Jailhouse blues
| Episode of the series The Simpsons | |
|---|---|
| title | Jailhouse blues |
| Original title | American History X-cellent |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| length | approx. 22 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 6 |
| classification | Season 21, episode 17 455th episode overall ( list ) |
| First broadcast | April 11, 2010 on FOX |
| German-language first broadcast |
March 29, 2011 on ProSieben |
| Rod | |
| Director | Bob Anderson |
| script | Michael Price |
| music | Alf Clausen |
| Guest appearance (s) | |
|
Joe Mantegna as Fat Tony | |
| synchronization | |
► Main article: Dubbing The Simpsons | |
Jailhouse Blues ( English title: American History X-cellent ) is the 17th episode of the 21st season and thus the 458th episode of the animated series The Simpsons . In this episode, Mr. Burns is jailed for possessing stolen paintings. His assistant, Smithers, takes over the management of the nuclear power plant and becomes a worse tyrant than Burns. The original title is an allusion to the film drama American History X from 1998. The German title refers to the US feature film Jailhouse Rock - Rhythm behind bars from 1957, with Elvis Presley in the lead role, and its title song Jailhouse Rock .
Opening credits
The cloud gag of the opening credits shows the figure Lance Murdock flying through the picture on a motorcycle from the right. The publicity stunt is a poster advertisement for Duff Beer with the inscription Nothing but Booze (German: Nothing but Booze ). In Tafelgag writes Bart hot dogs are not bookmarks (German: hot dogs are no bookmark ) on the board. The couch is in front of the house in the front yard. The facade of the house, which is only shown as a backdrop, falls over so that the couch with the Simpsons stands intact in a window opening.
action
At the beginning of the episode, Homer and his colleagues Lenny and Carl, wearing prison guard uniforms, walk down a cell corridor in Springfield Prison. Eventually they reach a cell where they ask the reluctant inmate, Mr. Burns, to come with them. As a voice from the off, Burns explains the situation of his imprisonment. The episode is mostly a flashback to what happened before the rescue attempt:
Mr. Burns is holding a grand United States Independence Day celebration at his home just for himself . He forces his employees to perform the lavish play Burns Bless America in the style of a Broadway revue without paying them for it. The frustrated Homer and his colleagues Lenny and Carl break into Mr. Burns' wine cellar and drunk pointless Homer empties a bottle of wine worth 60,000 US dollars . Then they begin to smash the furnishings of the property. Horrified Mr. Burns has his assistant, Smithers, call the police. One of the arriving police noticed that on a wall The concert of Jan Vermeer hangs a piece of loot from the art theft of Boston , which from 1990 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum has been stolen. Mr. Burns justifies himself by saying that it is not a crime to want to own beautiful things and steal them from a public museum, where only "gum-chewing monkeys in baseball jackets" look at them anyway. Mr. Burns is arrested and, pelted with rotten vegetables by the population, is taken to prison in a wooden cage through the streets of Springfield. His assistant Smithers reluctantly takes over the management of the nuclear power plant.
In an attempt to blackmail the governor, Mr. Burns pulls a handwritten note from his pocket and begins reading. He threatens to tell the local press that the director is addicted. But he can't read his own handwriting and just says "after something that starts with an H". While Mr. Burns is led back to his cell, the director takes a gas cylinder with helium out of the closet and be inhaled H .
Mr. Burns is initially placed in a double cell with an economic criminal. When he learns that his cellmate has studied at Dartmouth College and the University of Virginia , he does not want to be in a cell with "this monster". In his new cell he meets a very tall, muscular black prisoner who is apparently modeled on the character of the giant John Coffey in the prison drama The Green Mile . The cellmate, a born again Christian , tries to convert Mr. Burns and pulls a picture of Rita Hayworth from the wall behind which a cross was hidden. Coffey was converted to Christianity when he received the 1974 book Helter Skelter from a fellow prisoner, by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry. The cover of the book shows a photo of the serial killer Charles Manson , who has been mistaken for Jesus Christ by the illiterate Coffey ever since and who has determined his life. Coffey sucks the evil , represented by green slime, out of Mr. Burns. He no longer perceives the prison as a hellhole, but as a heavenly place. He is a member of the church choir and in a Beatles - cover band named bar Four . While Tingeltangel Bob is being “cleaned” in a washing machine in the prison laundry and then dried, Mr. Burns reads the scriptures .
Meanwhile, Mr. Burns' assistant, Waylon Smithers, runs the nuclear power plant. He tries to show the staff in a friendly and caring way that he has nothing in common with the evil Mr. Burns. But when he meets Homer, Lenny and Carl for a beer at Moe's, he overhears the three of them making fun of him. Smithers realizes why Mr. Burns hates humanity. Smithers becomes a tyrant towards his employees and even instigates wolverines instead of dogs, like Mr. Burns .
Homer, Lenny and Carl then decide to free Mr. Burns from prison. They disguise themselves as overseers, sneak into the prison and get Mr. Burns out of his cell. At first he hesitates because he found his spiritual home in prison. When Coffey tries to prevent their escape, Mr. Burns realizes that he is not fit to be an evangelical leader and that his baptism in the toilet did not wash away all evil from him. He tells Coffey that he didn't suck up some of the evil from between his toes, and that what was left quickly spread and made him "a bigger pig than before." But he also wonders why Coffey helped him so selflessly. Coffey says that he has killed so many rich white men over the years that he wanted to do one good at least once. Both find that they are not very different from each other. Burns buys himself free and takes control of the nuclear power plant again. Coffey finds a new disciple in Fat Tony.
