We're on the Road to D'ohwhere

Infobox Simpsons episode
episode_name = We're on the Road to D'ohwhere
episode_no = 367
prod_code = HABF04
airdate = January 29, 2006
writer = Kevin Curran
director = Nancy Kruse
blackboard = I will not flip the classroom upside down "(in repeats, this is replaced with "Teacher was not dumped--it was mutual")"
couch_gag = In a parody of the "Bonanza" opening, a map of frontier-era United States is burned out in the center, revealing The Simpsons on horseback as they gallop away. The Bonanza theme plays throughout.


image_caption = Homer takes Bart to a personality straightening camp.
season = 17

We're on the Road to D'ohwhere is the eleventh episode of the seventeenth season of "The Simpsons". It first aired in the USA on January 29, 2006 on FOX.

Plot

While messing around in the school’s steam tunnels, Bart and Milhouse trigger a massive escape of steam that destroys the school. Although Milhouse is free to go, Principal Skinner proposes that Bart be sent off to "Upward Bound", a behavioral modification camp. Meanwhile, Moe announces that he is treating Homer, Lenny, Carl and Barney with renting a minivan and taking them on a trip to Las Vegas, after a failed suicide attempt led to him suing the rope company that made a faulty noose and earning a hefty settlement. While Homer is near the Moe's Tavern, the luggage is packed and loaded into minivan, what has a label "Vegas or bust" (Lenny changes it to "Vegas for busts). Homer tells that he is taking Bart to airport and them coming to go to Vegas. Bart begs Homer to take him to Vegas and then Bart will teach Homer how to cheat. Homer refuses, because he has his own system: he will not tell Marge how much he lost in a game. Then Homer takes Bart to the airport to send him to the camp in northwest Oregon (flying by way of Portland). But then it is discovered that Bart is on the No Fly List after an incident in Atlanta where Bart unbuckled his seat belt before the plane could come to a complete stop. Homer decides to drive him to the camp instead, but is annoyed at having to miss the Vegas trip with Moe and his bar buddies. During the ride, Homer angrily blames Bart for missing his Vegas trip. While they are stopped at a roadside diner, Bart pretends to respect Homer in order to escape; his plan works and he heads off home. However, he then reluctantly rescues Homer from almost driving off of a cliff and they are soon back on the road, this time with Bart chained and duct-taped in his seat, Homer now not able to trust his son.

Meanwhile, Marge and Lisa have a yard sale. It is initially a total failure until Otto discovers that Marge is selling the family's expired prescription drugs. Although reluctant, Marge soon makes lots of money selling prescription drugs, but Chief Wiggum eventually discovers the scheme and arrests her.

Homer gets Bart to the camp (in which Bart actually comes to enjoy on some level) but, after a moral dilemma, he decides to retrieve Bart and take him along to Vegas. In Vegas, Homer reportedly gets in a fight with a pit boss, loses track of Bart, and is thrown in Nevada State Prison. The episode ends with Lisa receiving phone messages from both her parents, asking for bail money. Instead of taking immediate action, Lisa tells Maggie that she anticipated the day that the two of them would be the only members left in the family to fend for themselves. Lisa walks off, adding that she'll look for a job in the morning.

Cultural references

*Chief Wiggum calls Marge "Ma Peddle" in reference to Ma Kettle - he then has to explain the reference to Lou, even though in the episode Cape Feare Wiggum referenced Ma Kettle without Lou questioning it.
*The song the band class plays is "Louie, Louie".
*The song Flanders sings is the final chorus of "Joseph's Coat" from the hit Andrew Lloyd Webber musical "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat".
*Bart is on the US government's No Fly List.
*"Intellectual Homer", who has been killed by "Serious Homer", has written on the floor in his own blood "Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny". This is the famous statement of Ernst Haeckel's recapitulation theory about the similarity of the embryonic development of organisms to its evolutionary history. Ironically, it has been debunked as a scientific principle. Presumably, Intellectual Homer wrote this before it was debunked, a testament to how long he had been dead.
*When Homer drives into the house on the side of the street it says "Birthplace of Matt Groening," the show's creator. Binky, from "Life in Hell", is seen on the sign.
*The episode title is a reference to Road To Nowhere, a Talking Heads song.
*Birchibald "Birch" T. Barlow, a parody of Rush Limbaugh, is seen in the background buying drugs from Marge's yard sale, a reference to Limbaugh's prescription drug addiction.
*In reference to Bart's eventual return from the behaviour modification camp, Skinner says "he'll return, quietly ticking away", a reference to A Clockwork Orange.
*Homer breaks the fourth wall when he got stuck in freeway exits by responding "Oh, I know this looks cool from top view!".