The Frying Game

Homer gives Marge a koi pond for their anniversary, but an endangered "Screamapillar" takes refuge in the pond. Bound by law to care for it, Homer accidentally injures the loud, annoying larva while reading a bedtime story. For trying to bury the larva to cover up the injury, Homer is sentenced to two weeks of community service for "attempted insecticide and aggravated buggery". Homer begins delivering Meals on Wheels to an elderly woman, Mrs. Bellamy, who takes a liking to him. She subtly guilt trips Homer, and later Marge, into becoming her personal servants. When Bellamy turns up dead, having been stabbed with a pair of scissors, Homer and Marge are the prime suspects in the murder, even though they witnessed a man with braces leaving the murder scene with Bellamy's necklace. The people of Springfield are very suspicious of Homer and Marge, and Chief Wiggum does not believe their story. Finally, during an inspection of the house, Maggie is found with Bellamy's necklace, and Wiggum arrests Homer and Marge. Bart, Lisa and Maggie are adopted by Cletus Spuckler, who decides to change their names to "Dingus Squatford Jr." and "Pamela E. Lee". Despite not undergoing lie detector or DNA tests, both are sentenced to death by electric chair. In a bid to spare Marge, Homer confesses to the warden that he acted alone, and Marge is released. As Homer is sitting in the electric chair, it is suddenly revealed that he is on a new Fox reality TV show, Frame Up. Bellamy's murder was merely part of an elaborate hidden camera scheme, the man with the braces is the show's host, and Bellamy is guest host Carmen Electra in disguise. Chief Wiggum is annoyed that the police department's time and taxpayers' money was wasted on what turned out to not even be a real case, but is excited to learn he will be in the show and has them give Lou and Eddie producer credits. Homer and Marge are reunited with the kids, but Homer is infuriated that he had to suffer just so the show could get higher ratings; as Electra tries to explain, he ends up staring at her breasts. ==Production==

, (above) who wrote the episode, also conceived the screamapillar "The Frying Game" was written by John Swartzwelder and directed by Mike Frank Polcino. It was first broadcast on the Fox network in the United States on May 19, 2002. The screamapillar, the larva that the Simpsons find in their garden, was, according to current showrunner Al Jean, Swartzwelder's "total conception." It was voiced by main cast member Dan Castellaneta, who portrays Homer among other characters in the series. Because the screamapillar only communicates by screaming, its lines were recorded last during recording sessions, as the screaming would "burn out" Castellaneta's voice. In a scene in the episode, Homer is on death row and eats his last meal. The meal consists solely of junk food like hamburgers and fried chicken. The scene came from an article that the writers had read, in which it said that death sentenced prisoners often requested junk food as their last meal. On the way to the electric chair, Homer meets a man resembling Michael Clarke Duncan's character John Coffey in The Green Mile. While recording lines for the episode, the staff were told that Duncan was visiting the Fox studios. Having not recorded the lines for the character yet, the staff asked Duncan if he wanted to voice the character, but he declined. The music that plays during the scene is also from The Green Mile. The idea that Homer's execution was in fact a reality show on Fox was conceived by former staff writer George Meyer. The episode features American actress Frances Sternhagen as Mrs Bellamy, and glamour model Carmen Electra as herself. According to Jean, Electra's character is "one of the most voluptuous figures" they have ever had on The Simpsons. ==Themes==

In the DVD commentaries, creator Matt Groening and the majority of people who work on the show state several times that they are very liberal, but some, such as John Swartzwelder (the writer of this and many other The Simpsons episodes), are conservative. In his book ''The Really Inconvenient Truths: Seven Environmental Catastrophes Liberals Don't Want You to Know About- Because They Helped Cause Them'', Iain Murray described "The Frying Game" as "subversively conservative", and wrote that it shows "The best popular explanation of the liberal environmentalist model for endangered species." ==Release==

In its original American broadcast on May 19, 2002, "The Frying Game" received a 6.2 rating, according to Nielsen Media Research, translating to approximately 6.5 million viewers. The episode finished in 46th place in the ratings for the week of May 13–19, 2002. On August 24, 2010, "The Frying Game" was released as part of The Simpsons: The Complete Thirteenth Season DVD and Blu-ray set. Matt Groening, Al Jean, Matt Selman, John Frink, Don Payne, Tom Gammill, Max Pross, Mike Frank Polcino and Deb Lacusta participated in the audio commentary of the episode. Nate Boss of Project-Blu praised the episode's ending in particular, writing "the ending to this episode is fucking , as it is a wonderful statement about society today, that has almost become prophetic. Can't and won't spoil it, but damn, great idea! (Yes, since there have been about eight more seasons, it's obvious they don't die. That's hardly a spoiler!)" DVD Verdict's Jennifer Malkowski gave the episode a B+, declaring the episode's "highlight" "one of the reasons the Screamapillar is endangered, that it's 'sexually attracted to fire.'" On the other hand, giving the episode a negative review, Andre Dellamorte of Collider described it as "terrible." DVD Talk's Ryan Keefer wrote a negative review as well, calling it "definitely forgettable" and criticizing it for "fall[ing] apart quickly." Ron Martin of 411Mania criticized the Screamapillar character, describing it as "just as annoying as Homer's constant screaming earlier in the season." ==References==