Sideshow Bob Starring in the Simpsons

Sideshow Bob's Last Gleaming (#3F08)

The Summary:

Sideshow Bob finds himself becoming increasingly annoyed by television, and decides to do something about it when the prisoners are taken to clean up an airforce base in preperation for the upcoming airshow. Bob escapes and hijacks an atomic bomb, using it to force all of Springfield's television stations to shut down. He's foiled by Bart and Lisa, of course. In the exciting climax, Bob makes off in the Wright brothers' original plane with Bart in tow, and attempts to crash into the emergency broadcast signal shack where Krusty is running a pirate TV station.

The Cast:

STARRING: Sideshow Bob, Krusty The Clown, Bart, Lisa.
ALSO: Homer, Marge, Chief Wiggum.
CAMEOS: Mayor Quimby, The Bee Guy, Kent Brockman, Lou, Moe, Dr Hibbert and Mrs. Hibbert.
GUEST-STARS: Col. Hapablap, Steve Urkel, Dr. Who.

The Show:

Krusty's on TV, talking to an audience.
KRUSTY: "I'd like to thank everybody who donated to Krusty's canned food drive. Your generous donations have made this our..." zoom out to show an obstacle course, "...slipperiest, slimiest slobstacle course ever!"
Krusty explains the obstacle course, while Sideshow Mel demostrates it. Mel is injured several times, and as he wallows in a pool of canned goods he, cries, "Krusty, please! It burns!"
We cut to Bart and Lisa laughing at the show. Homer interrupts them, "That Sideshow Mel thinks he's so big! Whatever happened to Sideshow Bob?"
Lisa responds, "Don't you remember dad? He framed Krusty. He tried to kill Aunt Selma, and he rigged an election!"
"And he tried to murder me!" adds Bart.
"Oh yeah," says Homer, "But what I'll mainly remember is the laughter. I wonder what he's doing now?"

We cut to Springwood minimum security prison, where we find Sideshow Bob carefully constructing a tiny building inside a bottle, "Ah, Westminster Abbey! Edward the Confessor himself could not have done better! Now to set the clock to Greenwich mean time." Suddenly, the other prisoners start to laugh loudly, causing Bob to flinch and break his building. "My dear Abbey!" Bob leaves his room to see what the commotion is about, and finds the other prisoners watching Krusty the Klown, "Oh, must you bray night and day at that infernal Television?"
One of the prisoners responds, "Look who's talkin'!"
"Yeah, Bob, you used to be on this show!" adds another.
"Don't remind me!" Bob says, "My foolish capering destroyed more young minds than syphillis and pinball combined. Oh how I loathe that box! Its omni-directional sludge-pump droning and burping, its..."
A Ruper Murdoch* look-alike shouts, "Look here, I own 60% of that network!" and grabs Bob by the collar, ready to fight.
Chief Wiggum enters and breaks the fight up, because it's time for work detail. As they leave, the Rupert clone says to Bob, "I suppose you don't like tabloid newspapers, either!"

We find ourselves at a U.S. Airforce base ("Not affiliated with U.S. Air")
Bob is seen raking something up into a pile: "There, that's the last condom wrapper..." an airplane flies overhead, knocking the pile over. "Eugheughh..I renew my objection to this pointless endeavour, informally now, and by affidavit later! Time permitting."
Chief Wiggum: "Shut your word hole! We gotta get this place clean for the air show."
"Airshow?" Sideshow Bob says incredulously, "Buzz-cut Alabamians spewing coloured smoke in their whiz-jets to the strains of "Rock you like a hurricane? What kind of country-fried rube is still impressed by that?"
Cut to the Simpsons kitchen, where everyone is excited about going to the air show, except for Marge. Lisa wants to meet a female pilot who's also named Lisa, Bart wants to see birds get sucked into jet intakes. Marge has prepared for the show by baking earplugs made of biscuit dough.

Back in prison, Bob is about to lie down to bed, "So weary."
From the bunk above him, Bob hears a little old lady on a TV show bantering, "Friend? You mean you two aren't knocking boots? Ever do the backseat mambo, Craigy?"
Bob gasps, "I know that voice. TV's bottomless chum-bucket has claimed Vanessa Redgrave!"
Vanessa Redgrave's dialogue continues: "Now I've gotta haul ass to Lolapalooza - Yeeehaa!"
"Farewell, dear 'Nessa!" Bob whispers to himself.

