Recap / The Simpsons S 11 E 8 Take My Wife Sleaze

Original air date: 11/28/1999

Production code: BABF-05

Homer wins a vintage motorcycle at a dance competition at a '50s nostalgia diner and creates a biker gang called the Hell's Satans — until a real biker gang with the same name crashes at the Simpson house.

Tropes:

• Actor Allusion: Ramrod, played by Henry Winkler, calls Marge "Mrs. S", referencing Happy Days where he, as Fonzie, called Mrs. Cunningham "Mrs. C".
• Actually Pretty Funny: At one point in the training montage, Homer revs the bike's engine and it flips out from under him, crashing through the roof of the house. He and Bart burst out laughing.
• All Bikers are Hells Angels: Homer tries cultivating this image when he wins his motorcycle by forming his own motorcycle club called the Hell's Satans. He...doesn't exactly succeed, considering the worst thing they do is loiter around the Kwik-E-Mart until Apu chases them away with a broom. To say nothing about the rest of the "gang's" less-than-stellar rides.^note To wit, Moe drives an old beat-up motorcycle that's falling apart, Carl uses a moped, Ned rides a regular bicycle, and Lenny uses a lawnmower that can barely keep up with the rest. The original Hell's Satans led by Meathook play this much more straight, being a real gang of dangerous troublemakers.
• Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?: Marge asks if the bikers plan to have their way with her once she's kidnapped and is visibly offended when they tell her they aren't attracted to her, even confirming that they all saw her centerfold that Homer submitted to the biker magazine without her permission.
• The Blank: Early on, the man with no face, only a nose. Somehow this doesn't prevent him from speaking.
• Blatant Lies: Rod and Todd when Lisa points out the two are watching herself and Bart shower in the backyard. They simply lower their blinds and continue to watch from behind it.
• Blood Knight: Meathook. He believes violence and aggression is the best response to most situations, and when Marge brings up a dream of having a job, a family and a home, he says that to get that, he would have to kill fifty people. Marge tells him that if he had a job, he wouldn't have to.
• Brick Joke: After Marge is kidnapped, Homer tries to get her location from a biker bar, but gets kicked out three times in a row. At the end of the episode, he stops by that same bar one last time to steal a keg of beer on the way back home.
• Comically Missing the Point:
  • When Meathook challenges Homer to a duel in the "Circle of Death", Marge is more bothered by their dirtying the Circle (which she just finished sweeping) than the idea that her husband might die.
  • The rest of Homer’s gang doesn’t seem to understand Ned’s objections to the “Hell’s Satans” name, throwing out such suggestions as “The Devil’s Pals” and “The Christ Punchers” (the latter of which makes Ned flinch).
• Continuity Nod: In Greaser's, Apu and Manjula are wearing the same clothes as they did in the conception scene in Apu's car in the previous episode, "Eight Misbehavin'".
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: In retaliation for taking his gang name, Meathook forces Homer to eat all of his Hell's Satans merchandise. That includes the gang jackets, hats, frisbees, and some pogs too.
• Couch Gag: The Simpsons sit on the couch, but get sucked inside and come out looking like a shredded piece of paper
• Covert Pervert: Despite their strong Christian upbringing, Rod and Todd really enjoy watching Lisa shower in the backyard. This makes them both double as Dirty Kids.
• Death Glare: Moe is doing one, accompanied with folded arms, in the photo of the Hell's Satans Homer shows to Marge, as seen in the page image.
• Department of Redundancy Department: The "Hell's Satans".
• Duels Decide Everything: Played for laughs.
  Meathook: There's only one way to decide this: You and me, in the Circle of Death!
  Marge: (groans) Oh, I just swept the Circle of Death.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • None of the bikers are willing to violate Marge. They do admit that they don't find her attractive in a sexual manner, though...
  • They also don't take kindly to Homer's... well, "copyright infringement" is probably the best way to put it, lightly.
• Exact Words: When Marge asks if any of the bikers has had a dream, Ramrod replies that he has, wearing he was in a beautiful garden... beating up a shopkeeper. Marge cuts him off and reiterates that she meant a dream of having a job, a family and a home.
• Extreme Omnivore: Homer is forced to eat his Hell's Satans merchandise, which includes caps and frisbees.
• Face Palm: Bart when Homer's motorcycle goes through the fence while Bart is training Homer on how to ride it. Somehow Homer has time to get off the bike, run inside and upstairs to look through the window before the crash.
• Father, I Want to Marry My Brother: The corny 70s-style ballad that plays while Bart is helping Homer learn to ride his motorcycle takes the concept of the Parental Love Song quite literally.
• Halfway Plot Switch: The first half of the episode is built around Homer forming his own biker gang with Moe, Lenny, Carl and Ned. However, after the Hell's Satans kidnap Marge, this plot is dropped in favor of having Homer fighting the Satans to save her.
• Heroes Gone Fishing: Ned has a new bumper pool table in his rumpus room. When he brings this up in front of Homer, Moe, Lenny and Carl when he wants to join the gang, they recruit him on the spot, using the rumpus room as their lair. A game is underway as the first meeting is held in the next scene.
