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Context Recap / TheSimpsonsS23E6TheBookJob

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1[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/book_job_4.jpg]]
2-->'''''THE INEVITABLE TV TROPES PAGE'''''
3
4When Lisa discovers that her favorite book series is really the product of committee writing by publishers (with an actress posing as the author), Homer and Bart decide to gain fame the same way — until a real publisher wants to publish their work and change it into yet another vampire love story based on Twilight.
5
6Guest stars Creator/NeilGaiman AsHimself, acting as one of Homer and Bart's writing partners, plus Creator/AndyGarcia as Slick the publishing agent.
7----
8!! Tropes:
9* AchievementsInIgnorance: Neil Gaiman has a lucrative writing career and is frequently on the bestsellers' list...''even though he NeverLearnedToRead''.
10* ADegreeInUseless: Literature majors are so desperate to make a living that they have to work for soulless executives who don't give them autonomy or credit.
11* AdamWesting: Neil Gaiman plays a hilarious {{Cloudcuckoolander}} version of himself as the ButtMonkey on Homer and Bart's writing team, who also turns to be a deceptively brilliant ManipulativeBastard at the episode's end.
12* AffectionateParody: Of heist films.
13* AlienBlood: Parodied; When a bunch of kids freak out upon seeing Moe and scream that he's a troll, he pricks his finger to prove that he's human. When he instead bleeds ''green'' blood, Moe admits that "the first part's always green, but it ''turns'' red!"
14* ArtisticLicense: While writing by committee is a real thing, for literature the process is more that one or two people take charge while different drafts and manuscripts are passed to researchers and editors for review. The episode portrays it as everyone having a hand in the direct writing the actual book, which would result in a wildly different tone and style throughout. The system actually better resembles a television writers room, where they might divide up a script to different writers according to act breaks.
15* ArtisticLicensePaleontology:
16** Hilariously discussed. When Homer gets taken away by security for taking a nap inside a dinosaur head he protests that it's not against the law to sleep in a ''Tyrannosaurus'' head, to which the guards respond that he's inside an ''Allosaurus''.[[note]][[DumbassHasAPoint In Homer's defense]], the head actually ''does'' look more like that of a ''Tyrannosaurus'', having a much bulkier skull shape and none of the brow horns ''Allosaurus'' is known for having.[[/note]]
17-->'''Homer:''' I demand to speak to my paleontologist!
18** Milhouse denies that the animatronics seen during the show are real dinosaurs, since dinosaurs are [[Series/BarneyAndFriends supposed to sing]]. Judging from the masses' reaction, many of the other children may have had similar beliefs.
19** Zigzagged with the ''Pteranodon'' at the dinosaur show. While it lacks pycnofibres[[note]]fur-like covering found on all pterosaurs[[/note]], it [[ShownTheirWork has a pteroid bone]][[note]]A small wrist bone unique to pterosaurs that attaches their wing membrane to their shoulder, [[https://www.lyellcollection.org/cms/10.1144/SP455.4/asset/c303755c-ef82-4951-803f-ac6068d8aafb/assets/graphic/sp455-1689f01.jpeg like this.]][[/note]].
20* AvengersAssemble: Homer building his CaperCrew-style writing team. He starts by approaching Bart, who's playing a shooting game at an arcade, and from there the two round up Skinner, Patty, Moe (when Lenny is unavailable), and Professor Frink.
21* BackToTheWomb: Ralph gets scared by the dinosaurs at an arena show and says, "I want to go back in Mommy!" before trying to go up Sarah's dress.
22* BasementDweller: Principal Skinner joins the crew to have enough money to move out of his mother's house.
23* BatmanGambit: Lisa pulls this off by pretending to betray the crew, as she knows that even if the team could reach in to the publisher's office with their original version of the book on a flash drive, there is no way they could put their original version into print without the publisher's password. As part of the plan, she tips off the publisher, and when he types in the password while giving Lisa the flash drive containing the vampire version, Lisa secretly switches the flash drives by hugging Bart to ensure that the original version goes into print instead.
24** However, despite being happy that the team values creativity over profit, Lisa learned too late that Gaiman pulled off a similar trick with a third flash drive that lists him as the author, much to her frustration.
