The Fat and the Furriest

"The Fat and the Furriest"
The Simpsons episode
Episode no.	318
Directed by	Matthew Nastuk
Written by	Joel H. Cohen
Showrunner(s)	Al Jean
Production code	EABF19
Original air date	November 30, 2003
Couch gag	In a parody of the opening of the 1960s sitcom, Get Smart!, Homer follows a red line down stairs, out of an elevator, through double-doors that open automatically, in an elevator and into an ascending door to the telephone box. He falls onto the couch with the family already there.
Guest actors	Charles Napier as Grant Conor
Commentary	Al Jean Joel H. Cohen Matt Selman Tim Long Tom Gammill Mike B. Anderson Valentina Garza
Season 15 episodes November 2, 2003 – May 23, 2004 "Treehouse of Horror XIV" "My Mother the Carjacker" "The President Wore Pearls" "The Regina Monologues" "The Fat and the Furriest" "Today I Am a Clown" "'Tis the Fifteenth Season" "Marge vs. Singles, Seniors, Childless Couples and Teens, and Gays" "I, (Annoyed Grunt)-bot" "Diatribe of a Mad Housewife" "Margical History Tour" "Milhouse Doesn't Live Here Anymore" "Smart & Smarter" "The Ziff Who Came to Dinner" "Co-Dependents' Day" "The Wandering Juvie" "My Big Fat Geek Wedding" "Catch 'Em If You Can" "Simple Simpson" "The Way We Weren't" "Bart-Mangled Banner" "Fraudcast News" List of The Simpsons episodes
Seasons 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

"The Fat and the Furriest" is the fifth episode of The Simpsons' fifteenth season, which originally aired November 30, 2003. The episode is about Homer fighting a bear.

Plot

Homer goes to Sprawl-Mart, and he buys Marge a "Kitchen Carnival", a machine that produces cotton candy, caramel and deep fried things. Eventually Homer uses it to make a giant ball of deep-fried, caramel-covered, cotton candy. The ball is much too big for the family to eat, and it gets dirty. Finally Marge insists Homer should get rid of it. He takes it to the dump, and is confronted by a large, grizzly bear, from which he cowers. The bear eventually wanders off without attacking, annoyed by Homer's tearful cowering. The incident becomes well known due to a nearby hunter with a camera.

Homer becomes a nervous wreck, hallucinating and seeing bears like Winnie the Pooh, Paddington Bear, Smokey the Bear, the Snuggle Bear, Teddy Grahams, Chicago Bears and a scary Care Bear. To make things worse, the hunter's tape is shown on the news, Homer is mocked by many. Homer hires a hunter named Grant to assist in confronting the animal. Homer makes a near-useless suit of armor: joined by Bart, Lenny and Carl they start on their quest.

The four of them make camp in the woods. As his homemade armor is hot, Homer eventually takes it off and bathes in a stream, where he is again attacked by the bear. With Bart, Lenny and Carl dancing to the radio and paying no attention, the bear drags Homer to his cave. Deciding to die facing the bear as a man, Homer later discovers that the bear is only angry and hostile because of the painful electrical prod that Grant attached to its ear. To make sure of it, Homer takes the tag off the bear and tries it on himself, resulting in lot of pain before taking it off. Because of being freed from the electrical prod, the bear reverts to its friendly state, licking Homer and giving him a bear hug as a thanks.

Realizing this, Homer become friends with the bear. In the meantime, Marge and Lisa have discovered Homer, Bart, and the suit of armor missing, and Marge hires Grant to help track Homer down, though Lisa disapproves of Grant's methods to take down the bear. Homer decides to take the bear to a nearby wildlife refuge, but on the way, they are attacked by Grant and other hunters. To ensure the bear's survival, Homer dresses the bear up in the homemade armor, which surprisingly resists the gunfire and allows the bear to reach the wildlife refuge where it is promptly attacked by Stampy the elephant, but then fights back against him for good. It was then the whole family declares to be proud of Homer for his efforts of saving the bear from the hunters, to which he responds that he loves nature.  —

Cultural references

The name title is a parody of the movie The Fast and the Furious as well as the 2001 film of the same name.

In the articles with bears can be seen a Snuggle bottle, Gummi bears bag, Teddy Grahams box, Winnie the Pooh, super sugar crisp boxes and in Maggie's books she has The Bear Went Over the Mountain, The Berenstain Bears and Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

The song in radio is "Jarabe tapatio".

Also whilst sitting in the corner frightened, Homer is confronted by many Bear characters, such as Gummi Bears, Paddington Bear, a Care Bear and two bears wearing the Chicago Bears jersey and helmet.

In the scene where Homer makes his bear-fighting suit, the Survivor song "Eye of the Tiger" is heard.

The song that Lenny, Carl and Bart are singing and dancing to is "Afternoon Delight" by Starland Vocal Band.

In the shopping mall, they were showing a spoof of VeggieTales on TV with King Rameses depicted as a yam and Moses depicted as a pickle pleading "Let my pickles go".

In one scene, Grandpa shows Homer his own website - Oldcoot.com. The domain name is a real-life website owned by Samuel L. Bowman. Some fans of oldcoot.com suggested that Bowman sue The Simpsons, though Bowman ultimately decided not to pursue legal action, as it wasn't the "character of the company".

The creation of bear-proof armor after surviving a bear attack (but not Homer's public cowardice) was inspired by Troy Hurtubise, whose story was told in the documentary Project Grizzly.

External links

• "The Fat and the Furriest" at the Internet Movie Database