Mom and Pop Art

"Mom and Pop Art"
The Simpsons episode
File:Aabf15.jpg
Episode no.	Season 10
Directed by	Steven Dean Moore
Written by	Al Jean
Original air dates	April 11, 1999
Episode features
Chalkboard gag	"A trained ape could not teach gym"
Couch gag	In a Dr. Strangelove parody, the family rides a couch, a la the bomb in the movie.
Commentary	Matt Groening Mike Scully Al Jean George Meyer

Mom and Pop Art is the nineteenth episode of The Simpsons' tenth season. The episode aired on April 11, 1999.

Synopsis

Marge tells Homer that there are many things he could do around the yard. Homer eventually overcomes his reluctance and takes Bart to Mom & Pop Hardware to get some things for the house. Homer sees a do-it-yourself barbecue pit and buys it. When he goes home, he installs the pit, but when he does it, he messes up the project and tries to get rid of it, and accidentally wrecks a woman's car with the jumbled mess of concrete and bricks. It turns out the woman, an artist named Astrid Weller (played by Isabella Rossellini), sees Homer's project and sees it as being a masterpiece of outsider art. Homer's exhibit goes to the Louvre: American Style museum.

After it becomes a success, Homer becomes an outsider artist and befriends other stereotypically pretentious artists (one modeled after Yoko Ono, first seen in Homer's Barbershop Quartet). He gets a notice from Astrid Weller that his work will be in the "Art in America" show, but his new masterpieces are rejected by Springfield's residents. Once he hears a suggestion from Lisa about the artist Christo, Homer decides to create something groundbreaking by flooding Springfield, which he calls "conceptual art". The whole town of Springfield is impressed with Homer's work.

Trivia

• According to the audio commentary for Selma's Choice, Al Jean partially wrote this episode while in line for a amusement park attraction.
• When Homer tries building the barbecue, one of his black shoes can be seen in the pile of barbecue parts, even though he is wearing brown shoes.
• During Homer's dream sequence, he imagines himself as part of several famous paintings: Rousseau's "The Sleeping Gypsy," Picasso's "Musiciens aux masques," and Dalí's "The Persistence of Memory." In addition, Andy Warhol throws Campbell's soup cans at him. When he wakes up from the dream sequence, his hand has subconsciously punched through one of Campbell's soup cans.
• One part of this episode involved Homer looking at a picture of Akbar and Jeff framed in the museum. When commenting on Matt Groening's drawing skills, a pencil appears to erase him, which turns out to be a Claes Oldenburg sculpture.
• When Barney asks if he can pay for his beer with a sketch he has made on a napkin, and Moe refuses, we see that he has drawn a perfect replica of the famous Georges Seurat masterpiece, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.

External links

• "Mom and Pop Art episode capsule". The Simpsons Archive.
• "Mom and Pop Art" at IMDb