From: mxg77@po.cwru.edu   
      
   Eh, OK. These non-anthology loosely-connected multi-plot stories can be pretty   
   hit-or-miss and this didn't quite do it for me... partly because of the   
   yet-again-reinvented history of several of the characters. But balloon physics   
   aside (apparently Homer    
   weighs less than Bart and a bowling ball, and the ball loses all momentum on a   
   roller coaster loop), it was amusing enough. I continue to wonder how much   
   SHORTER episodes can get, though. 21 minutes with credits? Under that, once   
   the dedication    
   disappears in repeats.   
      
   DYN:   
   ...the couch gag is apparently part 1 of 6? (Are we really going to get 5 more   
   of these?)   
   ...Homer presses about 4 buttons on the pay phone in a very slow and   
   deliberate manner but the dialing sequence sounds like an automated redial (or   
   at least a quicker dial of the proper number of digits)?   
   ...Bart could have just untied some of the balloons?   
      
   Previous episode stuff   
   5F03: Joe Namath is back   
      
   Meta   
   -(Obvious) comments about Chip Davis, the guy we never saw that everyone loves   
   -Chip worked at the plant in sector 6F (see also notes on LABF01 several years   
   ago)   
      
   Dedication to Marcia Wallace   
   I'm assuming at this point that the 4-second dedication to her before the cast   
   credits will not be seen again, but I guess we'll see. (I can't guess offhand   
   what episode it's from, though it would appear to be a pre-widescreen one.) I   
   wouldn't be    
   surprised if the blackboard gag was a one-off too, and maybe even a longer   
   opening used (if, for example, this was shortened to allow the extra running   
   time 8F16 would have taken).   
      
   Back again from syndication, it's... NOT Bart the Lover (8F16)!   
   Though it looked like the third season episode that heavily featured and got   
   an Emmy for Marcia Wallace was to reair for the 7:30 slot (bumping out a   
   repeat of American Dad's Da Flippity Flop), it didn't actually show up.   
   Instead, there was a repeat of    
   NABF15 (The Ned-liest Catch), the non-premiere version, which does share the   
   traits of (a) being Edna-centric, (b) airing only twice on Fox before, and (c)   
   having gone into syndication (making this the 5th episode, I think, to do   
   (c)). Does anyone know    
   why the last-minute switch?   
      
      
   Finally   
   I didn't notice this at first, but in the previous episode (Treehouse of   
   Horror XXIV, RABF16), Al Jean's end credit has a punctuation mistake, since it   
   should read '13 (’13) with an apostrophe, not `13 (‘13) with an open single   
   quote. It stayed that way    
   in the second airing about a week ago.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)