“Beyond Blunderdome” (S11, E1) features Mel Gibson who was presented as beloved at the time with Robert Downey Jr. and Hugh Grant presented as degenerates. Just goes to show how easy it is for actors to go from being loved to despised to loved again. Since I’m keeping track of presidential references, I’ll mention an unnamed monocle-wearing president is decapitated in the movie Mel Gibson and Homer make together.

“Brother’s Little Helper” (S11, E2) is the one where Bart takes ADHD medication. It starts with the volunteer firefighters putting on a play to demonstrate how dangerous fire is. Flanders plays a character named Mad Dog who catches fire, but says, “A little fire can’t hurt you, baby” and goes back to sleep! Bart dresses up like a cheerleader. Principle Skinner says Bart’s gotten into the pep closet, but Homer counters that Bart’s come out of the pep closet.

On TV, a spinning tie chokes Krusty. He asks his stage manager what happened and the stage manager says he choked. Enraged, Krusty yells, “You choked!” At a military base, one soldier complains to another that sarge called them the worst and it ruined the whole hike. There’s laughs all throughout this one. At one point, Bart calls Lisa a “time burglar”. I misremembered this as “time thief” and used to use this term in my head for anyone who wasted my time. (I don’t think this way anymore since it’s healthier to think of people as ends in themselves rather than as means to an end.)

“Guess Who’s Coming to Criticize Dinner?” (S11, E3) is the one where Homer becomes a food critic. There’s laughs all throughout this one too featuring lines like “I’m glad I’m not married to her…anymore.” When the editor of the newspaper tells Homer he likes a man who doesn’t immediately pooh-pooh everything he eats, Homer replies, “No, that usually takes a few hours.” When Homer learns about Johnny Newspaperseed, a young boy who traveled the land founding newspapers, he says, “If he’s so smart, how come he’s dead?” Great stuff.

“Treehouse of Horror X” (S11, E4) had three funny segments. There’s a parody of I Know What You Did Last Summer in which the Simpson family run over Ned Flanders, then pretend he’s still alive a la Weekend at Bernie’s. Bart and Lisa get superpowers in the next segment. At one point, President Bill Clinton shakes Lisa’s hand and she uses her superstrength to slam him back and forth on the ground like the Hulk would later do to Loki in the first Avengers movie. At the end, they rescue Lucy Lawless and she flies away. Lisa complains that Xena (the character Lucy Lawless plays) can’t fly, and she responds, “I’m not Xena, I’m Lucy Lawless.”

In the final skit, the Y2K bug (remember when we were all worried about that?) destroys the earth. A small group of Earth’s best and brightest are able to escape on a rocket. I’m pretty sure President Jimmy Carter was in line to get on it, so perhaps The Simpsons‘ 10 years of bashing Carter are finally at an end. There’s a second rocket with average people headed for the sun. Ross Perot and Dan Quayle are on this one. (I was offended when this originally aired because I had voted for Ross Perot back then.) Homer and Bart realize they’re on the bad rocket and will die in five minutes, but the people on the rocket are being annoying, so five minutes isn’t soon enough and they eject!

“E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)” (S11, E5) is the episode in which Homer becomes a fan of challenging people to duels, then ends up fleeing to his father’s old farm to become a farmer where he grows ToMacco (a combination of tobacco and tomatoes) using radiation. (This isn’t as far-fetched an idea as you might think. Radiation mutation breeding has been used in the real world for nearly 100 years, and it’s considered organic.) The B-52s song “Love Shack” being changed to “Glove Slap” was absolutely inspired. There’s laughs all throughout this one. At one point, President Jimmy Carter appears building a house as part of Habitat for Humanity. Homer insults him and the former president challenges Homer to a duel!

“Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder” (S11, E6) isn’t the funniest episode this season, but I did enjoy when Homer was in the process of bowling a perfect game and Lenny shouted out things that sounds like he was trying to make him choke on accident. He says, “Miss! Miss!” to call over the waitress, then says, “This split you sold me is making me choke! What? I paid 7.10 for this split.” Karl asks him to at least call it a banana split, to which Lenny replied, “Spare me your gutter mouth!”

