[S34E10] Game Done Changed
Tropes Absurdly Powerful Student Council: The students at the Montessori school are basically in charge, with the principal more of a figurehead. Truth-Anne has her dismissed when she talks to Skinner and Bart, and later fires her.
Art Shift: The Boblox sequences are handed with CGI.
Be Careful What You Wish For: When talking Skinner down from destroying the Montessori school's computer lab, Bart admits he's tried for years to cause a Sanity Slippage, but now he doesn't want to see it.
Bears Are Bad News: In Boblox, Milhouse is attacked by a Montessori student's bear.
The B Grade: Skinner intimidates Martin, who was allegedly going to tell on the Boblox scheme, by threatening to put minuses behind the As in the boy's report card.
Bilingual Bonus: Chalmers shows Skinner a Chinese newspaper with an article about Springfield Elementary. Only one line, "They know nothing," is translated.
Book Dumb: Bart uses an elaborate method of transfers to turn the points from his Boblox racket into heady cash sums and runs the resulting operation like a business.
Brainy Baby: Maggie takes to the game and effortlessly uses it to communicate.
Cluster Bleep-Bomb: While Bart's typical swearing is inappropriate for his age but appropriate for Fox network primetime, playing an Assassin's Creed-like game puts his vocabulary in decidedly more mature territory, prompting Marge to seek out a new game for him to play.
Dumbass Has a Point: Homer initially only got into Boblox to tell Marge she was obsessively playing the game rather than doing anything else.
Enemy Mine: When Skinner stumbles onto the operation, Bart talks him into keeping quiet in exchange for a cut of the money for the school. After Skinner successfully blackmails Martin, he and Bart acknowledge they're full-fledged colleagues.
Eskimos Aren't Real: As Bart tells Skinner to give up on destroying the Montessori school, Skinner calls back his earlier reference to Josh Gad, to which Bart says, "Josh Gad isn't real. He never was."
Everyone Has Standards: Bart notes that Skinner is too principled to take any money for himself under any circumstances.
Though miffed about getting booted from the operation, Bart stops Skinner from destroying the Montessori school's computer lab, saying he won't let him ruin his life like this.
Fictional Counterpart: Boblox is a thinly disguised Roblox.
MyTube is a similarly thinly disguised YouTube.
Freeze-Frame Bonus: In the Springfield Elementary computer lab, there is a Krusty poster with the caption "Give a hoot, read a book."
"Hell, Yes!" Moment: Homer is positively ecstatic when Maggie says she loves "donut man" (i.e. him).
Sandra (the Montessori school's principal) over being fired, shouting, "Thank you!"
Hippie Name: Truth-Anne.
Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Skinner agrees to Bart's deal, as the school seriously needs the money to improve facilities. However, his desire to improve the school causes him to reject Bart's deal with Truth-Anne, which would mean losing half of the potential cash. When Bart protests this, Skinner kicks him out of the operation. When the Montessori kids beat them, Skinner resorts to attempting to destroy their computers, and by extension their school, with a bulldozer.
Know When to Fold 'Em: Bart would rather lose half the expected profits on a peaceful negotiation than risk losing everything on a battle than can be avoided. Not thinking the same way, Principal Skinner rejects the deal and expells Bart from the scam. The results prove Bart right.
Meaningful Background Event: As Bart takes Skinner on a Walk and Talk, we see the various ways the school is in dire financial shape, which highlights why Skinner would ever agree to a deal with him.
Money for Nothing: Bart finds an infinite money glitch in the game caused by the usage of old computers that results in actual real-life via several intermediary transactions involving Delta miles and Danish kromer, and soon gets the idea to create an operation in the computer lab using several computer nerds to generate money. Skinner catches on, but Bart convinces him to go along with it in order to get the needed money for renovations, but they soon find that the kids from a rival school are also in on the scheme.
Mooning: Bart has a fantasy of sitting naked in a hot tub in a golden helicopter. The ten-year-old trouble maker then proceeds to sit on the side of the hot tub and stick his bare butt out of the opened side door of the helicopter as it flies above Springfield.
Negative Continuity: Maggie nonverbally "talked" to Marge and the rest of the family by learning baby sign language in the episode "Screenless," and even sent a text message to Marge earlier in the season in "The King of Nice." Here, it's the first time she and Marge have ever communicated in "sentences."
Not So Above It All: Even Lisa gets sucked into playing the game nonstop.
Right-Hand Cat: Fittingly, Truth-Anne, the leader of the Montessori students, walks Skinner and Bart around the school while villainously stroking a chicken.
Shout-Out: To Assassin's Creed: The video game Bart plays, in the beginning, has him assassinating Catholic cardinals in the Vatican before they can choose a new pontiff.
To Dear Evan Hansen: Skinner dreams of using the game to fund a performing arts school that will put on a production of that Broadway show.
Skinner's musical number features references to other musicals, including Cats, The Lion King, Peter Pan, Hamilton and Miss Saigon. It also includes a Frozen reference.
To Drake: One of the Montessori parents wears a collar with the name Drake. The principal says he is available to emcee private events but not perform.
To The Wire: Skinner quotes from the show when threatening Truth-Anne ("If you go after the king, you best not miss."); Truth-Anne points out that one of the parents was a director on the show. The closing credits are also done in the style of those in The Wire's.
The Shut-In: The whole Simpson family minus Bart gets hooked on Boblox and end up playing it nonstop. The final scene has Ned Flanders enter the house to bring in the newspapers piled on the driveway and finds all the lights off and the Simpsons staring at their devices, transfixed and unwashed (with Maggie's diaper full to bursting). Ned starts Backing Away Slowly after witnessing this.
Trademark Favorite Food: It's so clear who Maggie is referring to with the emoji combination "donut man" that even Homer himself immediately gets it.
Spit Take: Milhouse spits out his Fun Dip when Skinner assigns him to run the Boblox scheme.
This Means War!: Skinner when rejecting the deal with Truth-Anne.
Walk and Talk: In the Springfield Elementary computer lab, Bart says to Skinner "Walk with me." They walk to the school auditorium, where Skinner sings a song about his vision for Springfield Elementary.
At the Montessori school, Truth-Anne takes Bart and Skinner on a walk as she holds a chicken.
What Happened to the Mouse?: None of the intended improvements done to Springfield Elementary are shown off. It is never brought up whether or not they were even implemented in the first place.
Likewise, there is zero resolution to the whole "low test scores" issue that kicks off Skinner's role in the episode after the scene it's brought up in.
Would Hurt a Child: A completely off the rails Skinner has no qualms with mowing down a computer lab of children in order to get back on top of the Boblox ring, and comes dangerously close to having Bart run over too until he's talked down from it.
[S34E10] Game Done Changed
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