25* BecomingTheMask: Team Homer initially made ''The Troll Twins of Underbridge Academy'' to make an easy million dollars, but as time went on, they grew more and more invested in the story they've crafted and become outraged when their publisher heavily alters it to be about vampires; [[ScrewTheMoneyIHaveRules they even ripped up the check to ensure that they value their creativity over money]]. It was also this same trait which motivated Lisa to help the team in tricking the publisher in publishing the original version.
26* ButtMonkey: Neil Gaiman mostly spends the episode having his life repeatedly threatened and harassed by Moe, though it's subverted in the end when he steals the credit for ''Underbridge Academy''.
27* BittersweetEnding: The literary industry is still a hellhole, but Homer's team have won a victory that is meaningful to them... except that Neil Gaiman steals the credit for their story.
28* BrokenPedestal:
29** Lisa finds out that the author of the ''Angelica Buttons'' series is really an actress and that her favorite books are written by the publishers in grueling sweatshop-esque conditions. It gets to the point that fervent environmentalist Lisa wants to ''[[OOCIsSeriousBusiness burn her old Angelica Button novels]]'' out of shame.
30** When Marge tries to defend the books by saying Lisa still liked the stories when she read them, Lisa points out that Betty Crocker was never a real person but an invention of men in TheRoaringTwenties. Marge pretends not to be hurt and chastises Lisa, but then goes outside and empties all her Betty Crocker goods in the trash.
31* ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: Neil Gaiman. First he betrays the crew by taking sole credit for the book and its success, and then he poisons his co-conspirator. And it's heavily implied that this is what he has done for every single book ever published under his name.
32* CluelessAesop: Parodied. The dinosaur-themed show the family watches at the beginning of the episode has a forced GreenAesop after the meteorite hits. Lisa thinks the message is sweet, but Bart says the lesson is skewed because if the world is going to be destroyed by an unrelated cause you might as well party while it lasts. Homer, Maggie ''and'' [[NotSoAboveItAll Marge]] [[JerkassHasAPoint all end up agreeing that Bart has a point]].
33* CompositeCharacter: Spiritually, the author of the Angelica Button series is a committee of writers using a PenName calculated for maximum appeal. It also invokes the real practice of Ghost Writers and HousePseudonym, using a form of UncreditedRole that does the majority of the work but doesn't get credit for it.
34* {{Deconstruction}}: Of the common assertion that [[{{Ghostwriter}} ghostwriting]] is soulless and lazy. Lisa is disgusted that her favorite book series was actually written by a board committee and decides to write her own book to stick it to the men upstairs. Except that she doesn't actually ''know'' what to write about, just that she wants to write, and since she insists on doing it herself, she finds herself unmotivated and constantly procrastinating. Homer and Bart's team, however, prove to be much more effective at putting a book together by using their individual talents to inspire and push each other along, and there being multiple men on the job means they're able to stop each other from slacking off, creating their novel in record time. While they're motivated primarily by profit, they're still more motivated than Lisa actually is, and they eventually grow attached enough to their story that [[ScrewTheMoneyIHaveRules they give up the paycheck to get their version of it out there.]]
35* DiggingYourselfDeeper: When Moe is accused by kids of being a troll, he pricks his finger to show them that he bleeds red like an ordinary human. The blood that comes out is green. At which point Moe desperately insists that it ''turns'' red eventually.
36* EntertaininglyWrong: After being outwitted on their heist, the team sadly meet up at the bookstore where they co-wrote ''Underbridge Academy''. They're convinced that they've failed completely, but unbeknownst to them, they've ''already won'': at that moment, they see copies of the novel with its original cover on sale, and people waiting in line to buy it. At which point Lisa shows up to them and explains what she was ''really'' doing during the heist.
37* EveryoneHasStandards: The team's aim from the outset is to pander to preestablished fandoms, but even they look at the dozens of vampire books on the shelves and admit they have to write something different.
38* EvilIsPetty: Agnes' oppression of her son extends to not even letting him have his own ''magnets on their fridge''.