The next day, the prisoners find themselves at the airforce base again. Wiggum finds Bob slacking off, and tells him, "Hey you, the state's not paying you five cents an hour to stand around, now get busy!"
Sideshow Bob replies, "Oh, I'll get busy, I'll get very busy, indeed!" and begins to laugh maniacally.
Wiggum joins in the laughing, and says, "You've still got it Bob!"

The Simpsons arrive in the parking lot while the prisoners are leaving. WIGGUM: "Hey, uh-where's Sideshow Bob and that guy who eats people and takes their faces?"
GUY: "I'm right here, chief!"
WIGGUM: "Oh, then where's Sideshow Bob?"
PRISONER: "He ran off."
WIGGUM: "Oh great! Well, if anyone asks, uhh...I beat him to death, OK?"
LOU: "Right."
As the bus pulls away, we find Sideshow Bob hiding behind a sculpture of some airplanes.

The Simpsons are watching a presentation on Harrier jets. Homer noties a "Free Duff" stand. Naturally he heads over there and drinks up a storm, only to discover, as the crowd around the stand moves away, that the sign really says "Alcohol - Free Duff, $6. Homer pretends to pass out from all the beer, and crawls away.
Elsewhere, Milhouse is sitting in the cockpit of an airplane, and playing with the controls - and hits a button that ejects him.

We find Bob snooping around outside the Colonel's office. He hides in the Colonels private washroom, and lures the Colonel in there with him by strewing washtowels everywhere.
"Who's in my private washroom? McGukket? Let me in!" The Colonel shouts.
Bob imitates a private, "The door already is closed!" and copies down the Colonel's response.
"What? This is Col. Lelie "Hap" Hapablap. If you don't open that door, I'll tear you up like a Kleenex at a snot party!"
Bob, still imitating the private, says, "You say you're in the military?"
"Sweet Enola Gay, son! I'm gonna come in there and corpse you up! Corpse you up and mail you to mama!" Col. Hapablap shouts. Then he knocks the door in with a shoulder tackle, but he doesn't find anybody inside. "Well, where'd he go? Got my knuckles all lined up for nothing," the Colonel kisses his knuckles saying, "Sorry, ladies.", and he leaves.
We pan to a garbage bin in the corner of the bathroom, where Bob is hiding, and he begins to laugh.

Bart and Grandpa Simpson are looking at the Wright Brothers' plane: BART: Look at that hunk of junk!
GRANDPA: Ooh! You're ignoroant! That's the Wright Brothers' Plane. At Kitty Hawk in 1903, Charles Lindbergh flew it for 15 miles on a thimble-full of corn oil. Single-handedly won us the war, it did.**
BART: So how do you know so much about American history?
GRANDPA: I pieced it together, mostly from sugar packets.

Sideshow Bob is foundoutside a restricted area, he pushes an intercom button. The soldier ont eh other side asks for his authorization code. "Code!?! Son, this is Col. Hapablap, that fool McGukket sprayed runway foam all over Chuck Yeagers' Acura. Now get down there with the shammy triple-time!"
The soldier is uncertain, "But Colonel, I'm under strict orders..."
Sweet Enola Gay, son. Get moving or I'll tear you up like a Kleenex at a s..." Bob pauses for a moment, then gags out the phrase, "..snot party."
The soldier replies, "Sir, right away sir!"
As the man runs out, Sideshow Bob catches the door, and slips in...only to get his hair caught. But he takes care of that little problem and goes inside.

We go to the bleachers, where the Simpsons are watching as the airshow begins. Marge has wound up right next to the loud-speaker, of course.
Homer shows up, and tells Marge, "They didn't have any Aspirin, so I got you some cigarettes."
Marge does her high-pitched grumbling noise, nad says, "Maybe my headache will go away once the show starts."
The loudspeaker takes care of that dream, as Col. Hapablap starts barking into a microphone, "What a day for an airshow! Not a cloud in the sky!"
Cut to Sideshow Bob, who's wheeling a 10 megaton bomb out of the restricted area in a wheelbarrow. He adds, "Except perhaps...a mushroom cloud. He begins to laugh evilly, and isn't watching when he hit a pothole, jolting the bomb. "Whoops!" He wheels it out, and tries to resume his evil laughter, but says, "Oh, forget it."

