Special Edna
"Special Edna"
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Episode Information
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"Special Edna" is the seventh episode of The Simpsons' fourteenth season. The episode aired on January 5, 2003. The episode's title is a play on Special Ed.
Plot
Mrs. Krabappel assigns a paper on World War I, due in three weeks. Martin Prince suggests it should be typed and at least ten pages long. After class, Mrs. Krabappel and Principal Skinner's apple picking date is cancelled when Skinner's mother calls him away.
At the Simpson household, Bart is distracted from writing his paper, first by wrestling, later by Milhouse showing up a Black Hawk helicopter piloted by his uncle who "will probably be court-martialled for this". Bart goes to the library for research, but - noticing someone paid for one hundred photocopies but only used one - can not resist the opportunity to make ninety-nine photocopies of his butt. The next day, at church, the church-goers open their prayer books, only to see Bart's butt mooning them.
At the end of the three weeks, Bart still hasn't started the assignment. The day before the date of submission, he asks Grampa for help. Grampa's story about his WWI experiences as a four-year-old in the trenches is anything but educational, but Bart writes it down anyway and pads it to ten pages using advertisements. Mrs. Krabappel rejects his paper and tells him he'll have to do it correctly after school. As Bart finishes the assignment after school, he observes Skinner cancel a movie date with Mrs. K when his mother calls. Bart consoles Mrs. K, and she reluctantly accepts his offer to accompany her to the movie, though she is grateful.
Lisa suggests that Bart nominate Mrs. K for the Teacher of the Year award. Bart's nomination is accepted when the organizers realize that Edna Krabappel actually managed to teach Bart Simpson (who was believed to be an "urban legend"). When Mrs. K is informed of her Teacher of the Year nomination, she thanks Bart at the ensuing press conference, wondering aloud if she will continue teaching if she does win. Skinner is about to congratulate Mrs. K when his mother calls again, which ends the press conference. Bart informs his family that, as nominator, he and his family are going to Orlando, Florida. The family is excited... until they learn the awards show is being held at the EFCOT Center (a parody of the EPCOT Center).
In Orlando, at the EFCOT Center ("When all other places are booked"), Marge and Lisa go on a "World of Tomorrow" ride, "what the people in 1964 thought the world would be like in 1987", showing a world ultimately ruled by Eastern Air Lines (which did sponsor an attraction at Disney World until its bankruptcy in 1987). Homer and Bart go on an electric car ride, sponsored by "the gasoline producers of America," which tells them that it can not go very fast and it could not go very far.
At Springfield Elementary, Skinner is despondent at the thought that Edna could leave the school. Groundskeeper Willie lends Skinner his sportscar so he can go to Orlando, where he surprises Edna with a kiss under the fireworks display - until they are interrupted by Agnes, whom Skinner brought along.
During preparation for the awards ceremony, Skinner is shocked when he hears that the winner receives enough money to be able to quit teaching. He requests Bart to help him sabotage Mrs. K's chances of winning. At the ceremony, presided over by Little Richard, each finalist must ask their nominating student a question. When Bart is asked what Mrs. K would like to teach the world, he pretends to be illiterate, until Skinner guiltily tells the truth, adding Edna should be Teacher of the Year because "If she can teach me to love, she can teach anyone anything." With one of Little Richard's rings, Skinner asks Edna to marry him, and she agrees. Mrs. K loses the award, but looks forward to marrying Skinner.
Later, Homer tries to bust out of the EFCOT Center and visit Walt Disney World, setting off alarms and searchlights, and warnings from a voice that sounds just like Mickey Mouse. He buys an expensive churro and runs off.
Trivia/Goofs
- According to a sign Skinner passes on the edge of town, Springfield is 2,653 miles from Orlando.
- The original title for this episode is "Love and Marking".
- At the point in the episode where Edna confronts Principal Skinner in front of the hotel about his mother, Principal Skinner informs her that he was in fact in his mothers womb for over nine months. However, it was revealed in The Principal and the Pauper, that in fact Principal Skinner is a fraud that has been impersonating the real Principal. In that episode, they meet and eventually the town decides they like fake Skinner better than real Skinner. This is another instance of inconsistancy in the show.
- The Simpsons visit EFCOT (a parody of Disney's EPCOT Center) in Orlando, Florida to attend the "Teacher of the Year" award, but in the season eleven episode, Kill the Alligator and Run, the Simpsons were banned from setting foot in Florida.
Cultural references
- This episode features a parody of EPCOT Center. A sign outside the park reads "When Every Other Place is Booked," and Homer bemoans that EFCOT is "even boring to fly over!"
- The references to EPCOT Center being different from Walt Disney World is confusing, since EPCOT is indeed one of the four Disney theme parks in Orlando that makes up Walt Disney World. Homer's reference to Disney World and the location to which he escapes at the end is most likely a reference to the Magic Kingdom park. Alternatively, it may be an indication that EFCOT is a distinct entity from Walt Disney World's Epcot.
- The "Ride Of Broken Dreams" may be a mockery of the Enron scandal. The ride goes up for quite a distance, then suddenly drops steeply and levels out for a while and then drops down into a poor house shed.
- The attractions shown in the episode are:
- Honey, I Squirted Goo on the Audience!, a parody of Honey, I Shrunk the Audience
- Great Moments with Mr. Eisner, a parody of Disneyland's Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln
- The FutureSphere, a parody of Epcot's Spaceship Earth and Magic Kingdom's If You Had Wings
- The Home of Tomorrow, a parody of Disneyland's Monsanto House of the Future
- The building where the award ceremony is held is an exact likeness of Epcot's Horizons.
- The World of Tomorrow attraction has some basis in the former Magic Kingdom attraction If You Had Wings, which was sponsored by Eastern Airlines
- The Electric Car of the Future, a parody of World of Motion, which was sponsored by General Motors (its replacement, Test Track, still is sponsored by General Motors).
- The nighttime fireworks/laser display being watched by Homer and Marge is a parody of Epcot's Illuminations show, taking place in a facsimile of Epcot's World Showcase.
- The "World of Tomorrow" ride parodies the fact that most of Epcot's attractions were sponsored by huge corporations (General Electric, AT&T, Exxon, United Technologies) that used their attractions to offer a very clean version of themselves and how they were bringing the future to the American public.
- The teacher who was awarded the title "Teacher of the Year" was reminiscent of Jaime Escalante and the 1988 film Stand and Deliver, where Escalante indeed taught inner city school students that differential equations were more powerful than bullets.
- When Homer and Bart ride the electric car, the gay robots say "One of us! One of us!" This is homage to the classic line from the 1932 film]] Freaks. The ride, sponsored by "gas producers of America" exhibits a veiled parody of smear campaigns and conspiracies by oil companies (such as the Streetcar Scandal) to squash alternative transportation (such as mass transit and electric cars) and expand the use of gasoline-powered automobiles.
- Edna mentions that she accidentally showed the "R-rated version of Romeo and Juliet", which is a reference to the 1968 Romeo and Juliet (1968 film).
- The opening music to the documentary on holes is the beginning of "Fragile" by Sting. This is a reference to the IMAX documentary The Living Sea, whose soundtrack featured the same song. EPCOT had an attraction called The Living Seas from 1986 until 2006.
- When Lisa mocks Bart for befriending Edna, she quotes "put mothballs in the beef stew", a line from the Simpsons' hit single "Do the Bartman".
