Eight Misbehavin: Okay, Let’s Talk About Apu… Again

The topic of Apu is one so fraught with controversy that it feels strange to review an episode about him without at least acknowledging the issue. However, I already covered this in some depth in my discussion of the last Apu-centric episode, I’m with Cupid, and doing so every single time will quickly become both boring and exhausting. So let’s just get it all out on the table: Apu is a misguided character sometimes used to dispel or refute cliches but just as often mocked for his inherent otherness. I love the character, but I agree that his inclusion, handled the way that it was, did more harm than good to the world. I hope we’re all on the same page, that we can collectively agree that we feel uncomfortable and move on from there.

Eight Misbehavin’ is an episode about Apu and his wife, Manjula, having octuplets. Originally hoping to have a single child, the two are completely overwhelmed, so they sell their children to the zoo. Yes, really. This would be a weird plotline if the kids were white, but the fact that it’s brown babies being put in a pen to be gawked at by crowds at the Springfield Zoo… is a little odd. This is something that the episode actually addresses, however briefly. The owner of the zoo, played sharply by comedian Gary Marshall, clearly wants the children at least in part because they are “exotic.” He calls the babies the “eight wonders of the third world.” This is some decent social commentary by Season 11 standards, and I appreciate the effort. It only scratches the surface, but at least they’re trying, and at least they’re aware of the issue.

This episode has some problems beyond cultural sensitivity. It feels a bit rushed. On the one hand, they could have cut some of that IKEA parody the show starts with and focused more on Apu and Manjula. On the other hand, the IKEA parody is pretty funny, so uh… can’t please everybody I guess. Or anybody. However, I found myself enjoying the episode overall. It may not be the most hilarious episode of the season, but it’s very sweet. You really feel the love between Apu and Majula and the friendship between Apu and Homer. And though it may have taken selling them to an evil zoo tycoon for him to realize it, Apu does end up valuing and loving his many babies. It’s an ambitious episode, one with too much to do and not enough time to do it. But, at this stage in the game, a little ambition (and emotion) is welcome.

I did enjoy the way this one treated its celebrity cameos. Gary Marshall got to play an actual character, Butch Patrick (from The Munsters) gets mocked mercilessly, and Jan Hooks is always wonderful as Manjula. Mainly, I’m just happy that Vincent Price is still alive and kicking, in the Simpsons universe at least. His cameo in the couch gag, performing some manner of horrible torture on Flanders, made me smile. That being said, I am sad that Marge and Lisa will never get the replacement feet for their egg people. Poor egg men, forever incomplete, potential never realized. Oh, what could have been.

Overall, Eight Misbehavin’ doesn’t hit all of its marks. There’s a lot here that I respect, but not much I admire. I think a storyline like this lends itself naturally to a strong emotional payoff, and yet (besides the aforementioned moments of sweetness) it doesn’t deliver on that promise very effectively. The humor is hit or miss but generally pretty solid. My favorite scene is when Homer, in an attempt to help Apu and Manjula conceive, writes them a scene for the purposes of roleplay. Watch Homer standing nearby, mouthing along to his own horrible dialogue, made me laugh hard. Unfortunately, I wasn’t laughing very often for the rest of the episode’s duration.

Once Apu and Manjula have the babies the episode meanders a bit. There is an interesting conflict here (Apu both loving and resenting his children), and it would have been interesting to explore in greater depth. I think the whole “babies in the zoo” plotline ruins the episode’s potential. It’s too outlandish, too broad, too simplistic to mesh with the more intimate human drama and comedy of the episode’s earlier scenes. Eight Misbehavin’ starts a very relatable story but it doesn’t end as one, and that’s a shame. It has enough moments of sweetness and humor to be worth a watch, and it’s definitely one of the better episodes of this lackluster season. But it gives me pause to imagine how delicately and complexly a plotline like this would have likely been handled in the show’s earlier years.

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Max Castleman
I Can’t Promise I’ll Try, But I’ll Try to Try: Reviewing the Past 20 Years of the Simpsons

Mainly reviewing movies, but also music, literature and whatever else, not to change minds but to start an engaging discussion. Remember, art is subjective.