Line #21 Recap/TheSimpsonsS9E24LostOurLisa


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lost_our_lisa.png]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:"I should have got off at Crackton..."]]
3
4	'''Original air date:''' 5/10/1998
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6	'''Production code:''' 5F17
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8	When Marge has to back out of taking Lisa to an ancient Egyptian exhibit at the museum so she can take Bart to Dr. Hibbert's office, Lisa tricks Homer into letting her ride the bus, but she boards the wrong one and must find her way home through a series of unfamiliar neighborhoods.
9	----
10
11	!! Tropes:
12
13	* AnAesop: Never be afraid to live life on the edge.
14	* AngryItemTapping: Lisa tries to take a bus to the Springsonian Museum, but when she tries to talk with the bus driver, Larry, [[CantYouReadTheSign he silently taps the sign overhead which reads "Do Not Talk To Driver"]]. When she sees that she's lost, she tries to ask him for help, only for him to say "Don't make me tap the sign". [[MemeticMutation The scene is often edited to instead say whatever point the poster wants to make online]].
15	* Area51: Or rather, Area 51-''a''.
16	-->[[NoSuchAgency "You are here.]] [[IWasNeverHere We are not."]]
17	* BaitAndSwitch: Homer decides that he needs to get up high to be able to scan the surrounding city for her and then goes to a vendor selling balloons, seemingly leading up to a joke that Homer is dumb enough to think he could float using a handful of balloons.... Then, he offers the balloons to a cherry pick driver in exchange for using his machine to lift him up. It works.
18	-->"Well, I've already got some balloons - but they're not this nice. Deal!"
19	** Later Homer runs into Mr. Burns while looking for Lisa.
20	--->'''Mr. Burns:''' Shouldn't you be at work?\
21	'''Homer:''' (Nervously) Yes, sir... Mr. Burns... sir.\
22	'''Mr. Burns:''' Then go back to wherever it is you work, whoever you are.
23	** Later still:
24	--->'''Homer:''' I'm not much of a praying man, but if you're up there, please save me, {{Franchise/Superman}}!
25	* {{Balloonacy}}: {{Subverted}}. Homer, wanting to get to higher ground to look for Lisa, buys a bunch of balloons, says "I hope this works"... and then trades them to a construction worker for the use of his cherry picker.
26	-->"Well, I've already got some balloons, but...they're not this nice. Deal!"
27	* BigYes: Lisa after she successfully manipulates Homer into letting her ride the bus to the museum.
28	* BilingualBonus: The signs in the Russian district of Springfield are actual Cyrillic words and the Russian the chess players speak is real.
29	* BlackComedy: At the hospital, Marge notices another child with a faucet on his forehead, and reassures Bart he's not the only one in this situation. The mother quickly corrects her by saying that's actually a plumbing explosion, freaking Bart out; Marge, meanwhile, notices that this is the kind of faucet she'd like for their bathroom.
30	* BrakeAngrily: Homer finds Lisa after she gets lost on a museum trip. She says she'll never take another stupid risk again, and Homer suddenly stop the car to say stupid risks are worth taking and how he found her downtown. Then Lisa points out he let the brake go and the car is rolling downhill into a river.
31	* CaughtInTheBadPartOfTown: Lisa gets stranded on the WrongSideOfTheTracks after getting on the wrong bus. She has to trek back through Springfield's surprising number of bad neighborhoods while Homer searches for her.
32	* ChewToy:
33	** Homer. His quest starts with him trying to save Lisa, and it ends with his head caught between two halves of a drawbridge.
34	** Lisa herself is put through the wringer the moment she tries to take a bus.
35	* ComicallyMissingThePoint: When Bart asks Homer for some glue, he has to grab the vial (which has stuck itself to the bottom of the drawer) with both hands and use a foot for leverage to get it out... which succeeds only because the ''bottom of the drawer it was stuck to breaks away''. Homer then passes the glue to Bart and, in all seriousness, tells Bart that he hopes this stuff will hold for him.
36	* CouchGag: The Simpsons go to sit on the couch, but the couch gets pulled back, causing them to fall on the floor. Nelson Muntz comes out from behind the couch and laughs.
