Marge vs. the Monorail

When the Environmental Protection Agency fines Mr. Burns $3 million for dumping nuclear waste in a Springfield park, a town meeting is held to decide how to spend the money. After a few suggestions—including one from a poorly-disguised Burns to invest it back into his power plant—Marge nearly convinces them to repair the rundown Main Street but a fast-talking salesman named Lyle Lanley leads a song-and-dance routine that convinces the townspeople to instead build a monorail. After running a questionable training program, Lanley randomly selects Homer as the monorail's conductor. Doubtful about Lanley, Marge visits his office and discovers he intends to run off with money skimmed from the project, leaving the townspeople with a defective train.

Marge drives to the town of North Haverbrook, a previous purchaser of one of Lanley's monorails. She discovers the town and its monorail in ruins. She meets Sebastian Cobb, the engineer who designed it and he confirms that all of Lanley's monorail projects are scams. Cobb offers to help Marge prevent Springfield from suffering the same fate. At the Springfield monorail's inaugural run, Lanley arranges for Leonard Nimoy to be present at a well-attended opening ceremony, which is a diversion that enables him to escape on a plane to Tahiti. When the flight makes an unexpected stopover in North Haverbrook, the townsfolk storm the aircraft to attack Lanley for ruining the town.

Back in Springfield, the monorail leaves the station just before Marge and Cobb arrive. Sub-standard equipment causes the solar-powered train to speed round the track, endangering Homer, Bart and everyone on board. The train stops briefly during a solar eclipse, then starts again. As Chief Wiggum and Mayor Quimby argue over who takes charge, Marge and Cobb contact Homer by radio and Cobb tells him he must find an anchor to stop the train. Improvising quickly, Homer pries loose the metal "M" from the engine's side logo, ties a rope to it and throws it from the train. After damaging a large portion of the town—especially the already-derelict roads—the "M" catches on the giant donut of the Lard Lad Donut store's sign and the rope holds, stopping the monorail. As the passengers are rescued, Marge concludes that the monorail was the only foolish project the town ever embarked on, except for a skyscraper made from Popsicle sticks, a 50-foot-tall magnifying glass, and an up-escalator that leads nowhere.[1][7]

The episode was written by Conan O'Brien[2] who conceived the idea when he saw a billboard in Los Angeles that just had the word "Monorail" on it, with no other details or explanation.[8] He first pitched this episode at a story retreat to Al Jean and Mike Reiss, who said the episode was a little crazy and thought he should try some other material first. O'Brien had previously pitched episodes where Lisa had a rival and where Marge gets a job at the power plant and Mr. Burns falls in love with her; both went well. James L. Brooks "absolutely loved" this episode when O'Brien presented it.[9][10]

Leonard Nimoy was not originally considered for the role as the celebrity at the maiden voyage of the monorail, as the writing staff did not think he would accept, because William Shatner had previously turned the show down. Instead, George Takei was asked to guest star, as he had previously appeared as Akira in the second season episode "One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish". After demanding several script changes,[5] Takei declined, saying he did not want to make fun of public transportation as he was a member of the board of directors of the Southern California Rapid Transit District (now the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority). As a result, the staff went to Nimoy, who accepted.[9][10] Writer Jeff Martin said Nimoy was "just very gracious and easy to work with, and a good sport when we went and recorded his voice."[10]

Phil Hartman was cast as Lanley because,[2] as Reiss put it, he "was always pretending to be a glad-handing salesman." Martin added, "He was very good at portraying slick, empty people. I think he brought a lot of joy to it."[10]

Director Rich Moore[2] and animator David Silverman called the production process for this episode "huge and ambitious". Because of limited design resources, Moore took photos of buildings to use for various shots. The Lanley Institute came from a building in old town Pasadena. Different locations in North Haverbrook were all photos taken around North Hollywood. Moore bypassed the design team and provided the photos directly to background layout artist Nancy Kruse.[10]

The episode borrows some elements from The Music Man, a musical stage production about a conman, with "The Monorail Song" strongly resembling the show's "Ya Got Trouble" and Lyle Lanley being based on the play's character Harold Hill.[2][10]

The episode starts with a tribute song to The Flintstones as Homer heads home from work and crashes his car into a chestnut tree.[2] The music that plays as Smithers moves the barrel of toxic waste is a spoof of the "Axel F" theme from Beverly Hills Cop. Later, Leonard Nimoy makes a guest appearance as himself. References are made to his role in Star Trek: The Original Series, and an allusion to his role as the host of In Search of.... Kyle Darren, the caricature of Luke Perry, star of Beverly Hills, 90210, appears as well.[11] Mayor Quimby uses the phrase "May the Force be with you" from the Star Wars franchise, confusing it with Nimoy's work on Star Trek (and—at the same time—believing Nimoy to have been "one of The Little Rascals").[12] Homer's Monorail conductor uniform is based on uniforms from Star Wars.[13] When Mr. Burns is brought into the court room, he is restrained in the same way as Hannibal Lecter in the film The Silence of the Lambs.[2] Homer briefly serenades Marge in their bedroom with a line from the folk tune "The Riddle Song".[14] The logo on the monorail cars which is revealed as Homer attempts to stop the speeding train shows they were first used during the 1964 World's Fair, though that event's train actually used cars suspended from an overhead rail.[15]

• 58th Primetime Emmy Awards, where episode writer Conan O'Brien performed a parody of "Ya Got Trouble"
• Public transport

Bibliography

Wikiquote has quotations related to "Marge vs. the Monorail".

• "Marge vs. the Monorail episode capsule". The Simpsons Archive.
• "Marge vs. the Monorail" at IMDb
• "Marge vs. the Monorail" at BBC.co.uk