Summary: After mistakenly getting admitted to a mental hospital, Homer meets a man who thinks he is Michael Jackson and gets everyone excited for his visit to Springfield...on Lisa's birthday.
Episode Timeline:
Monday-Thursday:
- Lisa wakes up Bart
- At breakfast, Bart doesn't watch Maggie and Homer discovers his shirts are now pink
- Burns observes a pink-shirted Homer on the monitor
- Homer wants to eat a donut, but gets taken away by goons
- Homer gets detained and psychoanalyzed for his "independence"
- Homer tries to get Marge to fill out his psychoanalysis test
- Homer tries to get Lisa to fill out the form
- Homer gets Bart to fill it out
Tuesday-Friday:
- Homer turns in his test
- Homer gets sent to the mental hospital and takes an inkblot test
- Homer gets placed in a room with "Michael Jackson"
- Homer learns about who MJ is
- Bart and Lisa watch a birthday themed I&S episode
- Michael introduces Homer to the other patients and calls Bart to tell him that Homer is locked up
- Michael sings "Ben" to Homer
Wednesday-Saturday (Lisa's Birthday):
- Homer listens to the story of another patient
- Marge comes to pick up Homer, Michael says he'll come visit
- Lisa sings "Happy Birthday" to herself
- Homer calls Bart to tell him he's coming home with MJ, Bart calls Milhouse who calls everyone else
- Apu leaves the Kwik-E-Mart for the first time ever
- The crowd awaits Michael and is disappointed, but Lisa is even more disappointed in Bart
- Michael wanders around the house and decides to help Bart with Lisa
- Michael and Bart try to write a song
- They watch Lisa from a tree
- They write a song
Thursday-Sunday:
- Michael and Bart sing their song to Lisa
- Leon leaves
References to Time:
- Lisa wakes up Bart at 6am to tell him that her 8th birthday is in 2 days
- In 1979, Smithers wore bell-bottoms as part of his role in the plant's production of the HMS Pinafore
- Lisa writes a poem about Snowball dying
- Homer once had Bart vote for him via absentee ballot
- MJ is "a little black guy"
- The Chief has been in the ward since 1968
- Michael Jackson admitted himself voluntarily because he got depressed in 1979
- Apu has never abandoned the store before today
- The Dalai Lama visited Springfield in 1952
SLH Presence:
- Bart still has his lucky red hat
- Dr. Monroe is alive
- I don't believe SLH was present. I may have missed him.
Minimum Time Spanned: 4 days
Canon: Yes, although Bart's view of Michael Jackson changes in future episodes
Favorite Moments:
- Homer watching America's Funniest Home Videos is great, especially because you can only here what is happening on the TV and seeing Homer's reactions
- Bart telling Michael that he is not Michael Jackson but a big fat mental patient, to which Michael replies, "You'd be surprised how often I get that."
- Michael and Bart's birthday song, of course
Review: Now this is more like it. After restarting my episode reviews, I was afraid I'd lost interest in the series since "When Flanders Failed" was so mediocre and disappointing. But this episode reminded me of how good the series can be. It aptly balanced funny situations, great one-liners, and even callback jokes to earlier in the episode seamlessly with the emotional plot of Lisa feeling neglected on her birthday. The birthday song is very touching and represents how great this show can be when it is full of heart. Also, working Michael Jackson's voice in as a person who thinks he's Michael Jackson reinforces how to properly use a celebrity cameo in a plot. A
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