• Hypocrite: After being thrown out of Poppa Wheelie's twice, Homer remarks, "Some people never learn," as he heads in a third time.
• Improbable Weapon User: When Homer catches up with the real Hell's Satans, he and Meathook have a duel which evolves into a swordfight... with motorcycles.
• Jerkass: While it is Played for Laughs, Homer treats Marge like dirt in this episode,threatening her with divorce just for wanting to dance with him, taking an intimate picture of her and sending to a magazine without her permission, and showing a complete disregard for her feelings and well being. He even considers the possibility of replacing her with a Korean bride at one point.
• Kick Them While They Are Down: Meathook tells Homer during their fight that after he has killed him, he intends to take his wallet.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: When the real Hell's Satans crash in the Simpson household, Homer spends most of the time cowering in fear. But when they leave with Marge in tow, that's when he gathers the courage to hunt them down and battle their leader in a Circle of Death.
• Megaton Punch: A strange variant: during their dance, Homer throws Marge into the air so hard she disappears and is seen entering the building again, seemingly being thrown back through time to where she first entered the restaurant.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Ramrod tells Marge of a dream he had where he was in a beautiful garden, giving one of these to a shopkeeper.
• Not Hyperbole: When Marge offers to make breakfast, Meathook replies "I'd kill for some waffles", to which Ramrod says "He has. Remember that IHOP in Oakland?", which makes Meathook and Ramrod laugh.
• Oh, Crap!: Homer and the Hell's Satans refuse to budge from flicking pennies and loitering around the Kwik-E-Mart, but beat a hasty retreat when Apu produces a broom and brandishes it threateningly. Afterwards, Manjula exits the store and tells him that he promised not to do that, both of them acting like he threatened Homer and the others with a shotgun.
• Overly Long Gag: Bart laughing at Homer after Homer tells him he doesn't know how to ride his motorcycle. His laughter lasts well over a day.
• Parental Love Song: Parodied with "Mayonnaise and Marmalade," the song (performed by NRBQ) that plays over the montage of Bart teaching Homer how to ride a motorcycle. It starts as a pretty standard sappy 70s-style ballad of this kind and gets increasingly absurd, cumulating in this line:
  If you weren't a man and my father too
  I'd buy you a diamond ring and then I'd marry you
• Person as Verb: "I took a sacred vow on my wedding day: to Bogart her forever."
• Roaring Rampage of Rescue: When Homer finds the Hell's Satans after they have kidnapped Marge, he bursts into their camp, yelling at the top of his voice and laying out bikers with punches, kicks, and headbutts.
• Rule-Abiding Rebel: Homer may have intended the Hell's Satans to be a gang of street toughs, and the Springfield locals seem to regard them as such, but this is really all they amount to. The worst they do is taunt Wiggum and hang around the Kwik-E-Mart, but they otherwise commit no crimes and drive at the speed limit. This is a gang that Ned Flanders can comfortably ride with.
• Rule of Three:
  • The Guiness Book of Records's TV ad mentions several achievements and says there'll be three more.
  • According to the time skip, it takes three days between Wolfman Jack saying that Greaser's Cafe will never go away and Greaser's Cafe going out of business.
  • Homer gets kicked out of Poppa Wheelie's three times. We don't see the third, but after he enters, we hear a punch land.
• Shout-Out: Parodied In-Universe, where the biker movie from which Homer takes his persona has the protagonist’s father lament that his son is acting “like a Rebel Without a Cause, like that boy in that popular movie we saw.”
• Song Parody: Homer and Marge dance to "Mental House Rock", a parody of "Jailhouse Rock".
• Special Guest: John Goodman and Henry Winkler as Meathook and Ramrod, the two main members of Hell's Satans.
• Spectacular Spinning: Homer and Marge's dance to win the vintage motorcycle includes lots of spinning; from Homer and Marge swinging each other around by the leg/hair, or Homer makng his wife spin on her hair like a top.
• Stab the Salad: When Meathook first faces Homer, he pulls out a switchblade... and a switchfork, forcing him to eat his Hell's Satans merchandise.
• Tempting Fate:
  • After Homer and Marge win the dance contest, Wolfman Jack says that Greaser's Cafe is never going away. Three days later, the restaurant is out of business. He then remarks that at least he's still got his girlfriend, only to realize she's no longer there.
  • After the Hell's Satans leave the Simpsons' house and Bart reads the note they left behind, Homer is happy and relieved they're gone. Then Bart reads the PS that adds that they've taken Marge.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Homer's Hell's Satans gang (consisting of Moe, Lenny, Carl and Ned) completely vanishes from the plot after the real Hell's Satans invade his house and kidnap Marge.
• Where the Hell Is Springfield?: When Homer tries to ask Chief Wiggum for help, Wiggum scornfully refuses, telling him "We have a little saying around here: 'Let Michigan handle it'.", which means Springfield isn't in Michigan.
• Which Bathroom Dilemma: Greaser's Cafe has two bathroom: "Cool Cats" and "Squares". Lenny enters to the "Cool Cats" bathroom, cue women screaming; so he goes to the "Squares" room, and still there are women screaming at him.

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