The Wettest Stories Ever Told
The Wettest Stories Ever Told is the eighteenth episode of The Simpsons’ seventeenth season. It originally aired on April 23, 2006.
Plot
A dinner at the Frying Dutchman gone wrong turns into an excuse for another anthology show, this time with a nautical theme—Lisa tells about the Mayflower voyage, Bart tells about mutiny while going to Tahiti, and Homer tells about capsizing cruise ships.
Lisa’s story (Journey on the Mayflower)
Marge, Bart, and Lisa board the Mayflower to head for the new world, but just as they do, Homer runs ahead of them and hides in a barrel. They see the police looking for him, and they take pity on him. Marge immediately grows on Homer, but Moe likes her as well (having gone as far as to kill her husband) and is instantly jealous of their friendship. To get Homer out of the way, Moe takes him down to the storage room where all the beer is held and tells him to drink whenever a wave hits the boat. He gets drunk, and Captain “Flandish” (Flanders) and Reverend Lovejoy find him and other passengers partying. Moe blames Homer, and they place him in a stock. Then, a storm approaches, and Flanders gets knocked out. Homer claims that he steers better when he is drunk, and while drinking a bottle of wine while still trapped in the stock and shirtless, he leads them safely out of the storm. He and Marge get together, and they all make it to the New World.
Bart’s story (Mutiny on the Bounty)
The HMAV Bounty sets sail from England in 1789, commanded by Captain Bligh (Skinner). During the first 718 days of the voyage, Bligh severely mistreats his crew, tossing off their mail. Willie warns him of a mutiny if he mistreats them too much, but Bligh ignores him. They arrive in Tahiti, where the crew has a wonderful time until it was time to leave. The crew wanted to stay at Tahiti, but Captain Bligh tells them to forget it and forces them to sing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" in-a-round while working. Eventually, First Mate Bart Christian, who is angered by this, leads a mutiny with the help of the crew and sends Bligh and Willie off in a lifeboat. Bligh mistreats Willie, thinking that he is a spineless coward. In response, Willie forces Bligh off the lifeboat (proving that he is not a coward) and rows away while Bligh holds onto on a sea turtle, who then submerges into the sea. Bart, as the new Captain of the Bounty, orders the crews to set sail for Tahiti...then he throws away the ship’s helm and they crash into Antarctica.
Homer’s story (The Neptune Adventure)
Homer’s story takes place on the luxury liner Neptune on New Year’s Eve during the 1970s. It is a parody of The Poseidon Adventure. At midnight, Captain Burns fails to notice a massive freak wave which hits the bridge and kills him and First Officer Waylon Smithers and the ship capsizes. A lot of people die. Led by Selma, survivors Homer, Bart, Lisa, Marge, Lenny, Carl, Comic Book Guy, Old Jewish Man (and his wife), and Sideshow Mel ignore Purser Wiggum’s advice to stay put in the ball room and decide to climb up the decks to the engine room. While climbing up through the smokestack, Lenny panics and takes a dive. They encounter rooms in flame, tigers, and Homer doing his business in an upside-down bathroom, knowing that he has great ass-suction. Comic Book Guy swims through a flooded deck to help the others get to the engine room, but he has a heart attack and dies. The group makes it to the engine room, but Sideshow Mel’s hair is set on fire because of a blowtorch from the rescue team and he falls unconscious. The rest of the original group makes it off the ship, at which point they encounter the walking skeletons of the Bounty crew, who are still trying to get back to Tahiti.
Cultural references
- This episode also references Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” In the first story, after the storm breaks off, Homer notices an albatross which he eats. Unlike the poem, this action does not lead to unfortunate incidents.
- Homer’s story is a parody of The Poseidon Adventure, a 1972 action film.
- The song played at the beginning of Homer’s story is “Rock the Boat” by the Hues Corporation.
- One-eyed “Admiral Nelson” is a reference to Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, British hero of the Battle of Trafalgar.
- Comic Book Guy’s “inspirational music” is “Alone Again (Naturally)” by Gilbert O’Sullivan.
- “Island in the Sun” by Weezer plays during the montage of the Bounty crew in Tahiti and Easter Island.
- When the Bounty crew is in Tahiti, the theme instrumental music that is played is similar to that written in the musical movie South Pacific.
- At the end of Homer’s story, the crew of the Bounty reappears as living skeletons, parodying Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.
- Lisa sings a parody of The Morning After from The Poseidon Adventure, which (exaggeratedly) foreshadows the upcoming destruction of the S.S. Neptune.
- Burns makes references to Earthquake, The Towering Inferno, The China Syndrome, and The Apple Dumpling Gang, which were popular disaster films of the 1970s (except for The Apple Dumpling Gang).
- The ship in Homer’s story is called the Neptune. “Neptune” was the Roman god of the sea; the Greek name for more or less the same deity was “Poseidon.”
- Scenes of Bart standing on the mast of the Bounty, and the use of music by
Luigi Boccherini , are references to the film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. - This episode’s title spoofs the title of the film The Greatest Story Ever Told.
- In the final segment, as the survivors leave the ship (just before the Bounty appears) a trumpet plays the melody of 'Panic in Detroit' by David Bowie.
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