Springfield implodes its casino. When Homer goes to the car wash, he sees that Flanders is getting a senior citizens’ discount. He calls Flander’s out in church and Flander’s confesses that he is 60-years-old, his youthful appearance is due to three C’s, Clean living, Chewing thoroughly, a daily dose of vitamin Church and resisting all major urges. Homer accuses him of never living a day in his life. This makes him wish for more interesting experiences and since Homer is the king of such experiences, Homer offers to help Flanders. Flanders gives Homer his power of attorney and Homer takes him to Las Vegas. They go on a drunken binge at a casino, only to wake up with new wives. They run from their new wives and all the famous Vegas personalities chase them down and kick them out of town. What story will they tell their real wives about where they have been? Easy, they were abducted by aliens at Wal-Mart and gang-probed.
The Simpsons go to a cyber-cafe to see a website with monkeys doing it. Snake cyber-robs Homer of his life savings. He and Marge had been saving up for a vacation. Homer goes to rob Flanders and instead Flanders tells him about living thrifty. Homer steals Flanders’ ticket to the “Mega Savings Seminar”. The trick is to be cheap. The Simpson family goes to the airport and attempts to get mega-saver airline tickets. They end up getting tickets to Japan. Once there, Lisa wants to discover Japanese culture; instead they eat at an American restaurant. Homer and Bart go to watch Sumo wrestling. Then they get in trouble and go to jail. They get out and lose the remainder of their money. The US Ambassador to Japan recommends that they get jobs. They start working at a fish-gutting factory. After realizing that the job sucks, they decide to go on a game show called “The Happy Smile Super Challenge Family Wish Show”. On the show they face physical torture…well, Homer does anyway. They end up winning plane tickets back home. On their flight back, Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan, et cetera almost capture their plane. The end credits show the Japanese cartoon that gives people seizures.
There is a gross-out contest in Springfield and the citizen’s profound lack of intelligence forces Lisa to try to change them. She joins MENSA after a letter she writes impresses the brainy Springfield population. They all go to Quimby to confront him on Springfield’s mass idiocy problem. Quimby misunderstands and thinks that they are trying to arrest him. He flees, leaving the most intelligent people of Springfield in charge. They try to make a plan that will make Springfield a utopia; but when they present their ideas, they go too far and a riot ensues. It’s up to Stephen Hawking to save the day. Meanwhile, Homer takes sexually suggestive pictures of himself for Marge.
The family is sitting around watching television one afternoon when Marge makes them go for a walk. They end up at a new mega-store, owned by Arthur Fortune, who wins everyone’s love by giving them $1 bills. Burns is there, and he envies the relationship the younger billionaire with the public. He goes to Homer, asking him to help make him a beloved billionaire. Homer’s attempts fail after Burns goes on a shock radio show hosted by Jerry Rude. They form a plan in which they will go to Scotland with Willie and Prof. John Frink in an attempt to catch the Loch Ness monster. They bring it back to Springfield and unveil it to the public, but things go haywire, and this plan fails, too. In the end the monster gets a job working at Springfield’s casino.
Homer orders 1000 springs and tries to get rid of them in various schemes. The Olympics are coming to Springfield due to a letter written by Lisa (and Homer even designs a springy Olympic mascot), but Bart’s comedy routine, that all the children laugh at, keeps them away. As punishment, the children are given community service work. Bart’s and Lisa work at the Springfield Retirement Castle and there Bart finds a bunch of old people who need to be young again, so he takes them on an adventure out to sea on a yacht. So he tries helping them to find their youth. When the boat starts sinking, it is Homer who inadvertently saves the day with his springs.
Homer reluctantly agrees to do some yard work, but his trip to home improvement store results him buying a do-it-yourself barbecue pit. His feeble attempt results in something that an art enthusiast considers “outsider art.” When Burns pays big bucks for Homer’s piece, he decides he is an artist. However, fame is fleeting because his art has become repetitive. So he concocts an idea that simply floods Springfield with good feelings about art.
Reverend Lovejoy decides to give the congregation an extra dose of religion and the Simpsons begin falling asleep in church having religious dreams. Marge dreams that she and Homer are Adam and Eve. Lisa’s dream is that she is an Israelite and Moses (Milhouse) is going to lead their people to freedom. Homer dreams that he is King Solomon and Bart dreams that he is King David and Nelson is Goliath II. After sleeping through the service, they leave the church only to find that the apocalypse is occurring.
