Original air date: 2/28/1999
Production code: AABF-12
Homer is forced to convert Lisa's room into a cellular phone tower to pay off damages done to the Bill of Rights at the local Smithsonian, and she hates him as a result. They try to reconcile with each other by trying sensory deprivation tanks. Meanwhile, Marge gets addicted to eavesdropping on cell phone calls.
Tropes:
- Bait-and-Switch Comment: When Lisa looks at Abraham Lincoln's hat.Lisa: America's greatest citizen summed up in one piece of clothing.Homer: (offscreen) Fonzie's jacket!
- Buried Alive: The Flanders find Homer's deprivation tank, think it's a coffin, and bury it. Luckily for Homer, the tank breaks through the soil into a pipe and washes out to a beach.
- Call-Back: Lisa says that her favorite movie used to be The Little Mermaid. In "I Married Marge", when Marge thought she was pregnant, Lisa suggested Ariel as a name if the baby turned out to be a girl.
- Calling the Old Man Out: Lisa does this to Homer for belittling her and saying that just because he thinks something doesn't make it so, when he demands the harsh antacids for her instead of herbal tea (which she wanted).
- Coincidental Dodge: At the end of the episode when Homer and Lisa are attending the demolition derby, he gives her a sweet peck on the forehead just in time to unwittingly avoid a car bumper flying in his direction.
- Couch Gag: Two firemen are holding the couch. Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie land safely on the couch, but Homer falls screaming through the floor.
- Denied Food as Punishment: Bart and Lisa take turns picking the family activity Homer will take them. When Bart reveals that he traded his turn for Lisa's dessert, this results in Homer having to go to a boring place that Lisa wants to go. Out of frustration, Homer attempts to punish Bart by denying him any dessert, but this backfires when Bart offers to trade his next activity choice to Lisa in exchange for her dessert, to which Lisa happily accepts, much to Homer's dismay.Lisa: The Smithsonian Traveling Exhibit. It encapsulates America and makes history come alive.
Homer: What?! And Marmaduke doesn't?
Lisa: (smiles) Sorry, Dad, my mind is made up.
Homer: (angrily to Bart) This is all your fault for trading away your turn! Just for that, no dessert tonight!
Bart: (smiles at Lisa) I'll trade you my next turn for your dessert.
Lisa: (smiles at Bart) Deal.
Homer: D'OH!!! - Description Cut: Chief Wiggum tells Ralph that "crime doesn't take a vacation". Cut to Fat Tony and his goons in beachwear playing with a beach ball.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Referenced when Marge eavesdrops on Skinner and Agnes's phone call.Agnes: I don't want you driving through tunnels! You know what that symbolizes!
Skinner: But mother, it cuts ninety minutes off my drive!
Agnes: No tunnels! - Eye Cam: Lisa is in a sensory deprivation tank and sees the world from Homer's perspective. Lisa-as-Homer is falling asleep and struggling to keep his eyes open during a ballet recital. Shown with the Eye Cam effect.
- Growling Gut: Lisa when she is stressed out by sharing a room with Bart.
- Hypocrisy Nod: When Marge tries to chew Bart out for tricking her into thinking a criminal was breaking into the house, Bart retorts that "It serves you right for eavesdropping", and Marge has to concede it's a fair point.
- Literal Metaphor:
- Homer using the Bill of Rights to shield himself against the guards, complete with the line, "I am so sick of people hiding behind the Bill of Rights!"
- Homer tells Lisa that he won't ever let her drift away from him... as he's standing on the down escalator.
- Made Out to Be a Jerkass: While in the deprivation tank, Lisa imagines herself as Snowball II. When Maggie tries to grab her with dirty hands, she swats her away, resulting in Marge hitting her with a broom for hitting Maggie.
- Noodle Incident: According to Marge, this isn't the first time the family had to pay off damage to a priceless artifact.Marge: It's just until we pay off Daddy's desecration of a priceless artifact. I thought I'd never have to say that again.
- Not Helping Your Case: Homer assumes that Lisa will pick something only she will enjoy for the family event. Her suggestions don't do much to prove him wrong since they are clearly based on things she would enjoy.
- Parents as People: Lisa learns this by seeing herself from Homer's perspective: badgering him for sleeping through a ballet recital. Lisa realizes that while her dad is far from perfect, he loves her enough to take her to places that only she would enjoy.
- Parents Know Their Children: Hilariously subverted. Marge initially mistakes Principal Skinner's voice for Maggie's.
- Police Brutality: The security officers who cornered Homer seemed pretty disgusted at the fact that Homer was protected by the Bill of Rights (literally in this case), and seemed pretty happy when he accidentally licked off the part prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment.
- Shout-Out: When Lisa imagines herself as Snowball II, she says Maggie moving towards her, saying "Get your sticky hands off me!"
- Skewed Priorities:
- Homer grabs the Bill of Rights and sits down in Archie Bunker's chair, batting it around a bit. The security guards, aiming their pistols at him, demanding only that he get out of Archie's chair, at first. They are even more outraged when they realize he has the Bill of Rights.
- When Homer - half-asleep - is listening to a Big Band/Standards radio station and the DJ is doing a "remember when" spiel to set up the next song - Homer thinks he's traveled back in time and plans to warn people about Adolf Hitler coming into power — and getting five-cent ice cream.
- Symbolic Distance: When Lisa tells Homer that she expects them to drift further apart from each other as time passes, Homer gets worried and tells her he'll never let that happen - as the shot pans back to show him stood on a down-escalator that is moving him away from her.
- Taped-Over Turmoil: When Lisa is forced to share a room with Bart due to Homer converting her room into a cell phone tower, Homer asks Lisa what her favorite movie is. Lisa laments that her favorite movie was The Little Mermaid (1989) until Homer taped episodes of The Odd Couple over her VHS of it.
- Thrifty Scot: According to a conversation between Moe and Lenny, Willie got himself a mail-order bride, but is too cheap to pay the C.O.D. for her, leaving her still stuck in a crate at the post office.
- Throw It In!: In-Universe. During Bart's prank, Maggie makes a cow noise on one of her toys. Bart rolls with it and pretends to shoot it.
- Unsettling Gender-Reveal: One of the phone calls Marge listens to features Krusty:Krusty: I need you to get me out of another jam. I picked up this chick last night. At least I thought she was a chick.
- Villains Out Shopping: Fat Tony, Legs and Louie are seen on the beach in swimming costumes (plus suspenders for Fat Tony) playing with a beach ball when Homer's tank washes up. They're still carrying their gun holsters with them without any other clothes, though.
- Whale Egg: The episode is the Trope Namer, but not an actual example of it. Homer's deprivation tank washes up on the beach and Ralph refers to it as a whale egg.
