Tooncrap: The Simpsons: The Musk Who Fell to Earth

And the show that fell from grace.
GRACIE FILMS/FOX/DISNEY: 2015

I thought I was finally done with this. Honestly, Tooncrap, for as much as it sort of was the wetting of my feet into the world of blogging, is both my gift and curse. Gift in it got me more recognized in some way, cursed because I feel that it came mostly from someone without much to any education on animation flying by the seat of their pants and hoping to not out themselves as too much of a moron. And good lord my grammar, woof. Though, to be fair, it's not that improved. But as time went on, I felt like I was finally happy finding things I enjoyed instead of ragging on cartoons. Dwelling on the negative can really screw you up. I could have never done another of these and had been happy. 

But no. No, this has to happen. If Tooncrap is to return at all, it has to be for a reason, and I can think of no better reason than to dunk on the jagoff who killed Twitter. The same jagoff, might I add, who as I'm beginning to type this, is teasing getting rid of the block function in his latest bid to be the internet's Madam Butterfly. I'm talking, of course, about Elon Musk, the apartheid emerald mine manchild who fooled the gullible into thinking he was the greatest genius. The man who will revolutionize electric cars and take us to Mars. Given how he's treated Twitter-No, I'm sorry, how he's treated "X", I expect the rocket to Mars to blow up before the launch sequence starts.

For Elon, a man who white supremacist chuds treat were he the modern day Socrates, was so easily able to fool the common folk into believing he's this genius, and it didn't help that he had the propaganda machine to help him out with appearances on plenty of shows like Rick and Morty and SNL. But none feel more like a gut punch to me than when The Simpsons brought him in for Season 26. I don't hate modern Simpsons like most do. I do feel the show is more than ready to finally conclude, but its most recent seasons, for the most part, slowly feel like they are trying new and fresh things. But the twenties were for the most part pretty rough, with a lot of bad episodes I could choose. Like, the Lady Gaga episode. But for as bad as that episode was, it doesn't feel like a stain on the show as much as Season 26's "The Musk Who Fell to Earth." So let's see why as we, for the first time in a long time, REVIEW THIS THING.

We open the episode with Lisa tending to her birdhouse, when a bald eagle shows up and kills the birds, then just flies around like a nuisance, even trying to take Maggie. After plucking Homer's hairs he swears revenge on the eagle, because this is a first act of a Simpsons episode and, I'm gonna be honest, every Elon-less minute is a plus. 

And said strategy to getting revenge on the eagle is to trick it into thinking the mouse in a game of mouse trap is a mouse, which is a work of fiction in itself. Like hell anyone could get that Mouse Trap to work. They trap the bird in the house and I guess are going to cook it. But then, Lisa suggests instead of killing an endangered species, they nurse it back to health and let it free in the wild later on, which is a weird turn, but okay. 

Cut to four weeks later and the Simpsons decide to let the eagle fly free again, which was totally not a waste of everyone's tim-

DAMMIT. 

You know, in hindsight, the episode opening with Elon destroying something precious and beloved is a perfect analogy. 

Because yup, there he is. Elon Musk. And oh, if you thought this episode was going to take forever to start audibly blowing him, don't worry. As he enters from his spaceship, Homer says that they're about to be visited by a being more intelligent than them. Homer then throws his bat at him, to which Lisa then says that Elon Musk is possibly the greatest living inventor. Which is funny since Elon really hasn't invented anything. He mostly found his success off the backs of people who invented other things. But hey, LISA SIMPSON said it and she's smart, so it MUST be true. 

You know, I try my hardest to not listen to the guy's voice, it's bad enough I have to be made aware of him every day, but he is just the most monotone sounding man ever. But why is he in Springfield? Well, it's Elon Musk and being on the Simpsons to him will make him look super cool, but why is he in Springfield in terms of the show? Well, he's lost his creative spark, you see. So Homer suggests he goes to the nuclear plant. He also makes a joke that goes "If you don't understand something, just say Proton" and THAT's the ad break joke? 

So we are at about 4:16, so I have still another seventeen minutes until I'm Free-lon from Elon, so I'll keep you posted on that.

On the drive to the power plant, Homer asks Elon some stuff, but Elon says while driving, he only speaks to people  unless they provide the mental stimulation he seeks. You know, like guys who call themselves cat turd. 

And while Lisa's there, he doesn't, you know, talk to her, despite her fangirling and feeling sad about how he's creatively bankrupt. And we just spend almost a minute with him writing unfunny notes and I guess, trying to feel bad for the little boy robot. Homer says he wishes the notes were white meatballs, which inspires Musk, though most likely because he heard the word "white" and got excited. But it sets up the crux of the plot that Elon gets inspired by the many dumb things that Homer says.