The Colonel continues to give his speech, "...To fly! The dream of men and flightless bird alike!" Before brining on the jets, he introduces the boxkite kids. The crowd groans as Martin begins discussing the history of the kite.
A bunch of cuts back and forth from the show and Sideshow Bob begins. First we see Bob loading his bomb into some place.
Back at the show, there are kids walking around in a circle with their kites, while wimpy rock music plays in the background.
Bob is shown wiring some electronics together.
At the show, the kite display is finished, and the Colonel says, "Does anybody feel the need for speed?"
The entire crowd shouts, "Yeah!"
Harrier jets fly overhead, and Lisa notices that Homer isn't trying to follow them. He figures, why watch the actual airplanes, when the huge Tyrrano-Vision screen decides what he should see?
Suddenly the Tyrrano-Vision swtiches from the airshow to Sideshow Bob. Bob greets his audience, "Hello, Springfield, Sorry to divert your attention from all the big noises and shiny things - but something's been troubling me lately - television! Wouldn't our lives be so much richer if Television were done away with?"
Moe cries, "What?"
Dr Hibbert adds, "Surely he's not talking about VH1."
Sideshow Bob continues his speech: "Why, we could revive the lost arts of conversation and...scrimshaw. thus I submit to you: We aboloish television, permanently.
Homer shouts at the screen, "Go back to Masachutsettes, pinko!"
Sideshow Bob was prepared for resistance, though, "Oh, and one more thing, I've...stolen a nuclear weapon. If you do not rid this city of television within two hours, I will detonate it. Farewell!"
The crowd starts panic and screaming, but stops for a moment when Sideshow Bob reappears on the screen. "By the way, I'm aware of the irony of appearing on TV ioin order to decry it, so don't bother pointing that out."
Marge is running behind the kids and says to them, "Kids, everything's going to be OK! Just don't panic!"
Lisa says, "Mom, mom, you're stepping on my heels and knocking my shoes off!"
"We can alway get more shoes. Move, move!" Marge replies.
As the crowd makes towards the entrance, we see military men everywhere, and the teen-age kid at the entrance is trying to convince everyone to ge their hands stamped so the can return later.
Bart wanders off, and Lisa follows him to try and get him to leave, so the both of them get caught inside the base after the gates are locked. Marge says to the guard, "Wait, wait my children are in there!"
"You must be very proud, ma'am." the soldier replies.

The camera pans down to a "war room" down beneath Springfield. The mayor, Chief Wiggum and Hapablap are all there, discussing the situation.
Quimby says, "Our city will not negotiate with terrorists! Is there a city nearby that will?"
Hap joins in, "No need, sir. We'll find that head-case faster than Garfield finds lasagna." Nobody laughs at the joke, and he says, "Sorry, my wife thought that was gangbusters."

The military searches all over the base for Sideshow Bob, but instead they find is Grandpa in a port-o-potty. He laments, "This elevator only goes the basement and someone made an awful mess down there."
They also run into an alien locked in a bunker, one soldier tells the other, "Watch out, he's got his probe!" and they lock the alien up again.

Meanwhile, Bart is having some fun in the Colonel's office. He's using a pen-holder as a stick for an imaginary airplane. Lisa comes in and pleads with him to leave. Bart just picks up a model rocket, and says, "Target sited - launching air to nerd missle!" Hew throws the rocket at her. And Lisa has to drag him out.

Down in the war room, Col. Hapablap informs the others, "Sideshow Bob is not here. We have searched every inch of this base, and all we have found is porno, porno, porno!" He tosses bunch of magazines onto the table.***
Mayor Quimby says, "We only have twenty minute left, send in the esteemed representatives of Television."
Kent, the Bee Guy, Dr. Who, Steve Urkel and Kruty the clown walk in. Krusty's attentionis drawn by the porno, "Hey hey! Now this is my kind of meeting!" (picks up Cheek Week).
Quimby starts speaking, "Gentlement, it is time we face up to the un-face-up-to-able. We must sacrifice television in order to save the lives of our townspeople."
Krusty is non-plussed, "Woah! Waoh-ho-ho-ho! Let's not go nuts. Would it really be worthing livin in a world iwhtout teleivion? I think the survivors would evny the dead."
The comment draws a lot of blank looks, and Quimby continues, "Television must go. May God have mercy on our souls."

