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The Monkey Suit |
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- “So, according to creationism, there were no cavemen.”
- ―Bart Simpson
- “Good riddance. Their drawings suck and they look like hippies.”
- ―Homer Simpson
"The Monkey Suit" is the twenty-first episode of Season 17.
Synopsis[]
After Ned Flanders sees an exhibit on evolution at a museum, he and Reverend Lovejoy talk Principal Skinner into allowing the teaching of creationism in schools. When Lisa complains at a town meeting that there should only be one theory taught in schools, Mayor Quimby agrees - and teaching evolution is banned in schools, so Lisa plans to teach a secret evolution class which gets her arrested. Does Marge have something up where her sleeves would be if she didn't always wear a sleeveless dress to help Lisa?
Full Story[]
The episode kicks off with Bart Simpson in the family's living room, watching the TV in there. The program that he is watching is some sort of vampire program, and the vampire hostess informs the viewers that she hopes that they enjoyed the day's show, as the next day school is gonna be back in session. This news is not well recieved by Bart, due to the fact that he had organized a summer bucket list with fun and activities to do that he's hardly done, and as such he decides that he wants to go and try to make up for everything he neglected to do over the summer.
When he is out of the house, he starts doing so. The 1st listed activity is to win at a game of baseball. He is warned that the kids on the pitcher's mound is 22 in actuality, despite his shirt saying he's 44. 22 throws the baseball, and Bart manages to hit it out of the stadium, making his team, home, win against 22's team of visitors. Everyone cheers for Bart, and the coach invites him in for a pizza party, which Bart deliberately accepts. With his 1st activity done and out of the way, he moves on over to his 2nd activity, which is to make an appearance in a summer stock play. He slides onto stage on the last que, and shouts out "SIT ON IT, SPRINGFIELD!! YEAH!!" in the front the entire audience. The audience enjoys the show, and so they do some applause and toss roses at Bart and the actors that are behind him.
He now has to do his 3rd activity, which is to see a movie in theaters which is named Summer Blockbusters. He heads to theaters to see the movie, and after 1 character in the movie says, whilst using a laser gun to take out dinosaur-like creatures, "Get out of my face! You raggity maggots!", he exclaims "Ooooh! So that's why everyone's been saying that all summer!".
The day's about to come to an end, so he quickly gets on with his 4th activity, which is to have a summer romance. He hangs with a girl while watching sunset with her, and let's out his statement that he will never forget her. He kisses the girl, and it turns out that what he just did was the final activity of his bucket list. After kissing her, he abruptly runs off. (The girl even planned for Bart as well, as she checks "KISS 100 BOYS" off of her own list.)
Bart's back home, where Homer, after Bart told him that he just had his 1st kiss, tells him that he will buy him a beer if he makes it to third base, which turns out to be fake interest with Bart, as that was listed number 3 on his own summer list, and he checks it off. Lisa then comes into the scene, where she reminds her family that they promised her that they would go to Springfield Museum of Natural History, as an activity on her own list, much to Homer & Bart's chagrin.
They go over there, where it seems like they are gonna show something called LOOMS LABOR AND LIBERATION | A HISTORY OF WOMEN WEAVING which Marge believes is something that, as women, her & Lisa would enjoy. Neither Homer nor Bart are pleased at seeing this, & Bart begs Homer, because he is his father, to protect him from something similar to this. Homer agrees and lets him, for this one time, drink out of his "special water bottle". Bart attempts to do so, but as he's about to do it, a new poster reading THE HISTORY OF WEAPONS! is put on over the old women weaving poster, and the poster featuring a random woman doing some puppetry is covered up by a Kellog's sponsoring advert. Marge & Lisa are flabbergasted by this change, while Homer & Bart are delighted by it, but the museum's owner tells Marge & Lisa that the reason why they are canceling the women weaving program for the weapons one is because of the new exhibit in town.
Pressured by Ned Flanders and Reverend Lovejoy, Mayor Quimby is forced to allow the teaching of creationism in schools. Lisa is outraged and demands that the school only teach one theory of life, and unfortunately they choose creationism and outlaw the theory of evolution. Lisa tries to hold secret meetings to keep the theory alive in town, only to have the police arrest her with Chief Wiggum claiming that the town has only the police resources to enforce the last past law.
At her trial, it is clear that the odds are stacked against Lisa, as she is assigned a hated New York lawyer opposed to the overweight beloved southern man promoting religion and denouncing science. Seeking to better understand Lisa's point of view, Marge finds Lisa's copy of the origin of species and becomes engrossed in it, finding herself in agreement with her daughter she comes up with a plan. At the trial, Marge gives Homer a bottle of beer. Homer is ecstatic, but becomes increasingly agitated when he can't open it, eventually acting like a monkey. This causes Ned to crack under pressure and call Homer a 'Monkey faced Gorilla' in front of everyone which Lisa's lawyer capitalizes on by forcing Ned to admit under oath that Homer does indeed look like the missing link that the prosecutors were basing their argument and the case falls apart.
In the end, Lisa comforts a dejected Ned by saying that while she respects his beliefs, at the same time, feels that science and religion should stay separate and that she wouldn't want a scientist teaching religion anymore than priest teaching science--something that Ned can agree with. After that, Todd reveals himself to really be Nelson in disguise, by peeling a latex mask from his face, the screen slowly fades to black and the closing credits roll.
Production[]
