Sunday, Cruddy Sunday

Infobox Simpsons episode
episode_name = Sunday, Cruddy Sunday


image_caption= Dolly Parton talking to Homer and the rest of his crew in Super Bowl jail
episode_no = 215
prod_code = AABF08
airdate = January 31, 1999
writer =
Tom Martin
George Meyer
Brian Scully
Mike Scully
director =
Steven Dean Moore
blackboard = "I will not do the 'Dirty Bird'."
couch_gag = The living room is in water and the Simpsons sit on the couch. An iceberg passes by the couch and causes it to sink, sending the family underwater. Maggie resurfaces on a couch cushion with the remote control in hand.
guest_star =
Fred Willard as Wally Kogen
Troy Aikman as Himself
Rosey Grier as Himself
John Madden as Himself
Dan Marino as Himself
Rupert Murdoch as Himself
Dolly Parton as Herself
Pat Summerall as Himself
commentary = Matt Groening
Mike Scully
George Meyer
Tom Martin
Matt Selman
Steven Dean Moore
season = 10

"Sunday, Cruddy Sunday" is the twelfth episode of "The Simpsons"' tenth season. The episode aired on January 31, 1999, on the same day as Super Bowl XXXIII.

Plot

When Bart and Lisa go with the students of Springfield Elementary on a field trip to the post office, Bart gets a piece of undeliverable mail as a souvenir, which is a Val-U-Qual coupon book, which he gives to Homer as a birthday present. He uses one of his coupons at a tire business on a free wheel balancing, and is told by the "customer care specialist" that his car will not take a balance. This man informs Homer that he will need four new tires because legally they cannot let customers drive off with faulty tires. Homer reluctantly accepts. He meets a man named Wally Kogen, a travel agent who only came into the business to use the phone and ends up getting the "road king package". He shares with Homer how he got shafted and the two form a bond. They go to Moe's for a beer, watching a special on the Super Bowl. Wally says his travel agency has a charter bus going to the game and suggests to Homer that he can fill the bus and ride for free. They ask Moe to come to the Super Bowl, and he agrees (knowing that his "favorite team" the Atlanta Falcons is in it), as do Lenny, Carl, and other prominent men of Springfield. This episode was animated long before anyone knew who would go to Super Bowl XXXIII. The producers emphasized this by the deliberately obvious audio splicing in Moe's Tavern, and the awkward way the men held the beer mugs in front of their mouths (so you could not read their lips).

The posse, led by Homer, along with Bart, go to the Super Bowl at Miami's Pro Player Stadium on the bus and arrive for pre-game festivities with Rosey Grier (offering sermons), "Take a leak with NFL greats", Troy Aikman (drawing caricatures of everyone he sees on a dune buggy), and catch a pass from Dan Marino. Expecting to get in the game, they are stopped when a scalper offers them tickets. Homer threatens to give the man a caning. They check in, but realize that the tickets they have are counterfeit due to the missing hologram, a made-up team called "The Spungos", and since they were written on a cracker. When Bart sees the halftime show costumes they use them to knock over the guards and rush into the stadium. However, stadium security confronts them, and they are locked up in the stadium jail.

Homer's posse, in jail, is freed when Dolly Parton (whom Kogen knows) uses her extra-strength makeup remover to dissolve the lock and release them. As they are freed, they run into a skybox suite and get a view of the game (and plenty of snacks), until Rupert Murdoch ("the billionaire tyrant") arrives and confronts them, as he owns the skybox. He gets guards to seize them, but Homer's posse runs away and head to the field, until they get lost in the sea of players when they win the Super Bowl. The group ends up in the locker room, and everyone has a Super Bowl ring on one of their hands at game's end. Homer is hoisting the Vince Lombardi Trophy.

Meanwhile, Marge and Lisa try to find their own activity at home. They use the crafting kit, "Vincent Price's Egg Magic", for their activity time. They succeed, until they realize that the product was shoddy because the feet were not included (even though the box states, "Feet Included"). Despite the kit originally being from 1967, Marge decides to call the help-line number listed on the box. Surprisingly, she is greeted with the voice of Vincent Price — who, in a slightly unsettling manner, assures her that his grandson Jody will bring the missing feet to them. Lisa expresses surprise, believing Price to be dead.

The episode ends with John Madden and Pat Summerall analyzing the events of the episode. Despite endorsing the character Wally Kogen and the subplot, they are infuriated by a Super Bowl episode guest starring Dolly Parton that does not feature "any football or singing". Madden declares the episode a slap to the show's fanbase, who he says have taken "so much nonsense" from the program. They eventually leave on a bus, nonsensically (as Madden comments) driven by Vincent Price.

Cultural references

*The title of this episode comes from the 1971 film ""Sunday Bloody Sunday"" as well as the 1983 U2 song of the same name.
*The name Wally Kogen is a nod to Simpsons writing team Jay Kogen and Wallace Wolodarsky, who penned the previous Super Bowl episode, "Lisa the Greek". Football players named Kogen and Wolodarsky were also mentioned in "The Telltale Head", "Bart vs. Thanksgiving" and "When Flanders Failed".
*Vincent Price's inclusion in this episode is a reference to rumors that Coca-Cola was going to use spliced together audio clips of Price from his various roles to endorse Coca-Cola.Fact|date=June 2008
*The "Vincent Price's Egg Magic" kit is a reference to the "Vincent Price's Shrunken Head" kits, which were a popular toy in the 1970s. The set allowed you to turn a peeled apple into a "shrunken head" of sorts using the provided tools and some household items.
*Marge describes one of the eggs as "egg-ceptional". This alludes to "egg-celent", one of the catchphrases of the Batman villain Egghead, who was played by Vincent Price.
*When Marge is speaking to Vincent Price, she mentions "The Abominable Dr. Phibes".
*When Rupert Murdoch demands Homer and the other VIP-box tresspassers to be seized, Homer and the others run away in Three Stooges fashion.
*When Dolly Parton goes to the half-time show, she wears a mask of a white-eared Snoopy and flies on a jet pack.
*The coach in Homer's fantasy about going to the Super Bowl bears a striking similarity to long-time Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry.
*Moe mentions Chicago Bear legend Bronko Nagurski when there is a commercial shown about bye weeks, saying "Bronko Nagurski didn't get no bye weeks, and now he's dead! Well, maybe they're a good thing".
*Rudy runs alongside the bus on the way to the Super Bowl.

Reception

"Sunday, Cruddy Sunday" finished the week 10th in the weekly ratings for the week of January 25-31, 1999 with a Nielsen rating of 11.6. [cite news|title=TV RATINGS|date=1999-02-05|accessdate=2008-09-14|page=5D|publisher=St. Petersburg Times|author=Wire Reports]

References

External links

*snpp capsule|AABF08
*imdb episode|id=0701220|episode=Sunday, Cruddy Sunday