"Fear of Flying" is the eleventh episode of The Simpsons' sixth season. Homer is banned from Moe's and struggles to find a new bar. When he destroys a plane after being mistaken for a pilot at a pilots-only bar, the airline buys the Simpsons' silence with free tickets and it is discovered that Marge is hysterically afraid of flying.
Contents |
Plot
After Homer pulls a prank on Moe, he and the others at the bar ban Homer for life, and he goes on a quest to find a new bar. He visits a high-class bar, from which he is promptly asked to leave, the Cheers bar, where he is scared off by the knowledge that the bar has karaoke, and a lesbian bar, where the lack of a fire exit perturbs him more than anything. At a loss, he eventually ends up in an airline pilots' bar, where he passes himself off as an aviator as only pilots are allowed to drink there. He is given a loaner uniform, and is subsequently mistaken as a pilot and roped into flying a plane. When his total incompetence results in severe damage to the plane while still on the runway, the owner of Kwazy Klown Airlines buys the Simpsons' silence by giving them free tickets to anywhere they desire (except Hawaii or Alaska, "the freak states"), lest the airline become a "laughingstock." When Homer and his family board the aircraft, Marge becomes uneasy. She makes up unconvincing reasons why she should leave the plane. When Homer tries to calm her, she admits to Homer that she has a fear of flying. Marge becomes increasingly scared until she breaks down and has a fit of panic so disruptive that the Simpsons are forced to leave the plane. The vacation is cancelled (although Grampa is left on the plane à la Home Alone). Marge does not want to talk to anybody about her phobia, and Lisa worries that Marge's decision to keep her feelings bottled up will cause them to "come out in other ways." Indeed, Marge begins to show signs of her lingering flight-related trauma, cooking giant feasts and shingling the roof in the middle of the night, and declaring that she is trying to stay in "a state of cat-like readiness." Lisa convinces Marge to undergo treatment with therapist Dr. Zweig, who uncovers the roots of Marge's fear, including the moment she realized her father was an apron-wearing airplane "stewardess," a job that was mostly reserved for women during that time. Dr. Zweig assures her male flight attendants are now very common and that her father could be considered a pioneer. However, when Marge suggests he might even be an American hero, Dr. Zweig dismisses her and says, "let's not go nuts." At that moment, Marge remembers more traumatic incidents involving airplanes that probably contributed to her fear of flying. Marge is ostensibly cured of her fears. When leaving, Marge thanks Dr. Zweig and says "When I here the wind blow it will wisper "Owenstein" (Similar line used in the letter by "Woodrow" in Bart the Lover) But when Marge and Homer attempt to fly on a plane again, the plane crashes, albeit rather uneventfully, into a swamp.
Informational references
- This is one of the few episodes in which Marge's father is shown, and he is represented very differently here from his earlier appearances. It was not until "Jazzy and the Pussycats" that it was explained that he had died.
- According to the DVD commentary, there are five deleted scenes (or parts of scenes) from the episode:
- After Homer was kicked out of Moe's Tavern, it was originally planned for a cat to come to Homer, and then have it enter the bar. The result is the barflies loving the cat with Moe even loving it when the cat spills sugar all over, and depressing Homer even more. According to David Mirkin, the fact that it looked depressing was the reason why it was deleted, and replaced with a more humorous approach with him chasing a poodle.
- The explanation for the spare pilot uniform was that the pilot who had it was on the roof, in his underwear, drunk beyond reason, and attempts to fly. The obvious reaction was that he fell off the roof to the ground.
- Homer made fun of Marge's phobia on the plane. The reason it was cut, according to Silverman, was that it looked like it would make Marge more annoyed than panicky.
- One of the things Marge had done while channeling her fear into bizarre actions was vacuuming in the middle of the night, but with the vacuum cleaner unplugged (so as not to wake anyone).
- According to Marge, one memory of Homer involved him showing up on their wedding night with a tree branch in his mouth, and back in real life having him with another branch in his mouth. It was cut because, according to David, the branch joke made little sense.
- At the very end, David Mirkin also jokingly suggested that everybody on the plane (except Marge and Homer) died, but was cut out because "it was a bit of a downer".
- When Moe takes down Homer's picture on his Mount Lushmore wall, the names of the other common bar drunks, Sam (the drunk with the glasses and the cap) and Larry the Lush (the one with the orange coat), are visible.
- The music during the scene where Homer is at the SHE-SHE Lounge lesbian bar is the same music from the scene in "Marge on the Lam" where Ruth and Marge go to an underground dance club called "The Hate Box".
- Homer's Quote to the co-pilot; "As a change of pace, I'm... going to let you do most of the work here." is funnier to actual pilots because, in general, the First Officer would already do most of the work, while it would be generally accepted that the Captain (Homer) does less work.
- Homer's rant about being sick of eating "hoagies" suggests that the simpsons are in Springfield Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania a suburb of Philadelphia.
- At the end of the DVD version of this episode there is a short audio dedication to Anne Bancroft who died shortly after the commentaries for this season's DVDs were recorded. The dedication is read by David Mirkin who cites Anne Bancroft as a particular comedic inspiration to him and states that the film 'The Graduate' (which Bancroft starred in) was the reason he got into comedy.
- Despite this episode's reliance on the fact that Marge has always feared airline travel, she has no problem flying in the Season 3 episode 'Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington.'
- In the original episode, Marge visits a psychiatrist. However, according to her treatment, she was being treated by a psychologist, which is vastly different from a psychiatrist.
- Even though Homer was banned from Moe's bar, he still goes there in later episodes.
Cultural references
- The Cheers bar is a parody of Cheers. The joke is that the discussion between Sam Malone and Carla Tortelli is a synopsis of the major plot points of the series (Sam's womanizing, his on-off relationships with Diane Chambers and Rebecca Howe, his desired return to a Major League Baseball career, selling the bar, etc.). All the characters are voiced by the actors that originally played them, except for Frasier, originally played by Kelsey Grammer, who stays silent due to scheduling conflicts with the recording date. (Kelsey Grammer portrays the somewhat regular character of Sideshow Bob, on The Simpsons).
- "It's Raining Men" by The Weather Girls is revealed as Homer's favorite song in this episode.
- Homer's line on shaking off the dust of this one-horse town comes from It's a Wonderful Life.
- Forgetting a family member on the plane and Abe slapping his hands on his face and yelling is similar to the movie Home Alone.
- The scene where Marge is traumatized after seeing her father as an airline attendant is reminiscent to a scene in Marnie
- The movies Homer rents are Hero, Fearless and Alive, all involving plane crashes.
- One of Marge's psychiatry flashbacks is an obvious reference to Lost in Space.
- The scene where Marge and Jaqueline Bouvier (her mother) duck down when a biplane shoots at them in a cornfield is a parody of Hitchcock's North by Northwest.
- The mentioning of Lowenstein comes from The Prince of Tides with Barbra Streisand as the psychiatrist, which Marge also mentioned in the episode Selma's Choice.
- The last scene with Homer and Marge is similar to a scene in Say Anything... where Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack) helps Ione Skye's character through her fear of flying.
- Homer's Mount Lushmore caricature is drawn to resemble Eustace Tilley, the mascot of The New Yorker.
- Marge tears up paper in an attempt to calm herself, just as Craig Toomey does in Stephen King’s The Langoliers (which is also set on a plane and at an airport).
External links
| The Simpsons Portal |
- "Fear of Flying" episode capsule at The Simpsons Archive
