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Recap / The Simpsons S12 E17: "Simpson Safari"

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Original air date: 4/1/2001 (produced in 2000)

Production code: CABF-13

After Homer's misbehavior at the supermarket cause a bag boy strike, the Simpsons are left without food — until they find a 1960s-era box of animal crackers advertising a contest where the winners get an African safari.


Tropes appearing in the episode:

  • Africa Is a Country: Downplayed. The specific country the Simpsons visit is only mentioned in passing (and changes its name twice on the plane ride there). Everyone else just welcomes them to "Africa", et cetera. (Compare to when they went to Brazil.)
  • All-Natural Gem Polish: The diamonds from Bushwell's slave mine are already cut and glittering straight out of the rockface. In real life, diamonds usually look like dull, grey rocks when they're found.
  • Angry, Angry Hippos: Homer gets chased by one after he mistakes it for a drum. Its unusual fear of water saves the Simpsons from it.
  • Artistic License – Biology: Played for Laughs. Rhinos lay eggs and giraffes live underground. Lisa is neither impressed nor amused. This is completely forgotten about until towards the end of the second act when a hippo is afraid to swim after them.
  • Artistic License – Geography: Despite landing in Tanzania, the family goes over Victoria Falls, despite Victoria Falls being over 1300 miles from Tanzania.
  • Bad People Abuse Animals: Joan Bushwell turns out to be guilty of this when it's revealed she's been using the chimps she's supposedly been researching to run a diamond mine within her refuge to make herself rich.
  • Bait-and-Switch:
    • When Homer and Marge find out that the drink given to them by the Maasai tribesmen is cow's blood, they do a Spit Take that sprays the villagers in the blood. They gasp... and simply laugh.
    • As the Simpsons fall down a waterfall, the camera cuts to a shot of jagged rocks at the bottom... before it quickly pans to the Simpsons landing in a giant flower.
    • Just as it looks Joan's madness for collecting diamonds would convince the Simpsons to put her in jail, the family (except Lisa) accepts her diamond offer and happily leave Africa behind with a bunch of them.
  • Blatant Lies: Bushwell tries to pretend that the monkeys are running a diamond mine on their own volition, and when she tries to take notes about their "fascinating behavior", revealing that both her notebook and pen are covered in diamonds, claims that they were a graduation gift.
  • Broken Pedestal: Lisa says that Bushwell's research has really inspired her when they first meet. At the end of the episode, Lisa is disgusted by the revelation that she's actually using the chimps to run a diamond mine, and is the only one to leave Africa without any diamonds.
  • Call-Back: This is not the first time that Lisa has turned down a large sum of money (or something with a lot of monetary value) being offered by a villain who obtained it through illegal means.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: Played for laughs with the warriors who watch the Simpsons floating down the river who just sound very menacing because they are complimenting the Simpsons in a foreign language (and when Homer attacks them in attempted self defense, their response is to yell "hey, what's the big idea, man?").
  • The Dog Bites Back: After enduring the repeated abuse of the shoppers, the bag boys go on strike, which for some reason deprives all of Springfield of food (from their interaction with Lenny when he was carrying his groceries himself, the bag boys aren't just refusing to bag food, they are preventing people from buying anything).
  • Disproportionate Retribution: The bag boys going on strike due to their poor treatment was understandable. But them preventing customers from buying anything at all (even if they carried it by themselves, as Lenny can attest to), to the point of Springfield suffering from widespread hunger is taking things too far.
  • Eat the Camera: Homer, at the end of the second act.
  • "Everybody Laughs" Ending: Homer points out that their old tour guide, Ktenge, became the new president of Tanzania. Marge wonders what became of President Muntu. He immediately appears as a flight attendant, clearly humiliated, and the Simpsons all laugh when they realize that he was overthrown.
  • Every Car Is a Pinto: Marge and Lisa shoot bees at a jeep to deflate the tires with the stingers. Somehow, this also causes the jeep to burst into flames.
  • Evil Poacher: Subverted. The poachers turned out to be Greenpeace members.
  • Exact Words: Kitenge explains that President Muntu seized power in a bloodless coup... by having all his political enemies smothered to death.
  • Halfway Plot Switch: Homer triggers a Strike Episode through being a Jerkass Unsatisfiable Customer, then the family finds a token for an African tour prize in a long-forgotten box of animal crackers that they found when they ransacked their home out of sheer desperate hunger, leading into an almost totally unrelated Vacation Episode... except for Homer wondering (while the family is about to fall down a waterfall) if the strike is still ongoing in Springfield.
  • Implausible Deniability: Joan Bushwell tells Lisa her diamond-covered pen and clipboard were a graduation present after it's revealed she's been using the chimps to run a diamond mine.
  • Karma Houdini Warranty: Implied. Joan Bushwell manages to bribe the Simpsons into not reporting her, meaning she presumably continues using her chimps as slave labour. However, whilst the Simpsons are outright shown to have taken the offer of diamonds, the Greenpeace people aren't. Considering the Simpsons are the kind of people who would do things other people wouldn't, and not necessarily the right things, it's very likely they left Joan in Greenpeace's hands after taking their bribe.
  • Language Barrier: When the Simpsons are lost in the jungle, sailing down a river, they encounter two ominous sounding tribesmen, so Homer tries to hit them with a spear. However, they were actually saying very nice things, at least according to the subtitles.
  • Lyrical Dissonance: While driving, Kitenge sings along with an upbeat-sounding song on the radio. The translated lyrics?
    They think people are like toys.
    They put them in jail.
    Mistreat them badly.
  • Mandatory Line: Bart, in act three. Also doubles with Out-of-Character Moment:
