Elementary School Musical (The Simpsons)
Encyclopedia
"Elementary School Musical" is the season premiere of The Simpsons
twenty-second season
. It aired on the Fox Network in the United States on September 26, 2010. The episode guest stars Flight of the Conchords
(Jemaine Clement
and Bret McKenzie
) as two artsy camp counselors, as well as Lea Michele
, Cory Monteith
and Amber Riley
of Glee
as campers.
winners, they are astounded to hear that Krusty the Clown has won the Peace Prize
. Krusty picks Homer to accompany him to Oslo
for the awards ceremony, since Homer will laugh at anything Krusty says, and Homer decides to take Bart with him. Their plane lands not in Oslo, but in The Hague
, and it is revealed that the Peace Prize announcement was a ruse to bring Krusty here so he could be tried by the World Court
for his deplorable public behavior over the years. Homer and Bart search desperately for any evidence to show that Krusty has made a genuine contribution to humanity
, and eventually argue that his refusal to perform at a particular show led directly to the South Africa
n government
's decision to release Nelson Mandela from prison. Even though it is obvious that these two incidents were coincidental and irrelevant, the court accepts this argument and frees Krusty, who immediately seeks out the nearest place to buy weed
— the courthouse cafeteria.
Meanwhile, since Lisa is annoyed over not being able to go to the ceremony, Marge surprises her by sending her to a performing arts camp for a week. Here she eagerly immerses herself in music and theater, meeting several campers who love to break into song (Michele, Monteith, Riley) and two guitar-playing hipster counselors, Ethan (Clement) and Kurt (McKenzie). When Marge takes her home at the end of the week, she has trouble readjusting to normal life and looks for a chance to express her newly awakened creative side. She runs away from home and seeks out Ethan and Kurt in "Sprooklyn," described by them as being the artistic hotbed of Springfield. However, she soon learns that they have grossly exaggerated; the area is a run-down slum and they actually work at a sandwich shop. They encourage her to return to her family and think about trying to make an artistic name for herself when she is older. As Marge arrives to take Lisa home, they show off a mural that they have painted in her honor, which takes up one entire side of a building. Ethan asks how they got up there so quick as they were outside their flat a minute ago. Kurt responds it was the magic of art and the two fly off (as seen on the DVD cover of their television series).
, Cory Monteith
, and Amber Riley
from the Fox series Glee. The three had previously revealed their involvement on Twitter
in February 2010. Flight of the Conchords
stars Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie first rehearsed their lines over the phone with Nancy Cartwright
, the voice of Bart, before flying to the United States to record their parts for the show. Clement, a fan of the show since it first aired as shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show
, said that he and McKenzie would play new characters, rather than themselves, because "most people won't know who we are." However, the design of the characters is based on them.
. The Glee
cast members were singing a version of "Good Vibrations
". Also Krusty the Clown had a Super Bowl "nip slip"
, appeared on The Electric Company
and was seen using a child as a human shield in a similar manner to the character Greg Stillson
from The Dead Zone
. Lisa listens to This American Life
voiced by Ira Glass
. Also, Ethan and Kurt have a map of Middle Earth
on the wall of their apartment. Grampa Simpson describes his day unknowningly quoting Emily Dickinson
's poem "Because I could not stop for Death
". The music playing when Lisa is crossing the bridge to go to Sprooklyn is George Gershwin
's "Rhapsody in Blue
", a musical composition which immediately brings to mind New York City
.
's premiere
. The episode ranked twenty third in the 18–49 demographic for all five broadcast network
s.
Todd VanDerWerff of The A.V. Club
gave the episode a C+, and wrote, "I liked many of the elements of the season premiere [...] I have no idea if the writers wrote new songs for the two guys in Flight of the Conchords to sing (as Lisa's arts camp counselors), but the songs they sang were pretty weak. Similarly, bringing in the Glee kids to sing a take on "Good Vibrations" that was, frankly, awful mostly just felt like an attempt to have guest stars in nothing parts so they could be promoted." Brad Trechak of TV Squad called the episode "an enjoyable start to Season 22".
