Halfway Plot Switch / The Simpsons

The Simpsons is to the Halfway Plot Switch as Family Guy is to Cutaway Gags, with many episodes beginning with lengthy sequences existing mainly to set up loosely connected main plots.

---

• One of the very earliest examples is Season 2's "Brush With Greatness", where the first act is about a disastrous trip to the theme park Mt. Splashmore, which leads Homer to resolve to go on a diet at the end of the act... and his diet turns out only to be the B story; the main plot, about Marge reviving her ambition to be a painter, doesn't start until part of the way through Act 2.
• An early episode involving a switch is "Bart's Inner Child". Homer getting the trampoline is only the instigator for Marge to get angry enough to spend the night at her sisters and learn about Brad Goodman. The third act switches again when everybody acts impulsive like Bart, which annoys him.
• An even earlier example is in "Flaming Moe's", which starts with Lisa having a slumber party. Eventually the girls' excitable and immature behavior gets in the way of Homer watching TV, so he goes over to Moe's Tavern, where he introduces Moe to a signature drink he created. Moe stealing the drink's recipe kick-starts the episode's main plot of him profiting off the drink and Homer resenting his theft.
• Another early and very convoluted example: "The Otto Show" begins with Bart and Milhouse going to a Spinal Tap concert, which inspires Bart to aspire to be a rockstar. He gets a guitar which the bus driver Otto proves to be great at playing. So Otto performs a guitar concert on the school bus when he should be driving, and he has to drive very quickly and recklessly to get to school on time. He ends up crashing, and a police interrogation reveals that he doesn't even have a driver's license. Thus, Otto loses his job and apartment, and only then does the main plot of Otto staying with the Simpson family begin.
• In the episode "Simpson Safari", Homer says "So you think they ever settled that bag boy strike?" just as the family is about to go over Victoria Falls in southern Africa. The Vacation Episodes in general seem to be particular offenders where this trope is concerned.
• Lampshaded again in the episode "A Tale of Two Springfields", which is about a badger invading the Simpsons' back yard, until Homer tries to call animal control but fails, at which point the plot focuses on Springfield being split into two area codes, eventually resulting in the town itself splitting in two with Homer as the mayor of his side of town, and climaxes with a concert by The Who, of all things. When the badger comes back, Homer is able to casually wave it off since it is now just interfering with the plot:
  Homer: Go away! We have bigger problems now!
• The plot of "Homerazzi": Homer being too sick to blow out candles which causes a fire which causes the family to get a fire-proof safe in which the family album is burned which causes them to retake all of their photos in which they take a picture of a celebrity scandal and become paparazzi.
• "Tennis the Menace" opens with Grandpa winning a free autopsy when he dies. This simply provides the buildup to Homer buying a tennis court.
  Homer: I bet you didn't see that coming.
• A notably clever use of this is the episode "Jazzy and the Pussycats", Bart takes up the drums. At a jazz brunch, he overshadows Lisa's performance, making her envious. To make her feel better, Marge lets her adopt a puppy from the animal shelter. This springboards into her rescuing lots of abandoned animals, including former circus tigers. Then one of the tigers bites Bart's arm, stopping him from playing the drums again.
  Lisa: All I wanted was to save those animals while Bart became a drummer, but I never thought the two stories would intersect!
• One of the show's most infamous examples of this came when Maude Flanders died in "Alone Again, Natura-Diddily". The episode jumped tracks from the Simpsons taking a nature walk to them having a day out at a racetrack, then Maude died in an accident, and the episode became one about Ned coping with his loss. Arguably has another one if you consider "Homer tries to set Ned up with someone new" to be a different plot.
• Lampshaded in "Brawl in the Family" where the first bit involves a social worker fixing the family's problems. By the time they've resolved it, Lisa wonders it was the "end of our series... of adventures". They then arrive back home to find Homer's Vegas wife from several episodes before at the house. The social worker quickly leaves, and the bigamy plot takes up the rest of the episode.
