E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)
"E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)" | |
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Rob Baur | |
"E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)", also known as "E-I-E-I-D'oh", is the fifth episode of the
Plot
Having learned from a Zorro movie how to challenge someone to a duel by slapping them with a glove, Homer goes around town slapping people and getting his way, until a gun-toting Southern colonel accepts his challenge.
The next morning, the colonel and his wife wait outside the Simpsons' house. The family flee to the
Lisa protests that the Simpsons cannot accept the tobacco executives' money, but Homer does not understand what she means and rejects the offer as insulting, demanding $150 billion, which they refuse. While the Simpsons are negotiating, Tomacco-addicted animals from other farms break into their fields and eat their crop. Holding the only plant left, the family run into the house, where Lisa urges Homer to destroy it; he refuses, until the crazed animals break into the house itself. He tosses the plant into the air, and it lands in the hands of a Laramie executive who happens to be there. The executives' helicopter leaves, but a Tomacco-addicted sheep has stowed away and attacks them. The helicopter crashes, killing everyone on board except the sheep, and destroying the final Tomacco plant. The Simpsons return home to find that the Southern gentleman and his wife are still waiting for the duel. It takes place: Homer is shot in the arm, but declines to go to the hospital until he has had some of Marge's mincemeat pie.
Production
The episode was written by
Cultural references
After
The Poke of Zorro
The Simpsons go to a screening of The Poke of Zorro, a loose parody of the Zorro film The Mask of Zorro (1998). Jonathan Gray wrote in Watching with The Simpsons: Television, Parody, and Intertextuality that "The Poke of Zorro ridicules the outlandishness of Hollywood blockbuster fare, especially its blatant historical inaccuracies which sees the film feature Zorro, King Arthur, the Three Musketeers, the Scarlet Pimpernel, the Man in the Iron Mask and ninjas in nineteenth century Mexico."[4]
The cast list for The Poke of Zorro is also deliberately nonsensical. It includes
Advertisements
During The Poke of Zorro, there are advertisements which reference products and movies. The
Music
The episode features multiple references to songs and themes. The song "Glove Slap" is a parody of the song "
Release
The episode originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on November 7, 1999.[1] On October 7, 2008, the episode was released on DVD as part of the box set The Simpsons – The Complete Eleventh Season. Staff members Mike Scully, Ian Maxtone-Graham, George Meyer, and Matt Selman participated in the DVD audio commentary for the episode.[2]
While reviewing the eleventh season of The Simpsons, DVD Movie Guide's Colin Jacobson commented that "E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)" provides "the kind of episode typical of the series' 'post-classic' years. While it doesn't become a dud, it lacks the spark and zing typical of the best Simpsons. We get a mix of decent moments but nothing that elevates the episode above the level of mediocrity."[7] In the July 26, 2007 issue of Nature, the scientific journal's editorial staff listed the episode among "The Top Ten science moments in The Simpsons." The journal praises Homer's attempts to be a farmer, which involve using plutonium as a fertilizer and crossbreeding DNA from tobacco seeds and tomato seeds to create an addicting fruit.[8] In 2011, Keith Plocek of LA Weekly's Squid Ink blog named "E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)" the tenth best episode of the show with a food theme.[9] The Phoenix New Times listed the episode as one of the top ten Simpsons episodes of all time.[10]
Legacy
A Simpsons fan, Rob Baur of
The 2004 convention of the American Dialect Society named tomacco as the new word "least likely to succeed."[14] Tomacco was a wordspy.com "Word of the Day".[15]
A throwaway background joke in the episode is a store by the name of "Sneed's Feed & Seed (Formerly Chuck's)",[16] written to suggest that the previous owner might have called it "Chuck's Fuck & Suck".[17] Due to FXX changing older episodes from a 4:3 to a 16:9 aspect ratio, the joke is mostly cut off screen.[18][19] The phrase was adopted as an internet meme on the online imageboard 4chan, with members attempting to push the word "Sneed" into internet polls[20] and then spreading a hoax screenshot stating that the Anti-Defamation League considers the word a hate symbol.[21]
References
- ^ ISBN 978-0-00-738815-8.
- ^ a b Jane, Ian (November 1, 2008). "The Simpsons – The Complete Eleventh Season". DVD Talk. Archived from the original on July 20, 2011. Retrieved October 2, 2011.
- ISBN 0-7167-0974-0
- ^ ISBN 978-0-415-36202-3.
- ^ Chernoff, Scott (July 24, 2007). "I Bent My Wookiee! Celebrating the Star Wars/Simpsons Connection". No Homers Club. Archived from the original on July 24, 2011. Retrieved January 23, 2022.
- ^ Druckenbrod, Andrew (September 18, 2007). "Record Review: 'Simpsons' music may suffer in translation". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Archived from the original on January 23, 2022. Retrieved January 23, 2022.
- ^ Jacobson, Colin (November 19, 2008). "The Simpsons: The Complete Eleventh Season (1999)". DVD Movie Guide. Archived from the original on July 20, 2011. Retrieved October 2, 2011.
- S2CID 4393052.
- ^ Plocek, Keith (November 11, 2011). "Top 10 Simpsons Food Episodes: Tomacco Ribwich with a Side of Guatemalan Insanity Peppers + Skittlebrau". LA Weekly. Archived from the original on November 13, 2011. Retrieved January 23, 2022.
- ^ Johnson, Katie (September 30, 2014). "The 10 Best Simpsons Episodes Ever". Phoenix New Times. Archived from the original on August 4, 2020. Retrieved May 26, 2020.
- ^ Philipkoski, Kristen (November 7, 2003). "Simpsons Plant Seeds of Invention". Health. Wired. Retrieved January 23, 2022.
- ^ a b "Homer Simpson inspires man to grow 'tomacco'". CTV.ca. November 13, 2003. Archived from the original on November 21, 2011. Retrieved October 10, 2010.
- ^ Baur, Rob (2006). The Simpsons The Complete Eleventh Season DVD commentary for the episode "E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)" (DVD). 20th Century Fox.
- ^ Summary of "Among the New Words" Archived June 12, 2012, at the Wayback Machine, American Speech, Volume 79, Number 2, Summer 2004.
- ^ Spy, Word. "tomacco - Word Spy". wordspy.com. Archived from the original on December 5, 2022. Retrieved May 7, 2022.
- ^ Robinson, Benjamin (March 27, 2000). "Sneed's Feed and Seed". Archived from the original on November 13, 2020. Retrieved September 8, 2020.
- ^ Maxtone-Graham, Ian [@ianhmg] (September 3, 2017). "Formerly Chuck's. So... it was once 'Chuck's Suck and Fuck' A deeply buried dirty semi-joke. You are not the first to ask" (Tweet). Retrieved June 8, 2019 – via Twitter.
- ^ O'Connell, Max (August 22, 2014). "FXX Airs 'The Simpsons' in Wrong Aspect Ratio. Won't Someone Think of the Children?". IndieWire. Archived from the original on December 7, 2021. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
- ^ Schimkovitz, Matt (October 4, 2021). "Seinfeld fans to Netflix: What's the deal with these aspect ratios?". The AV Club. Archived from the original on December 7, 2021. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
- ^ Halfacree, Gareth. "Audacity fork maintainer quits after alleged harassment by 4chan losers who took issue with 'Tenacity' name". www.theregister.com. Archived from the original on May 7, 2022. Retrieved May 7, 2022.
- ^ "Fact Check-The ADL did not designate 'sneed' as a hate symbol". Reuters. July 16, 2021. Archived from the original on May 7, 2022. Retrieved May 7, 2022 – via www.reuters.com.
External links
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