37	* DivideAndConquer: Marge flat-out refuses to let Lisa get the bus to the museum. So Lisa calls Homer, who asks her what Marge said. Lisa deliberately answers non-committally, then sidetracks Homer by asking him to pay for a limousine (for $200) instead of the bus. Homer is still naively focused on that detail when he tells Lenny and Carl the story at lunch.
38	* EarWorm: The music from the Orb of Isis for Homer, even if he gets the tune wrong.
39	* EveryoneHasStandards: Lenny and Carl aren't the smartest of guys, but even they know that sending a child to take the bus alone is a bad idea.
40	* FathersQuest: Homer lets Lisa take the bus to an Egyptian exhibit at the Springsonian Museum, and then has to go find her and bring her home safely when she gets lost by taking the wrong bus. Villain-free example, although there's a jerky bus driver involved.
41	* {{Foreshadowing}}: When the bus stops in Crackton, Lisa remarks, "That doesn't sound right." She was right to be concerned because she later finds out that she was on the wrong bus to start with.
42	* FreezeFrameBonus: In the joke shop there are labels reading "Itching Powder," "Heart Attack Powder," and [[TheLoinsSleepTonight "Impotence Powder."]]
43	* HardTruthAesop: Occasional dumb risks make life worth living. Homer makes a point of teaching Lisa this by sneaking her into the museum after it's closed, where he knocks over the priceless Orb of Isis...finally revealing its true purpose (it's a music box) and allowing the two of them to hear a tune no one has heard in thousands of years.
44	* INeedToGoIronMyDog: Homer tells Lenny and Carl he needs to leave on a [[BlatantLies totally unrelated matter]] so he can look for Lisa.
45	* IResembleThatRemark: Happens when Marge [[OrderedApology tells Bart to apologize to Lisa]] after they get home from the doctor (but Lisa isn't home, unbeknownst to them).
46	-->'''Marge:''' You'd better go up and apologize.\
47	'''Bart:''' But my apologies always sound so forced.\
48	'''Marge:''' (sternly) '''DO IT.'''
49	* IWasNeverHere: Lisa somehow ends up right outside Area 51a. A map next to an information kiosk has a dot on it labeled "You are here. We are not."
50	* IdiotBall:
51	** Bart, for gluing comedy props to his face so they won't fall off.
52	** Lisa, for not checking that she was boarding the correct bus to get to the museum.
53	** Mr. Burns, as part of a RunningGag, for not recognizing Homer despite the fact that he has been his employer for years.
54	* {{Jerkass}}:
55	** Larry the bus driver did nothing at all to help Lisa (instead simply tapping the sign that says "Do not talk to driver") even after she truly becomes lost and frightened, before abandoning her in the middle of nowhere.
56	** Agnes Skinner refuses to let Lisa sit next to her on the bus, because the next seat is for her coin purse. After Lisa leaves, Agnes puts the purse away.
57	* LanguageBarrier: Lisa is lost in Springfield's Russian district and tries to ask two men who are playing chess for some help. They actually try to help her, except the aggressive way they speak in Russian scares her off.
58	-->'''Lisa:''' Excuse me, could you tell me how to get to the museum?\
59	'''Man #1:''' (''shouting in Russian'') My pleasure. It's six blocks that way.\
60	(''Lisa runs away'')\
61	'''Man #1:''' (''shouting in Russian'') Hey, she went the wrong way.\
62	'''Man #2:''' (''in Russian'') Checkmate. (''the other man throws the chess board to the ground'')\
63	'''Man #1:''' (''shouting in Russian'') Good game. How about another?
64	* MissingChild: Lisa being missing. Lenny and Carl have to spell Homer's blunder out to him.
65	-->'''Lenny''': [[WhatTheHellHero You sent your little girl downtown on a bus? Alone?]]\
66	'''Homer''': Maybe. But you don't know Lisa. I mean, she's so smart they hooked her up to a big computer to try to teach it some things. But she had so much knowledge, it overloaded. And then it got really hot and caught on fire!\
67	'''Carl''': That never, uh, happened, did it, Homer?\
68	'''Homer''': [[OhCrap Uh, yes]]. But now, I have to leave on a totally unrelated matter. ''(runs out of the cafeteria)'' Oh, Lisa!