This episode has the identical name to an episode of South Park that aired two years before this did.
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
twenty-second season
The Simpsons (season 22)
The Simpsons twenty-second season began airing on Fox on September 26, 2010 and ended on May 22, 2011. The Simpsons was renewed for at least two additional seasons during the twentieth season leading up to this season. The cast is currently signed through the 25th season. On November 11, 2010, the...
. It aired on the Fox Network in the United States on September 26, 2010. The episode guest stars Flight of the Conchords
Flight of the Conchords
Flight of the Conchords are a New Zealand-based comedy duo composed of Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement. The duo's comedy and music became the basis of a BBC radio series and then an American television series, which premiered in 2007 on HBO, also called Flight of the Conchords.They were named...
(Jemaine Clement
Jemaine Clement
Jemaine Clement is a New Zealand comedian, actor and musician, best known as one half of the musical comedy duo Flight of the Conchords along with Bret McKenzie.-Early life:...
and Bret McKenzie
Bret McKenzie
Bret Peter Tarrant McKenzie is a comedian, actor, musician and producer, best known for being one half of the Grammy Award winning musical comedy duo Flight of the Conchords along with Jemaine Clement....
) as two artsy camp counselors, as well as Lea Michele
Lea Michele
Lea Michele Sarfati , known professionally as Lea Michele, is an American actress and singer. Michele began working professionally as a child actress on Broadway in productions such as Ragtime and Les Misérables. She originated the role of Wendla in the musical Spring Awakening and currently plays...
, Cory Monteith
Cory Monteith
Cory Allan Monteith is a Canadian actor and musician, best known for his role of Finn Hudson on the Fox television series Glee.-Early life:...
and Amber Riley
Amber Riley
Amber Patrice Riley is an American actress and singer best known for her role on the series Glee as Mercedes Jones.-Early life and career:...
of Glee
Glee (TV series)
Glee is an American musical comedy-drama television series that airs on Fox in the United States, and on GlobalTV in Canada. It focuses on the high school glee club New Directions competing on the show choir competition circuit, while its members deal with relationships, sexuality and social issues...
as campers.
Plot
As Homer, Lisa, and her friends watch the announcement of the year's Nobel PrizeNobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
winners, they are astounded to hear that Krusty the Clown has won the Peace Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...
. Krusty picks Homer to accompany him to Oslo
Oslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...
for the awards ceremony, since Homer will laugh at anything Krusty says, and Homer decides to take Bart with him. Their plane lands not in Oslo, but in The Hague
The Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
, and it is revealed that the Peace Prize announcement was a ruse to bring Krusty here so he could be tried by the World Court
International Court of Justice
The International Court of Justice is the primary judicial organ of the United Nations. It is based in the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands...
for his deplorable public behavior over the years. Homer and Bart search desperately for any evidence to show that Krusty has made a genuine contribution to humanity
Humanitarianism
In its most general form, humanitarianism is an ethic of kindness, benevolence and sympathy extended universally and impartially to all human beings. Humanitarianism has been an evolving concept historically but universality is a common element in its evolution...
, and eventually argue that his refusal to perform at a particular show led directly to the South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
n government
Government of South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a constitutional democracy with a three-tier system of government and an independent judiciary, operating in a nearly unique system that combines aspects of parliamentary and presidential systems. Legislative authority is held by the Parliament of South Africa...
's decision to release Nelson Mandela from prison. Even though it is obvious that these two incidents were coincidental and irrelevant, the court accepts this argument and frees Krusty, who immediately seeks out the nearest place to buy weed
Cannabis (drug)
Cannabis, also known as marijuana among many other names, refers to any number of preparations of the Cannabis plant intended for use as a psychoactive drug or for medicinal purposes. The English term marijuana comes from the Mexican Spanish word marihuana...
— the courthouse cafeteria.
