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Notes for 37ABF04 (Guess Who's Coming to Dinner) - 800th episode!

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  Notes for 37ABF04 (Guess Who's Coming to Dinner) - 800th episode! Matt Garvey <mxg77@po.cwru.edu> - 2025-12-07 21:40 -0500
    Notes for 37ABF04 (Guess NOSPAM.Dumas.Walker@darkrealms.ca (Dumas Walker) - 2025-12-10 09:44 +0000
    Re: Notes for 37ABF04 (Guess Who's Coming to Dinner) - 800th episode! Matt Garvey <mxg77@po.cwru.edu> - 2025-12-10 17:40 -0500
    Re: Notes for 37ABF04 (Guess Who's Coming to Dinner) - 800th episode! Bice <eichler2@comcast.net> - 2025-12-11 11:55 -0500
      Re: Notes for 37ABF04 (Guess Who's Coming to Dinner) - 800th episode! Bice <eichler2@comcast.net> - 2025-12-11 12:00 -0500

#8486 — Notes for 37ABF04 (Guess Who's Coming to Dinner) - 800th episode!

Not too bad secondary-character episode and one that felt a little 
grounded and classic. (The only thing that really seemed ridiculous to 
me was the ball pit "drowning" but I guess there was worse even in the 
golden years.) Amusing, at least if you accept my claim since it 
certainly wasn't hyped as this, that a milestone episode like this also 
focuses on Skinner, when the 100th episode did too.

Previous episode stuff
1F18: See above
CABF04 (or was there an earlier ep?): Lenny has an eye trauma wing
35ABF02: Willie is still married

A real tangent
That music at the halfway point while Skinner and Hub are bonding 
sounded very familiar (although I did have to cheat by looking it up in 
the closed captions). It's the theme from Room 222, which is pertinent 
because of the school and teacher-student connection. But I know it from 
last year's research into updating my production code history document, 
and I have some trivia worth sharing. First, it was a James L. Brooks 
show. But also, back on the subject of production codes, its second 
season was part of the original wave of alphanumeric production codes 
when, in 1970, 20th Century Fox Television changed from using cryptic 
all-numeric codes to using cryptic numbers AND letters, which it's still 
using 55 years later after several iterations. (In fact, season 1 
Simpsons codes starting in 7G come from the tail end of only the second 
such pattern.)

Speaking of JLB...
I guess I spoke too soon about the last 2 episodes' new Co-EP credit. 
This episode has a Co-EP of Michael Price, between Selman and the big 
three. Perhaps this means that particular showrunner job is not meant to 
be "co" to Selman, but a single job split between two (or more) people 
from episode to episode. TBD.

And now for my hot take
Tonight is the 800th episode of The Simpsons screened to the viewing 
public. Fight me. There was no publicity for it, and Fox seems to be 
saving that designation for (half of) a double episode in February that 
is also, inexplicably, suggested as the end of the season... but I say 
that's Hollywood hogwash, a fudge for sweeps justified by a handful of 
factors.
First, I count double episodes as two. The Great Phatsby, O C'mon..., 
and the upcoming Extreme Makeover. They all have two production codes, 
they all run for an hour with commercials...
I'm also counting the 4 (or some would say 3) streaming exclusive 
episodes, which I have a feeling Fox may be ignoring to get to their 
count in February, and why shouldn't I? They have normal production 
codes, they're of normal length, and even though they've never aired on 
network TV (etc.)... if streaming shows can win Emmys, these can count 
as episodes of the show.
And I'm going in air order. Tonight's episode is actually the 805th in 
production order (801st if you leave out the streaming episodes; if you 
really want, consider next week's the 800th in production order minus 
them or 800th in air order if you won't count C'mon as two, but I don't 
see the fanfares starting up for that one either!), but the 800th in 
production order is 36ABF21, which is to be the 2nd half of the Extreme 
Makeover episode that is being treated as the milestone. And I have a 
feeling it was planned that way (with a normal air schedule and not 
holding the last 4 36ABFs way back), based on earlier reports of how it 
was labeled. But guess what... if you count C'mon as one episode, you 
don't get to 800 until 36ABF22, and if you count even more as one single 
episode you get even farther off. So it seems even the producers did the 
math with hourlong two-parters counting as two each! But there's 
basically no good reason to go in production order apart from a little 
bit of wiggle room, and five episodes is not a little bit.
The fact is that this is the 800th half-hour chunk of The Simpsons as a 
TV series (not shorts, not films) that a viewer has seen, and that's 
good enough for me. I'm... kind of hoping 900 is not in the cards. But 
happy 800 to all, and the rest of you chumps celebrating in February are 
too late!

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#8487 — Notes for 37ABF04 (Guess

> From: mxg77@po.cwru.edu

> Not too bad secondary-character episode and one that felt a little
> grounded and classic. (The only thing that really seemed ridiculous 
>  to
> me was the ball pit "drowning" but I guess there was worse even in 
>  the
> golden years.) Amusing, at least if you accept my claim since it
> certainly wasn't hyped as this, that a milestone episode like this 
>  also
> focuses on Skinner, when the 100th episode did too.

I liked it, although the field trip scenes at the beginning might have 
 been
the first time that even *I* wanted to strangle Bart!  I think Skinner 
 had
a sure thing going with that docent.  ;)

Mike


 * SLMR 2.1a * I hit my CRTL key but I'm STILL not in control....

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#8488

Arrrrgh, it was bound to happen... typing the straight version of the 
title. Guess Who's Coming to SKINNER! Forgiveness please!

On 12/7/2025 21:40, Matt Garvey wrote:

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#8489

On Sun, 07 Dec 2025 21:40:00 -0500, Matt Garvey <mxg77@po.cwru.edu>
wrote:

>Not too bad secondary-character episode and one that felt a little 
>grounded and classic. (The only thing that really seemed ridiculous to 
>me was the ball pit "drowning" but I guess there was worse even in the 
>golden years.)

This show had one of the most obscure references I ever remember
seeing on a Simpsons episode.  Just after Skinner pulled Hub out of
the ball pit, there was a really brief shot of the arcade games behind
them, and one of them was Polybius.  

It's claimed by some people that Polybius was an early 80s arcade game
that caused hallucinations and even insanity in people who played it,
and all Polybius machines mysteriously vanished from arcades overnight
and were never seen again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polybius_(urban_legend)

  -- Bob

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#8490

On Thu, 11 Dec 2025 11:55:20 -0500, Bice <eichler2@comcast.net> wrote:

>On Sun, 07 Dec 2025 21:40:00 -0500, Matt Garvey <mxg77@po.cwru.edu>
>wrote:
>
>This show had one of the most obscure references I ever remember
>seeing on a Simpsons episode.  Just after Skinner pulled Hub out of
>the ball pit, there was a really brief shot of the arcade games behind
>them, and one of them was Polybius.  
>
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polybius_(urban_legend)


After doing some Googling, I learned that Polybius had already
appeared in a Simpsons episode from season 18:

https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/Polybius

  -- Bob

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