Million Dollar Maybe

"Million Dollar Maybe"
The Simpsons episode
Episode no.	Season 21
Directed by	Chris Clements
Written by	Chris Clements Bill Odenkirk
Original air date	January 31, 2010
Episode features
Couch gag	Homer runs to the couch first. He pulls out an iPhone, presses the "Couch Gag" app and downloads Bart, Lisa, Marge, and Maggie. When Homer gets an incoming call from Mr. Burns, he screams and swallows the phone.

"Million Dollar Maybe" is the eleventh episode of The Simpsons' twenty-first season. It aired on Fox Network in the United States on January 31, 2010. The band Coldplay guest starred as themselves in the episode. In this episode, Homer wins $1 million in the lottery, but, fearing that Marge will discover that he missed a wedding reception while buying the winning ticket, Homer uses his windfall to buy the family anonymous gifts. Meanwhile, Lisa uses a Funtendo Zii to make life more interesting for Grampa Simpson and his friends at the Springfield Retirement Home. This is the second episode to have a parody title of the film Million Dollar Baby, with the first being Million Dollar Abie.

Plot

Homer and Marge are scheduled to do a singing toast at their cousin Valerie's wedding, causing Marge to become nervous, due to her fear of embarrassment. However, Homer tells her not to worry, saying that he will make sure they do not mess up. Homer gets a fortune cookie stating that today will be his lucky day, but he does not believe so. However, he starts to believe it is when he crashes into a vending machine causing all of the snacks to fall out on him, and finds his favorite CD in the parking lot (Emerson, Lake & Palmer's greatest hits) and listens to the track "Lucky Man" singing along. He then goes to the Kwik-E-Mart for a lottery ticket, even though he has to go to the wedding and sing with Marge. After a long wait, Homer gets his lottery ticket, but the wedding has ended, with a terribly embarrassed Marge. When he takes his eyes off the road for a second, he crashes off the ramp. Homer wakes up in the hospital after the crash, and realizes he won the million dollar lottery. Homer does not want Marge to know he missed the wedding to get a lottery ticket, and has Barney pose as the winner. Not wanting Marge to know he won the money, he drops things his family wants in different places, like a washing machine in a bush he throws Bart into to get a Frisbee. However, when Homer tries to get money out of the tree he hid it in but gets it stuck, Bart discovers that he won the lottery, and tells Homer that if he does not do what he asks, he will tell Marge that he went to the Kwik-E-Mart instead of the wedding. Tired of being Bart's slave, Homer decides to tell Marge himself and get it over with. Taking Marge on a hot-air balloon, he reveals he won the lottery, causing Marge to become very glad and not furious about his absence at the wedding, until he tells her he spent it all, leaving them poor as usual. However, Marge does not care, saying at least they have each other. Homer then reveals he spent the last of the money on a giant cherry blossom grove in the shape of Marge's face with the words "Love of my Life". They then sing the song they were supposed to sing at the wedding together, off in the sunset. As they float by, there is another grove shaped as a relieved Homer saying 'Phew'.

In the sub-plot, Lisa discovers that the senior citizens at Grampa's nursing home do not have any entertainment, and decides to buy them a digital TV converter. However, while at the store to buy it, she discovers Mr. Burns feeling very happy playing Funtendo Zii Sports. She decides to buy this for the senior citizens, hoping they will feel younger and happier. When playing the Zii (a parody of the Nintendo Wii), the senior citizens feel very happy and feel younger. This forces the nurses at the home to work extra hard after their workout, prompting them to wash the Zii in the dishwasher (an old video game joke about consoles being dishwasher safe), causing it to break. Lisa becomes angry at the nurses for doing it on purpose, thus showing their disregard for the senior citizens. However, the nurses blow her off. The senior citizens then return to their boring selves, staring at TV static.

Production

Chris Martin of Coldplay guest starred as himself in the episode.

Singer Chris Martin of the band Coldplay guest starred as himself in the episode. Coldplay drummer Will Champion commented on the appearance: "We actually went to a read-through for an episode about seven years ago. We were staying in Los Angeles and our friend—our manager—I think knows someone to do with the whole program. So we just went down and had a listen, while all the actors were reading their lines and we were just blown away that we were even there. From then, we just thought it would be amazing to make it on an episode. It's definitely one of those moments where you have to pinch yourself. It's been around for so long."

The episode featured a new character created by the winner of the "Best. Character. Ever." contest, in which fans could submit their own ideas for a new, and possibly recurring, Simpsons character. Over 25,000 entries were sent in. The winner of the contest was Peggy Black from Orange, Connecticut, who created the character Ricardo Bomba. She described Ricardo as "someone that all the women love and all the men want to be." Black's inspiration for the character came from the fact that there were no characters like him on The Simpsons, and she thought Springfield needed "something like a Casanova." As part of the winning prize, Black was sent to work with the show's producers in Los Angeles. She worked with the animators to bring the character to life; "I described the character and they drew him so I could see if that was my vision of him. It's amazing to see how they captured what I imagined. He's over the top." Executive producer Al Jean was one of the judges of the contest, which he described as "a thank you to loyal fans." Jean also noted that there is a possibility the Ricardo character might appear on the show again although this seems unlikely since the character appears to have been killed in a fiery car crash.

Reception

In its original American broadcast, "Million Dollar Maybe" was viewed by 5.11 million viewers and got a 18-49 Nielsen rating of 2.4/6 becoming the least viewed episode of the season (and also the lowest rated in the show's history), mostly because it aired against the Grammy Awards and Pro Bowl and was well below the seasonal average of 4.3, but still was the second most viewed show on Fox that night after Family Guy. The episode ranked 23rd in the weekly 18-49 ratings ranking 10th on Fox. The episode received a good review from The Onion's A.V. Club's Todd VanDerWerff, who gave it a B, the best grade of the night. IGN's Robert Canning gave the episode an 8.1 saying that it was "Impressive" and that "This was a fun and funny episode focused on Homer and his always dysfunctional relationship with his family -- just what we've come to love and expect after 20 years." Jason Hughes of The TV Squad gave the episode a more mixed review saying that "while I appreciated his attempts to hide his fortune by simply buying his family the things they want and need on an anonymous basis, even that was taken too far. Hell, it started with a random washing machine in the park, and Marge didn't even question it being there. Add to that the more surreal things like Lisa's planetarium light show coming up out of the floor in her room and you've got the dumbest family ever. Marge even believed a note from "the gummint."

External links

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