• SNPP Episode Info
• Reviews by
  – Red Right
  – Paul
  – Jonah Flynn
  – Wavy Gravy
  – Sarcastic Guy
  – Urban Lenny
  – Do the Bartman

review by red right

I was actually impressed by it more than most of the episodes. I liked the plot, of course they were able to make the typical Candian jokes that you knew were coming, but were solid anyway.

The opening scene was rather boring, and had a couple Season 11/Mike Scully jokes in them, but there was a few sharp jokes in thier. “The bathroom of the future, Homer that’s Apollo 12” The next act seemed much sharper, with a couple of solid Candian jokes, that really get to me.

Some of the ‘key’ jokes didn’t make me laugh that hard, they were just a couple of chuckles throughout this one. Like the Huey Lewis part, and Pfizer commerical. Though it practically wrote itself, the Flanders/Apu scene was done brilantally, and there were a few things I didn’t except coming.

All in all, I was impressed by this episode, though I expected more thus being the first episode in awhile. Still it’s a re-watchable one.

3/5

review by paul

This episode was okay. The Canadian jokes were kind of bland though. I’ve always liked the bunch-of-stuff-that-happens episodes, but to me this was kind of short on the humor. Apu and Flanders’ exchange was memorable though, and the “diddly” scene was funny. (Homer’s expression was priceless). Another problem with this episode was the long gags (for example, the drugs pouring out of Homer’s pants). This seemed like something Family Guy would do – and it happened a lot in this episode. Aside from these minor nitpicks, this episode was a good way to end the FABF production line. 3.5/5.

review by jonah flynn

Canadian Flanders will be at least half of everyone’s highlight.
Terrific second act, a bit of a rushed conclusion (Wiggum sucking at his job is a resolution played far too many times). A humorous ending though with Homer’s lump, and sort of funny but strange Sleeping Beauty parody. First act was about 4 minutes. They need to fix up where they’ve been placing act breaks lately. It was a really odd spot. The Air and Space museum wasn’t much of an eventful or funny introductory act.

review by wavy gravy

Ah, a good wild episode after a string of down-to-earths is just what I needed to break the six-week drought. A bit of a slow start at the Air and Space Museum, but there were still good gags (the Burns costume character, “Homer, that was Apollo 12!”). A short Act I means a nice long Act II, and that’s where the show really picked up. Great scene at the Retirement Castle, as well as Abe’s subsequent scenes (“I already burst into four other houses before this one”). The show really can’t go wrong with Canada gags, and when you combine it with a good satire like this, I’m happy. Including Ned and Apu in the smuggling just made it better (especially their backseat argument and the Canadian Ned – dammit, that was hilarious). And boy, I didn’t expect to see the Senior Jacket Gang again, but it still worked. Even the ending, though a little surreal, was still good enough to keep my opinion of this one high. I admit a few gags didn’t really go anywhere (Hibbert’s scene, for instance), but the good greatly outweighed the bad. At least now we can start the next production line… 4/5

review by sarcastic guy

5/5, A+.

I absolutely loved this episode. Everyone was nicely in character, the jokes were good (and timely.)

I was worried about the reasons as to why Ned and Mr Burns would come along on a drug smuggling trip (why would Ned be doing something illegal? and didn’t Mr Burns cancel the drug plan?), but my worries were unfounded due to the rather seamless Burns subplot and the references to Rod’s diabetes. Grampa was funny as usual, though we didn’t get any rambling stories.

This episode had a good season 5/6/7 feel to it for me. I was consistently laughing (something I haven’t done in about six seasons) and there was nothing that was really out of place.

I must note, too, that this is the first time in a long time that I really can’t wait to see an episode again. Not because my grade for it might improve, but because it almost can’t.

review by urban lenny

Overall it wasn’t bad, most of the jokes felt flat in the first act. But the other two acts made up for it. Probably the funniest joke this season was when Flanders try to convert Apu. To me jokes just seemed to go on a little to long and kind of ruimed a good joke. Like Krusty’s Bipolar disorder; It was funny at first but then it just seemed to go on way longer than it needed to be. The Canadian Flanders was another great gag though. especially when he offers NED a joint. Overall good, but could of been better. B/B-

review by Do the Bartman

Had to watch this a second time before reviewing to collect some thoughts (I’d suspect the same is true of some of the other members), since this was such a strange, all over the place episode….

This was, like “Fat Man and Little Boy”, a distinctly “just a bunch of stuff that happens” episode, and a fun adventure. It obviously wasn’t really too oriented towards story and focused more on gags. At this I think it was mostly successful. There were a lot of good moments, from the drug smuggling stuff over 60’s music (probably the highlight), to the Canadian that wanted to see an execution of a retarded person just like in the U.S. It used a recent topic in the news (sneaking drugs from Canada) effectively without relying too much on the current events themselves, and also used side characters pretty well for the most part, which was nice. In fact there was actually some evil Burns behavior again, which has gotten increasingly rare.

The biggest problem though, disregarding even the weird plot structure like the completely useless first act (which is ignorable, since again this is just a fun adventure episode with almost no focus on the story itself), is just that there were a fair amount of gags that didn’t work very well. Homer’s “wild” behavior when first entering the museum (I’m not complaining about characterization here. It just wasn’t funny), Moe’s backless suit, Homer pulling the balloons of drugs from his throat (can someone explain this one to me?), Krusty’s bi-polar behavior…..there were just too many things that fell rather flat for one reason or another. In some cases they were just bad jokes that tried to play too much on the absurdity (the balloons I think, Moe’s suit) that ironically weren’t absurd enough to be funny, or in other cases were funny at first but were emphasized too much (Apu’s reaction to the hot tea, Krusty’s bi-polar behavior where he does the laughing/crying thing three times). A lot of people are praising the Canadian Ned thing, and while I thought it was clever at first, they had the bit of them both doing the “diddly” noises to ridiculous lengths for several seconds that I thought just killed it. To be fair a lot of these problems are just general issues that the show has often run into in the last few years with the joke writing, but I think they might have just become more glaring in an episode that was focused almost purely on attempted absurdist and snappy joke-writing, and didn’t have the strong story or character humor other episodes have had to help it out.

Still, before this gets too negative, overall it was an enjoyable and funny episode, with even a good couch gag (I’d have to give them some credit actually: it seems like the couch gags are suddenly getting a lot better, after being fairly lame the last few years). It also had good uses of the Simpsons “canon”, like “Smartline” (first time since….”Lisa the Skeptic”, probably?), Mel’s lactose-intolerance, the “greaser” seniors from “Old Man and the Key”, etc. And again it used side characters pretty well in general (even if it could have utilized Ned and Apu far more, IMO).

A strange episode to even try to rate…..but I’d say probably B/B-

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