shadowknight and avenges Bart by eliminating everyone who participated in killing him, first starting with Moe's character, while juggling his head like a football ball, making Moe wonder why he pays $14.95 a month to play the game.

Shown in the episode are Krusty's illegitimate daughter Sophie and Reverend and Helen Lovejoy's daughter Jessica, not seen since the fifteenth season. Other Google results for "Marge Simpson" showed that Marge attended Camp Landaman when she was younger, was a failure as a real estate agent in Realty Bites and was a sucessful ice-cream-stick artist.

Reception

Adam Finley of TV Squad felt "the Homer/Lisa story might have worked better as the main plot, but even that segment of the episode was hindered by a terrible guest voice in soccer player Ronaldo". He went on to say: "I hate it when non-actors do guest voices on The Simpsons" and that "bad voice acting becomes much more of a distraction". Also it was noticed that most characters' voices were raised in pitch.

Cultural references

• Marge plays a game called "Earthland Realms" which is a parody of MMORPGs (possibly World of Warcraft), most obviously RuneScape due to the fact the game is played through a web browser.
• The music playing as the statue of the Virgin Mary beats the "living snot" out of the Brazilian football team is Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber.
• Marge says that she has the same birthday as Randy Quaid. She was only referring to the actual date, this means Marge was born on October 1; if they are exactly the same age then Marge was also born in 1950, which seems out of continuity for the series, also in the earlier episode "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore" Marge says her birthday is in May.
• When the Shadow Knight is getting killed by the mob, the killing sequence was a parody of Monty Python and the Holy Grail when King Arthur is killing the Black Knight.
• Marge is using a Macbook, and Bart is using a computer looking like a Macintosh IIfx.
• This episode is similar to the plot of the American Dad! episode "Dungeons and Wagons", which aired months before it.
• In the Brazilian dub, Homer shouts "Zidane!" when headbutting the linesman. This is a reference to Zinedine Zidane's infamous headbutt on Marco Materazzi at the 2006 FIFA World Cup final match. Lisa's reason for taking up soccer is inspiration from seeing Bend It Like Beckham.
• When Homer rips his shirt off after scoring a goal, it's a reference to when Brandi Chastain scored a goal in the 1999 World Cup final against China.

External links

• "Marge Gamer" at TV.com
• "Marge Gamer" at the Internet Movie Database
• "EarthlandRealms.com" website devoted to the episode "Marge Gamer"