Lisa is going to protest a new restaurant; it is a steak house that allows you to kill your steak. The family, sans Lisa, goes there. Homer loses a challenge to eat “Sirloin A Lot”, a 16-lb. steak. His competitor, the winner and a truck driver dies just after his victory. Homer feels bad, so he decides to take over the trucker’s shipment and takes Bart with him. Lisa and Marge stay home, and are bored, so they decide to buy a new doorbell and install it themselves. Meanwhile, Homer falls asleep at the wheel of his truck and finds out that truckers have a scam going; they have an auto-driver that drives the truck for them. Other truckers warn him not to blab about it…or else. Homer does anyway, and it forces him into a confrontation with the other truckers. Homer and Bart manage to escape and complete the shipment. But how will he and Bart get home? It’s easy when he volunteers to drive a train filled with Napalm bound for Springfield. Back in Springfield, the doorbell that Marge and Lisa installed has gone on the fritz and is playing a Carpenters’ song really, really loud. It’s up to Señor Ding Dong to come and save the day.
Homer gets drunk and when he returns home, he realizes that he has to spend quality time with the kids. Upon Lisa’s request, he brings them to a Smithsonian exhibit, sponsored by Omnitouch. While there, Homer ruins the Bill of Rights and he winds up owing Omnitouch $10,000. Since the company wants to put a cell site in his area of Springfield, Homer lets them build the antenna tower in his yard and the equipment to run it in Lisa’s room. Lisa now has to share a room with Bart. Lisa is driven crazy by Bart and she has no place to do her homework. She begins to have stomach problems due to the stress. She wants to go to a new age shop to find a cure. Homer brings her there and they both sit in sensory deprivation tanks for a couple hours. Lisa hallucinates like she is supposed to, but Homer is just bored. Repo men come to take one of the tanks, taking Homer on a wild ride in the back of a truck. Lisa begins to realize that it is often her fault that she and Homer are drifting apart. In the end when they are together again, Homer and Lisa go to a demolition derby together.
After the Simpsons leave a school talent show, we discover that Marge is a very passive driver. Homer sees the Canyonero and decides to buy the SUV for himself. He soon discovers that it is an SUV designed for soccer moms. He quits driving it and Marge starts using it. It is the perfect automobile for her and she becomes more aggressive behind the wheel. She gets pulled over for road rage and has to go to traffic school. Her problems are more extensive than the other students and she gets into trouble again. Marge’s driver’s license is revoked. Meanwhile, Homer has taken Bart and Lisa to the zoo. When the rhinos begin stampeding, they become trapped. At Chief Wiggum’s request, Marge comes to the rescue using the power of her SUV and road rage to save the day, ultimately at the cost of her Canyonero.
Homer and Marge go to Apu’s for dinner. Apu and Manjula have a big fight, but Apu vows to win back her love in the seven days before Valentine’s Day. His efforts are so romantic that the whole town notices. All the wives around Springfield are envious of them, and Marge lets Homer know that he needs to do something romantic. The husbands of Springfield get together and decide to foil Apu’s seventh and final attempt. In this one, Apu will have a skywriter write a love message for her. Homer tries to prevent this, and somehow ends up winning Marge’s heart.
A mid-season replacement series features a suave and debonair character named Detective Homer Simpson. Homer is delighted and begins to capitalize on his new namesake, until the second episode airs and his namesake is rewritten to be a stupid bumbling fool. Homer goes to appeal to the producers. Then he tries to sue, but instead winds up getting his named legally changed to Max Power. His new name gives him a new attitude, which moves him into a whole different social class. But is society ready for him?
After Bart and Lisa’s school visit the post office for a field trip, they are allowed one piece of undeliverable mail. Bart gets a coupon book, which he gives to Homer on his birthday. Homer has a coupon for a free tire balance, and the dealer takes advantage of his gullibility. In the waiting room, he meets a travel agent. He cuts Homer a deal where Homer can go to the Super Bowl free of charge if he fills the bus with his friends and acquaintances. Homer fills his part of the deal, so he and Bart take off for Miami. Marge and Lisa are bored, so they try to play a Vincent Price Easter game. When the feet are missing, they call Vincent for the part. Meanwhile Homer and his bus make it to Miami, but they realize their tickets are fakes. They then break into the stadium, only to be arrested, but with help from Dolly Parton, they break out of their cell at halftime and run amuck during the game. They end up in a confrontation with billionaire tyrant Rupert Murdoch in his skybox. They run away, leading to the winning team’s locker room celebration. To cap it off, Homer gets to talk to President Clinton. As they leave, Madden and Summerall give their thoughts on the episode.