Marge Simpson drives to the jail for shopping while Mr. Burns is being transported, because every time there is a riot in the city, the mall is deserted. Bart and Lisa are forced to play together because of the absence of both parents. During the dispute over Lisa's ant farm, it breaks and the family dog Knecht Ruprecht devours almost all of the ants. The event brings Lisa and Bart back together, they name the only surviving ant Annie. Both try to save Annie but soon realize that she is going to die. You decide to release her so she can spend her last days in freedom. But as soon as Annie is released from her care, Knecht Ruprecht eats her too.
Allusions to culture and society
- The helium consumed by the prison director is abbreviated as H. This is in the jargon of the drug scene - pronounced English - a term for heroin .
People of contemporary history
- Lance Murdock, shown in the cloud gag of the opening credits during a motorcycle stunt, is a caricature of the American stuntman Evel Knievel that appears in many episodes ;
- the figure of Fat Tony is based on Anthony "Fat Tony" Salerno , an underboss of the New York Genovese family who died in 1992 at the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield , Missouri .
Americana
- The Fourth of July , celebrated by Mr. Burns, is an important element of US national consciousness and is celebrated accordingly. In the play written by Burns for his party, whose title Burns Bless America is based on the patriotic song God Bless America familiar to every American , other symbols of American culture appear, such as Uncle Sam and the Mount Rushmore National Memorial ;
- Mr. Burns' refusal to be locked in a cell with a fraudulent University of Virginia grad alludes to the University of Virginia code of honor that requires a student not to lie, cheat, or steal;
- the orphaned ant Annie takes its name from the poem Little Orphant Annie by James Whitcomb Riley from 1885. It is played with the historical spelling with the ending -ant (English: ant ). The poem is well known in the United States, as is the comic strip series Little Orphan Annie and the musical Annie based on it .
Film and music
- The couch gag of the opening credits reproduces the stunt of the silent film comedy Steamboat Bill, Jr. from 1928, in which Buster Keaton was almost killed by a falling house facade, but was written so that he was not hit because of a window opening;
- Springfield Prison's architecture and operations within the facility pay homage to the prison drama The Condemned , which was filmed in 1994. The film is based on the novella Spring Awakening: Pin-up (Original title: Hope Springs Eternal: Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption ) in the collection Spring, Summer, Autumn and Death (Different Seasons) by the writer Stephen King . The character of the helium-dependent prison director is also modeled after the corrupt director in the film. In the convicts , an escape tunnel that one of the protagonists dug over the years is temporarily hidden by a pin-up with Rita Hayworth . In the Simpsons episode, the pin-up hides a cross;
- on arrival at jail, Mr. Burns has to empty his pockets. A movie ticket for the silent film comedy Tillies Troubled Romance by Mack Sennett from 1914 turns up;
- Mr. Burns' cellmate John Coffey and many of his actions are allusions to the feature film The Green Mile , based on the novel by Stephen King;
- the name Stab Four of the Beatles cover band alludes to the horror film Scream 3 by director Wes Craven , released in 2000 . The plot of this film is located on the fictional set of the film Stab 3 (related to to stab , stab ). When the episode Jailhouse Blues first aired, work on the sequel Scream 4 was in progress, and a fictional film Rod 4 could be assumed to be part of the plot.
- Several prison scenes are underlaid with the Prison Bound Blues by Leroy Carr from 1929 in the cover version by John Lee Hooker .
painting
- Mr. Burns' arrest takes place for possession of stolen paintings. The oil painting shown in the episode The Concert by the Dutch painter Jan Vermeer is one of only about three dozen surviving works by the painter. It was stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum on March 19, 1990, along with 12 other works of art, including works by Rembrandt, Degas and Manet, during the Boston art theft and has been lost to this day;
- In Mr. Burns' office hangs the painting Saturn consumed his son by the Spanish painter Francisco de Goya , with Mr. Burns in the role of Saturn.
Production notes
The character of the giant cellmate of Mr. Burns is originally voiced by actor and voice actor Kevin Michael Richardson , the German voice is Ekkehardt Belle . The supporting character of the criminal Fat Tony, introduced in the third season, is spoken again in the original by Joe Mantegna and in the German version by Willi Roebke .
The three story lines, with Mr. Burns in prison, Homer Simpson in the nuclear power plant and Lisa and Bart in the rescue of the ant, give the episode an extraordinarily complex structure.
reception
When the original first aired on April 11, 2010, the episode had 5.649 million viewers. On March 29, 2011, 1.95 million viewers saw the first broadcast of the German dubbed version.
Eric Hochfelder from TV Fanatic thought the plot was great. But he regretted that Bart and Lisa appeared as supporting roles with only a few funny moments. Emily VanDerWerff of the online newspaper The AV Club gave the episode reluctant approval because of the prominent portrayal of Mr. Burns. Lisa and Bart's story, however, is " just plain stupid " (English: just plain stupid ).
Web links
- American History X-cellent in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Jailhouse Blues on simpsonspedia.net
Individual evidence
- ↑ Bill Gorman: TV Ratings: Undercover Boss Still Calling The Shots As CBS Wins. (No longer available online.) TV by the Numbers, April 12, 2010, archived from the original on April 15, 2010 ; accessed on March 14, 2020 .
- ↑ Jakob Bokelmann: Primetime check: Tuesday, March 29, 2011 --quotemeter.de. In: quotenmeter.de. March 30, 2011, accessed March 14, 2020 .
- ↑ Eric Hochfelder: The Simpsons Season 21 Review: American History X-cellent. April 12, 2010, accessed March 14, 2020 .
- ↑ Emily Todd VanDerWerff: "American History X-cellent" / "Gone with the Wind" / "April in Quahog" / "Cops and Roger". AV Club, accessed March 14, 2020 .