Whoa, talk about your pieces of crap

Saturdays of Thunder

I will not fake rabies

Couch gag: The couch is missing its cushions so the family fall through.

Director: Jim Reardon

Guest Voice: Phil Hartman as Troy McClure

Synopsis: Failing a fatherhood test set by the Fatherhood Institute, Homer tries to become more involved in Bart’s life. Bart is building a soapbox racer so Homer joins him. At the race, Bart comes last but Martin hurts himself and asks Bart to race in his stead.

Discussion: This episode has the same theme as yesterday’s episode where Homer tries to be a better parent to Lisa, only this time it’s not self-driven guilt, Homer has failed a test as seen in a magazine. Again, being a parent is a lot of effort and Homer just doesn’t have the time- why parent when you could be watching Football’s Greatest Injuries?

The ep is full of funny dialogue which redeems it from being another “failed fatherhood” episode lost in the mists of season 3. Wikipedia tells me that the main criticism for the episode was because soapbox racing wasn’t popular at the time of broadcast so few could relate to it. There are two issues I see with this. One, the soapbox racing isn’t the point. The sport could have been practically anything (as it happens, soapbox racing was chosen from an earlier comment by Bart when he was banned from watching TV and he would go build a racer instead). Secondly, Soapbox racing looks like fun. I know I wanted to build one after seeing the episode but somehow never got around to it…

Overall, I think the episode benefited from the witty dialogue and subplot of Homer’s failed fatherhood test. I particularly love Dr Nick’s appearance in I Can’t Believe They Invented It! among the other random crap. Infomercials are awesome!