Homer hates the Isotopes until they start winning. When they win the big game, he, Barney, Lenny, and Carl go on a drunken binge and wind up vandalizing the elementary school. With no suspects, Chief Wiggum assumes it was the children, so he imposes a curfew. The kids break the curfew by going to see a horror movie at the drive-in. Chief Wiggum catches them and makes them do community service. They decide to get even with the adults by broadcasting their secrets on the radio. The adults figure out where they broadcast from and bust them again. Each generation voices its concerns in a musical number and the seniors have the last laugh though, because they vote for a curfew for anyone under 70.
Springfield implodes its casino. When Homer goes to the car wash, he sees that Flanders is getting a senior citizens’ discount. He calls Flander’s out in church and Flander’s confesses that he is 60-years-old, his youthful appearance is due to three C’s, Clean living, Chewing thoroughly, a daily dose of vitamin Church and resisting all major urges. Homer accuses him of never living a day in his life. This makes him wish for more interesting experiences and since Homer is the king of such experiences, Homer offers to help Flanders. Flanders gives Homer his power of attorney and Homer takes him to Las Vegas. They go on a drunken binge at a casino, only to wake up with new wives. They run from their new wives and all the famous Vegas personalities chase them down and kick them out of town. What story will they tell their real wives about where they have been? Easy, they were abducted by aliens at Wal-Mart and gang-probed.
The Simpsons are watching a cheesy TV movie, when it is interrupted by a commercial for a sci-fi convention, Bi-Mon-Sci-Fi-Con. Mark Hamill, ALF, and the gay robots from “Star Wars” are scheduled to be there. The family goes to the convention, but Homer feels uncomfortable amidst the nerds. Mark Hamill comes out to talk about Sprint, and Homer is the only one interested. There is a riot when Hamill asks for a volunteer and when Hamill and Mayor Quimby are attacked; Homer does a little nerd-bashing. Disappointed with his own security, Quimby trains and hires Homer to become his bodyguard. Homer accompanies Mayor Quimby everywhere around town and doesn’t care when Quimby is taking bribes. He suddenly does care when he finds out that Quimby is paying Fat Tony to milk rats for cheap school milk. He threatens to quit if Quimby does not stop this arrangement. Quimby does, and he puts Fat Tony in jail. Fat Tony swears revenge, but Homer is confident that he can protect Quimby. He takes Quimby to a musical, starring Mark Hamill and Fat Tony just happens to be there with his hit men. Homer does everything he can to save Quimby’s life, but Fat Tony crudely gets his revenge on the mayor with a baseball bat.
The Simpsons, including Abe, visit a ghost town where Abe drinks a lot of sarsaparilla. On the way home, Abe really needs to go to the bathroom, but Homer is more interested in making good time. Abe visits the doctor soon afterward, finding out that his kidneys exploded. There is only one way to save him… Homer must donate one of his. Homer agrees, and everybody treats him like a king but his friends at the bar wise him up to the risk involved. So when it comes time for the operation, he chickens out and flees. He goes aboard a ship of lost souls and tells them his story. They are so disgusted that he would leave his father to die that they throw him overboard. So Homer decides to go back and save him, but he chickens out again, only to have a terrible mishap. He wakes up in a hospital bed, sans one kidney. Abe is alive and well, and Homer can ask Bart for a kidney anytime he wants.
After church, the Simpsons go to the grocery store for free samples. Homer picks out a small lobster with plans to raise him until he is big. Homer stuffs Lisa into the freezer to find a better flavor of ice cream and it results in her getting sick. She stays home and she becomes addicted to one of Bart’s old video games. When she gets her homework from Ralph, she doesn’t do it. She’s so addicted to playing the game that she even fakes being sick, when she has gotten better. Marge sees through her ruse and she has to return to school. She finds out that she has to take a test, so she buys an old test off of Nelson and aces it. Her A+++ gets attention from Principal Skinner and he tells her that it raised the school’s GPA enough to where they qualify for a grant. When Lisa admits that she cheated on the test, Skinner and Superintendent Chalmers do not want anyone to know. Lisa confesses to everyone at a presentation, but Skinner manages to get the grant anyway by tricking her. Meanwhile, Homer has been treating Pinchy the lobster as his pet; however, one day he gives it a nice, hot bath and accidentally boils him. So he eats him.
