The Simpsons: "Homer vs. The Eighteenth Amendment"

Premiered March 16, 1997.

"Oooh, it's been St. Patrick's Day for hours and I'm still not drunk yet!"
-Homer Simpson

It's St. Patrick's Day in Springfield.

Marge Simpson takes her kids Bart, Lisa and Maggie to the annual St. Patrick's Day parade.  Bart sees a man selling plastic horns and asks for one.  Marge is reluctant, reminding that Bart that he's gotten similar horns in the past and thrown them away before he got home.  She buys him a horn anyway.

At the same time, parade devolves into a drunken brawl.  The Duff Beer float shoots beer into the crowd with cannons.  Bart just happens to to be blowing his new horn near the Duff float so beer goes directly into the horn (turning it into a beer bong!) and Bart swallows enough to get quite intoxicated.

Bart's drunkenness is captured on camera and airs on the local evening newscast.  The citizens of Springfield are enraged and some even call for banning alcohol.  At City Hall, a clerk discovers that Springfield passed a prohibition law a century earlier and the law is still on the books!  Alcohol becomes contraband in Springfield!

In order to enforce this law, the city brings in a lawman named Rex Banner.  He arrives and takes over, dismissing the ineffective police Chief Wiggum.  The chief is crushed.

The prohibition law gives Homer Simpson an idea.  He visits the dump and collects Duff's discarded barrels of beer, which still contain alcohol.  He takes the beer and conceals it in bowling balls as part of an elaborate alcohol distribution scheme.

Homer sells beers to Moe and others and makes lots of money in the process.  The press learns of this, but Homer's identity remains a mystery.  He is branded "The Beer Baron."  Rex Banner is aware of his existence and is determined to bring the Beer Baron to justice.

J.A. Morris says:
As we've said here before, there aren't many St. Patrick's Day specials, episodes or movies, so this Simpsons episode is an nice addition.

Like most episodes of The Simpsons, "Homer vs. The Eighteenth Amendment" begins with a story that is dropped by the end of the first act.  The St. Patrick's Day portion of the episode ends at the 6-minute mark.  But the holiday serves as the fulcrum that sets the prohibition storyline in motion.

"Homer vs. The Eighteenth Amendment" is an homage to classic gangster movies and the TV show The Untouchables.  I've long been a fan of Dave Thomas, best remembered as Bob McKenzie on SCTV.  He does a great job voicing Rex Banner.

Dan Castellaneta is great as usual voicing Homer, who gets most of the good lines of the episode.  In fact, the end of "Homer vs. The Eighteenth Amendment" features one of Homer's best quotes of all time.  Sorry, but you'll have to watch to find out what it is.

In addition to the St. Paddy's parade and the prohibition plot, "Homer vs. The Eighteenth Amendment" opens with Lisa and Bart going to school on St. Patrick's Day, with Bart failing to wear green.

Bart suffers the way kids did in my elementary school when they didn't participate in "the wearin' o' the green."

"Homer vs. The Eighteenth Amendment" is a great episodes of one of the best series of all time and is highly recommended for St. Patrick's Day viewing.

J.A. Morris' rating:

4 shamrocks!

The Simpsons meets Edward Hopper!

RigbyMel says:

I am a big fan of The Simpsons and this is a great episode.   As J.A. Morris mentions,  the homages to gangster movies are pretty brilliant.   I particularly liked that Moe's Tavern masquerades as a pet shop to shake off the cops and various Springfieldians reaction to the return of Prohibition (collapse seems  to be a popular response).

The St. Patrick's Day portion of the episode is also pretty darned funny and really plays with the notion that this is really a holiday for amateur drunkeness with a veneer of Irish heritage.   It's well worth pausing during bits of the parade to see what is going on with each float and in the crowd.  

That being said,  I am going to deduct a bit from my rating since the St. Patrick's Day portion really only lasts for the first couple of minutes of the episode!

RigbyMel's rating:

3 shamrocks

SCTV: "Staff Christmas Party"

SCTV (AKA "Second City Television) was a series about an independent television station located in a fictional town called Melonville.  Most episodes presented a day of SCTV programming and lots of behind-the-scenes network politics.  In this episode, the staff Christmas party serves as a wraparound for the network's holiday programming.

SCTV - “Staff Christmas Party”

Maureen Wallace (Catherine O'Hara), SCTV's Director of Public Relations greets the partygoers as they arrive.

Aired December 18, 1981

It's Christmas Eve in Melonville.  The entire staff of the SCTV network has gathered at the studio for a Christmas party.  It's hosted by station owner, Guy Caballero (Joe Flaherty). Johnny LaRue arrives drunk, flirts with Maureen. Talk show host (and all-around sleaze ball) Johnny LaRue (John Candy) shows up to the party already drunk.  LaRue is in trouble for going over budget on his last project.   He used too many crane shots on a made-for-SCTV movie.  Caballero says LaRue needs to host his show Streetbeef, a show built around "person-on-the-street" interviews.  He begs Caballero to let him take the night off, to no avail.   Guy Caballero reminds LaRue who's boss.  Streetbeef:

LaRue is forced to go out in the streets of Melonville with one microphone and one camera.  It’s a cold, snowy night outside.  No one is out on the streets and all the businesses are closed. 

LaRue gets into a fight with his camera man and he’s reduced to sitting in the snow by himself talking into the boom-mic, looking into the camera. 

LaRue starts to ramble incoherently, until he gets a Christmas visit from the ultimate Streetbeef guest: Santa Claus!  Santa has a very special present for LaRue. 

Great White North:
The McKenzie Brothers, Doug (Dave Thomas) and Bob (Rick Moranis) host the Great White North talk show.  They advise viewers on how to get out of drinking eggnog during the holiday season.  Doug also performs a special "Christmas" version of the Great White North theme song. 

