The Boys of Bummer

"The Boys of Bummer"
The Simpsons episode
Episode no.	Season 18
Directed by	Rob Oliver
Written by	Michael Price
Original air date	April 29, 2007
Episode features
Couch gag	The couch is replaced by four wooden chairs. An instrumental version of “Pop Goes the Weasel” plays as the family plays musical chairs. When the music stops, everyone except for Homer grabs a seat. Homer groans in disappointment.

"The Boys of Bummer" is the eighteenth episode of The Simpsons' eighteenth season, which originally aired on April 29, 2007. It was written by Michael Price and was the first episode to be directed by Rob Oliver.

Plot

As the episode starts, the Simpsons are at a baseball game, and Bart catches a fly ball, pushing the Springfield Isotots into the championships. The next day, Marge is shopping at a department store, but Homer is tired and can not find a place to sit, so he lies down on a mattress and ends up falling asleep. However, when he wakes up, everybody is staring at him, so he gets up and exclaims his love for the mattress and manages to sell five; he is promptly hired as a mattress salesman.

Springfield is playing Shelbyville in the championship, and is leading 5-2 in the bottom of the ninth with two outs, but Shelbyville has the bases loaded. When their batter hits the ball that could decide the game, it heads towards Bart. He drops a pop up and repeatedly fails to pick it up, allowing all four runners to walk the bases and score, giving Shelbyville the 6-5 victory. The crowd turns against Bart, who flees the stadium. When Chief Wiggum offers him a ride to safety though, Wiggum drives him back inside the stadium to allow people to throw food at him. Bart is totally humiliated and is now the town pariah.

At Homer's new job, he assists Apu Nahasapeemapetilon. The Lovejoys approaches him with a sex problem, so Homer sells them a new mattress called The Snugglux by Matrimonium. The Lovejoys buy it, but return it to the Simpson home next day, their problem unimproved. As Homer is writing them a refund check, the Lovejoys begin to make out on Homer and Marge's mattress, and trade their new mattress for it. That night, when Homer and Marge are unsuccessfully trying to have sex, Homer admits he traded their mattress. Also that he spent the money they kept in it on a chain originally made for Elvis (but rejected by Elvis as too tacky). The next day, Timothy and Helen Lovejoy are both singing joyfully and giggling at the Church.

Bart's humiliation goes on as Bill and Marty tell everyone on the radio, and Jimbo, Dolph, and Kearney sung a song about it. The town continues to angrily mock, chastise, and boo Bart for losing the game. Lisa tries to cheer him up by taking to see an old baseball star (Joe La Boot) who dropped a fly ball and still grew up to be rich and famous. Bart feels worse after the baseball player learns who he is and makes everybody in the building boo him and Bart starts to cry because he is hurt, much to Lisa's shock. The next morning Lisa awakes to find a deranged Bart has spray-painted "I HATE BART SIMPSON" on everything in town (including a passed-out Barney). He attempts suicide by falling off the water tower on which he has painted "I hate Bart Simpson." A shocked La Boot tries to catch him, but misses, and Bart is knocked unconscious.

While Marge is visiting him in the hospital, she hears voices chanting "Bart sucks! Bart sucks!" over and over, eventually seeing an angry mob outside . Finally fed up with all the abuse poured onto Bart, she walks out to them and angrily tells them off for mocking Bart's "boo-boo", telling them they should be ashamed of themselves for the way they have treated Bart, indicating the billboard labelling Springfield "Meanest City in America". Feeling guilty, the entire town apologizes to Bart for hurting him and agrees to restage the game. After 78 tries (some flying into orbit, some stolen by Homer, one where Moe ran naked on the field, and even one in which the ball was disintegrated by a lightning bolt), Bart catches the ball, winning the game. Homer and Marge sneak in to the Lovejoys' home to steal back their mattress, but the Lovejoys return and excitedly rush up to bed. Reverend Lovejoy solves the problem Solomon-style – he cuts the mattress in half diagonally. Homer convinces Marge to drive behind a billboard where they have sex, just as they did on their honeymoon – complete with the same bum watching them.

Sixty years later (which the year is 2067), a 70-year old Milhouse nearly lets it slip to a 70-year old Bart that the game was faked to make up for his lack of talent. The episode ends with the ghosts of Homer and Marge watching Bart taunt Milhouse and voicing their disappointment, and Homer attempts to talk Marge in to having ghost sex with him, only for Marge to tell him that it is just not the same as when they were alive.

Music

• The theme music from The Green Hornet TV series is played during the mattress-switching scene. It is a trumpet version of "Flight of the Bumblebee" by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov performed by jazz trumpeter Al Hirt.
• Jimbo, Dolph and Kearney's song Bart Stinks has the exact same tune as Love Stinks by The J. Geils Band - Bart notices this to the point in which he rips his J. Geils Band posters off his room wall in disappointment.
• The instrumental theme played while Bart watches the fly ball in the air is the main theme from the film Rudy.

Cultural references

• This episode's title is a play on the book The Boys of Summer, which dealt with the legendary Brooklyn Dodger baseball team of the 1950s and was also a nickname for the team.
• The episode's plot borrows from the movie The Best of Times, in which an old football game is replayed.
• Bart having the ball spin him in a circle while his clothes fly off is a reference to Charlie Brown in Peanuts.
• Although voiced by Harry Shearer, the voice and appearance of the play-by-play commentator of Bart's baseball games resemble Vin Scully, voice of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Farmer Dan's is a parody of Farmer John, a California meat product company with an almost identical logo that sponsors the Dodgers, including commercials read by Scully.
• Homer's attire when he catches a ball by reaching over Bart during the redo game is similar to that of Steve Bartman.
• The announcer's call "The Isotopes lose the pennant! The Isotopes lose the pennant!" is a parody of the call "The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!" after the New York Giants won the 1951 National League Pennant.
• The entire plot revolving around the dropped ball is a reference to Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner's inability to field a ground ball in game 6 of the 1986 World Series, which cost Boston the championship.