39* EvilLaugh: "The audiobook is only available... abridged. ''Abridged!''" ''(cackling, maniacal laughter)''
40* ExecutiveMeddling: InUniverse. Homer and Bart originally created a fantasy novel that's best described as [[CaptainErsatz Harry Potter with trolls]], but when it actually gets published, the company plans to turn it into yet another [[Literature/TheTwilightSaga vampire romance series for preteen girls]].
41* ExtranormalInstitute: Discussed; Seymour concludes that the trope has been so successful because children can relate to a school setting. The "magic" aspect, however, is necessary because it makes the trope more interesting than schools in real life.
42* FakeDefector: When the crew breaks into the printing room, the Executive is aware of this because Lisa informed him in exchange for getting to write a sequel. It turns out she's just tricking him into revealing his password so she can see to it that the original book will be printed instead of the vampire-themed version.
43* [[invoked]] FollowTheLeader: InUniverse, ''Underbridge Academy'' is heavily inspired by the ''Angelica Button'' series (read: ''Harry Potter''), but it gains enough genuine creativity and talent behind it to elevate the material. Furthermore, the publishers wanted to rewrite it into a poorly-done ''[[Literature/TheTwilightSaga Twilight]] knockoff, angering the team and motivating them into action to save their story.
44* {{Foreshadowing}}: After the team is put together, Bart mentions that he [[TropesAreTools feels like they're missing some key role]], but he can't think what. If later events are any indication, that role is a man on the inside. The team know stories, but they don't know publishing (note that Homer was distracted from Lisa's anti-system anger by his own greed earlier in the episode), so Lisa's ability to infiltrate the latter ends up being key to their victory.
45* FreezeFrameBonus: [[invoked]] If you pause any DVD or streaming video in the right places during the episode, you can see ''actual'' story being written, rather than the usual gibberish often used to simulate writing, meaning that either the team at the show were planning to [[{{Defictionalization}} actually make]] the book in real life and just never got around to it, or they (correctly) assumed people might be curious to what was being written by Homer and Bart's crew and put actual story text in certain shots.
46* FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse: When Lisa crushes Marge's blissful delusions to deal with "T.R Francis" having done the same thing to hers.
47-->'''Marge:''' [[BrutalHonesty I know you're hurting, but that's no reason to lash out at me!]]
48* {{Ghostwriter}}: Lisa finds out that all the young adult books (including her favorite "[[Franchise/HarryPotter Angelica Button]]" series) are really just based on market research by the publishing companies and then written by teams of writers desperate for work. The "authors" who have their names on the book are just made up, backstory and all, and are represented by actors. After finding this out, Homer and Bart assemble a team to create their own hit young adult novel, using Lisa as the author to be credited.
49* [[invoked]] GrowingTheBeard: As alluded to below, ''Underbridge Academy'' is originally written to be StrictlyFormula novel with no real intent to be anything above disposable fluff, but the novel's quality significantly improves and it actually ends up as a genuinely good book as everyone gets increasingly invested in it.
50* GondorCallsForAid: Despite mortal levels of enmity between them, Homer asks his sister-in-law Patty to join TheCaper on the basis of her fantasy knowledge. She agrees (when Bart asks too) and ends up [[GoKartingWithBowser having a great time]] with Homer and the rest of the group.
51* GoodCapitalismEvilCapitalism: The bad capitalists are faceless corporations that run literary sweatshops, but Homer's team of profit-motivated entrepreneurs are portrayed as heroic capitalists whose desire for money gradually turns into genuine artistic interest.
52* HardTruthAesop:
53** Though sometimes HardWorkHardlyWorks in RealLife, there are plenty of times when it ''does'', and you shouldn't write off hard work just because of the possibility of this trope happening. While it's initially done through underhanded means, Homer and Bart's group-penned novel is able to succeed through grueling work together, while Lisa doesn't take her own efforts as an author seriously enough and so never pens anything.
54** Creativity is best as a team effort. Homer and Bart's team is ultimately able to pen a novel far more successfully than Lisa is because they have each other to work off of and get inspiration from. Just because you're primarily driven by profit doesn't mean you can't still take pride in your work and produce something genuinely good.
55** Assuming that ViewersAreMorons will only prevent work that is both high-quality and marketable from seeing print. The publishers edit ''Underbridge Academy'' into a generic ''Twilight'' clone because they're convinced it won't sell, but it actually does, showing that marketers should give audiences a little more credit.
