Episode no. 189 Written by Steve O'Donnell Production code 5F24 | Directed by Mark Kirkland Showrunner(s) David Mirkin Original air date January 4, 1998 | |
"All Singing, All Dancing" is the eleventh episode of The Simpsons' ninth season. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on January 4, 1998. In the fourth clip show aired by The Simpsons, Homer claims he hates singing, so Marge shows family videos of musical numbers from the previous seasons of the series. The original material was directed by Mark Ervin and written by Steve O'Donnell. It was executive produced by David Mirkin. It features guest appearances from George Harrison, Patrick Stewart, and Phil Hartman, although these are all clips and none of them recorded original material for the episode.
Contents
Plot
Homer and Bart rent the film Paint Your Wagon, expecting it to be a shoot-em-up Western. Homer is dismayed to find out that it is actually a musical, and expresses his distaste for such films. Marge is baffled by this, saying that he ironically loves singing. The family starts delivering their dialogue in song form, and Marge decides to prove that Homer loves to sing by showing family videos. Several clips are shown of various songs from past episodes, but Homer is not convinced. At this moment, Snake breaks into their house and holds them hostage. However once he hears them singing, Snake decides that they would not make good hostages and leaves.
The family continues to sing and more videos are shown. Snake again breaks into the house and claims that he got a song stuck in his head and the only way to get rid of it is to kill the Simpsons. He tries to shoot them, but discovers that his gun is out of ammunition and leaves again.
After more clips, Snake returns for a final time, with ammunition, and aims his gun at them, but the family reveals that they are done singing. Snake declares that he has no problems with them and leaves.
Songs
The clip show features several full songs from previous episodes of The Simpsons.
Many of them are among the most popular songs from the show. "Who Needs The Kwik-E-Mart?" and "We Do" had previously been nominated for best song at the Primetime Emmy Awards, and "We Put the Spring in Springfield" won the award in 1997.
Production
The episode is the fourth and penultimate clip show episode of The Simpsons. It was put together by Steve O'Donnell, who wrote this episode and "The Joy of Sect" (which, in production order, preceded this episode). Executive producer David Mirkin hated doing clip shows and "wouldn't do them if we had a choice" and this is referenced at the end of the episode. The episode contains two "screw the audience act breaks" in which a major problem is presented before the commercial but suddenly ends after the break. The episode also had problems with the censors as they objected to scenes of Snake pointing his shotgun at the Simpsons' baby daughter, Maggie. In spite of this, "All Singing, All Dancing" is one of the few episodes of The Simpsons that has been given a G-rating on American television.
Reception
In its original broadcast, "All Singing, All Dancing" finished 26th in ratings for the week of December 29, 1997 – January 4, 1998, with a Nielsen rating of 9.1, equivalent to approximately 8.9 million viewing households. It was the second highest-rated show on the Fox network that week, following The X-Files.
Although he normally hates clip shows, David Mirkin liked this episode because of the singing and dancing and called the clips "truly wonderful". The authors of the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, wrote "for a clips show, it's not bad. The only one missing really is "Dr Zaius" from "A Fish Called Selma". In his book Planet Simpson, author Chris Turner wrote, "when songs spring up one at a time, you might notice a clever line or two, or the way that they serve the same kind of plot-advancing or energy-generating purposes they do in Singin' in the Rain or Cats, but piled together in ["All Singing, All Dancing"], they amount to a sort of Simpsonian side project: Springfield: The Musical. And ... it's a very impressive side project at that." The episode was nominated for a 1998 Emmy Award, in the "Music Direction" category. A review of The Simpsons season 9 DVD release in the Daily Post noted that it includes "super illustrated colour commentaries" on "All Singing, All Dancing" and "Lost Our Lisa". Isaac Mitchell-Frey of the Herald Sun cited the episode as a "low moment" of the season, noting it "recycles parts of previous episodes".
Michael Dunne analyzed the episode in his book American Film Musical Themes and Forms, and gave examples from it while explaining that singing and dancing performances are generally not seen as acceptable in the television medium. He notes that Homer calls singing "fruity" and "the lowest form of communication" during the episode. However, Dunne also notes the fact that Homer himself sings "his objection that musicals are fake and phony". Dunne describes the frame narrative as establishing Marge as "more favorably disposed toward musicals than the males in her house". Dunne concluded that "musicals come out on top in this episode, but the victory is marginal at best". Of the episode itself, Dunne wrote that "the parodies contained in the show demonstrate that its creators are familiar enough with various forms of musical performance to echo them and confident enough that their viewers will catch the references".