The Sammy Maudlin Show:

Sammy Maudlin (Flaherty) welcomes playwright Neil Simon (Dave Thomas) and Simon’s wife, actress Marsha Mason (Andrea Martin) to his chat show.  They’re promoting their new movie Neil Simon’s Nutcracker Suite, which will air on SCTV on Christmas Eve.  Maudlin and his sidekick William B. Willams (Candy) spend most of the time making jokes about the movie’s title.  They also keep calling Marsha Mason “Pamela Mason”, which makes her very angry.  

Later, we, the viewers, get to see Simon's movie. 

Neil Simon’s Nutcracker Suite:

Judd Hirsch (Levy) stars as Neil Madison, a Neil Simon-esque playwright, Marsha Mason (still played by Martin) plays his wife Jennifer.  They check into a New York hotel on Christmas Eve, where Neil intends to write a play that will feature Jennifer as the star.   

Neil & Jennifer encounter Richard Dreyfuss (Moranis) in the Nutcracker Suite.

He’s written several movies with her in mind, but never a play (this closely mirrors what Neil Simon had done for Marsha Mason in real life).  The hotel is overbooked, they have only one suite available: The Nutcracker Suite.  

Neil tries to calm Jennifer.

When they get to the room, Neil sits down at this typewriter and starts writing a new play.  

Neil takes a "reflective pause" while writing a new play for Jennifer.

He falls asleep and wakes up at midnight to find the Mouse King, a human-sized mouse, helping himself to food in the fridge.  

Neil is helped by the arrival of the Nutcracker Prince, played by Alan Alda (Flaherty). The Mouse King is winning the fight, until Neil tricks the mouse into leaving (Cheez Whiz in the hallway!).  

The Nutcracker Prince boxes with the Mouse King.

The Nutcracker Prince thanks Neil for saving his life and invites him to his suite.

Once there, Neil meets the Sugarplum Fairy and the Snowflake King, played by Maggie Smith and Michael Caine (actually Catherine O'Hara and Thomas), respectively.  They will give him the inspiration to finish his play and give it to Jennifer for Christmas.  

The Sugarplum Fairy (O'Hara) complains to Neil about being typecast...as a Sugarplum Fairy.

Dusty Towne's Sexy Holiday Special:
Next up, it's time for singer/comedian Dusty Towne's first-ever tv special.  Dusty's guests are comic-actor Divine (Candy) and Solid Gold dancer Marcie Odette (Martin).  

Dusty Towne (O'Hara) opens with a Christmas song and an opening monologue filled with sexual innuendo.  

Odette follows with an "interpretive dance" built around "Deck The Halls." Then Dusty performs a medley of Christmas songs with new, lyrics, most of which consist of sexual puns.  

Divine shows up next.  After a brief exchange of banter, they play a music video that features Divine performing Elvis' "Santa Bring My Baby Back To Me".  

Dusty closes the show with a reading of a sexually charged version of "Twas The Night Before Christmas" called "What A Night Before Christmas". 

We cut back to the staff party, where Lola Heatherton (O'Hara) leads the staff in singing "White Christmas" in front of a chroma-keyed Bing Crosby. 

Lola Heatherton performs a "duet" with Bing Crosby.

Plus, we get a promo for SCTV's upcoming Liberace Christmas special!  And a commercial for "Frank Incense". 

J.A. Morris says:

I'll admit that it's hard to be objective here.  I remember catching some of this episode when it first aired in 1981 (on the first day of Christmas Vacation!).    

Dave Thomas as Liberace

Around 1987 or '88, I taped it during a "Nick At Night" Christmas marathon.  It became a Christmas Eve tradition for my parents and I to watch Sammy Maudlin, Neil Simon's Nutcracker Suite and Johnny Larue.  Every year the picture quality on that tape a little fuzzier.  Thankfully, it was released on DVD in 2003.  

Orson Welles (Candy) blows up on the set of Liberace's special.

It's a great Christmas episode, one of the best.  SCTV featured one of the best comedy ensembles of all time.  They're all great here, in every role they inhabit.  I still laugh at "Neil Simon's Nutcracker Suite" and Dusty Towne's horrible puns even if I can recite the whole episode by memory at this point.     

Liberace backs up Ethel Merman (Martin) on "Silent Night"

But one problem with this series is that much of what it parodies is now out-dated.  The Liberace promo and the Dusty Towne show are brilliant send-ups of variety specials that were omnipresent at the time.

The Nutcracker Prince arrives in the Nutcracker Suite.

If you're under 40, you probably don't remember those variety shows.  There's a running gag on the show about "Jane Russell's Cross Your Heart Bra" that won't make any sense if you don't remember the early 80s.  Also, who remembers Marsha Mason or Pamela Mason today? 

Edna Boil (Martin), sings at the Staff Christmas Party, backed by her husband Tex (Thomas) on organ.

But you don't need to know who they were to appreciate the Nutcracker Suite sketch.  Sammy Maudlin and William B. are brilliant characters, both personifying the schmaltzy phoniness of show biz.  And Candy is brilliant as Johnny LaRue.  His bit was taped on location in the freezing streets of Edmonton, Alberta.  Much of his dialogue was made up on the spot.  It's a hilarious, acting tour de force by the late, great Candy. 

Edith Prickley (Martin) and Lola Heatherton get sentimental & weepy talking about the movie Holiday Inn.

"Staff Christmas Party" is must-watch viewing in my house every Christmas and it's also one of the best episodes of a great series.    

Season's Greetings from Sammy Maudlin!

J.A. Morris' rating:
4 candy canes