“Grift of the Magi” (S11, E9) is the Christmas episode this year. Overall, it wasn’t that funny, but the last line was good. Guest star Gary Coleman first asks, “What you talkin’ about, Moe?” then turns to the camera and says, “What you talkin’ about, everyone!” Of course those who are too young to know who Gary Coleman is won’t get why it’s funny.

“Saddlesore Galatica” (S11, E13) has laughs all the way throughout. It’s probably the best episode this season. Homer becomes a horse whisperer (he literally whispers to the horse, “When the race starts, run really fast!”). When the other jockeys question whether Duncan the horse can run, Homer counters that he ran all the way to the stadium! Chief Wiggum mangles the famous Thomas Jefferson quote by saying, “I’d rather let a thousand guilty men go free than have to chase after them!” The musical number was fun. When the jockeys start attacking Bart, the announcer asks the audience to remember the good little people like James Madison (the shortest president). There’s a third presidential reference in this one when then-current president Bill Clinton shows up at the end to give the moral to the story: “If things don’t go your way, just keep complaining until they do.” Marge says it’s a pretty lousy moral and Clinton replies that he’s a pretty lousy president.

There’s another presidential reference in “Pygmoelian” (S11, E16). One of the animatronic characters at the Duff Days beer festival is Ulysses S. Grant, a president who struggled with alcoholism.

“Bart to the Future” (S11, E17) takes place in the future when Lisa is the President of the United States. She mentions that Trump was president before her, predicting his presidency 16 years before it happened. There’s a lot of presidential references in this one as you’d expect. Homer searches for Lincoln’s gold. Bart points out Clinton’s porn stash at Camp David. Billy Carter’s ghost sympathizes with Bart for being the president’s screw up brother. While this episode may have predicted President Trump, it seems a misstep to have people still playing cassette tapes. Also, the episode predicts that India will nuke Pakistan, which hopefully won’t come true.

“Kill the Alligator and Run” (S11, E19) is the Spring Break episode. There’s a couple funny lines. Homer realizes his unhealthy lifestyle will lead to him dying in a few years and he laments that he won’t live long enough to see his children die! While trying to outrun the law, Homer drives dangerously. Marge warns, “Homer, no! You’ll kill us all!” To which Homer replies, “Or die trying!”

There’s a bit of bad science in “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Marge” (S11, E21). Lisa warns that you shouldn’t throw rice at weddings because when birds eat rice, their stomachs explode. This is pure myth. It’s as bad a blunder as when Lisa got the Coriolis Effect wrong in “Bart vs. Australia” (S6, E16). It’s unfortunate their smart character is the one who makes the mistake in both instances.

“Behind the Laughter” (S11, E22) is the season finale. It’s similar to “The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase” (S8, E24) in that the episode treats the Simpsons family as if they’re actors on a show. Both episodes wrongly predict The Simpsons will soon be canceled. “Behind the Laughter” has a presidential reference with Jimmy Carter doing a comedy break dance called Habitat for Hilarity. This episode also points out how horrible it is that Homer strangling Bart is a recurring thing on The Simpsons, saying something like “This horrible act of child abuse became a running gag on the show.” I love that this is a show that can laugh at itself.

Like Lisa’s vegetarianism and the divorce of Milhouse’s parents, this season introduced some changes that will carry over into future seasons. In “Eight Misbehavin'” (S11, E7) Apu and his wife become parents to octuplets. In “Alone Again, , Natura-Diddily” (S11, E14) Maud Flanders dies. Minor characters have died before, and Maud isn’t exactly a main character, but this feels like a bigger change than the other deaths. In “Days of Wine and D’oh’ses” (S11, E18) Barney stops drinking, another major change.

The funniest episodes this season are “Brother’s Little Helper” (S11, E2), “Guess Who’s Coming to Criticize Dinner?” (S11, E3), “Treehouse of Horror X” (S11, E4), “E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)” (S11, E5), and “Saddlesore Galatica” (S11, E13). Overall, it’s a lot better than last season which only had one really good episode. In fact, this is one of the best seasons so far. Let’s see how the next season compares. Sideshow Bob will finally return next season after being AWOL for the last few years.