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Thirty Minutes over Tokyo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Thirty Minutes over Tokyo" is the season finale of The Simpsons' tenth season, which originally aired on May 16, 1999.
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The family, on Lisa's suggestion, visits a cyber café named The Java Server. However, things get dangerous when Homer, looking at his bank account online, is cyber-robbed by Snake, which saddens Marge because they were saving the money for their family vacation. After Homer has a discussion with Flanders (when Ned catches Homer burgling his house to recover the lost money), he says that he got more for less by attending the Chuck Garabedian Mega-Savings Seminar. After considering Neds advice, Homer steals Flanders' tickets (and his Jesus fish fridge magnet). The family attends the seminar, which explains many money-saving strategies, some of these examples used by Chuck are: his suit is the same suit that Roy Cohn died in, the yacht he owned smelled like cat urine, and the beautiful women by his side used to be men. Later, in order to save money, they go to a 33¢ store where Homer eats a can of plankton which contains red tide poisoning, as warned by “the Mexican Council of Food.” They get tickets to go to Tokyo when they get mega-saver tickets at the airport, narrowly snagging them from the Flanders family.
The Simpsons arrive in Japan and, although Lisa wants to explore Japanese culture when they go there, Homer prompts the family to eat at an American-themed restaurant named Americatown. Later on, Homer and Bart attend a sumo wrestling match. While there, Homer picks a fight with one of the sumo wrestlers. He and Bart knock him out, and the Emperor of Japan comes to congratulate Homer. After introducing himself as "The Emperor", Homer thinks he is another wrestler and throws the man into a dumpster of worn mawashi. As a result, he and Bart are put in jail. They stay in jail, learning Japanese and exploring its culture until Marge pays the bail. But when Homer makes an origami crane from his last million yen, he loses it in the wind, saying a Japanese version of his famed "D'oh!" catchphrase.
After losing the money, the family goes to the U.S. Embassy, and the Ambassador suggests that the family get jobs. They eventually do get jobs in a fish-gutting factory in Osaka. The Simpsons are dissatisfied with their new jobs, except for Bart, until they watch a TV game show called The Happy Smile Super Challenge Family Wish Show. They decide to appear on the show, telling the game's Japanese host Wink that what they wish for is to get plane tickets back to Springfield, but they have to go through a rough ride and suffer physical torture (particularly Homer). The Simpsons are given their tickets, but they must be retrieved from a bridge over an active volcano. Lisa is able to get the tickets, but the bridge breaks and the whole family falls into the volcano, which is actually only orangeade - with lots of wasabi added. The family get their plane tickets and leave Japan. As they leave, their plane is confronted by Godzilla, Mothra, Gamera and Rodan.
- Although a Japanese dub of The Simpsons has been produced for many years, this episode has never aired in Japan, because of the scene when Homer throws the Emperor of Japan into a pile of mawashi ("sumo thongs") and Homer declaring himself "Emperor Clobbersaurus". Sanrio also objected to the depiction of a Hello Kitty factory in this episode.[citation needed]
- Many alt.tv.simpsons fans thought the blackboard punishment "I'm so very tired" was a meta-reference to the writers wanting to cancel The Simpsons and showing this episode as the last one.
- The title is a reference to Thirty Seconds over Tokyo, a film based on the Doolittle Raid.
- Battling Seizure Robots is a reference to the infamous Pokémon episode Dennō Senshi Porygon (or as known as in the English translation of the title, "Electric Soldier Porygon"). The flashing lights (caused by an exploding rockets attack) during that episode caused seizures throughout Japan, and resulted in the brief hospitalization of 685 children, especially those with epilepsy. The episode was later banned and since then, it has been required all TV programmes that may contain scenes with flashing images must include a warning. In an ill-considered decision, several Japan TV news programs then proceeded to rebroadcast the scene that night as part of their coverage, causing more seizures (including, possibly, some of the 685 "official" cases; the final tally of affected children was given at nearly thirteen thousand). This is another possible reason why this episode was never aired in North America.
- The gameshow which the Simpsons take part in to win tickets back home is an extremely over the top parody of Japanese gameshows. Although not even close to being as brutal as depicted in this episode, Japanese gameshows are notorious for being very unusual, some demanding a lot of awkward physical activity from its participants. Of partial note is the passing resemblance of the bridge over the volcano to the Takeshi's Castle game bridge ball
- In the scene at Moe's Tavern, when Barney is impersonating Homer, one of the phrases he says is "That boy ain't right!" This is a phrase Hank Hill often said on King of the Hill to describe his son, Bobby.
- The fish that Bart kills during his job in Osaka ("Spare my life and I will grant you three wishes") is a reference to the fable The Fisherman and His Wife. Interestingly, when Homer was talking to Ned about how he thought they were, he states that he has Marge locked up in a mudbeehive, which is the same place the Fisherman and his wife reside in said fairytale.
- Americatown features pictures of the Kool-Aid Man, Uncle Sam, and Elvis on the sign. It's decorated with other pictures of a star, a gun, a pie, a guitar, a baseball bat, and a baseball. Inside animatronic figures are seen: E.T. seems to be pointing up Marilyn Monroe's flying skirt, Abe Lincoln dances with the Statue of Liberty, and Muhammad Ali fighting Neil Armstrong.
- When Marge says to Homer on the plane that she liked Rashomon by Akira Kurosawa, Homer claims he doesn't remember it that way. The underlying joke is that this famous film is about people remembering different things about the same event.
- The square watermelon Homer buys is a reference to the real ones that exist in Japan.
- One of the lights (seatbelt, smoking) on the plane is Godzilla and lights when he attacks.
- Lisa spots the Hello Kitty factory.
- Chuck Garabedian is a real name of a talk show host in Milwaukee, WI.
- In the Latin American version of this episode, when Homer watches the TV at the factory, he says that he wanted to see "Dragon Ball Z". At the time of the translation of this episode, "Dragon Ball Z" was the most watched TV show in this part of the world. In Mexico, Canal 5, a family oriented channel aired "Dragon Ball Z" at 8:00 PM, opposed to "The Simpsons" that airs in the rival channel, Azteca 7.
- Mr. Burns is seen talking with Rich Uncle Pennybags from Monopoly and mentioning Baltic Avenue
- There are hundreds of That 70's Show mugs on sale at the 33¢ store.
- During this episode, Bart plays an electronic game, that when turned off, causes the airplane in which he is riding, to fall. This is possibly a reference to the movie Lupin III - Farewell to Nostradamus, where Arsene Lupin used a remote control electronic device to control a plane with Koichi Zenigata on it. When asked to turn the electronic device off, the remote controlled plane began to fall.
- Americatown might be a parody of Amerikamura, an American outlet similar to Chinatown.
- Between the two Battling Seizure Robots clips a clip from the "Mr. Sparkle" commercial in the episode: "In Marge We Trust", is seen on the TV screen.
- "Thirty Minutes over Tokyo" episode capsule at The Simpsons Archive
- "Thirty Minutes over Tokyo" at the Internet Movie Database