It’s been a weird week folks. We dealt with some strange, serious topics this week. Even “Realty Bites,” which is a silly and fun episode had some dark stuff behind the scenes. So how do we end the week? A clip show! God, what a weird week.

Well, you guys know the drill here. We’re going to get a week frame story built up to just churn out clip after clip, letting Fox save some money, while the writers do their best to protest the stupid thing they’ve been forced to do. But this is one of the better clip shows, because it at least had a theme, and some pretty fun gags in the frame story. It’s a clip show full of times the Simpsons have sung. I love Simpsons songs. They’re some of the funniest songs written, and I’m always up for the town of Springfield randomly breaking into song. Plus, pretty much every bit of it features the characters rhyming and singing.

And it starts off in the weirdest way possible. Homer and Bart come home from a video rental place, with a movie for the family to watch. And what they brought home was a violent Western with Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin called Paint Your Wagon. Unfortunately it turns out to be a musical featuring the two actors, and it’s a violent Western at all. And the best part? This is a real movie! There are a handful of references the Simpsons made that I saw as a kid, assumed they were just ridiculous gags, and then was flabbergasted to learn that they were real. I’ve never seen this movie, and I have to assume that opening song isn’t real, but man, how crazy? And after that realization, Homer gets disgusted, claiming that he doesn’t like singing. And from then on the rest of the episode is sung to us.

They start off by watching clips of family members singing, which was kind of funny because the episode implies that the Simpsons have coverage of all the episodes as home movies. We see songs like The Be-Sharpes rooftop concert, the Maison Derriere song, and Bart’s Squishee bender. Plus we get the amazing Bart line “I hate to prance, and dance and sing, that’s really more of a Milhouse thing.” And after that silly line, the episode gets weirder, because Snake comes leaping into their window, threatening to kill them all.

But when it becomes evident that the Simpsons won’t stop singing, he decides to leave. So they just keep showing clips, but townsfolk this time. We see Apu’s “Who Needs the Kwik-E-Mart” song, Krusty’s Comeback Special, and Mr. Burns’ greyhound suit song. And after seeing those classic clips, Snake comes back, because now he can’t stop signing, and decides that it’s a virus that he needs to kill the Simpsons to end. But he forgot ammo, so he leaves again.

And with Snake’s second disappearance, they decide to just keep doing the same thing. But this time there really wasn’t a theme, and they just show random songs. We get the Monorail song, the “In the Garden of Eden,” scene, and the Stonecutters song. And after looking at these great examples of why singing isn’t the lowest form of communication, Homer officially changes his mind, and they all stop singing. Just in time for Snake to show up yet again. But because they aren’t singing, he doesn’t care anymore, and leaves again. The end.

Well, it’s a clip show. What do I even say? They were good scenes? I love when the Simpsons sing, and they make great little musical numbers. So this one was fun. It’s kind of like how that one clip show only talked about love stories, but this one worked a whole lot better for me. I also love that they sing for pretty much the whole time. Because if you were a sad high schooler with no friends like me, you could sing the entire episode. Yep, that last sentence was the most depressing thing I’ve typed this week. Woo?

Take Away: Singing and dancing is fun. And Lee Marvin is always drunk and violent.

“All Singing, All Dancing” was written by Steve O’ Donnell and directed by Mark Ervin, 1998.