The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace

Infobox Simpsons episode
episode_name = The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace


image_caption= Promotional Artwork for the episode.
episode_no = 205
prod_code = 5F21
airdate = September 20, 1998
show runner = Mike Scully
writer =
John Swartzwelder
director =
Mark Kirkland
blackboard = "I will not file frivolous lawsuits"
couch_gag = The living room becomes a movie theater, with many secondary characters sitting in rows of seats. The Simpsons shuffle their way to the couch, muttering, “Excuse me” and “Pardon me”. When the family is finally seated, Homer steals some popcorn from The Comic Book Guy.
guest_star =
William Daniels as KITT
commentary = Matt Groening
Mike Scully
George Meyer
Ron Hauge
Dan Greaney
Julie Thacker
Mark Kirkland
season = 10

"The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace" is the second episode of the tenth season of "The Simpsons" which originally aired on September 20, 1998. The episode's title is an allusion to Thomas Edison's nickname, "the Wizard of Menlo Park."

Plot

Homer is shocked to hear on the radio that the average life expectancy for men is now 76.2 years, which makes him realize that at 38.1 years old his life is effectively half over. When he tells Marge this, she informs him that he is actually 39, which depresses Homer more when he learns that he hasn't accomplished anything that'll be considered worthwhile after he dies. Later when the family has a party to honor him, Lisa mentions that Thomas Edison invented the film projector as well as many other inventions Homer uses. Homer learns more about Edison and eventually idolises him. And so, in an attempt to follow in Edison's footsteps, he becomes obsessed with Thomas Edison and quits his job at the power plant to become an inventor.

Homer gets to work and develops several inventions, such as an alarm that beeps every three seconds when everything is OK, a shotgun which shoots make-up onto women's faces, a very difficult to control electric hammer, and a reclining chair which has a built-in toilet. But none of these inventions is well received. Feeling despondent over his failure to invent anything useful, his invention career is saved when he reveals he added two hinged legs to a chair making it impossible to tip over backwards. However, his hopes are dashed when he notices his poster of Edison shows his idol sitting in the same type of chair, which indicates Edison has already invented Homer's untipable chair. But Homer also finds out no one else has seen the extra legs on Edison's chair, and thus Edison has never received public credit for inventing it. So he sets out with Bart and his electric hammer to the Edison Museum in New Jersey to destroy the chair. Before he smashes the chair, Homer notices a poster of Edison's which reveals that Edison idolized Leonardo da Vinci in the same way Homer idolizes Edison. It also shows that Edison was never able to match da Vinci's accomplishments, just as Homer can not match Edison's. Feeling a renewed connection to his hero Edison, Homer decides not to destroy the chair after all and to destroy Leonardo da Vinci's inventions instead.

Unfortunately for Homer, he accidentally leaves his electric hammer at the museum. Later on the news, Kent Brockman announces that the chair and the electric hammer have just been discovered in his museum and are expected to generate millions for Edison's already wealthy heirs.

Cultural references

* When Homer is reading about Edison at the library, one of the books on the table is called "A Child's Garden Of Edison". This is a parody on "A Child's Garden of Verses", a book of poetry by Robert Louis Stevenson.
* The electric hammer that Homer invents is very similar to one invented by Rand Peltzer in the 1984 film "Gremlins". The character in the film also had a reputation for inventions that either did not work, or only worked for a couple of weeks.
* KITT from "Knight Rider" makes a cameo in this episode.
* Mourners at Homer's imagined funeral are Lenny, now President of the United States, Ned Flanders, now the Pope, Barney Gumble, winner of four Oscars, the robot from "Lost in Space", and Heckle and Jeckle.
* One of the T-shirts in the Thomas Edison Museum says AC/DC, a reference to the rock band AC/DC, who named themselves after seeing the terms "alternate current-direct current" on a sewing machine.
* While doing his experiments, Homer writes formulas on a blackboard and writes the (present) density parameter of universe to be greater than 1 (Ω(t₀) > 1) before an experiment and less than 1 (Ω(t₀) < 1) after that experiment fails.
* On the same blackboard, there is a formula that should provide the Higgs Boson mass, still unmeasured, in some unification theory. It's interesting to notice that the formula provides a result in the range between 0.5 and 1 TeV, which is nowaday exactly where it's expected to be found.
* Still on the same blackboard, there is written the formula 3987¹²+4365¹²=4472¹², apparently violating Fermat's last theorem. Actually this formula is wrong for one part in one hundred bilionths. This, like the other formulae, is one of the maths jokes put by David X. Cohen inside the Simpsons and Futurama. [ [http://www.mathsci.appstate.edu/~sjg/futurama/dxcinterview.html Interview with David x. Cohen on the Appalachian State University site] .]
*The scene where Homer runs down the imaginary Edison is a reference to the story "The Hitchhiker" in the film Creepshow 2.
*The song playing in the background on the radio show's news section (when Homer finds out about the life expectancy) is a snippet of "Oh Yeah" by Yello.

See also

* Thomas Edison in popular culture

References

External links

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