Episode no. 231 Production code AABF19 | Original air date November 7, 1999 | |
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"E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)" is the fifth episode of the eleventh season of the American animated sitcom The Simpsons. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on November 7, 1999. In the episode, inspired by a Zorro movie, Homer begins slapping people with a glove and challenging them to duels. However, when a real Southern gentleman accepts Homer's request for a duel, the Simpsons run off to the old farm Homer lived in with his parents and breed a dangerously addictive but successful tobacco/tomato hybrid called "tomacco". Just when they are about to gain a hundred and fifty million dollars from the hybrid, dangerously addicted animals ruin their plan.
Contents
Plot
The Simpsons go to the Springfield Googelplex Movie Theaters to see The Poke of Zorro. Afterwards, Homer, imitating Zorro, frightens Snake away by challenging him to a duel by slapping him with a glove when he insults Marge; he then uses his dueling glove to get anything he wants from people. When a gun-toting Southern colonel at the Kwik-E-Mart actually "accepts" Homer's challenge, Homer finds himself bound to a duel at dawn the following day.
The next morning, the colonel and his wife outside the house in their RV. The Simpsons sneak out with Homer clinging to an old Christmas tree and search for a temporary home. They find Grampa's old farmhouse on Rural Route 9 outside of Springfield, where, despite the land's poor reputation for growing crops, Homer becomes a farmer. After failing to grow a thing for a month, Homer calls Lenny and requests they send plutonium. The crops eventually grow, but since Homer had accidentally mixed the tomato seeds with the tobacco seeds, a new product is created. Homer calls the mutated crop "Tomacco," which tastes terrible, but is highly addictive. Homer and Marge set up a stall, Homer providing tomacco and Marge, fresh-baked mincemeat pie. While the pies do not sell well, the tomacco is such a success that executives from Laramie Cigarettes offer to buy the rights to Tomacco for $150 million.
Lisa protests that the Simpsons cannot accept the tobacco executives' money, but Homer misinterprets this statement and rejects the offer as insulting, demanding $150 billion for tomacco, which they refuse. Dumped back at the farmhouse, the family sees tomacco-addicted animals from other farms eating their crops. With only one plant left, the family runs into the house, where Lisa urges Homer to destroy it, but Homer refuses until the livestock breaks in. He tosses the plant into the air and it lands in the hands of a Laramie executive. The executives' helicopter leaves, but a tomacco-addicted sheep has sneaked on board and attacks them. The helicopter crashes, killing everyone on board except for the sheep and destroying the final tomacco plant. The Simpsons return home to find that the Southern gentleman and his wife are still waiting for Homer to go through the duel. Homer does and is shot in the arm, but declines to go to the hospital until after eating one of Marge's mincemeat pies.
Production
The episode was written by Ian Maxtone-Graham and directed by Bob Anderson as part of the eleventh season of The Simpsons (1999–2000). The American rock band The B-52's guest starred in the episode as themselves.
Release
The episode originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on November 7, 1999. On October 7, 2008, the episode was released on DVD as part of the box set The Simpsons – The Complete Eleventh Season. Staff members Mike Scully, Ian Maxtone-Graham, George Meyer, and Matt Selman participated in the DVD audio commentary for the episode. While reviewing the eleventh season of The Simpsons, DVD Movie Guide's Colin Jacobson commented that "E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)" provides "the kind of episode typical of the series’ 'post-classic' years. While it doesn’t become a dud, it lacks the spark and zing typical of the best Simpsons. We get a mix of decent moments but nothing that elevates the episode above the level of mediocrity." In the July 26, 2007 issue of Nature, the scientific journal's editorial staff listed the episode among "The Top Ten science moments in The Simpsons", writing: "Homer's attempts to be a farmer in 'E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)' involve using plutonium as a fertilizer. DNA from tobacco seeds and tomato seeds blend to produce a fruit that tastes like ashtray, but is nonetheless 'refreshingly addictive'." In 2011, Keith Plocek of LA Weekly's Squid Ink blog named "E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)" the tenth best episode of the show with a food theme.
Legacy
The process of making tomacco was first revealed in a 1959 Scientific American article, which stated that nicotine could be found in the tomato plant after grafting. Due to the academic and industrial importance of this breakthrough process, this article was reprinted in a 1968 Scientific American compilation.
A Simpsons fan, Rob Baur of Lake Oswego, Oregon, was inspired by the episode. Remembering the article in a textbook, Baur cultivated real tomacco in 2003. The plant produced offspring that looked like a normal tomato, but Baur suspected that it contained a lethal amount of nicotine and thus would be inedible. Testing later proved that the leaves of the plant contained some nicotine. Both plants are members of the same family, Solanaceae or nightshade. The tomacco plant bore tomaccoes until it died after 18 months, spending one winter indoors. Baur appeared on the episode's DVD commentary, discussing the plant and resulting fame.
The 2004 convention of the American Dialect Society named tomacco as the new word "least likely to succeed." Tomacco was a wordspy.com "Word of the Day".