We go to a montage of scenes with TV broadcasters tearing down their transmitters. Kent and the Bee Guy sign off from there shows. and the whole time, Sideshow Bob is watching.
"Success! They're giving in! Blast! I should have made more demands! Some decent local marmalade for one. Oh well, next time."

On the set of the Krusty the Klown show, Krusty moans as he watches the stage crew disassemble the set. "Not my Paris backdrop! How can I make fun of the frogs?" Looking at a TV with the emergency broadcast signal on it, he gets an idea. If he can stay on teh air, he'll have 100% of the audience...

At the airforce base gates, Marge and Homer are discussing the kids. Homer tries to reassure Marge, and she says, "Well, at least they're wearing clean underwear.
Cut to the Simpson house, where we zoom in on Bart's bed...where his new underwear is still lying.

Inside the Base, Bart and Lisa are wandering around, and Bart says, "Free and easy Lise. There's nothing like an unfurnished basement for pure comfort.
Lisa tries to get him to hurry up, and they hide as the Colonel and a Private pass by.
HAPABLAP: "Do you know what really frosts up my Kelvinator? That fruit cup's probably still laughing at us from his damn hidey-hole!"
PRIVATE: "I'd rather take an order from Bill Clinton than hear that guy's snooty, high-toned voice again sir."
Overhearing the conversation, it occurs to Lisa where Sideshow Bob might be hiding. She points out to Bart that Sideshow Bob's voice was unusually high, and what causes that?
Bart replies, "Tight, binding underwear?"
"Helium!" Lisa exclaims, "Sideshow Bob is in the Duff blimp."

We join Bob in the blimp, where he says (in a very high voice): "All of Sprinfield trembles before the might of Sideshow Bob! Blasted Helium!" He makes "shooing" noises until his voice gets lower, "Ha, ha! That's better!"
Now Bob takes a look through the television channels. "Gone, gone too, fabulous, marvelous." He gets to the emergency broadcast system.
"This is the E.B.S. stand by for an urgent bulletin."
Krusty shows up, "Hey, hey! Krusty the Klown is back on the air! Eight, no, twelve hours a day. Teh only game in town!"
Sideshow Bob gets very angry, "Krusty!? But how?"

Krusty is in an old shack in the middle of the dessert, "Coming at you live from the Civil Defense Shack in the remote alkalai flats of the Springfield Badlands! I'll be beaming out 11 watts of wackiness! Hour after hour of unscripted, unrehearsed comdedy. Starring..." Krusty looks around, "Uh, you know...professor gas can!" He picks up a gas can, and also finds a picture of Eisenhower, "And former president, Ike Eisenhower--'Let's get bus-ay!'"

Sideshow Bob cries, "Oh, my utopia lies in ruins. How naive of me to think a mere atom bomb could fell the chattering cyclops!" He looks at the bomb, and picks up the trigger, "Well, at least I'll have my revenge!"
The kids appear, and Bart yells, "Bob, no!"
Lisa says, "Don't you see, that would be taking the easy way out."
Sideshow Bob replies, "I agree." and pushes the button.

We're shown a series of scenes with the people of Springfield having fun as the end comes, and we see a picture of a mushroom cloud rising from the earth.
Unfortunately (for Bob) that mushroom cloud was actually just a tiny wisp of smoke, coming from the bomb. The bomb falls apart, and a bunch of rats climb out.
Bob picks up a piece of it, and reads, "'Best before November 1959.' Damn it, Bob, there were plenty of brand-new bombs, but you had to go for that retro 50's charm."
The Simpson kids are trying to escape, but Bob blocks their exit. "Well, if it isn't my arch-nemesis Bart Simpson. And his sister Lisa to whom I'm fairly indifferent."
BART: "So Krusty double-crossed you. But your basic plan was pure genius. Where do you get your ideas?"
BOB: "Oh please, let's not embarras us both with that hoary old 'stall the villain with flattery' scheme!"
Lisa has gotten on to the computer that controls the blimp's display, while Bart continues to try and stall Bob.
BART: "I should have known you were too smart for that."
BOB: "Really? What type of smart? Book smart? Because there are a lot of people who are book smart but it takes a very special type of genius to..."
At this point, Chief Wiggum orders Bob to come out of the blimp from outside. Bob says, "No! How did they find me?"
Outside, we see that Lisa had printed a message using the blimp's display saying that Bob was inside, and his bomb was dud.
Inside the blimp, Bob grabs Bart, and a knife. For a moment it looks as if Bob is going to stab him, but instead he cuts open part of the blimp wall. He jumps out with Bart, and heads towards a harrier.
Col. Hapablap says, "Not the harrier! We've got a war tomorrow!"
Bob gets into the plane, and sees buttons labelled "fly" and "still". "God bless the idiot-proof airforce!" He says. Unfortunately, it's not quite as idiot-proof as he thinks, and the jet rolls straight into a ditch. Some soldiers go after it, but Sideshow Bob is already gone. He's escaping in the Wright Brothers' plane.
Colonel Hapablap isn't happy about that one, either, "The Smithsonian's gonna have my ass on a platter."

