Photo: Still
Remember ‘Pranksta Rap’? No? Well, lucky you, I guess. It’s coming up for 12 years since The Simpsons first “rap episode”, a dire shitshow that saw Bart embark on a hip-hop career. Season 16, when that episode aired, was around the time of the show’s nadir and, as easy as it is to say The Simpsons isn’t as good any more (no show is as good as The Simpsons was during its golden era), there has been a slight – and I mean slight – upswing in quality in the past five or six years.
Still, ‘Pranksta Rap’ was a special low and it certainly takes some nerve, and effects some understandable eye rolling, for the ultimate white nerd show to take a second stab at Doing A Rap Thing. It is to the writers’ credit, then, that they sort of acknowledge this in the episode: Springfield’s biggest hip-hop fan is, in one of the episode’s best jokes, Milhouse. There is also a sense of lesson learned in that – thank god – none of the show’s main cast rap, instead leaving the job to guest stars Kevin Michael Richardson (returning from season 26’s ‘The Princess Guide’), Keegan-Michael Key, RZA, Common, Taraji P Henson and Snoop Dogg, while the musical numbers are written by Jim Beanz.
The biggest question is over whether or not there is enough material here to sustain the bumper-sized hour-long runtime. The answer: no more and no less than most episodes these days have enough for 22 minutes to elevate them to the level of the 90s heyday. The premise of a Great Gatsby parody is pretty loosely adhered to, serving mostly as a framing device for a couple of jokes that hit as often as they miss. The lavish party Homer and Mr. Burns sneak into near the beginning has some lovely sight gags but the disappointment of Burns’ own celebration falls flat.
Perhaps surprisingly, given the extra time the writers have to work with, most of the plots here feel sawn off. The resolution to the main storyline, about Burns befriending and making an enemy of Richardson’s rap mogul, as well as the second half of the episode’s B plot are both rushed. Worst of all is the story about Lisa and a spoiled rich kid, which is totally abandoned at the midway point and ends on a sour note, with a character assassination of the second-youngest Simpson that leaves a sour taste in the mouth. To give credit where it’s due, there’s another sideline about Smithers trying to fetch ice from Canada that provides most of the episode’s outstanding jokes.
‘The Great Phatsby' succeeds where ‘Pranksta Rap’ fails, though, because it uses its guest stars wisely, to support a story about Homer and Burns. Springfield’s most prominent 104-year-old man is one of the show’s best supporting characters (it is probably no coincidence that he, like the others, is voiced by Harry Shearer) and he does draw a fair bit of sympathy here. Homer too remains true to his character and that’s not something we’ve always been able to say since the turn of the century. The rest of the family is less well served – and I don’t remember seeing Maggie at all – but nor do they have enough to do to harm the episode.
If we’re allowed to be tenuous and convoluted, there’s a sense of irony to be found here. If ‘The Great Phatsby’ was an album (bear with me) it wouldn’t be a hip-hop record. This would be mid-2010s white boy/girl six-or-seven-out-of-ten indie: enjoyable enough, pleasant to listen to and far too well-crafted and/or inoffensive to dish out a bad review to. But in six months you won’t remember it and you’ll secretly be sticking the classics on your turntable.