Homer dreams about being Yogi Bear, but instead of going to a national park in search of picnic baskets, the Simpson family goes to the beach. While there, Homer tries parasailing and given his size the rope breaks and he flies off into a forest. He crash lands through a mansion’s roof, winding up in bed with Kim Basinger. He finds that she and Alec Baldwin are Springfield’s newest and most secretive residents. Homer befriends them and becomes their gofer. He soon also works for their friend, Ron Howard and Homer tries to pitch a ridiculous screenplay to them. Even though he was sworn to secrecy, one night Homer tells the gang at Moe’s about his new celebrity friends. People swarm their mansion, ruining any sense of privacy. Homer is fired, of course, but he becomes bitter, and sets up “the museum of Hollywood jerks.” They are steamed, so they run him down and get back their stuff. They sue Homer, so that he cannot legally bother them anymore. They all leave for Hollywood to pitch movies. Ron pitches Homer’s ridiculous screenplay and gets a picture deal.
Homer’s search to discover his middle name leads him to an old hippie commune that his mother used to frequent. He finds a mural that his mother painted of him from the 60’s, and is inspired to become a hippie.
Hell Toupée It’s his third strike, Snake is sent to the electric chair. He vows revenge on all on those who were there when he was caught, Apu, Moe & Bart. Snake is electrocuted and his organs are saved for transplant. The beneficiary of his hair is one Homer J. Simpson. The hair begins exacting the revenge promised by its former owner. The Terror of Tiny ToonMarge takes the batteries from the TV remote control. Bart substitutes plutonium with strange results as he and Lisa become cartoon characters in an episode of Itchy & Scratchy, where the violence is real. Starship PoopersWhen Maggie gets her first tooth, a fang, and loses her legs, which are replaced by tentacles. Marge confesses that Homer is not the father, but rather Kang is. To settle the dispute on what would be better for Maggie’s future, Bart suggests they go on The Jerry Springer Show and of course a fight or two breaks out.
Marge takes the family to the Family Fun Center. She notices Nelson, who is acting like quite a jerk. Bart tries to befriend Nelson after he wins a BB gun, but Marge forbids any interaction with Nelson. Bart defies her and begins hanging out with him. Bart accidentally shoots a bird with Nelson’s BB gun. When Marge finds him, she is horrified that he would kill an animal. Bart begins to secretly take care of the bird’s eggs. When they hatch in front of the family, they reveal themselves to be lizards. When he and Marge take them to a bird-watching club, they find out that the lizards are outlawed. Skinner wants to kill them, as the law requires, but Bart lets them escape, and soon the town becomes overrun with them. Bart is later made a hero when the lizards kill all of the town’s pigeons.
After realizing he has lived half his life and doesn’t have much to show for it, Homer is inspired by Thomas Edison and sets out to become a successful inventor.
Lisa is placed in charge of showing a new girl around school, who quickly fits in and becomes popular as the new school’s trend setter. Meanwhile, Homer enlists Bart’s help in scheming to find ways to collect grease to sell back to the grease recycling plant.
Summary: Locke tasks Sawyer with a mission, and Kate talks to Locke while holding a fake, plastic gun while Sayid is watching them.
Summary: Members of the sales staff let Sabre’s new Sales Is King policy go to their heads.
Summary: A high school senior repeatedly hallucinates after blacking out during a class trip; Wilson tries to furnish his condo.
Summary: The team reopens the case of a dock worker, who moonlighted as a professional wrestler, who was shot dead in 1986; Valens secretly looks into a lead on the man who mugged and raped his mother.
Summary: Casey carries out a side mission for his old commanding officer James Keller that leads to him committing treason. When Chuck learns the dark truth about Col. Keller, he and Sarah set out to break Casey out of jail and clear his name. Meanwhile, Awesome’s plan to keep Ellie out of danger gets more difficult when she gets her dream fellowship.
Summary: Kitty’s popularity surge creates havoc for her family; Luc faces the possibility of deportation; Nora reaches out to Tommy for help.
Summary: Naomi goes on her first hike with Ivy and Liam; Annie gives Jasper an ultimatum; Gia and Adrianna’s friendship grows.
Summary: Liz keeps running into Wesley (Michael Sheen), causing her to question their decision; Jack tries to secure his position in the new company.
Summary: While Jack and Cole team up in the field to shield New York from the calamitous threat, a hostage situation has CTU completely stressed out. Meanwhile, unrelenting parole officer Prady presses on in his investigation, and unexpected developments send the Hassan family into a major tailspin.
Summary: Rufus and Lily grow suspect of Jenny’s relationship with Damien. Chuck learns more about the woman who may or may not be his mother. Dan and Vanessa struggle through the awkwardness of dating other people.