This season, the first episode is “Treehouse of Horror VII” (S8, E1). It was frustrating for me at the time since I’d come to depend on new Simpsons episodes airing in September, but this season, we had to wait two months until the end of October for the first episode. Like usual, there are three short horror stories. The stand-out episode this time involves the one-eyed aliens trying to take over Earth by replacing the President. However, since it was an election year they had to replace both current president Bill Clinton and Republican presidential hopeful Bob Dole. As we’ve come to expect, The Simpsons pokes fun at both Democrats and Republicans, even if it had a reputation for being a liberal show at the time.

The imposters are revealed to be aliens, but since voting for a third party apparently isn’t an option, the people have to vote for one of the aliens as president. At the end of the episode when all the humans are slaves, Homer says, “Don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos!” A great satire on the broken nature of America’s two-party system.

I thought “”You Only Move Twice” (S8, E2) was funny when I first watched it. This is the one where Homer gets a job working for a James Bond villain but never realizes there’s anything off. Though there are some laughs, it wasn’t as funny watching it again. I found the same to be true of “Burns, Baby Burns” (S8, E4) in which Rodney Dangerfield guest starts as Mr. Burns long-lost son and “Hurricane Neddy” (S8 , E8) in which Flanders’ house is destroyed by a hurricane and he goes crazy.

Since I’m keeping track of references to presidents, I’ll mention “Bart After Dark” (S8, E5). There’s a picture of President Eisenhower on the wall of a burlesque house celebrating his wedding anniversary. He’s surrounded by burlesque performers, but his wife is not pictured. Did Eisenhower have a reputation for being a womanizer? I don’t know that much about him since I haven’t gotten up to Eisenhower yet in my reading of presidential biographies.

Millhouse’s parents get a divorce in “A Millhouse Divided” (S8, E6). It’s not a particularly funny episode, but like Lisa’s vegetarianism, the divorce sticks around into future episodes.

“The Mysterious Voyage of Our Homer” (S8, E9) had a few good lines. After Marge reminds Homer of how he got drunk and made a fool of himself at last year’s chili cookoff, he replies, “Sure, everything looks bad if you remember it.” I’ve repeated variations of this joke over the years. Also, when Marge pauses to look at arts and crafts at the cookoff, Homer, eager to get to the chili says, “Less artsy, more fartsy!” It was delightful to have Johnny Cash be the voice of a coyote in Homer’s insanity-pepper-hallucination, but like much of season 8 so far, this episode isn’t as funny overall as I remembered.

Scully and Mulder from the X Files visit Springfield in “The Springfield Files” (S8, E10). This is one of the best episodes this season. It starts with Homer and his work friends leaving work early to go to the bar. Using an idea he got from Speed (or as he calls it, The Bus that Couldn’t Slow Down), Homer plays previously-recorded footage of him, Lenny, and Carl working… except the footage is from decades earlier and they aren’t even working! It’s enough to fool Mr. Burns, though.

After spending the day drinking, Homer sees an alien in the woods and FBI agents Scully and Mulder show up to look into it. When Mulder shows his badge, there’s a picture of him in a speedo, referencing the “Duane Barry” episode of the X Files. When Homer is given a lie detector test, the Smoking Man is in the background. Homer breaks the lie detector by saying he understands the instructions, which he obviously doesn’t. There’s a scene in which Homer asks if Marge believes he saw an alien and she says no, but he acts like she said yes. “You’re just hearing what you want to hear!” she says. “Thanks, a sandwich does sound good right about now,” he replies. Great stuff.

Reverend Lovejoy gives a sermon about someone who came to earth and died, but came back to life. He’s, of course talking about E. T. Leonard Nimoy (who previously appeared in “Marge vs. the Monorail”) provides a hilarious introduction to the show, making this both an X Files crossover and a In Search Of… crossover. Unlike most episodes of The Simpsons, this one has laughs all the way through.

Marge starts a pretzel franchise in “The Twisted World of Marge Simpson” (S8, E11). Overall, it’s not that funny, but it contains a great line from Cletus. He presents Marge with hundreds of free pretzel coupons. She says she should have put limit one per customer. He replies, “Shoulda, but didn’ta.” One of the most quotable lines from the show.

“Mountain of Madness” (S8, E12) is better than average. It starts with a fire drill at the nuclear plant. All the employees panic in hilarious ways, including Homer blocking the exit on his way out! Burns orders a work retreat to a snow-covered mountain where he and Homer get trapped by an avalanche. Homer tells Burns he’s the richest guy he knows and Burns replies that he’d trade it all for just a little more!