Meanwhile, since Lisa is annoyed over not being able to go to the ceremony, Marge surprises her by sending her to a performing arts camp for a week. Here she eagerly immerses herself in music and theater, meeting several campers who love to break into song (Michele, Monteith, Riley) and two guitar-playing hipster counselors, Ethan (Clement) and Kurt (McKenzie). When Marge takes her home at the end of the week, she has trouble readjusting to normal life and looks for a chance to express her newly awakened creative side. She runs away from home and seeks out Ethan and Kurt in "Sprooklyn," described by them as being the artistic hotbed of Springfield. However, she soon learns that they have grossly exaggerated; the area is a run-down slum and they actually work at a sandwich shop. They encourage her to return to her family and think about trying to make an artistic name for herself when she is older. As Marge arrives to take Lisa home, they show off a mural that they have painted in her honor, which takes up one entire side of a building. Ethan asks how they got up there so quick as they were outside their flat a minute ago. Kurt responds it was the magic of art and the two fly off (as seen on the DVD cover of their television series).
Production
The episode guest stars Lea MicheleLea Michele
Lea Michele Sarfati , known professionally as Lea Michele, is an American actress and singer. Michele began working professionally as a child actress on Broadway in productions such as Ragtime and Les Misérables. She originated the role of Wendla in the musical Spring Awakening and currently plays...
, Cory Monteith
Cory Monteith
Cory Allan Monteith is a Canadian actor and musician, best known for his role of Finn Hudson on the Fox television series Glee.-Early life:...
, and Amber Riley
Amber Riley
Amber Patrice Riley is an American actress and singer best known for her role on the series Glee as Mercedes Jones.-Early life and career:...
from the Fox series Glee. The three had previously revealed their involvement on Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
in February 2010. Flight of the Conchords
Flight of the Conchords
Flight of the Conchords are a New Zealand-based comedy duo composed of Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement. The duo's comedy and music became the basis of a BBC radio series and then an American television series, which premiered in 2007 on HBO, also called Flight of the Conchords.They were named...
stars Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie first rehearsed their lines over the phone with Nancy Cartwright
Nancy Cartwright
Nancy Campbell Cartwright is an American film and television actress, comedian and voice artist. She is best known for her long-running role as Bart Simpson on the animated television series The Simpsons...
, the voice of Bart, before flying to the United States to record their parts for the show. Clement, a fan of the show since it first aired as shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show
The Tracey Ullman Show
The Tracey Ullman Show was an American television variety show, hosted by British comedian and onetime pop singer Tracey Ullman. It debuted on April 5, 1987 as the Fox network's second primetime series after Married... with Children, and ran until May 26, 1990. The show blended sketch comedy shorts...
, said that he and McKenzie would play new characters, rather than themselves, because "most people won't know who we are." However, the design of the characters is based on them.
Cultural references
The opening flyby gag featured Otto in a Partridge Family-like bus. The chalkboard gag makes a reference to the film, InceptionInception
Inception: The Subconscious Jams 1994-1995 is a compilation of unreleased tracks by the band Download.-Track listing:# "Primitive Tekno Jam" – 3:23# "Bee Sting Sickness" – 8:04# "Weed Acid Techno" – 8:19...
. The Glee
Glee (TV series)
Glee is an American musical comedy-drama television series that airs on Fox in the United States, and on GlobalTV in Canada. It focuses on the high school glee club New Directions competing on the show choir competition circuit, while its members deal with relationships, sexuality and social issues...
cast members were singing a version of "Good Vibrations
Good Vibrations
"Good Vibrations" is a song by American rock band The Beach Boys. Composed and produced by Brian Wilson, the song's lyrics were written by Wilson and Mike Love....
". Also Krusty the Clown had a Super Bowl "nip slip"
Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show controversy
Super Bowl XXXVIII, which was broadcast live on February 1, 2004 from Houston, Texas on the CBS television network in the United States, was noted for a controversial halftime show in which Janet Jackson's breast, adorned with a nipple shield, was exposed by Justin Timberlake for about half a...
