S01EP013 The Crepes of Wrath

The Crepes of Wrath
Air Date: April 15, 1990
Production Episode: 7G13
Written by: George Meyer, Sam Simon, John Swartzwelder, and Jon Vitti
Directed by: Wesley Archer and Milton Gray


The Crepes of Wrath sees Bart as a foreign exchange student working on a vineyard in France. The episode starts with Homer taking a nasty fall down the stairs due to Bart's toys on the floor. While lying by the front door, unable to move, we see Santa's Little Helper wander up and take a nap. This is the first we've seen of him since the Christmas episode. This is because The Crepes of Wrath was one of the last episodes written for Season one, meaning they could add in the one shot of SLH, who was unknown when the other episodes were being written.

Oddly enough, Maggie joins them, despite Homer having been established as being upstairs during the time it took Bart to enter the house and go to his room. Clearly Homer is not the most attentive father, leaving a baby to wander downstairs without supervision. It's almost like this becomes a recurring character trait.

Marge comes home to rescue Homer, scold Bart, and then it's off to school the next day. Here we meet Agnes Skinner for the very first time. Possibly under some sort of medication, because she's nothing like the Agnes Skinner we've come to know. Here she's a sweet old lady who is proud of her son. As she goes to the little girl's room, Bart is in the boy's bathroom flushing a cherry bomb. The resulting waterspouts fling Agnes into the air.

The source of Agnes' hatred of everything?

Skinner drags Bart to the Simpson's house, where Homer is lying in pain on the couch from his previous fall. At this point in the series, the house was internally consistent, or at least as consistent as it ever was. Oddly enough though, it's consistently wrong in this episode. Homer is in the front sitting room with the bay window and fireplace. The views through the two doorways are accurate, but in the wrong position. Usually this is a momentary mistake, but for this entire extended scene, with multiple cuts from one character to the other, the back of the house is seen through the doorway that should lead to the front door, and the staircase and dining room are seen where the back of the house should be. Skinner even enters from the left side of the couch after entering through the front door, despite the bay window that looks out on the front door being visible on the opposite side of the room.

 

notice both doors are visible in this shot

 

Skinner suggests enrolling Bart in a foreign exchange program. He'll go to lovely Paris, while the Simpsons house a child from the (currently communist) Albania. That's north of Greece and west of Italy's heel, for those of you who are geographically challenged. Bart heads off to France, while Adil heads towards Springfield. At this point we have two concurrent stories, one following Bart, and the other following Homer. Let's start with Homer.

Homer takes an immediate liking to the polite Adil, who is not shy about extolling the virtues of socialism to Lisa. Adil asks Homer to take him to the nuclear plant, where he intends to steal nuclear secrets from the United States. He shouldn't have bothered, though. Albania became a parliamentary republic exactly a year later, in April of 1991. We're a bit more open to sharing nuclear secrets with those non communist countries. Adil is eventually tracked down by the CIA, and is taken into custody to exchange for one of their child spies, who is delightfully 90's in his design.

 "I'm getting too old for this"

Meanwhile, in France, Bart is taken to a run down vineyard where he is starved and forced to do slave labor. Cesar and Ugolin are his exchange family. They reappear once watching a major sporting event on TV (Lisa the Greek), and they have a prominent role as traitors to the French Resistance in the Simpsons Movie Game level Medal of Homer. They aren't very good at making wine, only letting it ferment for three days before deciding to bottle it. For the curious in the crowd, this stage should last three to six months. Also, it's really fun and satisfying and you should all try it at least once in your life. 

To compensate for the complete lack of fermentation, they decide to add some antifreeze. You may recognize this as something that actually happened. In a surprisingly dark turn, they have Bart test the doctored wine. When he doesn't go blind, they send him out to pick up more antifreeze. Bart heads out in the rain to the town. He meets a police officer, but can't communicate to him in French. In a sitcom cliche, his frustration results in him spontaneously figuring out how to speak French, at which point he informs the officer of the abuse he faces and the tampered wine. Bart is rescued, the wine tampering is stopped, and Bart eventually returns home with souvenirs for the family.