As Homer and Musk throw the crumpled notes at each other, Lou tries the same with Chief Wiggum only to get shot for it, which is kind of funny but also, eh? This episode still hasn't been, you know, funny. 

We then get to the power plant in which Burns reads a suggestion from Musk to add an MHD Generator to the power plant for efficiency. They then meet with Elon, Smithers even mentioning that Elon Musk revolutionized the auto industry, in case you forgot that in the last few minutes. Oh Waylon. OH WAYLON you're not gonna like his views on the LGBTQ+.

After some more Homer comments, this happens, which Elon says is a way to replace facial expressions. Are-are we supposed to relate to him? Is the joke that he's this weird emotionless guy? I know the genius grift is well in play but like is the whole bit here that he's SUCH a genius, that he's advanced beyond the need for human emotion? Funny? Laugh?

Also, we're around 7:40 in the episode, giving us about 15 minutes until we're Free-lon from Elon. 

So Musk's great idea is to have the power plant sell all the electricity in town. We get a joke where Burns can't imagine, so he gets a guy to imagine it. Which would be funny, but kind of isn't. Homer and Musk then hang out, where again Homer kisses his butt, calling him Willy Wonka without the underpaid workers, which was the first thing I laughed at but not because of the joke. 

Elon's big idea is a hyperloop that should help with electricity, which even Smithers realizes is a bad idea, but Burns goes for it anyway. Also everyone gets self-driving electric cars which means a lot of kids are gonna get run over before the cars explode. Bart and Lisa even drive one of Elon's cars, with the password of Muskrulez, which is the only thing in this episode that seems to actually track as something he'd do. 

So, the boom gets dropped on Mr. Burns that this whole thing is actually losing him money, even if Elon says that this is all for a cleaner future. The kind of financial advice from the guy who spent over 40 billion on a social media site he didn't even want to buy but did so because he was so concerned about "free speech suppression".  

Around 13:49. Just a little after 8 minutes until I'm Free-lon from Elon.

So with Elon's new system in place, there are massive layoffs, putting everyone out of a job. Burns wants to kill Elon, and Homer is finally ready to give up on his new robot friend. 

As Homer and Musk talk, Burns has elderly hitmen try to kill Musk, only to fail. It's at this point that Homer finally breaks up with Elon, mainly saying the world isn't ready for him yet. 

And so the episode ends with Musk leaving on his rocket ship, but not before leaving the Simpsons with a solar powered birdhouse. Lisa also notes that for a man who loves electric cars, he sure uses a whole lot of rocket fuel. Which would be a funny joke if the episode was poking at the inaccuracies of Musk instead of, you know...

And thus, Musk looks at a hologram of Homer in his ship to, I don't know, be his muse? You know, living on Homer's ideas may explain how Elon went nuts. And with us at the credits, we are Free-lon from Elon!

And that's The Musk Who Fell to Earth and HOLY CRAP is this episode bad. Not just because it's a vanity piece for Elon Musk, but even on that, it's not a good vanity piece at all. The entire episode plays Elon off as this emotionless, charisma-less lump that acts like a genius while rarely presenting a good reason as to why he's a genius. The billionaire tech mogul who, for all his claims of inventions to save the planet (which is a thing to do after having him enter the episode killing an endangered species), doesn't come up with ones that are either financially sustainable or useful in the long run. Even the relationship with Homer is so rushed and so lacking in anything that would make either of them feel like friends other than Homer really being easily impressed. And Lisa as well. You can't relate with Elon because the episode goes out of its way to make that the point, yet tries to play it off as "well he's a genius, so that's why" which doesn't work at all. 

And given what we now know of Musk and what we see of him with each decision, it turns this vanity piece into nothing more than a farce. Granted, this was still a Musk that could easily hide who he was by giving himself that aura of a super genius savior. Now, in 2023, seeing every dumb decision he makes and every white supremacist, sex trafficker or both that he pals around with, it makes this episode come off as a black spot in the history of the show. The ultimate bad idea in the history of the show's many bad ideas. Hindsight beat this episode's ass big time. 

The other problem, the most prevalent one, is that it's just not funny. None of the jokes are funny, some drag with really no cleverness to them. It feels every bit of the mid-20s where you can feel the comedy of the show finally feeling long in the tooth and in sore need of a fix. Many just feel like an excuse to pad the episode instead of being smartly written. Which I guess is fitting given Elon's lack of any character or emotion in his delivery, how in the hell DO you build humor around him? So instead more of it is building him as a modern day Socrates than actually trying to make him funny, or relatable, or human. 

And that really sums this episode. Hard to relate to. Hard to find funny. Hard to be entertained by. And while a lot of the twenties can be summed up like that, hardly any tumble to earth and fall harder on their face like The Musk Who Fell to Earth.