Guess Who's Coming to Criticize Dinner?
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"Guess Who's Coming to Criticize Dinner?" is the third episode of the eleventh season of the American animated television series '' The Simpsons''. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on October 24, 1999. In the episode, Homer becomes a food critic for a
Springfield Springfield may refer to: * Springfield (toponym), the place name in general Places and locations Australia * Springfield, New South Wales (Central Coast) * Springfield, New South Wales (Snowy Monaro Regional Council) * Springfield, Queenslan ...
newspaper and ends up annoying the restaurant owners of Springfield after he makes negative reviews just to be mean, advice he took from fellow critics. Springfield's restaurant owners then attempt to kill Homer by feeding him a poisoned Ă©clair. American actor Ed Asner guest starred in the episode as the newspaper editor that hires Homer. The episode has received generally mixed to positive reviews from television critics since airing.


Plot

Springfield Elementary arranges a field trip to the offices of ''
The Springfield Shopper Media is a recurring theme of satire on ''The Simpsons''. The show is known for its satire of American popular culture and especially television culture, but has since its inception covered all types of media such as animation, journalism, commercia ...
'' for the students, with Homer as a chaperone. While the students are introduced to the newspaper's history and operations, Homer smells cake and follows it to a retirement party for the newspaper's food critic, which he crashes before greedily eating the food. The editor, seeing Homer's love of food, offers him a job as the new food critic. He asks Homer to prepare a 500-word sample review. Homer struggles with the review, which is exacerbated by his malfunctioning typewriter, but Lisa helps him. He praises every restaurant he visits, and the people of Springfield begin to grow fat like him. At the ''Springfield Shopper'' office, the editor introduces Homer to other critics, who chide him for being too generous in his reviews. Homer gives into peer pressure and writes a series of bad reviews, criticizing everything. When Lisa stops helping him for being needlessly cruel, Homer attempts to continue reviewing by himself, but the quality of his reviews reverts back to his old poor standard. Meanwhile, the local restaurateurs hold a secret meeting regarding Homer's negative reviews and ultimately decide to kill him. One of the chefs volunteers to do the deed by feeding him a poisonous Ă©clair at an upcoming food festival. While Homer goes about his reviewing duties, Bart overhears some of the restaurateurs discussing the murder plot, and he,
Marge Marge is a feminine given name, a shortened form of Marjorie, Margot or Margaret (name), Margaret. Notable Marges include: People *Marge (cartoonist) (1904–1993), pen name of Marjorie Henderson Buell, American cartoonist *Marge Anderson (1932†...
and Lisa attempt to warn Homer. Although Homer initially ignores Lisa's warning about the murder plot, he eventually throws away the lethal pastry in revulsion when she exclaims that the Ă©clair is "low fat"; it lands in
Hans Moleman The American animated television series ''The Simpsons'' contains a wide range of minor and supporting characters like co-workers, teachers, students, family friends, extended relatives, townspeople, local celebrities, and even animals. The write ...
's gruel pot and explodes. The police rush to the scene and arrest the chef, who easily manages to escape. As Homer and Lisa leave, he is relieved over an apparent lack of comeuppance, but the angry restaurateurs along with other townsfolk aggrieved with Homer follow them and beat him up.


Production

"Guess Who's Coming to Criticize Dinner?" was written by Al Jean and directed by Nancy Kruse as part of the eleventh season of ''The Simpsons'' (1999–2000). American actor Ed Asner guest starred in the episode as the newspaper editor that hires Homer. The character is based on Lou Grant, the character Asner played in the series '' The Mary Tyler Moore Show'' and '' Lou Grant''. Both shows were created by Simpsons co-producer
James L. Brooks James Lawrence Brooks (born May 9, 1940) is an American director, producer, screenwriter and co-founder of Gracie Films. His television and film work includes ''The Mary Tyler Moore Show'', ''Taxi'', ''The Simpsons'', '' Broadcast News'', ''As G ...
. The song Homer sings upon being given the food critic job is set to the tune of "I Feel Pretty" from the musical '' West Side Story''. The restaurant Planet Springfield is a parody of Planet Hollywood, containing items such as the film script for '' The Cable Guy'' (1996), Herbie from '' The Love Bug'' (1968), a model of the RMS ''Titanic'' from '' Titanic'' (1997), an alien similar to those from '' Mars Attacks!'' (1996), models of a TIE fighter, an X-wing fighter and C-3PO from the ''
Star Wars ''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop-culture Cultural impact of S ...
'' saga, as well as "the coffee mug" from the film '' Heartbeeps'' (1981) and "the cane" from ''
Citizen Kane ''Citizen Kane'' is a 1941 American drama film produced by, directed by, and starring Orson Welles. He also co-wrote the screenplay with Herman J. Mankiewicz. The picture was Welles' first feature film. ''Citizen Kane'' is frequently cited ...
'' (1941), which is not a real prop.


Reception

"Guess Who's Coming to Criticize Dinner?" originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on October 24, 1999. On October 7, 2008, the episode was released on DVD as part of the box set ''The Simpsons – The Complete Eleventh Season''. Staff members Mike Scully, Al Jean, George Meyer, Dan Greaney, Matt Selman and Nancy Kruse participated in the DVD audio commentary for the episode. Deleted scenes from the episode were also included on the box set. Since airing, the episode has received generally mixed reviews from critics. In 2003, Ryan Lane of '' The Daily Orange'' listed it as the ninth best episode of the series, noting that the "most recent episode on the list is also perhaps the show's last classic." Nancy Basile of About.com listed the episode as one of the episodes she felt "shined in season eleven". In 2011, Keith Plocek of ''
LA Weekly ''LA Weekly'' is a free weekly alternative newspaper in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1978 by Jay Levin, who served as president and editor until 1991. Voice Media Group sold the paper in late 2017 to Semanal Media LLC, whose paren ...
''s Squid Ink blog named "Guess Who's Coming to Criticize Dinner?" the sixth best episode of the show with a food theme. While reviewing the eleventh season of ''The Simpsons'', DVD Movie Guide's Colin Jacobson however commented that "after the solid Brother's Little Helper' Season 11 dips with the more mediocre Guess Who's Coming to Criticize Dinner?' Oh, the show has its moments, especially when Homer’s criticism becomes more mean-spirited. Still, the program rarely becomes anything more than okay; it’s certainly enjoyable but that’s about it." Karma Waltonen and Denise Du Vernay analyzed "Guess Who's Coming to Criticize Dinner?" in their book ''The Simpsons in the Classroom'', in which they demonstrate how episodes of the series can be used in teaching. They wrote: "Although the show's characters do not often model expository writing, we can still find ways to use ''The Simpsons'' to illustrate the importance of style. Young writers, for example, may find that their writing resembles Homer's when he attempts to write restaurant reviews in 'Guess Who's Coming to Criticize Dinner.' Homer's diction is poor, his piece rambles off, and he attempts to make the word count by repeating 'Screw Flanders' several times. We can thus illustrate that students need to reduce wordiness .. while developing their arguments through pertinent content or parallelism. We can also stress revision by showing what Lisa is able to do when she helps her father brainstorm. For example, when they need two more words to end the review, Lisa replaces 'Screw Flanders' with 'Bon appétit'."


References


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Guess Who's Coming To Criticize Dinner? The Simpsons (season 11) episodes 1999 American television episodes