    Bart: I think we should look at her research before we condemn her entirely. [pause] I haven't said anything for a while.
  • Man-Eating Plant: Subverted for laughs, as noted under Surprisingly Realistic Outcome.
  • Narrating the Obvious: Lisa, as per usual, does this when she sees... "The chimps are running a diamond mine!"
  • Never Smile at a Crocodile: "Don't worry. Getting eaten by a crocodile is like going to sleep... in a giant blender."
  • Nobody Poops: Averted by Homer pointing out that Bushwell's cabin smells of faeces, and not just monkey faeces, causing her to change the subject.
  • Oh, Crap!:
    • Lisa gets one when she sees the boat the family is on is heading for Victoria Falls. Then everyone has one when they go over the edge.
    • Marge then has one when the flower they landed in is closing up and she thinks it's eating them. Homer simply rips it open to let them out.
    • Joan Bushwell when the Greenpeace member asks her about the diamond mine she's running.
  • Out of Focus: Bart has almost no lines during the second half of the episode, which he lampshades near the end.
  • Red Herring: The episode starts with a bag boy's strike. It is referenced by Homer twice during the trip just to really drive home its Herring status.
  • Sanity Slippage: "No! Don't put me away. I'll give you diamonds. Everybody wants diamonds. Diamonds will make everything all better. Diamonds! Diamonds!!!" Everyone but Lisa accepts her crazy proposal.
  • Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: Unlike the rest of the family, Lisa wouldn't take any diamonds Joan Bushwell tried to bribe the Simpsons with.
  • Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Joan Bushwell bribes the Simpson family with the diamonds she obtained from chimp slave labor in order to get away with her crimes.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: As the African tribal chief N'Gungo senses the Simpsons are coming.
    Tribesman: What is it, N'gungo?
    N'Gungo: Evil is coming...
    Tribesman: What shall we do, N'Gungo?
    N'Gungo: (takes mask off and puts it on the Tribesman) You are N'Gungo now! (runs away screaming)
  • Strike Episode: The first act involves Springfield suffering one (thanks to Homer).
  • Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
    • While lost in the jungle, the family falls into a large flower that closes its petals around them which causes Marge to exclaim that it's trying to eat them. Homer casually tears one of the petals open and walks out.
      Bart: Wow, Dad, how did you do that?
      Homer: (deadpan) It's a flower.
    • When Homer goes to the company that produced crackers and tries talking a trio of executives (consisting of two men and one woman) into honoring the contest for him and his family, they refuse to do so, as...
      • The contest ended thirty years previously and their company doesn't even make animal crackers anymore (the female of the trio claims that the company now makes household poisons and Christmas lights). Regardless of whether or not a winner is ever found, contests like that don't go on indefinitely.
      • When Homer tries pushing them into honoring what the box says, the executives say they don't have to because, as they put it, "an old box of cookies is not a legal contract." They only end up going through it to prevent a potential lawsuit when Homer gets hurt by the box and the executives realize that he could end suing their company.
  • Too Incompetent to Operate a Blanket: The Springfield populace are somehow unable to pack their own shopping bags. Then things get worse when the bag boys force them to drop everything they carry out of the supermarkets by the armful by poking them with long poles, smashing said food on the floor, leading to the whole of Springfield starving.
  • Unexplained Recovery: The last time the Simpsons see Kitenge in person, he's being stomped and kicked by an angry hippo. In the end, he turns out to have overthrown President Muntu and become the new president, with the poster showing him without so much as a bruise.
  • Unsatisfiable Customer:
    • Homer causes all the whole mess that the people of Springfield have to deal with in this episode by being a hard-core example of this:
      Homer: Wait — I changed my mind. Stack it in the order I'll eat it driving home.
      Bag Boy 1: Sir, please! I already bagged it by color, and in order of each item's discovery by man.
      Homer: Customer's always right; that's what everybody likes about us. Now, mush!
      [...]
      Homer: (poking Bag Boy 1 with a french loaf) Hurry up! I can't stand here jabbing you all day.
      Bag Boy 1: Please — ow! — stop. Bag boys have feelings, too, you know.
      Homer: No, you don't.
      (suddenly, the manager walks over)
      Manager: Excuse me. Is there a problem here?
      Homer: No, I can handle it. (to Bag Boy 1) I'll get you, squealer. (pinches him)
      Bag Boy 1: Ow! Oh, that's it. On behalf of Sack Stuffers Local 199, I'm calling a strike!
    • Also, Agnes Skinner, who wanted all of her shopping in one bag and didn't want the bag to be heavy. When the Squeaky Voiced Teen pointed out that it was impossible, since Agnes had a lot of shopping, she got angry with him.note :
  • Vacation Episode: The Simpsons travel to Africa, while everybody else back in town deals with a strike.
  • Victoria's Secret Compartment: Bushwell produces her diamond-covered pen and clipboard from inside her shirt.
  • Vine Swing: This is how the Simpsons get to Bushwell's camp.
  • Weird Trade Union: The bag boy who gets fed up with Homer invokes a strike on behalf of Sack Stuffers Local 199. The trope is then exaggerated when the bag boy union smashes the food of the supermarket buyers as a strong-arming tactic, leading to the whole town facing starvation.
  • Whale Egg: The rhino has just hatched out of the egg!
  • What Happened to the Mouse?:
    • The bag boy crisis is never resolved on-screen (Homer even wonders at one point if the strike is still going on).
    • Related to the strike, we never see if Apu's striking alongside them or not, as the Kwik-E-Mart never shows up in the episode.
    • Subverted with Kitenge and President Muntu. At the end, a billboard proclaims that Kitenge has become Tanzania's new president, and that Muntu got overthrown and became the Simpsons' flight attendant.


 
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"Rhinos don't come from eggs!"

While on a safari, the family sees a baby rhino hatch from an egg.

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