You Dont Know What Its Like. Im the One Out There Putting His Ass on the Line.

22nd episode of the fifth season of The Simpsons

"Secrets of a Successful Marriage"
The Simpsons episode
Episode no.	Season 5 Episode 22
Directed by	Carlos Baeza
Written by	Greg Daniels
Production code	1F20
Original air date	May xix, 1994 (1994-05-19)
Guest appearance
Phil Hartman as Lionel Hutz
Episode features
Chalkboard gag	"5 days is non too long to wait for a gun"
Couch gag	The members of the family run in, collide, and explode. Maggie's pacifier falls to the floor of the blackened living room.
Commentary	David Mirkin Greg Daniels David Silverman
Episode chronology
←Previous "Lady Bouvier's Lover" Next → "Bart of Darkness"
The Simpsons (season 5)
List of episodes

"Secrets of a Successful Union" is the 20-second and final episode of the fifth season of the American animated goggle box series The Simpsons. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on May 19, 1994. In the episode, Homer fears he may be a little boring, so he goes to the adult education centre. While there, he decides to teach a form of his ain on the secrets of a successful marriage, since that is the just class he is qualified to teach. Even so, to go along his students interested, he is forced to tell personal secrets about his married woman Marge, which she dislikes, leading upwardly to Homer getting kicked out of the firm.

The episode was written by Greg Daniels and directed by Carlos Baeza. It features cultural references to the plays True cat on a Hot Tin Roof and A Streetcar Named Desire, and the films ...And Justice for All, A Few Good Men, Patton, and Chinatown.

The episode has been analyzed in books such every bit Leaving Springfield and Didactics in Popular Culture. Since airing, the episode has received mostly positive reviews from television critics.

It acquired a Nielsen rating of 9.8, and was the second highest-rated bear witness on the Play a trick on network the calendar week it aired.

Plot [edit]

Afterwards Homer realizes he is dim-witted, Marge suggests that he accept an adult education course at the annex centre. One time there, Homer changes his heed and decides to become a instructor. He agrees to teach a class virtually tips for a successful wedlock. At first he is confident of his education abilities, only he is frightened on the starting time day of class and is unable to aid his students with their relationship problems. The class collectively gets upwards to leave, simply when Homer mentions his conversation with Marge in bed, the class is eager to hear gossip and decides to stay.

Marge shortly discovers that anybody in town knows her personal secrets, like the fact that she dyes her hair because she is "as grayness as a mule". She confronts Homer about revealing her personal life to the grade and he promises to finish. To impress his pupils, Homer invites them to his house to observe the family having dinner. Fed upward, Marge chases the students away and kicks Homer out of the business firm, no longer able to trust him.

Homeless, Homer stays in Bart's tree firm. Marge tries to reassure Bart and Lisa that she and Homer dear them, despite their current separation, just Lisa and Bart worry their parents will go divorced. While Homer is gone, Moe arrives and declares his romantic involvement in Marge, who turns him down. When Homer returns to the house with flowers for Marge, Moe panics and jumps out the window. Standing before her in rags, Homer says he tin can only offer her 1 thing: complete and utter dependency. Homer wins her over by saying he loves her and needs her to beloved him because he cannot beget to ever lose her trust over again. The family unit is glad that Homer has returned, although Moe is less than thrilled.

Product [edit]

The episode was written by Greg Daniels and directed by Carlos Baeza. It was the second script Daniels wrote for the bear witness. He thought the staff had previously done many episodes where Homer "wasn't adept at anything", then he tried to effigy out something Homer was actually good at, and he came upward with the idea of Homer existence a good husband.^[1] While Bart had been the star of the testify during the early years, by Flavour 5, the focus had shifted to Homer. Author/showrunner Al Jean stated that because Homer is an adult grapheme, he has more depth to him and thus storyline possibilities. Showrunner David Mirkin commented: "Bart, to write him accurately equally a child, he tin only have and so much depth at a certain age. With Homer, we try to explore all levels of adulthood. There are just more than places to go. Writing Homer properly is the trick, he's our chief rock of the whole series. Homer'southward IQ is fairly flexible, he won't necessarily sympathise how to open a door at some point, but he tin name the Supreme Courtroom justices. Finding that residue is key to making the show piece of work and making information technology surprising and making it believable and emotionally grounded."^[2] Mirkin was very fond of the fact that Homer and Marge have the biggest fight they take ever had on the show in the episode, and he thought it was a "really bang-up" exploration of their marriage. He noticed that because Homer is thrown out of the house, the audience really worry almost their relationship. Mirkin had been asked many times why Marge and Homer are nonetheless together, to which he replied that all people stay together fifty-fifty if they argue, "there's some sort of connectedness".^[three]

