[edit] Plot

After being caught dumping nuclear waste in the city park by the EPA, Mr. Burns is fined three million dollars. A town meeting is immediately held so that the citizens can decide what to spend the money on and Marge suggests using it to fix up Main Street, which is in a bad condition. The town shows enthusiasm for this idea and is about to vote for it when suddenly a whistle is heard and a smooth stranger named Lyle Lanley suggests that the town buy a new monorail. He leads them in a song, which convinces the town to buy the monorail.

Even though Lanley has succeeded in winning over the entire town, including skeptical Lisa, Marge is unhappy with the purchase, believing that the monorail is unsafe. While watching TV, Homer sees an advertisement that suggests he become a monorail conductor and Homer, claiming it to be a lifelong dream, immediately agrees. After a three week course described by Lanley as "intensive", Homer is named the monorail conductor. Still feeling uneasy about the monorail, Marge decides to visit Lyle Lanley and discovers a notebook that reveals Lanley’s true intentions meaning he plans to run off with a bag full of money while everyone else is a goner. Marge immediately drives to North Haverbrook, which Lanley mentioned was a previous purchaser of one of his monorails. Once she arrives, Marge discovers that the town is in ruins, and that those still living there deny that they ever had a monorail, despite the fact that the town is covered in advertisements for it. While exploring, she meets Sebastian Cobb, the man who designed Lanley's monorail. He explains that Lanley cut costs everywhere when building it, and that the entire thing is a scam.

At the maiden voyage of the monorail, the entire town has come out, including Leonard Nimoy. Lanley grabs his money and jumps in a taxi, which takes him to the airport. The monorail leaves just before Marge and Cobb arrive. At first things run smoothly, but the controls malfunction, causing the monorail to accelerate dangerously. Meanwhile, Lanley’s flight makes a brief unscheduled stop in North Haverbrook, where Lanley is immediately attacked by a group of locals. Back in Springfield, Cobb tells Homer that in order to stop the train, he needs to find an anchor. Homer grabs the giant “M” from the side of the Monorail and uses it as an anchor. Eventually, it latches onto a giant doughnut, stopping the monorail and saving its passengers.^[1]^[4]^[5]^[3]

[edit] Production

An escalator to nowhere. The three people are caricatures of (left to right) Rich Moore, Wes Archer and David Silverman^[6]

Conan O'Brien first pitched this episode at a story retreat - to Al Jean and Mike Reiss, who said the episode was a little crazy and thought he should try some other stuff first. Conan had previously pitched episodes where Lisa had a rival and where Marge gets a job at the Plant and Burns falls in love with her; both went over well. James L. Brooks "absolutely loved" this episode when Conan presented it.^[7]

[edit] Casting

Leonard Nimoy was originally considered for the role as the celebrity at the maiden voyage of the monorail, but the writing staff did not think he would accept, because William Shatner had previously turned the show down. Instead, George Takei was asked to guest star as he had done the show once before. After demanding several script changes,^[8] Takei declined, saying he did not want to make fun of public transportation as he was a member of the board of directors of the Southern California Rapid Transit District. As a result, the staff went to Nimoy, who accepted.^[7]

[edit] Cultural references

The episode starts with a tribute song to The Flintstones as Homer heads home from work and crashes his car.^[2] The episode is a partial spoof of The Music Man, with "The Monorail Song" strongly resembling the Music Man's "Trouble" and Lyle Lanley being a doppelganger for Harold Hill.^[2] When Mr. Burns is brought into the court room, he is restrained in the same way as Hannibal Lecter in the film The Silence of the Lambs.^[2] Although the commentary states that Homer's Monorail conductor uniform is based on uniforms from Star Wars, they much more closely resemble the uniforms in Forbidden Planet.^[6]

[edit] Reception

Marge discovers a family of Opossums in the Monorail, leading to Homer saying "I call the big one Bitey."

This episode is quite often rated as being among the top Simpsons episodes. In 2003, Entertainment Weekly released a list of its Top 25 episodes, ranking this episode at Number 4, saying "the episode has arguably the highest throwaway-gag-per-minute ratio of any Simpsons, and all of them are laugh-out-loud funny."^[9] In his book "Planet Simpson", Chris Turner named the episode as being one of his five favorites.^[10] The Quindecim, a college newspaper, made their own top 25, naming "Marge vs. the Monorail" as the second greatest episode of the series.^[11] In 2006, IGN.com named the episode the best of the fourth season.^[12] The BBC website says "An unsurpassed episode. It's hard to know where to start dishing out the praise - Leonard Nimoy's guest appearance, the Monorail song, Marge's narration, the truck full of popcorn..."^[2] Vanity Fair called it the third best episode of the show, due to, "An amazing musical number; Leonard Nimoy in a random guest appearance... Besides being replete with excellent jokes, this episode reveals the town's mob mentality and its collective lack of reason. This is the episode that defines Springfield more than any other."^[13]

Leonard Nimoy's appearance as himself has been praised as being one of the funniest Simpsons guest appearances ever.^[8] In a list of the 25 greatest guest voices on the show, released September 5, 2006, IGN.com ranked Leonard Nimoy at 11th.^[14] He would later voice himself in season 8's "The Springfield Files"

Conan O'Brien has said that of all the episodes written by him, this is his favorite.^[15] Homer's lines "I call the big one Bitey" and "doughnuts, is there anything they can't do?" are among Matt Groening's favorite Simpsons lines.^[16]

[edit] References

^ ^a ^b ^c "Marge vs. the Monorail" The Simpsons.com. Retrieved on February 14, 2007
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h Marge vs. the Monorail BBC.co.uk. Retrieved on February 14, 2007
^ ^a ^b Martyn, Warren; Adrian Wood (2000). I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide. Virgin Books. ISBN 0-7535-0495-2.
^ Episode Capsule at The Simpsons Archive
^ Richmond, Ray; Antonia Coffman (1997). The Simpsons: A Complete Guide to our Favorite Family. Harper Collins Publishers, p. 173. ISBN 0-00-638898-1.
^ ^a ^b Moore, Rich. (2004). The Simpsons season 4 DVD commentary for the episode "Marge vs. the Monorail" [DVD]. 20th Century Fox.
^ ^a ^b Jean, Al. (2004). The Simpsons season 4 DVD commentary for the episode "Marge vs. the Monorail" [DVD]. 20th Century Fox.
^ ^a ^b Reiss, Mike. (2004). The Simpsons season 4 DVD commentary for the episode "Marge vs. the Monorail" [DVD]. 20th Century Fox.
^ The Family Dynamic EW.com. Retrieved on February 13, 2007
^ Turner, Chris. Planet Simpson: How a Cartoon Masterpiece Documented an Era and Defined a Generation. ISBN 0-679-31318-4.
^ Culp, Sarah (2003-02-17). The Simpsons' Top 25 Episodes. The Quindecim. Retrieved on 2007-02-10.
^ The Simpsons: 17 Seasons, 17 Episodes IGN.com. Retrieved on February 14, 2007
^ John Orvted. "Springfield's Best", Vanity Fair, 2007-07-05. Retrieved on 2007-07-13.
^ Top 25 Simpsons Guest Appearances IGN.com
^ O'Brien, Conan. (2004). The Simpsons season 4 DVD commentary for the episode "Marge vs. the Monorail" [DVD]. 20th Century Fox.
^ Groening, Matt. (2004). The Simpsons season 4 DVD commentary for the episode "Marge vs. the Monorail" [DVD]. 20th Century Fox.