Line #15 Recap/TheSimpsonsS16E13MobileHomer


1	'''Original air date:''' 3/20/2005
2
3	'''Production code:''' GABF-07
4
5	One day, while attempting to clean the garage while the rest of the family is out, Homer comes across some spiders. He attempts to get rid of them, but his incompetence nearly costs him his life before his family arrives home in time to save him. Under Marge's advice, Homer attempts to get life insurance, but is deemed uninsurable. Fearing for her future in the likely event Homer should die, Marge decides to start building up a nest egg for her family. However, Homer is upset by how her approach to saving the income he makes is cheapening their lives, and buys a mobile home for himself to spite her. Things between Homer and Marge get worse from there, leaving it up to Bart and Lisa to defuse the situation themselves.
6
7	!! This episode provides examples of...
8	* BadToTheLastDrop: Heavily implied with the cheap brand of coffee Marge buys: "Colombia's Shame".
9	* TheBore: Marge forces the kids to go out on a "Sunday drive" which only she enjoys. The kids are bored out of their minds the entire time.
10	* BothSidesHaveAPoint: Homer and Marge have differing views on how to handle their finances.
11	** Homer is uninsurable, wasteful with money and prone to near death experiences so Marge has a right to be worried about them not having any savings should he die.
12	** Homer is right that he earned every penny of it, and living as cheaply as possible over something that might not happen is sucking a lot of the fun out of life.
13	* CallBack: The car lot where Homer bought the RV in this episode is the same one where he bought one in [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS1E7TheCallOfTheSimpsons "The Call of the Simpsons"]] and the insurance company (Merry Widow Insurance) is the same from [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS4E11HomersTripleBypass "Homer's Triple Bypass"]].
14	* ChairmanOfTheBrawl: While Lisa is performing CPR on Homer and instructs Bart to handle the chest compressions, Bart comes at his unconscious father with everything available.
15	* ChekhovsGun: Before Homer and Marge get into an argument over saving their money, Marge brings a hand truck full of soup cans into the house, asking Homer, "Can you help me unload this soup from the car? There was a sale, so I bought 400 cans." Near the end of the episode, when Bart and Lisa are trapped on a ship headed for Kahramanmaras, Marge entices the ship's captain with 300 cans of Budget Club mushroom soup that were apparently still sitting in the trunk of Homer's car.
16	* ConspicuousConsumption: Homer's attempts to save the family money seem to involve trying to spend as much money as possible, as fast as possible. Homer even implies that since he will be dead, he doesn't care if he doesn't leave anything behind for his loved ones should anything happen to him.
17	* CouchGag: The family sits down on the couch, only for Homer to pull off his mask and reveal he's Sideshow Bob. He then chases Bart around the room with a knife while his leitmotif plays and the other family members watch in horror.
18	* CoverInnocentEyesAndEars: Marge covers Maggie's eyes while Lisa is giving Homer the KissOfLife.
19	* CuttingCorners: After Homer is denied life insurance, Marge cuts the family's budget to build up a nest egg by buying imitation brands of cereal and coffee, having Maggie pace her sucking to conserve her pacifier and forcing Homer to bring his own drinks to Moe's.
20	* DarkestHour: After Marge drives the van buddies away from the house, Homer storms in and has a major argument with her that's so powerful, it lasts throughout the night and well into the next morning. This shows that their marriage is on the rocks, and had Bart and Lisa not stolen the van, this would've ended in an ugly divorce with the former couple hating each other.
21	* FalseReassurance: The Wifetime movie Marge watches ends on a narrator saying that Brenda, the protagonist who lost her wealth and sanity after her husband’s death, went to Harvard Medical School… to be used as a cadaver for training students.
22	* KickTheDog: Marge and Homer's issues aside, she's super rude and judgemental to the RV people, going out of her way to force them to leave, despite the group being nothing but friendly.
23	* LatexPerfection: The couch gag has Homer do a DramaticUnmask to reveal Sideshow Bob, whose hair should not fit under such a mask.
24	* LeftTheBackgroundMusicOn: When Marge is going through the pictures of Homer's near-deaths through the years, "Vacation" by Music/TheGoGos plays. Marge then notices a nearby radio playing the song and shuts it off.
25	* LifetimeMovieOfTheWeek: Parodied with the "Wifetime" film ''From Homemaker to Homeless'' (the title being a parody of the real Lifetime movie ''From Homeless to Harvard'').
26	* LoopholeAbuse: Attempted by Homer when the insurance agent shreds his application -- as long as Homer signs it before it's completely shredded, it's legal, or so he says. He doesn't manages to sign it in time [[{{Fingore}} and his hand gets caught in the paper shredder]].
27	* NoodleIncident: The photos in the family vacation album, which show snapshots of Homer being beaten up by Mickey and Goofy a Disney park, getting stuck in Lincoln's nose on Mount Rushmore and getting stabbed all the way through the chest with a baguette in France.
28	* PassThePopcorn: To make the point that he's constantly having near-death incidents, Marge shows Homer an album of vacation pictures which all depict him being injured in some way. Bart is in each of the photos regarding the scene with obvious glee.
29	* RichesToRags: Brenda, the character in the movie Marge watches, is an exaggerated version. She and her husband lived a very high-class lifestyle, until the husband died of a heart attack. Because he had no life insurance, Brenda is left with absolutely nothing, and is rendered homeless within a month.
30	* ShoutOut:
31	** The kids find a ''[[WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones Flintstones]] Fun Map" in the RV and Homer wrote a message reading "Dino short for dinosaur? Remember to ask Jeeves" (on international airings, "Ask Jeeves" is replaced with Wikipedia).
32	** During the garage incident, one of the spiders ominously descends towards Homer, remniscient of a scene from ''Film/{{Arachnophobia}}''.
33	** The spider poison is called "[[Literature/CharlottesWeb Charlotte's Dead]]."
34	** After Home says the kids are [[Film/HomeAlone home alone]], he makes the iconic face from the film.
35	* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: When Homer and Marge try to get him life insurance, his laundry list of health problems and constant near death accidents make it impossible for him to get any.
36	* WalkingDisasterArea: Homer is acknowledged to be one by an insurance company and they refuse to insure him because of this.
37	-->'''Homer''': ''Augh!'' [[NotHelpingYourCase My hemophilia!]]
38	* WellIntentionedExtremist: Marge, who becomes such a penny-pincher towards Homer and the kids out of fear that Homer will soon die without her or her kids receiving any money, leaving them with absolutely nothing.
39	* YourTelevisionHatesYou: Already panicking over what will happen if Homer dies, Marge watches TV to relax. The movie she watches shows a woman losing everything after her husband dies without life insurance, leaving her on the streets and eventually forcing her to work as a cadaver. Seeing this, Marge begins to resort to extreme measures so the same thing doesn't happen to her.

Context Recap / TheSimpsonsS16E13MobileHomer