69	* MoodWhiplash: The nice moment when Homer and Lisa discover the secret of the Orb of Isis is quickly ended when they trigger the alarms and have to escape, right at the end of the episode.
70	* NeverMyFault: When Lisa gets lost and is forced to walk back, she blames the bus for not going where it was supposed to, despite the fact that it was her own fault for boarding the wrong bus in the first place.
71	* NeverTrustATrailer: The promos for this episode made it out to be about Bart having to live with gag props stuck to his face thanks to using Homer's industrial-strength glue, but that subplot came to an anticlimactic end when Dr. Hibbert made Bart sweat to get the adhesive to loosen up.
72	* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Homer accidentally damages the Orb of Isis: subverted when dropping it revealed a music box with a pretty tune.
73	* NightmareFuelStationAttendant: Dr. Hibbert suggests getting the superglue off Bart's face with a series of painful injections in Bart's spine; as it turns out this was just to get Bart to sweat to loosen it up. When Bart asked why he couldn't have just turned the heat up, he replied that it had to be TERROR sweat.
74	* NoIndoorVoice: The Russian man Lisa asks for directions.
75	* NoSympathy: Larry the Bus Driver has a personal sign for all of his passenger's woes; "Do not talk to driver". Even for a lost and frightened little girl who definitely needs more help than that.
76	-->'''Larry:''' Don't make me tap the sign...
77	* NoodleIncident: When breaking into the museum, Homer asks Lisa to open the window, because apparently, the police have his prints on file.
78	* OhCrap:
79	** Lisa when Larry tells her she's on the wrong bus, meaning she doesn't know where she is.
80	** Homer when he realizes his error in letting Lisa ride the bus alone (after Lenny and Carl call him out for it).
81	** Homer when the cherry picker he's in goes out of control.
82	** Homer and Lisa right at the end when the museum alarms go off and they get chased away by guard dogs.
83	* OrderedApology: Marge's aforementioned ordering of Bart to apologize to Lisa when they get home from the doctors and Lisa doesn't answer them (because Lisa isn't home, unbeknownst to them).
84	-->'''Marge:''' You'd better go up and apologize.\
85	'''Bart:''' [[LampshadeHanging But my apologies always sound so forced.]]\
86	'''Marge:''' (sternly) '''[[IResembleThatRemark DO IT.]]'''
87	* ParentsInDistress: Homer when the cherry picker goes out of control.
88	* PartiallyConcealedLabelGag: Lisa gets lost taking the wrong bus and stumbles upon a military base.
89	-->'''Lisa:''' How could I confuse Bus 22 with 22A? Area 51? Ha, I found Area 51!\
90	'''Guard:''' No, ma'am. [steps back] This is Area 51-A.
91	* PlanesTrainsAndImbeciles: When Lisa accidentally gets on the wrong bus and realises too late, all the bus driver does is tap a sign that says "Do not talk to driver", even though Lisa is clearly lost and frightened. Making this much worse, the bus driver essentially kicks her out in the middle of nowhere and drives off, despite Lisa asking for help way before that point.
92	* PrayerIsALastResort: Parodied.
93	-->'''Homer:''' I'm normally not a praying man, but if you're up there, please save me, Franchise/{{Superman}}!
94	* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: When Lisa is at the bus stop rambling about the bus, Moe asks her if she will be on the next one. When she answers yes, Moe hails a taxi to get to his destination (the VD Clinic).
95	* SillyPrayer: When Homer fears he's about to die, he prays... not to [[{{God}} the Man Upstairs]], but to [[Franchise/{{Superman}} the Man of Steel]].
96	* SkewedPriorities: Bart refuses to put dog doo on his face, because it's been on the dirty ground.
97	* SpitTake: When Lenny learns that Homer let Lisa ride the bus on her own, he spits his food out.

Context Recap / TheSimpsonsS9E24LostOurLisa