• "Homer The Moe" begins with Bart digging a hole for some inexplicable reason, which turns out to be one of Homer's crazy bar stories, then the plot becomes about Moe losing passion for bartending and returning to college while Homer takes over the bar, then the story takes another shift with Moe remodeling the bar into an upscale nightclub and alienating himself from Homer, Lenny and Carl, then Homer opens his own bar in his garage and finally the plot hinted at in the episode title gets started 2/3s through the episode.
• The plot of "Crook and Ladder" starts with Marge taking away Maggie's pacifier and Maggie destroying the house as a result, then Maggie gets calmed down with Santa's Little Helper's squeaky dog toy, only the squeaking leads to Homer being unable to sleep, so he takes sleeping pills and becomes a "zombie" of sorts. Bart and Milhouse then take advantage of him, which then causes Homer to accidentally crash into the fire department and injure all the volunteer firefighters, and FINALLY the main plot of Homer and his friends becoming firefighters gets underway.
• Season 12's "HOMЯ" starts off with the family at the "Totally Sick, Twisted, F***ed-Up Animation Festival", where we have a lot of little skits, including a claymation parody of Davey and Goliath. Then Homer is asked to wear a motion capture suit and act as a cartoon dog. He's a hit with the audience and is so impressed that he decides to invest in the Animotion company. However, when their stocks lower significantly, he has to get a job as a human guinea pig, where the testers are shocked by his remarkable stupidity. They then find a crayon lodged in his brain from an incident when he was younger. He gets it taken out, and THEN the main plot starts of Homer becoming smarter, until the end when he gets it put back in again. Notably, all this does not affect the episode's pacing.
• "The Winter of His Content" focuses on Grampa and his friends staying with the family at 742 Evergreen Terrace and the effects that has on Homer's lifestyle, but is then taken over by a completely unrelated plot involving Bart and the school bullies which parodies the cult classic film The Warriors. The first plot is brought back at the end as a resolution to the second one, but not in a way that really resolves itself.
• Subverted in "E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)", where after Homer gets involved in a Duel to the Death with a Southern Gentleman, he and the family run off to his family's old farm to hide out. After going through the episode involving them inadvertently creating a new plant called tomacco (half tomato/half tobacco), they return home, and find the Southerner still waiting for Homer, forcing him to finally duel (and get shot in the arm).
• Somewhat more of a 'third act switch', but "Mona Leaves-A" had Homer dealing with the drama of his mother returning one more time to his life, and then the drama that ensues when she dies and his Parting-Words Regret is that he wanted her to leave because he was tired of her constant running from the law and leaving him behind (once even making him think she had died). In order to try to feel better, he obeyed her final request on where to release her ashes to the letter... and then it turned out that the instructions were part of her plot to sabotage Burns' attempt to launch nuclear waste into the Amazon Forest from a secret ICBM base (with said ashes). The story, thus, turned the final five minutes of the episode into a James Bond pastiche.
• The sub-plot of Season 29's "Grampy Can Ya Hear Me" was initially set up to be about Bart and Lisa breaking into school to change a wrong answer in Lisa's test, but it soon focuses on Principal Skinner resenting his mother for not letting him join a marching band.
• "E Pluribus Wiggum" starts with the Fast-Food Boulevard being destroyed by a chain-reaction explosion caused by Homer Simpson, and then Mayor Quimby decides to place it's rebuilding as a bond issue on the next election's ballot. Lenny then convinces Quimby to move the primary to the next week, causing Springfield to have an early primary. This leads into the main plot of Ralph Wiggum becoming a presidential candidate.
• In "Weekend At Burnsie's", the main plot doesn't get underway until the start of the second act. The first act has the following lead-in subplots: Marge tries serving genetically modified vegetables -> Marge sets up her own vegetable garden and makes a scarecrow -> Homer wrecks the scarecrow and befriends the crows -> The crows ultimately attack Homer -> Homer gets hooked on medicinal marijuana. In fact, this is lampshaded early on in the third act...