, appeared on The Electric Company
The Electric Company
The Electric Company is an educational American children's television series that was produced by the Children's Television Workshop for PBS in the United States. PBS broadcast 780 episodes over the course of its six seasons from October 25, 1971 to April 15, 1977...
and was seen using a child as a human shield in a similar manner to the character Greg Stillson
Greg Stillson
Greg Stillson is a fictional character and the primary antagonist in Stephen King's 1979 novel The Dead Zone. Played by Golden Globe-winner Martin Sheen in the film adaptation and Sean Patrick Flanery in the USA Network television series, Stillson is a rising politician and future U.S...
from The Dead Zone
The Dead Zone (novel)
The Dead Zone is a horror novel by Stephen King published in 1979. It concerns Johnny Smith, who is injured in an accident and enters a coma for nearly five years. When he emerges, he can see horrifying secrets but cannot identify all the details in his "dead zone", an area of his brain that...
. Lisa listens to This American Life
This American Life
This American Life is a weekly hour-long radio program produced by WBEZ and hosted by Ira Glass. It is distributed by Public Radio International on PRI affiliate stations and is also available as a free weekly podcast. Primarily a journalistic non-fiction program, it has also featured essays,...
voiced by Ira Glass
Ira Glass
Ira Glass is an American public radio personality, and host and producer of the radio and television show This American Life.- Early life :...
. Also, Ethan and Kurt have a map of Middle Earth
Middle-earth
Middle-earth is the fictional setting of the majority of author J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy writings. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings take place entirely in Middle-earth, as does much of The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales....
on the wall of their apartment. Grampa Simpson describes his day unknowningly quoting Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was an American poet. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a successful family with strong community ties, she lived a mostly introverted and reclusive life...
's poem "Because I could not stop for Death
Because I could not stop for Death
"Because I could not stop for Death" is a lyric poem by Emily Dickinson first published posthumously in Poems: Series 1 in 1890. The poem is about death...
". The music playing when Lisa is crossing the bridge to go to Sprooklyn is George Gershwin
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
's "Rhapsody in Blue
Rhapsody in Blue
Rhapsody in Blue is a musical composition by George Gershwin for solo piano and jazz band written in 1924, which combines elements of classical music with jazz-influenced effects....
", a musical composition which immediately brings to mind New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
Reception
In its original American broadcast, "Elementary School Musical" was viewed by an estimated 7.8 million households with a 3.7 Nielsen rating and 8% share of the audience in the 18–49 demographic. The rating was down 14% from the previous seasonThe Simpsons (season 21)
The Simpsons twenty-first season aired on Fox from September 27, 2009 to May 23, 2010. It was the first of two seasons that the show was renewed for by Fox, and also the first season of the show to air entirely in high definition....
's premiere
Homer the Whopper
"Homer the Whopper" is the season premiere of The Simpsons twenty-first season. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on September 27, 2009. In the episode, Comic Book Guy creates a new superhero called Everyman who takes powers from other superheroes. Homer is cast as the...
. The episode ranked twenty third in the 18–49 demographic for all five broadcast network
Broadcast network
A broadcast network is an organization, such as a corporation or other voluntary association, that provides live television or recorded content, such as movies, newscasts, sports, Public affairs programming, and other television programs for broadcast over a group of radio stations or television...
s.
Todd VanDerWerff of The A.V. Club
The A.V. Club
The A.V. Club is an entertainment newspaper and website published by The Onion. Its features include reviews of new films, music, television, books, games and DVDs, as well as interviews and other regular offerings examining both new and classic media and other elements of pop culture. Unlike its...
gave the episode a C+, and wrote, "I liked many of the elements of the season premiere [...] I have no idea if the writers wrote new songs for the two guys in Flight of the Conchords to sing (as Lisa's arts camp counselors), but the songs they sang were pretty weak. Similarly, bringing in the Glee kids to sing a take on "Good Vibrations" that was, frankly, awful mostly just felt like an attempt to have guest stars in nothing parts so they could be promoted." Brad Trechak of TV Squad called the episode "an enjoyable start to Season 22".
This episode has the identical name to an episode of South Park that aired two years before this did.