Episode title: Skinner’s Sense of Snow
Series: The Simpsons
Season: 12
Written by: Tim Long
First transmitted: December 17 2000
Despite a heavy fall of snow, and to Bart’s disgust, Springfield elementary is open - one of the few schools that is. He cheers up a little when Principal Skinner tells the class that, as no teachers showed up today, he will be showing them a movie, about a Grinchy little character. However it’s not what the kids think, and they have to sit through a bad 1930s movie called
The Christmas That Almost Wasn’t And Then Was - in black and white. Thankfully however after two hours the video camera burns up the movie, and everyone heads for the exits. In shock, they realise the snow has piled up outside and they can’t get out: they’re trapped in the school!
Homer and Flanders set out to rescue the kids, but Homer hits a fire hydrant and the water instantly freezes, trapping them too. Meanwhile things are turning ugly at the school, so Skinner dons his old army uniform and re-establishes discipline. Nelson tries to make a break for it but runs head-first into the big pile of snow waiting outside. The children settle down for the night, unhappy but unable to leave. Undaunted, Bart decides to dig his way out (with a ladle?) and has actually made good progress before Skinner catches him. In trying to collapse the tunnel though (while inside it; how stupid is that?) he gets trapped and by the time the kids and Willy pull him out he’s no longer a force for authority. They tie him up and the kids take control of the school.
Trapped in the frozen car, with engine fumes leaking in, Homer starts to have hallucinations. Skinner sends the school hamster, Nibbles, off in a transparent ball (don’t ask me) with a note asking for help. He ends up smashing through the windscreen of Flanders’s car, breaking the glass and letting in air. This (for some reason) frees them from the ice too, and they head off but crash into a pillar of salt (yeah I know) outside the cracker factory (doesn’t or didn’t Kirk Van Houten work there?) which topples over, spilling tons of salt onto the snow, and thus melting it.The kids escape from the school as the snow melts, just as Homer and Flanders show up outside.
Notes
This is how you do a Christmas episode! Yes, again it’s kind of centred on one character - Bart - but given that it also involves the school you get to see the other kids, particularly Nelson and (shudder) Millhouse. Even Martin gets a line. And despite what you might expect, Lisa does not side with Skinner on the issue of authority, but joins in with the general rebellion when he is imprisoned by the children. Homer has some great scenes here and it’s pretty cool that he teams up with Flanders. Bart’s takeover of the school does somewhat mirror when he was at Kamp Krusty, but it’s handled in a different way.
The clever twist when the kids think they’re going to be shown
The Grinch and it turns out instead to be a crappy b-movie from the days of black and white is nice, and the crappiness of the movie is enhanced by Lisa pointing out a stage-hand who walks out on the set. Another flashback to ‘Nam for Skinner - those are always good - and I also like how when Millhouse tries to impress Lisa by tearing up her permanent record the page reconstitutes and the drawer closes by itself. The power of education indeed! The link back to Mr. Plow, where Homer can’t even remember having such a job despite the fact that he is actually wearing the jacket, is a comment on I guess the fact that so many people are now sick of that episode, and staying with snow ploughs, the selling off of the city’s supply to Mr. Burns for his entertainment is just the sort of thing Quimby would do.
A few small nibbles, sorry niggles: when Skinner writes SEND HELP! On the note he puts into the hamster’s rolling ball, that’s literally all he writes. Not who the note is from, where he can be found, how help might be sent or to where. Very lax for a so-called educated man. I’m not sure exactly how the DVD of the movie failing manages to burn up the camera, or how Skinner fixes the disc - one would assume he just cleaned it, but why then would that make the screen burn up, and it having done so, how would repairing the DVD allow the screen to function again? Why are they all eating relish and apples? Surely there is other food in the school? It’s the Christmas holidays, yes, but there should be food left over still. Even candy bars from the machines or something? Relish and apples? How does Bart dig such an effective tunnel without any supports or buttresses at all, and given that he is at this point almost out, why does Skinner decide to collapse the tunnel instead of maybe strengthening it and seeing if they can after all get out?
But all those questions aside - none of which are, in the final analysis, important anyway - what I really like about
Simpsons episodes versus
Family Guy and to some extent
American Dad is that they rarely if ever poke fun at Christmas, and never at religion. Yes, there are a few gentle jabs - Bart saying Christmas is remembered for the birth of Santa, Homer lamenting that Jesus must be spinning in his grave etc - but there isn’t the kind of wanton cruelty and disdain that Seth McFarlane’s shows, especially Family Guy, heap on Christmas, as if the guy hated it. Not all of the Simpsons Christmas episodes are great, not by any means, but when they do it right they can really hit the mark, and to be fair, this happens more times than it doesn’t. This isn’t a perfect Christmas episode, but damn it, it’s close.