  Marge: Homie, you don't need drugs anymore. Your eyes are all better.
  Homer: Eyes? What the hell are you talking about?
• "The Frying Game" is yet another episode that switches gears twice. It begins with Homer buying a koi pond that attracts an annoying "screamapillar" that the family becomes legally obligated to take care of because of how rare and endangered it is. After Homer accidentally injures it, he is sentenced to community service where he (and later, Marge) is taken advantage of by an old woman who guilts him into doing all her chores. It's only when the old woman is murdered that the plot gets serious, as Homer and Marge become the prime suspects.
• "The Canine Mutiny" starts off with Bart's credit card fraud, then moves to him buying another dog. When his card is revealed to be fake, he gives up Santa's Little Helper instead of his new dog. The third act of the episode focuses on Bart trying to get Santa's Little Helper back from a blind man's house.
• "Dude, Where's My Ranch?" starts as a Christmas Episode, where Homer is trying to think of a new Christmas carol. He then makes it about Flanders and how much he hates him, and the song becomes a hit sensation. Homer gets so sick of hearing it that he moves to a nearby ranch to avoid his song, and the episode shifts into a Wild West-style plot about the family living on the ranch as cowboys. The end of the episode does reference the beginning of it, however: Moe Szyslak has now made his own hit song ("Moe, Moe, Moe") which is bad enough to make the Simpsons want to stay at the ranch a little bit longer.
• "Fat Man and Little Boy" starts with a plot about Bart's loose tooth. Once he removes it, he realizes that he isn't a "kid" anymore and abandons all his toys. This cynical attitude leads him to create T-shirts with sarcastic sayings. Once Bart's shirts become popular, Homer focuses his attention on Lisa and helps her build a nuclear reactor.
• The first act of "Marge vs. Singles, Seniors, Childless Couples, and Teens, and Gays" revolves around Maggie's obsession with a children's song. When the family goes to a concert to hear the song, it ends in a riot, which leads into a plot of the town of Springfield hating kids and ruining everything that used to be kid-friendly.
• In "Strong Arms of the Ma", Marge gets mugged and becomes reclusive and scared to step outside. Having nothing else to do, she begins exercising with the bodybuilding equipment Homer bought from Rainer Wolfcastle at the beginning of the episode, and after she beats the hell out of the mugger when she meets him later after having gotten over her agoraphobia, the rest of the episode revolves around her obsession with bodybuilding to the detriment of everything else.
• The first act of "C. E. D'oh" is about how Homer feels that Marge doesn't like him anymore. While taking a class to fix this problem, he is kicked out and ends up in an investing and business class, leading to the second and third act's plot about Homer becoming the owner of the power plant.
• "The Lastest Gun in the West" starts as Bart is having a great day outside... until an angry dog begins chasing him. The first six minutes of the episode focus on the dog hounding Bart, and it is pacified by a Western actor, who Bart begins to look up to in the episode's main focus.
• "Husbands and Knives" switches plots every act. First, Bart and his friends are sick of Comic Book Guy's insults, and go to the new comic book store across the street. Marge compares herself to a Wonder Woman standee and is inspired to join a gym, but finds that they are too hardcore, leading her to create her own. By this point, Comic Book Guy is completely out of the plot. Marge's gym leaves Homer afraid that she will leave him, and he takes up plastic surgery to look better.
• In "The Monkey Suit," Bart realizes that summer is almost over, and he rushes to get in as much last-minute fun as he can. The last thing he does is visit the museum, where Homer cuts in line and drives Flanders to the back. By the time the line clears up, the only exhibit still open is the human evolution one, which Flanders protests. This leads to the main plot of Springfield Elementary being forced to teach creationism.
• "See Homer Run": Homer is excited for Father's Day, but ends up mistakenly ruining Lisa's gift. Lisa begins to lose faith in the male gender and act out at school, while Bart steals a street sign. Homer takes up a job as the school's mascot, the Safety Salamander, so that Lisa will trust him again. Finally, he runs for mayor after Quimby is caught in a scandal.
