All's Fair in Oven War

Infobox Simpsons episode
episode_name = All's Fair in Oven War
episode_no = 337
prod_code = FABF20
airdate = November 14, 2004
writer = Matt Selman
director = Mark Kirkland
blackboard = None
couch_gag = The couch is outside in a clearing and mounted on a catapult. The Simpsons sit down and get launched over a mountain range.
guest_star = James Caan as Himself Thomas Pynchon as Himself


image_caption = Promotional artwork
season = 16
color = #EFEFEF

"All's Fair in Oven War" is the second episode of "The Simpsons"' sixteenth season. It aired on November 14, 2004.

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Plot

Marge and Homer attend an open house when the house next door is put up for sale. Marge is seduced by the large extensive kitchen. She realizes her own kitchen is substandard and wishes she had a better one. So she asks Homer to hire a contractor to rebuild the kitchen. Homer, disdainful of this idea ("A contractor? Those guys are the biggest crooks around - they charge materials AND labor! Pick one, jerks!") decides to renovate the kitchen himself instead.

While demolishing the kitchen, Homer unearths his old collection of Playdude magazines. He innocently tells Marge he kept them only for the articles, and she decides to make sure by cutting out all the nudes from the magazines. Now that they are useless, Homer throws them away (angrily saying "What man would want you now?"), but they are discovered by Bart and Milhouse. They read the articles and are greatly inspired. Using these 70s-era magazines as a model, Bart decides to renovate the Treehouse into a sort of Playboy Mansion replica, replete with James Caan.

After Homer's remodeling makes the kitchen useless, Marge hires a contractor to complete the job, and after two years and $100,000 spent the Simpsons enjoy their new kitchen. The dishes that come out of Marge's new kitchen get rave reviews and, on Ned's suggestion, she decides to enter the Auntie Ovenfresh Bakeoff with her Dessert Dogs. Recipe: Deep fried cookie dough weiner, meringue bun, cherry sauce ketchup, and caramel mustard.

She is successful and goes through to the second round of the contest. At the bakeoff, Marge encounters ruthless competition, as the chefs mock her and sabotages her cooking. Her Dessert Dogs are almost ruined by the end of the time limit, and she barely manages to make them presentable and get them to the room where the entries have to be stored. Still fuming about the behavior of the other chefs, she gains revenge by spiking the other entries with Maggie's ear medicine, much to Lisa's dismay.

Meanwhile, Chief Wiggum and other concerned parents talk with Homer about Bart's spreading the Playdude philosophy to the other children. Homer has a talk with Bart about the "true" facts of life, which a horrified Bart quickly shares with the other children, who are just as horrified. Homer notes "It's better they learn this now--than from their own parents, when they're old enough." Marge's cheating gets her to the finals, and Lisa confronts her. Marge retorts saying that the other chefs deserved it for the way they treated her; Lisa urges her to do the right thing. In the bakeoff finals, Marge admits to her foul play and Lisa's faith in her mother is restored. Brandine's "Alco-Hog" dish wins by default. When they are shopping at the Kwik E mart a few months later, they discover the new flour cover with Brandine Spuckler on it. When Marge expresses disappointment because it was almost her, they run into Cletus Spuckler, who is upset that Brandine has left him for James Caan, but he swears he's "gonna fix his wagon." When Caan stops at a toll booth, Cletus' friends emerge and gun him down in a scene reminiscent of the death of Sonny Corleone (Caan's character in The Godfather). However, despite being completely bullet-ridden, he opens his eyes and mutters "That's it, next time I fly."

Censorship

*In the original airing of this episode, there is a part where near the end of the episode, when Homer tells Marge that she'll always be the best chef in the Simpson house, she responds "Eh, BFD" (big, fucking deal). In some FOX repeats, she says BD, (big, Deal).

Cultural references

*The title is a play on the saying "All's fair in love and war", a proverb found in John Lyly's 16th century book "Euphues" [Titelman, Gregory Y. "Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings", Random House, N.Y., 1996.] that is commonly used to justify cheating.
*The Simpsons watch the movie "Blacula Meets Black Dracula", a reference to 1970's Blaxploitation Films.
*The music Bart's friends play in his treehouse is "Take Five" by Paul Desmond.
*The music Homer asks himself to turn down is the classic 80's power ballad "Separate Ways" by Journey.
*Among the food-related characters Homer imagines are Pringles, Mr. Peanut, Charlie the Tuna, Pillsbury Dough Boy, Land-O-Lakes, Toucan Sam, Count Chocula, The Jolly Green Giant, and Snap, Crackle and Pop mascots. The one he kills is named "Twinkie the Kid"
*The final scene where the hillbillies ambush James Caan at the toll-station is a spoof of the scene in which Sonny Corleone is killed in The Godfather.

References