The Simpsons get a visit from a Mary Poppins knockoff in “Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious” (S8, E13). There’s some fun songs in this one including, “If you cut every corner, there’ll be more time for play.” It’s not quite one of the best episodes this season, but it’s certainly better than average. President Gerald Ford makes an appearance on Krusty’s show during this episode because all the good presidents wouldn’t do it. Krusty makes fun of Ford for being boring.

“The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show” (S8, E14) wasn’t as funny as I remembered. This is the episode in which The Simpsons beat The Flintstones record for longest-running primetime animated show. A new character (voiced by Homer) is added to The Itchy & Scratchy Show to boost floundering ratings, but isn’t very funny. Comic Book Guy first uses his catch phrase, “Worst Episode Ever” to describe it. This phrase was taken from an online Simpsons fan group. Homer is surprised to discover the voice of both Itchy and Scratch is done by a woman, a reference to Bart Simpson being voiced by a woman. There are other self-referential jokes throughout. Fox executives actually did suggest The Simpsons add a new character who would live in the house, so for this episode only, they added Roy. Many of the writers of The Simpsons are features as characters on the show. At the end, the Simpsons children say they should be grateful a quality show like this is still around after all these years, then change the channel. This is a reference to the belief at the time that The Simpsons had pretty much run its course and would be canceled soon.

“Homer’s Phobia” (S8, E15) has laughs all throughout. The Simpson family meet John (voiced by John Waters) who Homer loves until he finds out he’s gay. This episode showed how ridiculous homophobia is in an entertaining manner. Fox originally didn’t want to air this episode, but a turnover in Fox staff allowed it to air. The gay steel mill was hilarious, although at the time, I was a bit offended one of my favorite songs at the time “Everybody Dance Now” was presented as a gay song. (C+C Music Factory was the first CD I owned, although most of my subsequent CDs were grunge and industrial.) I was a bit homophobic myself when I first watched this episode, but I think it had a positive influence on me and helped to slowly shift my attitude.

The Sideshow Bob episode this seasons is “Brother from Another Series” (S8, E16) featuring Kelsey Grammar’s Frasier co-star David Hyde Pierce as Bob’s brother. Bob actually reforms and it’s his brother Cecil who’s the villain this time around, but Chief Wiggum doesn’t believe him, so he goes back to jail. It’s one of the better episodes this season.

“Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment” (S8, E18) is the Prohibition episode. Alcohol is banned in Springfield and Homer becomes a bootlegger. There’s a lot of great lines in this one. When Marge asks if Homer is up to something, he says something like, “I’m not going to lie to you Marge… well, see you later!” When the stills in the basement explode, Homer pretends that he’s farting. When Marge asks what happened to the car, pointing out it wasn’t damaged before, Homer says, “Before? Stop living in the past, Marge!” And of course, it ends with Homer’s famous toast: “To alcohol, the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.”

In “The Old Man and the Lisa” (S8, E21), Mr. Burns claims to be worth 200 million dollars. My daughter was shocked he wasn’t a billionaire, but back in 1997, 200 million dollars was actually a lot of money.

“Homer’s Enemy” (S8, E23) is the episode with Frank Grimes, a man who had to struggle his whole life. Unlike everyone else at the Nuclear Power Plant, Grimes is horrified that someone as incompetent as Homer is in charge of safety. This episode shows how horrible it would be for a real person to be Homer’s coworker and it’s hilarious. The subplot in which Bart buys a factory is fun too. Frank Welker, the voice of Scooby Doo, does the voice of a dog in this episode. There’s a couple presidential references, with Homer mentioning his friendship with Gerald Ford and Moe claiming to have an enemy’s list, which turns out to be Nixon’s.

The commercials for “Homer’s Enemy” had a laugh track, which made me wonder if The Simpsons would start doing a laugh track going forward. Fortunately they didn’t, other than for a segment of the next episode “The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase” (S8, E24). This features three fictional spinoffs. There’s one in which Chief Wiggum is a P.I. in New Orleans. He’s single in this episode with no mention of what happened to his wife Sara. In another segment, Moe gets love advice from Grandpa Simpson who is possessing his love tester machine. In the final segment, the Simpsons cast do a variety hour show based on The Brady Bunch Hour (including Lisa not wanting to do it and being replaced like the actor for Jan Brady was). Troy McClure then says The Simpsons have plenty of ideas for future episodes such as a small green alien only Homer can see, a reference to The Flintstones. Like the previous episode “The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show”, The Simpsons seems to be mocking itself for running out of ideas. No one at the time could have predicted it would still be on the air decades later.

My favorite episodes this season are “Treehouse of Horror VII” (S8, E1), “The Springfield Files” (S8, E10), “Homer’s Phobia” (S8, E15), and “Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment” (S8, E18).