E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)

"**E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)**"
"E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)"
The Simpsons episode
	File:E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt).jpg
Episode no.	Season 11;
Directed by	Bob Anderson
Written by	Ian Maxtone-Graham
Original air date	November 7, 1999
Episode features
Couch gag	The living room is set up like a trendy nightclub (complete with a disco ball, a velvet rope, several club hoppers, and a bouncer). The bouncer lets Marge, Lisa, Bart, and Maggie in, but sends Homer away.
Commentary	Mike Scully; Ian Maxtone-Graham; George Meyer; Matt Selman; Rob Baur
Episode chronology
	The Simpsons season 11
	List of episodes

"E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)", also known as "E-I-E-I-D'oh!", is the fifth episode of the eleventh season of The Simpsons. It originally aired in the U.S. on November 7, 1999. This episode is the last to air in the AABF (tenth season) production line.

Plot

The Simpsons go to a movie theater to see The Poke of Zorro. Afterwards, Homer, imitating Zorro, frightens Snake away by challenging him to a duel by slapping him with a glove; he then starts to use his dueling glove to get anything he wants from people. First up is Moe for calling him heavyset, but after a slap, he gives Homer a free beer. Thus begins a montage to the tune of "Glove Slap" (a parody of The B-52s' song "Love Shack"). When a gun-toting, Southern colonel at the Kwik-E-Mart actually accepts Homer's challenge, Homer finds himself bound to a duel at dawn the following day. The colonel and his wife set up camp outside the house in his RV (which bears bumper stickers like "Honk if You Demand Satisfaction"), awaiting the duel.

With Homer fearing for his life, the family sneak out (Homer clinging to an old Christmas tree) and search for a temporary home. Along the way they spy Jimmy Carter's Habitat for Humanity: Homer calls Carter a lazy bum, who responds by pulling off his glove to slap him, as Homer has been doing (the house is for Cletus' family). They find Grampa's old farmhouse on Rural Route 9 outside of Springfield, where they decide to live and, despite the land's poor reputation for growing crops, Homer becomes a farmer.

Homer calls Lenny and requests that he send plutonium to make the crops grow "real big, real fast". They do eventually grow, but since Homer scattered seeds indiscriminately, his main crop is tomacco, a mix of tomato and tobacco, which tastes deadly bitter but is, in Bart's words, “smooth, mild and refreshingly addictive.” Homer and Marge set up a stall, Homer providing tomacco and Marge, fresh-baked mincemeat pie. The tomacco is such a success that executives from Laramie Cigarettes offer to buy the rights to Tomacco for $150 million.

Lisa protests that the Simpsons can't accept the tobacco executives' money (“They make billions off of the suffering and deaths of others!”), but Homer misinterprets this statement, and rejects the offer as insulting, demanding $150 billion for tomacco, which they refuse to pay. Dumped back at the farmhouse, the family see tomacco-addicted animals from other farms eating their crops. Homer saves the last plant, but when the rest of the animals attack the house, he tosses it into the air and it lands right into the hands of a Laramie executive. The Laramie executives' helicopter leaves, but a tomacco-addicted sheep has sneaked on-board and creates mayhem, causing the helicopter to fly out of control and crash, destroying the final tomacco plant and killing the executives (the sheep inexplicably survives). With all the tomacco crops gone, the Simpsons return to Springfield, forgetting that the Colonel is still there. Now that there is no getting out of the duel, the Colonel shoots Homer in the arm, but Homer says he'll only go to the hospital after he tries some of Marge's pie, and he promptly digs into one.

Cultural references

The title is a reference to E-I-E-I-O of "Old McDonald Had a Farm".
The "Glove Slap" song is a parody of the song "Love Shack". The B-52's sang both the original and the amended version used in the episode.
The Buzz Cola advertisement shown before the movie is a parody of Saving Private Ryan, directed by Steven Spielberg.
The movie the Simpsons see, The Poke of Zorro, is a parody of The Mask of Zorro.
Other films that are playing in the cinema that are parodies of other movies are: My Dinner With Jar-Jar, Mars Needs Towels, That 70's Movie, Shakespeare in Heat, Facepuncher IV, and Das Booty Call.
Meryl Streep and Posh Spice appear in the credits of the Zorro film cast as "Stupid Nun" and "Wise Nun" respectively. Anthony Hopkins' and Steve Austin name also appears in the credits.
The farmer using an elephant to measure the height of his stalks of corn is in reference to a song in the musical Oklahoma!, wherein the corn "is as high an elephant's eye".
The Simpsons farming montage music is the theme song from Green Acres.
When the Southern colonel shows up at the Simpsons' house to duel, he says "Sir, I say sir!" much like cartoon character Foghorn Leghorn. He also has a similar accent.
When Marge chastises Homer about the use of plutonium to make the crops grow, Homer refers back to the "colossal man" and the "giant grasshoppers" as justification for his actions. The "colossal man" refers directly to The Amazing Colossal Man while the "giant grasshoppers" is probably an allusion to Beginning of the End. Both films are creations of film-maker Bert I. Gordon, infamous for making B-grade movies revolving around common small organisms growing to mammoth proportions usually due to radiation exposure.
At one part, Homer tells Marge, "Sometimes you have to break the rules to free your heart." She responds, "You got that from a movie poster." This, in fact, was the tagline to the film How Stella Got Her Groove Back.
When the Poke of Zorro credits roll, the producers are noted wishing to thank:
- The National Film Board of Canada
- The Philadelphia Flyers
- The makers of “Whip Balm”
- Bob Guccione
- The “Teamsters Pension Fund”
- “AAABest Bail Bonds,” and
- “Mr. and Mrs. Curtis ‘Booger’ Armstrong”.

External links

Plot

Cultural references

See also

External links