Season 7 Episode 2a

There are so many things wrong in this episode, the most glaring of which is that it seems like Francine simply forgot about her cousin's Bar Mitzvah and didn't seem to want anything to do with it. A number of years ago, I went to a family friend's Bar Mitzvah and it was on our calendar for months beforehand, so unless the Frenskys are just bad at keeping each other apprised of these big events, she should've known in advance and made arrangements with the bowling as such. Also, the Brain (who definitely did not have to mansplain Judaism to Francine, an actual Jew herself) got put in charge of planning this scheme, but his plan backfired/didn't get fully executed by Francine during "Double Dare," so they probably should've just let someone else give it a go this time. Or talked Francine into going to the Bar Mitzvah. Even that backfired, as Arthur forgot to leave Francine's bowling shoes with her bike at the church. Maybe Arthur was onto something.

I don't care how big the bowling tournament is, in my view, the family occasion should always come first. While I'm Jewish, I never had a Bar Mitzvah (although it isn't uncommon for people to do it later in life, so the door is still open), but one of our family friends did and the service was incredibly moving. He worked very hard to prepare for it, and anything other than him having the undivided attention of the community would not have sufficed. Not to mention the party at the Positano Restaurant (RIP) later that night with DJ Stu on the tunes. It would've been really hard for me to have anything on my mind other than that. I won't comment much on how the bowling tournament went, other than that it seemed like purely dumb luck that Muffy had the winning bowl with her Hoosiers-esque method of bowling. That said, I'm surprised that Francine was able to get away with lying as much as she did for as long as she did. Mr. Frensky only seems to catch wind of it at the last occasion she dips out.

Cleaning the garbage truck was very much an appropriate punishment in this instance, but one only gets a Bar or Bat Mitzvah once and Francine will have to live with blowing off her cousin's. To me, that's more of a punishment than cleaning a garbage truck. And don’t think that people won’t forget this when she has her Bat Mitzvah.

By Guthrie Edson

Elwood City Turns 100!

Season 7 Episode 7

Despite the predictions of JP Morgan and Henry Ford, Elwood City remains alive and well after 100 years. And what better way to celebrate the history of the city than staging a musical? My third-grade teacher also happened to be very much into the theatre, and our end-of-year project after the state testing was putting on a play that he wrote, definitely better than just doing nothing during that last month. When whatever selection committee selected Lakewood to put it on, they had no idea just exactly what was coming their way. Especially when Buster was made director (or " Doctor Ector") and insisted on fantasy over accuracy. One interesting thing to me is that there weren't auditions and the roles just went to people, regardless of skill level, desire to do so, or comfort doing so.

While Mr. Ratburn was taken aback by Muffy's guest list, I'd argue that they had a good reason to want to come, having had a big impact on the city in previous seasons–Michelle Kwan was an alumnus of Lakewood Elementary after all, and Art Garfunkel famously followed Buster around for an entire episode. Behind the curtain, however, some interesting decisions were made, especially transporting the flying saucer in Mr. Frensky’s garbage truck. As we saw in “Citizen Frensky” the crusher in the garbage truck can be hit fairly easily, and you would think that maybe Mr. Read could have offered up his catering van for the task.

As far as the play itself goes, all of the songs in it are really great. “That’s Elwood City” was a great one to end with, and Fern’s ballad about the green-tailed grebe was very pretty also. The show may not have gone off without a hitch, but it sure was a memorable one, so much so that even the late great Larry King took notice. While Mr. Ratburn told Buster that he was acting unprofessionally by hiding in the janitor’s closet, Buster had every right to be upset because the flying saucer was his idea. But he more than rescued the play in the end by ad libbing an entire scene. How he pulled that idea off the top of his head, I don’t know. What I do know is that whoever puts on a play for Elwood City’s bicentennial celebration has a tough act to follow.

By Guthrie Edson

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