Lady Bouvier's Lover

"Lady Bouvier's Lover"
The Simpsons episode
File:LadyBouviersLover2.jpg
Episode no.	Season 5
Directed by	Wesley Archer
Written by	Bill Oakley & Josh Weinstein
Original air dates	May 12, 1994
Episode features
Chalkboard gag	"I will not retransmit without the express written permission of Major League Baseball."
Couch gag	The family runs to the couch, but when they get there, they break and shatter like glass.
Commentary	Matt Groening David Mirkin Bill Oakley Josh Weinstein Wes Archer

"Lady Bouvier's Lover" is the twenty-first episode of The Simpsons' fifth season, which originally aired on May 12, 1994. It was written by Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein, and directed by Wesley Archer.

Plot

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Homer's vision of children as horrible freaks

Maggie has her first birthday, and the whole family gathers to celebrate. Homer makes Maggie's cake and spells "Maggagie" instead of Maggie. He starts taking letters off until it says Maggie then more. Marge says he has a cake to wreck. At the party, Grampa is feeling lonely, and when he is bored, Marge suggests she set up a date for him with her mother. One night on the town,Mrs. Bouvier goes dancing with Mr. Burns, whom she finds to be more dashing. Meanwhile, Bart hears about an Itchy & Scratchy animation cel which costs $350 when he is watching a TV shopping channel (it is revealed to be nothing more than an arm). He buys one with one of Homer's credit cards. Mr. Burns declares that he is in love with Mrs. Bouvier, against Marge's interests. Bart gets $350 from Mr. Burns to pay Homer back.

It is the day of the wedding, and Mr. Burns and Marge's mother attempt to marry. Only minutes before Mrs. Bouvier becomes Mrs. Montgomery Burns, in a scene similar to one from The Graduate, Grampa crashes the ceremony by asking that Mrs. Bouvier marry him instead of Mr. Burns. Partly due to Burns's obnoxious behavior, she declares that she does not want to marry either man, which is good enough for Grampa, he grabs Jackie and they hop on a bus and look anxious about their future.

Cultural references

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Charlie Chaplin's reference

• The title is a play on the 1928 D. H. Lawrence novel Lady Chatterley's Lover.
• Bart and Lisa sing (under protest) the 1980s advertising jingle used for Armour and Company's brand of hot dogs. Everyone (except for Lisa, who ask if they only know songs from TV commercials) then sings the advertising jingle for Chicken Tonight, complete with chicken dance moves.
• Grandpa is hassled twice by lawyers representing the estates of long-deceased actors:
  • Charles Chaplin, for his "unauthorized imitation" of the bread roll dancing scene in the 1925 silent movie The Gold Rush (which is in the public domain, despite the overzealousness of the lawyers.)
  • Jimmy Durante, for his mournful walk down a dimly-lit sidewalk while wearing a trilby.
• Mrs. Bouvier's favorite tune - played at the dance and later by Grandpa Simpson at the wedding - is Glenn Miller's "Moonlight Serenade".
• The swing tune played during Jackie and Mr. Burns's dance is the 1936 piece "Sing, Sing, Sing", written by Louis Prima and performed by Benny Goodman.
• In exchange for his worthless animation cel, Bart is given a humorous telephone shaped like Mary Worth, a comic strip teacher who dispenses advice on real-life issues.
• Prompted by Smithers, Mr. Burns confuses Homer and family with the cast of The Flintstones, which at the time of this episode's first broadcast was the longest-running American prime-time cartoon (a record The Simpsons later broke).
• The stand off between Bart and Mr. Burns spoofs a scene from the film Reservoir Dogs.
• Grandpa Simpson banging on the window while shouting "Mrs. Bouvier!", and the subsequent getaway on the bus, are references to the film The Graduate, as is the closing song, a parody of "The Sound of Silence" by Simon and Garfunkel.
• Mrs. Bouvier says that her friends, Zelda Fitzgerald, Frances Farmer and Sylvia Plath, were jealous of her good looks and it drove them crazy. All three women were known for having been institutionalized, Fitzgerald and Farmer for schizophrenia and Plath for a breakdown that resulted in a suicide attempt.

External links

• "Lady Bouvier's Lover episode capsule". The Simpsons Archive.