At the front gates, Homer is trying to bust through in his car, when the plane goes by overhead. Lisa shows up, and the whole family goes after him - on four flat tires, because of the spike belt at the gate.
In the plane, Bob waxes idealistic, "Ah for the days when aviation was a gentleman's pursuit. Back before every Joe sweatsock could wedge himself behind a lunch-tray and jet himself off to Raleigh-Darhwa!
Bart is spitting a lot, and asks, "Are you getting lots of bugs in your teeth, too?"
Bob pauses for a moment, and then answers, "Yes." and spits as well.
A pair of Harrier fly past them, and one pilot says, "Prepare to engage enemy." Unfortunately, they just speed right past Sideshow Bob. "Bogey's airspeed not sufficient for intercept. Suggest we get out and walk.
We now see a very slow chase going on. The Wright Brothers' plane is being followed by two walking pilots, a squad car, an army jeep a tank, and the Simpsons. Homer passes the other vehicles, and calls to Bart, telling him to jump over to the car. Bart throws his bag first, and Homer fails to catch it. It hit the ground, the car runs it over, and it blows up. Homer says, "Now you, boy!"
Bart notices a police blockade just ahead. The cops have tennis rackets and other things to reach up to the plane, which can't fly high enough to get over them. Bart says, "You can't escape Bob! If the tennis rackets don't get you, the pool skimmers will!"
Bob replies, "Oh, I never planned to escape! You see, this is a Kamikaze mission! You and I are going to kill Krusty the Clown!" Bob turns left, missing the police, and heads out over the alkalai flats.

In his shack, Krusty tells his viewers, "Kid's Itchy and Scratchy can't be here today, but instead we've got the next best thing. It's the Stingy and Battery show! He pulls out an old battery and a scorpion, "They light and bite, they light and light and bite. Light, light... oh, you knwo what I'm talking about," he drops the scorpion, "Uh-oh..."
Back outside, Bob and Bart are approaching the shack.
Inside, Krusty is dancing, but he hears the plane, and goes to check what it is. He spots the plane, and dives through a window to try and avoid his doom. But it takes a while. On the other side of the shack, Sideshow Bob shouts, "Die, Krusty!" The airplane bumps the shack and falls. All Sideshow Bob can say is, "Oh."
The police and the airforce arrive. The tank runs right over the Wright Brothers' airplane, and the driver says, "Oh, sorry, we don't normally drive these in the airforce."

The Simpsons are happily reunited, and Bob says, "How ironic. My crusade against television has come to an end so formulaic, it could have spewed from the Power Book of the laziest Hollywood hack!"
To add insult to injury, Grandpa Simpson shows up on a motorcycle, "Hey everybody, I'm gonna haul ass to Lollapalooza!"****
Simpson family: "Here we go again!"

Notes:

*Rupert Murdoch is a wealthy Australian entrepreneur who owns or shares a number of media outlets, including the FOX network.
**As usual, almost nothing Grandpa says here is true. Kitty Hawk and the Wright Brothers are correct, and 1903 sounds like it might be right, but everything else he said there was a lie. Of course, the fact that he pieced it together from sugar packets might explain a few things.
*** The pronographic magazines Hapablap throws onto the table are: "American Breast Enthusiast", "Cheek Week" and "Granny Fanny".
****This is exactly what Vanessa Redgrave was saying in the lousy sitcom Sideshow Bob's bunk mate was watching earlier in the episode.

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