• "Thank God, It's Doomsday" begins as Bart and Lisa are taken to the mall for haircuts. They get into a fight and distract the barber, and find the Springfield Elementary students practicing photography; to avoid being seen, Bart, Lisa, and Homer hide in the movie theater. The movie gives Homer a fear of the Rapture, which he tries to predict.
• In the first act of "The Marge-ian Chronicles", Homer and Bart steal eggs from Flanders' chicken coop, which they like more than the store-bought ones. They build their own coop, but find that the eggs from their own chickens don't taste nearly as good as Flanders' eggs because the fact that they're stolen makes them taste better. Having no use for their chickens, they donate them to be taken care of at a science facility, where Lisa learns that they're trying to launch to Mars. This leads to the main plot, of Marge being uncomfortable that Lisa wants to leave her family to go to space.
• "Old Yeller Belly" begins with Bart's treehouse getting destroyed during a fight between his and Lisa's friends. After a failed attempt by Homer and Bart to build a new one, Marge hires the Amish to do it. But their shoddy work on the wiring causes a fire and the treehouse burns down during the grand opening. Homer is trapped inside and is rescued by the cat, causing him to resent Santa's Little Helper for failing to save him. After being chained up and left outside, SLH catches a can of Duff on his nose and drinks the beer, which is caught on camera and sets up the real plot: Santa's Little Helper becomes the new Duff mascot, and the Simpsons try to get him back. The treehouse is never mentioned again.
• "The Regina Monologues": Bart finds one of Mr. Burns's thousand-dollar bills, which he puts on display in his treehouse. It is temporarily renovated into a museum, until Mr. Burns arrives to take it back. The family still profits 3k from the museum, which they spend on a trip to England to track down one of Grandpa's old girlfriends.
• "Cue Detective": The first two minutes feature the class watching Dr. Doolittle (footage of the actual, live-action film is heavily featured). At the end, Nelson calls out Bart and Lisa for their bad smell, which the Simpsons realize is due to their washing machine breaking. Homer is sent to buy a new washing machine, but instead spends money on a barbecue. The barbecue is stolen, leading Bart and Lisa to track it down. At this point, the original plot isn't brought up again until The Tag, where Marge trades the barbecue to Nelson in exchange for a new washer.
• "Bull-E": A school dance is held at Springfield Elementary. Bart is hesitant to go, but ends up enjoying himself, even winning a "Best Dancer" trophy. Jimbo, Dolph, and Kearney break his trophy when he leaves, and when Marge hears about this, she passes an anti-bullying law. Chief Wiggum and Homer abuse the law, arresting everyone for miniscule reasons. This ends in Homer taking a bullying rehab class, where he is forced to confront why he hates Flanders. He gets let off easily, although Flanders, realizing how badly Homer has abused him over the years, is hesitant to forgive him.
• "Fear of Flying": Homer is banned for life from Moe's Tavern and has to find a new bar. Homer eventually settles for an airline pilots' bar, where he is mistaken for a pilot and put in the cockpit of an airplane, which he promptly wrecks. In exchange for his silence about its mistake, the airline gives the Simpson family free tickets to any of the lower 48 states. This leads to the main plot, where it's revealed Marge has a fear of flying and needs help conquering her fear.
• "Homer Badman": This episode starts with Homer going to a candy convention and trying various unique sweets, including swiping a gummy Venus de Milo. The candy ends up somehow getting onto the rear end of the woman who is babysitting the Simpson children, and Homer grabs it. This gets him accused of sexual harassment, kicking off the main plot of the episode.
• "Much Apu About Nothing": Ned Flanders spots a bear outside his house, which creates a panic around town about the alleged bear threat. This leads the town to start a Bear Patrol, which costs a lot in taxes and further angers the town. So Mayor Quimby blames the high taxes on illegal immigrants and proposes stricter immigration laws, inviting the main plot of Homer helping Apu become a legal citizen.