56* HarpoDoesSomethingFunny: An in-universe example. If Lisa's reluctance and lack of cue cards before giving her faux-biography is any indication, she [[DontThinkFeel improvised it completely on the spot]].
57* HourglassPlot:
58** [[invoked]] The episode's main story starts with Homer and Bart (and, by extension, the rest of their team) OnlyInItForTheMoney and wanting to create a StrictlyFormula novel to cater to the masses and publishers, but they find themselves all getting increasingly invested in the novel itself along with actively improving themselves as writers, to the point where they produce a truly good creative work and are outraged when the publishers inflict ExecutiveMeddling on it.
59** In contrast, Lisa starts the story firmly believing in the auteur theory and arrogantly believing that she doesn't need any assistance to help her write her novel. Her novel never makes it off the ground and instead ''she'' is the one who ultimately makes a deal (at least appears to) with the corporate publishers to make sure the publishers' version of ''Underbridge Academy'' is released.
60* HeistEpisode: Technically only the last part is an out-and-out caper, but the tone feels like one from the moment Bart and Homer cook up their idea to write a money-making book, with Homer meeting Bart at an arcade and talks in thinly veiled SpySpeak to get him on board. The caper consists of writing a young adult fantasy novel, complete with multiple title cards within the episode showing the part of the heist they are on and the job of the specific members of the "crew." However, when the publisher changes their manuscript, they execute an ''actual'' heist to break into the printer and switch manuscripts.
61* HiddenDepths:
62** Whichever of Springfield's denizens viewers might have expected to have written a series of "moderately successful children's books", it almost certainly wasn't ''Moe''.
63** Frink is invited into the project solely because he's the first guy Homer could think of ''who owns a computer'', but he readily agrees and is the one to suggest the "Fuzzlepitch" idea.
64** Patty turns out to be a huge fantasy buff and is invited to join the team on the basis of her expertise.
65** Bart's intelligence is not forgotten, as shown when he accurately references Shakespeare's history to win an argument with Lisa.
66* HumbleGoal: Homer dreams of making enough money to sip cocktails on a beach...''in Shelbyville'', a nearby town no more famous or exotic than Springfield itself.
67* HypocriticalHumor: When Lisa "reveals" herself to the rest of the crew as a traitor, Patty comments that [[FemaleMisogynist it's always a woman who betrays the team]].
68* InsaneTrollLogic: Mrs. Skinner tells her son to wash her undergarments again just because Homer and Bart saw them.
69* ItsPersonal: The writer team initially cared about making a book for profit. However, they care very deeply about the changes made to their book and decides to fight back against the publishers. Bart initially chastises the team for caring about the book by pointing out that they will lose the money if they do this. However, Skinner convinces him otherwise by pointing out that the epic war featured in the book's backstory that Bart wrote in has been turned into a dance competition. As such, Bart tags along after furiously tearing up the check in disgust.
70-->'''Bart''': Let's steal back our book.
71* ItWillNeverCatchOn: The publishers go out of their way to stop the crew from getting their book published as they intended it to be. As it turns out, the people of Springfield love ''Underbridge Academy'', and its publication is a success for the authors both financially and emotionally (though ''Underbridge'' is portrayed as original in comparison to its vampire version).
72* OhCrap: After Neil Gaiman sweetly tells Moe that he didn't take a sip of the drink he just poured for Moe because "I'm afraid I don't like the taste... of ''poison''", Moe looks at his emptied cup and sighs "Aww... crap."
73* ProperlyParanoid: If Moe had gone through with shanking Gaiman when he first showed up, Gaiman wouldn't have been able to betray the team (although that same result could have been achieved just by refusing his request to join...).
74* KarmaHoudini: PlayedForLaughs; Neil Gaiman never receives his comeuppance for stealing credit for the team's novel and poisoning Moe at the very end to avoid sharing the profits.
75* MostWritersAreWriters: Lisa thinks she can just start writing a novel on her own with no prep work. In real life, it can take weeks, months or even ''years'' to prepare to even start writing one on your own, so of course she fails to write a single sentence.
