Pygmoelian

Infobox Simpsons episode
episode_name = Pygmoelian


image_caption= Promotional artwork featuring Moe after his plastic surgery.
episode_no = 242
prod_code = BABF12
airdate = 27th February, 2000
show runner = Mike Scully
writer = Larry Doyle
director = Mark Kirkland
blackboard = "Dodgeball stops at the gym door."
couch_gag = The Simpsons sit down as normal. Marge notices the name “Matt Groening” written on the carpet, gets up, and wipes the name off. A caricature of Matt Groening (complete with grayed beard, glasses, and his tacky orange and yellow Hawaiian shirt) comes in and rewrites his name on the floor.
season = 11

"Pygmoelian" is the sixteenth episode of the eleventh season of "The Simpsons". It aired on February 27, 2000.__TOC__

Plot

The family goes to a festival sponsored by Duff Beer (after being tricked into evacuating the house by Homer in a fire drill) and sees Moe Szyslak enter a "Beer-tender" competition. Moe wins and his face is photographed for the Duff calendar, but his picture is blocked out with stickers, because his face is too ugly. Realizing how ugly he is, Lenny and Carl suggest that Moe get plastic surgery. He reluctantly agrees. After his surgery, Moe now has a very handsome face. In response, he confronts old adversaries, including the producers of a soap opera, "It Never Ends", saying he never got the part of the character Dr. Tad Winslow because of his ugliness. Incidentally, the actor who plays Dr. Tad Winslow demands he get a raise in his salary, but it is rejected by the producers. In response, Moe tells the producer his story, and he becomes the new Dr. Tad Winslow.

Meanwhile, while Moe is acting, Bart and Lisa discover that Maggie's balloon is gone in the wind. They go after it until it ends up in a gay Republican coalition's office, and they see the pink elephant from the balloon as their mascot. They then give Lisa a bumper sticker telling her to vote for "A Gay President in 2084" (which, according to them, is a realistic goal).

The soap opera goes well, until Moe learns from top-secret future plot lines that his character will be killed off. On the air, Homer and Moe reveal the plot lines. The producers angrily tell Moe that his character was only supposed to die in a dream, and then fire him. As he walks off the set, a set piece falls on his new face, which returns to his old one. In a deus ex machina, things go back to normal when Moe returns to his tavern, but the episode gets cut short when Moe wonders why the accident on the set of "It Never Ends" turned his handsome face back to his normal face instead of an entirely new one.

Meta-Reference

Carl supposedly breaks the fourth wall in the scene when Carl tells Moe that his ugliness is relative to Lenny's stupidity, Barney's drunkenness and Homer being lazy, bald and fat; he makes everyone in the bar cry and then turns to the camera, explaining: "See, this is why I don't talk much." before cutting to commercial.

Cultural References

*The episode title references George Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion". "My Fair Lady", the musicalisation of "Pygmalion", would later be parodied in the episode "My Fair Laddy" (which, like this episode, is about an ancillary Simpsons character [Moe in this episode/Groundskeeper Willie in "My Fair Laddy"] who is known for being ugly and/or ill-mannered gets a makeover [Moe gets plastic surgery/Willie is trained by Lisa to be a proper gentleman] , and pursues a new life [Moe becomes a soap opera star/Groundskeeper Willie becomes the maitre d' at a fancy restaurant] , only to return to his normal self at the end [after Moe's face gets crushed by the backdrop/after Groundskeeper Willie tells Lisa that he misses being the school janitor and fights with a rude customer] ).
*The gay Republican coalition is probably a parody of the Log Cabin Republicans.
*The title sequence of the soap opera "It Never Ends" is a parody of that of "Days of our Lives" and "The Young and the Restless".
*The eye patch worn by Dr. Tad Winslow refers to the character Steve Johnson or "Patch" from "Days of our Lives".
*The flying pig balloon is a reference to the Pink Floyd incident, where at the cover shoot of their album Animals a pig balloon unintentionally flew away. This was also referenced in Lisa the Vegetarian.
*According to a post made by Death from Above 1979 bassist Jesse F. Keeler on the band's forum, the song title "Sexy Results" from the album "You're a Woman, I'm a Machine" is taken from this episode. When Homer went on the air and revealed a number of "It Never Ends" spoilers, he claimed each were "with sexy results".
*Duff's "Vice President of Calendars and Fake IDs" is named Phil Angelides, named after the former California State Treasurer and a friend of Matt Groening.
*The scene in which the bandages are being removed from Moe's face is a subtle reference to the Twilight Zone episode, The Eye of the Beholder.

External links

*snpp capsule|BABF12
*imdb episode|id=0767446|episode=Pygmoelian