Cultural references [edit]

Homer sings the end of the theme song to Family Ties while talking to an administrator at the annex center. Smithers's recollection of his marriage parodies the ii plays True cat on a Hot Tin Roof and A Streetcar Named Desire, both written by American playwright Tennessee Williams.^[four] Homer's bedroom rant to Marge is a parody hodgepodge of four popular films: ...And Justice for All (1979), A Few Good Men (1992), Patton (1970), and Chinatown (1974). He says: "Look Marge, yous don't know what it's like. I'm the ane out there every day putting his ass on the line. And I'one thousand not out of order! You're out of order. The whole freaking system is out of order. You want the truth? You want the truth?! You can't handle the truth! 'Cause when you lot accomplish over and put your hand into a pile of goo that was your all-time friend'due south confront, you'll know what to practise! Forget it, Marge, it's Chinatown," all of which are lines from those films.^[5]

Assay [edit]

In a reference to Tennessee Williams's nearly famous plays, Smithers is shown in a flashback to accept split upward with his married woman because he devoted too much time to his boss Mr. Burns, causing his sexual orientation to come up into question.

It was revealed in a flashback in the episode that Smithers was briefly married to a woman, simply the ii separate upward when he devoted likewise much time to his dominate Mr. Burns. Smithers's human relationship with Mr. Burns has long been a running joke on The Simpsons. His sexual orientation has often come into question, with some fans challenge he is a "Burns-sexual" and only attracted to his boss, while others maintain that he is, without a uncertainty, gay.^{[half-dozen] [7]} Matthew Henry wrote in the book Leaving Springfield that this episode is "perhaps the best" example of an endeavour to portray an actual gay lifestyle on the testify. Henry added that the flashback is a "wonderfully rendered parody of scenes from two of Tennessee Williams's near famous plays, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and A Streetcar Named Desire. To fully appreciate it, one must know something of not only the two plays cited only besides of Williams himself, of his ain struggles with both heterosexual and homosexual desires and the mode in which these struggles were incorporated into his art. The creators of The Simpsons offer what I call up is a perfect parallel for the human relationship betwixt Smithers and Mr. Burns by combining Williams's 2 most notable male characters and their defining characteristics: the suppressed homosexual want of Brick and desperate dependence of Stanley."^[viii]

In their book Teaching in Popular Culture, Alma Harris, Roy Fisher, Ann Harris, and Christine Jarvis analyzes the adult education aspects of this episode that portrays adult learners equally "stupid and lazy". The testify initially makes it seem like developed instruction tutors have a relatively high status in social club. "Even so," the authors added, "Homer's pride is undercut for the audition by the awareness of how he came to be appointed and past the subsequent representation of the adult education centre".^[nine]

Reception [edit]

Critical reception [edit]

Since airing, the episode has received positive reviews from television receiver critics. The authors of the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, thought it was a "confident finale" to the fifth flavor, which "had seen the series get progressively more than surreal and cocky-enlightened."^[four]

DVD Movie Guide's Colin Jacobson wrote in December, 2004, that he thought the episode concluded the season with a "loftier note", and that Homer's insensitive gossiping about his relationship "presents lots of good $.25. It completes this excellent year well." Jacobson'south favorite line of the episode was "This is a place of learning, not a house of hearing about things!", which Homer tells his class after they demand him to reveal more secrets nigh him and Marge.^[10] Also reviewing the season in December 2004, Beak Gibron of DVD Talk gave the episode a score of iv out of v.^[11]

In his review of the Season 5 box set in early on 2005, Patrick Bromley of DVD Verdict gave the episode a form of A−, and commented that episodes focusing on the relationship between Homer and Marge tin can "never fail", and in that location are "numerous opportunities for some archetype Homer-isms" in the episode.^[12]