76* MythologyGag: According to the publishers, the original version of ''Twilight'' supposedly had a golem instead of a vampire as the supernatural LoveInterest. Said golem looks like the one from [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS18E4TreehouseOfHorrorXVII Treehouse of Horror XVII]].
77* NeverLearnedToRead: Neil Gaiman [[LogicBomb somehow manages to have a writing career despite this]].
78* NoodleIncident: Homer and Bart repeatedly mention a prior heist they tried to pull in Kansas City going south.
79* NoOshaCompliance: The majority of children at the show are terrified by the life-sized animatronic dinosaurs and run within moments of the show starting.
80* {{Omniglot}}: Apparently, [[HiddenDepths Patty]] is fluent in numerous fantasy languages, "from [[Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire Dothraki]] to [[Literature/HarryPotter Parseltongue]]."
81* OohMeAccentsSlipping: PlayedForLaughs. Bart tells Neil Gaiman to "lose the [English] accent", which prompts Gaiman to speak what amounts to a line of stereotypically American nonsense in the ''least'' convincing American accent ever heard by man.
82* OutGambitted: The Executive thinks he's pulled this on the crew when he recruits Lisa, only for Lisa to secretly take the crew's side. But then ''everyone'' turns out to have been dancing on Neil Gaiman's strings.
83* PlotTailoredToTheParty: In a sense. The team Homer and Bart assemble to assist in writing their novel each bring their own talents that prove vital to the novel's success - Homer and Bart are collectively TheLeader, Skinner for his understanding of a child's mind as an elementary school principal, Patty's experience and understanding of the fantasy genre, Moe having previously published several moderately successful children's books, and Professor Frink providing a computer for them to write their story on. Neil Gaiman is later included due to his own experience as a widely successful fantasy author.
84* RagtagBunchOfMisfits: Homer and Bart's writing team consists of Principal Seymour Skinner, Patty Bouvier, Moe Syzlak, Professor Frink, and Creator/NeilGaiman.
85* RaptorAttack: The dromaeosaurids at the dinosaur show are ''Franchise/JurassicPark''-styled. Justified in that they are just costumes.
86* SelfDeprecation: It's unclear which type of author (as presented in the show) the ''Simpsons'' writers identify with, but [[WritersSuck both types are decidedly flawed]].
87* SeriesContinuityError: The family attended the midnight release of the final ''Angelica Button'' book in "Smoke on the Daughter" in a scenario analogous to the release of ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows.'' Here, the series is not only ongoing but is ExtrudedBookProduct released at a rate of ten installments per year.
88* SeriousBusiness: The team is '''terrified''' when they first hit writer's block, instantly jumping to the idea that they should flee the country and get facial reconstruction surgery. Bart halts them with a gunshot [[note]]actually, a recording of a gunshot from a toddler's interactive book about cowboys[[/note]] and suggests they try a new approach, after which they get back in the groove again.
89* ShoutOut:
90** The episode's title is a reference to ''Film/TheBankJob'', and the whole episode is one long {{Homage}} to ''Film/OceansEleven''.
91** As previously shown in the series, the ''Angelica Button'' novels are an obvious AffectionateParody of the ''Franchise/HarryPotter'' series. In another reference to ''Harry Potter'', Bart later remarks that Aunt Patty has "read enough fantasy novels to choke a hippogriff." Patty is also revealed to speak Parseltongue.
92** Some of the fantasy novels on Patty's bookshelf include "[[Series/ParksAndRecreation The Winkles of Elfinshire]]," "[[Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians Percy Sledge and the Olympians]]," "[[Literature/DragonridersOfPern Dragonfriends of Plonk]]," "[[Film/CloudAtlas Cloud Atlas 2: Cumulus Rising]]," "[[Film/InvasionOfTheBodySnatchers The Body Snatcher]] [[Literature/TheCatcherInTheRye in the Rye]]," and "[[Literature/TheVoyageOfTheDawnTreader Booze Cruise of the Dawn Treader]]."
93** When Lisa is telling her fake backstory to the [=TweenLit=] [=CEO=], the latter briefly mentions Creator/RLStine and ''Literature/{{Goosebumps}}''.
