Hi and welcome to another Simpsons On Sundays post. So, what did you think of the latest episode? All I can say is I hope I never have to deal with Wolverines or enter a contest, where I am without a phone, or any other kind of communication in order to survive. Besides, this is the 21st-century and we need ways to get help, other than trying to use smoke signals. By the way, I’m guessing that ham radio, or any other type of radio communications would be out too!!! even if I knew Morse code, including the alphabet, numbers and pro signs.
This week I thought I would take a look at how Bart and Milhouse went to Toronto, which also happens to be my hometown. I was born in Toronto and I am proud to live here, as it’s a good city with it’s own crime problems. I like my current mayor and I’m also glad that The Simpsons came here too. It’s all in the episode The Bart Wants What It Wants, which aired on February 17 2002.
Funny enough, it all starts by Homer stealing an Olympic torch and somehow, Bart meeting Greta, the daughter of Rainier Wolfcastle, who was saved from bullies by Bart. She had a crush on him, but I think Bart didn’t take it seriously, as making Skinner look bad was more important to him, than getting close to a female. He stood her up, when they were supposed to go on a date at a dance and thanks to Lisa, they broke up, or rather Bart broke up with her and then, she decides to go out with his pal. Which pal? Milhouse of course!
Bart realizes that he wants to get back together with Greta, but he finds out she had been dating Milhouse as a way of getting back at Bart. This makes Bart jealous and he tries to win Greta back. He spies on her and his best friend and sees how they enjoy being together. Kinda reminds you of an episode from Season 3, where Milhouse is in love and Bart doesn’t like it. Huh? I may do a post on it later on this year!
Anyway, Bart then calls Greta and she tells him her father is going to film a movie in Toronto. Bart tells the family and they all decide to go to Canada to follow Greta. When they arrive, they visit most of Toronto’s tourist attractions before they go to the movie studio where Rainier’s movie will be shot. In the movie set, Bart finds Milhouse watching the filming of the movie and the two best friends get angry and start to fight over Greta. They end up at a hockey game in front of Greta. She is forced to choose between either of the two boies, but she turns them both down because Bart’s relationship with her is already done and Milhouse isn’t masculine enough for her. She decides to put off dating for a few years! Bart and Milhouse then reconcile and realize they are two boys in Toronto with a lot of things to do, so they join Canada’s basketball team.
Speaking of Canada’s NBA team, they aren’t exactly running on all cylinders right now, after winning the championship in 2019 and I hope they get back on track soon. As for the attractions that the Simpson family visits, I’ve probably been to most of them during Summer day camp and occasionally, with school. Remember, I went to a school for the blind in Branford for the majority of my education, but we did go to some attractions in Toronto for Field trips, such as The Ontario Science Centre and the Royal Ontario Museum. I’ve talked about some of my favourites during another post, a few summers ago and that time of year, was when I mostly went on such trips with either the School, or daycamp.
As for Bart’s relationship with Greta, you had to figure that laughing at Skinner is more important to him, than getting a chance to go on the inside. Of course, that relationship was doomed to fail, because Bart is 10 and Greta is probably older. By the way, what I mean by “on the inside” is actually getting a chance to look at and touch certain body parts of the female. Yes, I’m attracted to the fairer sex and would have no problem with any woman wanting to unzip me and want to look and touch my parts too. I only have one rule, just don’t hurt me. You can get me going, but don’t draw blood or make me say ow. I would never do that to any woman and I don’t feel that is right either. Anyway, I digress.
I wonder where the writers got the idea for the Simpson family to go to Toronto! Is it because of it being one of the best known cities in Canada, as well as a maintransfer point, for Airlines? Or, is it because of the name itself? I was born in Toronto on June 2, 1973 and I’ve lived here for all, but 5 years of my life. Yes, I went to a school in Brantford, but on weekends I went home to my family in Toronto, by Greyhound and back on Sunday evenings. By the way, I believe that February 27th 2002 should have been declared Simpsons Day in Toronto and the family should have been given the key to the city. After all, Toronto is the economic engine of Canada and it has plenty of media, attractions, venues and talent to go around in the performing arts. Besides, why do you think the song Take Off by Bob & Doug McKenzie and the reference to Rush was made in the episode? Both had Origins in Toronto and are connected, bye the man behind the mic. Just watch the episode and either buy or stream the album Great White North on which ever streaming service you use and go back and read my post from January 12th 2020, the week of Neil Peart’s death. If you go to the archives, just go back to January 2020 and click or tap on it and go down to the post on the song We Put The Spring In Springfield, which also is the second post in 2020. By the way, there is more than one Toronto, besides the city in Canada and that’s probably where Greta telling Bart that Toronto is in Spain came from. There are streets by that name in the town of Barrie, which is about an hour or so north of Toronto and I imagine that there are more than one town named Toronto in Canada too. It happens that the capital of Ontario is the best known out of all of them. If you are interested, do a search on Google or any search engine and I’m sure you will come up with results, when you type in “Toronto”.
As for what Bart did to Greta, I’ve done that too and I’m not proud of it. I stood up at eight at the school dance and I simply forgot about it. Needless to say, I became less interested in going to school dances after that and because of the music which is played at dances and back in the 80s, it was mostly Music made by machines, which is much the same today. Although, top 40 radio had a mix of both cookie cutter and rock and metal songs on the charts, and on radio playlists. Today, there isn’t all that much in the way of rock guitars on top 40 radio, unless it’s a sample or a very short piece.
I’m looking forward to tonight’s episode “Boyz N the Highlands”, which has Groundskeeper Willie in it, but it is not centred around him despite the title. Apparently, it involves a goat and Satanists, along with adventure for Bart and the bullies having to run for their lives. Could it be a sort of continuation of The latest episode Pixelated & Afraid??? in that the adults had to learn to survive without any form of communication, where is Bart and his school chums are also having to try and not die, but with a different intention in the plot leading up to this. I don’t know, but this does peaked my curiosity about the episode and I will certainly be watching tonight, or rather tomorrow morning when I get it on iTunes.
Simpsons on Sundays 