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly in March 2006, quondam Simpsons writer and comedian Ricky Gervais named "Secrets of a Successful Marriage" his fifth favorite episode of the testify, and commented that Homer's line to Marge, "I know at present what I tin can offering you that no one else can. Complete and utter dependence," is "and then sweet, considering he'due south correct!"^[thirteen]

Information technology was placed at number seven on Today'south top ten The Simpsons episodes listing in July, 2007. They felt the episode embodied Homer's qualities of being "stupid, good-natured and mildly pathetic, [...] from his conversations with his brain [...] to his final proclamation that the one matter he tin can requite Marge that no one else can is 'complete and utter dependence'."^[14]

Ratings [edit]

In its original American broadcast, "Secrets of a Successful Spousal relationship" finished forty-third in the ratings for the week of May 16 to May 22, 1994, with a Nielsen rating of 9.viii. The episode was the 2d highest-rated show on the Play a trick on network that week, post-obit Melrose Identify.^[15]

References [edit]

1. ^ Daniels, Greg (2004). The Simpsons flavor five DVD commentary for the episode "Secrets of a Successful Wedlock" (DVD). 20th Century Play tricks.
2. ^ Tucker, Reed (July 22, 2007). "Ay, Caramba! We're one-time, man!". New York Post. p. forty. Retrieved January sixteen, 2022.
3. ^ Mirkin, David (2004). The Simpsons flavour 5 DVD commentary for the episode "Secrets of a Successful Matrimony" (DVD). 20th Century Play a joke on.
4. ^ ^{a b} Martyn, Warren; Wood, Adrian (2000). "Secrets of a Successful Matrimony". BBC. Retrieved 2008-04-12 .
5. ^ Richmond & Coffman 1997, p. 130.
6. ^ Turner 2004, p. 296.
7. ^ Carroll, Larry (2007-07-26). "'Simpsons' Trivia, From Swearing Lisa To 'Burns-Sexual' Smithers". MTV. Archived from the original on 2007-12-20. Retrieved 2022-01-sixteen .
8. ^ Henry, Matthew (2004). "Looking for Amanda Hugginkiss: Gay Life on The Simpsons". In John Alberti (ed.). Leaving Springfield: The Simpsons and the Possibility of Oppositional Civilization. Wayne Country University Press. p. 235. ISBN0-8143-2849-0.
9. ^ Alma Harris; Roy Fisher; Ann Harris; Christine Jarvis (2008). "School for grown-ups". Education in Popular Culture . Routledge. pp. 163–164. ISBN978-0-415-33242-2.
10. ^ Jacobson, Colin (2004-12-21). "The Simpsons: The Complete Fifth Season (1993)". DVD Movie Guide. Retrieved 2009-01-24 .
11. ^ Gibron, Pecker (December 23, 2004). "The Simpsons — The Complete 5th Season". DVD Talk. Retrieved 2009-01-09 .
12. ^ Bromley, Patrick (2005-02-23). "The Simpsons: The Complete Fifth Season". DVD Verdict. Archived from the original on 2009-04-20. Retrieved 2009-01-24 .
13. ^ Snierson, Dan (2006-03-24). "Ricky Gervais rates The Simpsons". Amusement Weekly . Retrieved 2022-01-16 .
14. ^ Enwright, Patrick (2007-07-31). "D'Oh! The superlative 10 'Simpsons' episodes always". Today.com. Retrieved 2022-01-16 .
15. ^ "Nielsen ratings / May sixteen–22". Long Embankment Press-Telegram. Associated Press. 1994-05-25. p. 4E.

Bibliography

• Groening, Matt (1997). Richmond, Ray; Coffman, Antonia (eds.). The Simpsons: A Complete Guide to Our Favorite Family (1st ed.). New York: HarperPerennial. ISBN978-0-06-095252-5. LCCN 98141857. OCLC 37796735. OL 433519M.
• Turner, Chris (2004). Planet Simpson: How a Cartoon Masterpiece Documented an Era and Defined a Generation. Foreword by Douglas Coupland. (1st ed.). Toronto: Random House Canada. ISBN978-0-679-31318-2. OCLC 55682258.

External links [edit]

• "Secrets of a Successful Marriage episode sheathing". The Simpsons Archive.
• "Secrets of a Successful Union" at IMDb

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secrets_of_a_Successful_Marriage

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