94** When Homer and Lisa chase after T.R.Francis at the dinosaur show, they pass by a group of actors still in their dinosaur costumes reenacting ''ComicStrip/TheFarSide'' cartoon "The Real Reason Dinosaurs Became Extinct".
95** The dinosaur show at the start is of course a pastiche of the ''Series/WalkingWithDinosaurs'' arena show.
96* TheSmurfettePrinciple: Patty is the only female member of Homer and Bart's writing team.
97* TheSparkOfGenius: The creative version of this trope is deconstructed, with Homer and Bart's group effort being shown to be a more successful and clever way of writing a novel as opposed to Lisa's solo effort, as she's unable to properly focus herself. The episode all but states that ''no one'' on their own really has the creative wherewithal to be able to write "the Great American Novel", and instead the most successful artists take inspiration from others (intentionally or not).
98* SpecialGuest: Two - Creator/NeilGaiman AsHimself, and Creator/AndyGarcia as Slick.
99* SpySpeak: PlayedForLaughs between Homer and Bart as they discuss [[MundaneMadeAwesome breaking into children's fantasy publishing]].
100-->'''Bart:''' Whatever the job is, I'm not interested.
101-->'''Homer:''' A million bucks has changed stupider minds than yours.
102-->'''Bart:''' I like the beat; play me the tune.
103-->'''Homer:''' We're taking down kids who read.
104-->'''Bart:''' Chapter-book crowd? That's a juicy peach, but what's the cream?
105-->'''Homer:''' I'm putting together a tween lit gang-write.
106-->'''Bart:''' Tween lit gang-write?
107-->'''Homer:''' Tween lit gang-write. But this Literature/{{Babar}} needs a Zephir.
108-->'''Bart:''' A Zephir?
109-->'''Homer:''' [[KidSidekick You're the Zephir]].
110-->'''Bart:''' This better not turn out like [[NoodleIncident Kansas City]].
111-->'''Homer:''' It won't be like Kansas City.
112* StrictlyFormula: The ''Angelica Buttons'' series and other popular books. Our protagonists try to make some quick money by writing a book the same way, but accidentally evolve the story into something good, become attached to it, and fight to prevent ExecutiveMeddling from ruining it.
113* TakeThat: The whole episode is one to the idea of the "lone auteur," with the success of the novel penned by Homer and Bart's team showing that the creative process is (however distanced) ultimately a group effort, while Lisa intentionally trying to make her novel just on her own is shown to make it doomed from the start.
114* TemptingFate: After Lisa explains how she tricked the Executive into publishing the crew's original story, she comments that the best part is that she's been credited as the author. She then opens a copy of the book and is outraged to learn that ''Neil Gaiman'' got that credit.
115* TooManyCooksSpoilTheSoup: Subverted in the sense that despite being initially appalled at the writing by committee strategy, the team actually find the collaboration and end product satisfactory creatively. This contrasts Lisa trying to write by herself, [[AttentionDeficitOohShiny allowing any and all distractions]] keep her from writing anything. But once the book was bought by the publisher, their focus groups and efforts to follow recent trends made them rewrite the book away from their efforts to be a bit more original (such as using trolls instead of vampires).
116* UnspokenPlanGuarantee: After it's revealed to the viewers that the company published the original book instead of the vampire-themed version, Lisa explains how it happened. Knowing the crew would fail without the Executive's computer password to allow them to send the book's original version to the printing machines, she pretended to betray them so the Executive would trust her with the password and she would insert the pendrive with the original book instead of the one with the vampire story. Then she sees Neil Gaiman credited as the author instead of her and the next scene features Gaiman commenting that Lisa never thought there might be ''three'' pendrives.
117* WhamLine: An in-universe example. The first ''Underbridge Academy'' book ends with the heroes receiving a message that says "Your parents are still alive."
118* WhamShot: TheReveal on the inside dust jacket of the published ''Underbridge Academy'' that '''Neil Gaiman''' is being accredited as the author.
119* WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids: Invoked with the presentation at the museum featuring realistic and genuinely terrifying dinosaur animatronics and costumes, making it more on the horror side of ''Film/JurassicPark'' than the whimsical side. Kids run screaming out of the arena and Milhouse is shaking in fear holding a [[Series/BarneyAndFriends Barney doll]] wondering why they aren't singing.

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