Original air date: 3/12/2006 (produced in 2005)
Production code: HABF-06
A string of nested stories tell the tale of why The Simpsons are spending the day at a cavern.
Tropes:
- Absurdly High-Stakes Game: Burns and the Rich Texan wager their whole estates.
- Achievements in Ignorance: Barney has no idea how he keeps getting back into Moe's after being thrown out.Moe: How do you keep getting back in there?!
Barney: I'm a drunk! I dunno nothin' about how I do anything. - Adventure Archaeologist: Snake used to be one before turning to a criminal life.
- Aesop Amnesia: Burns, of course, forgets about feeling proud of making children happy.
- Another Story for Another Time: During Homer's confession of the real reason he brought the family to the cavern, he claims he needed money for Bart's operation. At this point, Bart interrupts to ask about the operation, and Homer responds, "That's a story for another day."
- Angrish: When Mrs. Krabappel insists on staying at Springfield Elementary, Moe's furious rant quickly degenerates into gibberish as he hurls her bags out of his car.
- Astonishingly Appropriate Interruption: After Bart finishes explaining why he didn't study for his geography test:Principal Skinner: That has to be the biggest load of cr— [looks out of the window in shock] —Krabappel making out with Moe?!
- Bait-and-Switch:
- After Marge drops the gold down a ravine, Rich Texan approaches her, gun raised, looking furious...Rich Texan: Lady, I oughta fill you full o'... [suddenly perks up] ...gratitude! That gold was turnin' us into monsters!
- Moe's story segues into Mrs. Krabappel explaining why she decided to take the fourth-grade teaching job instead of leaving town with him: she met Bart Simpson, who, when she asked him why he was in the school building during the summer, told her that he was serving detention through the vacation and tearfully confessed that everybody had given up on trying to better him in an apparent show of Hidden Depths. In the main story, Marge interrupts Lisa to point out that Bart never had detention all summer, to which Bart clarifies that he was helping Nelson to rob the classroom at the time and made the story up to both explain why he was there and keep her distracted.
- After Marge drops the gold down a ravine, Rich Texan approaches her, gun raised, looking furious...
- Blatant Lies: When Moe arrives at the cave armed with a baseball bat, to find Rich Texan and Mr Burns armed with guns, he reacts thusly:Moe: You guys have guns?! I mean, uhh... so do I! [retreats back into the shadows and mimes cocking a shotgun] Eh? Eh?
- Bring My Brown Pants: When Homer first gets stuck in the cavern:Homer: I'm stuck! And I have to pee! (Beat) Okay, now I'm just stuck.
- Comically Missing the Point: After Mr. Burns begins reading Moe's letter and learns about his treasure:Mr. Burns: Treasure?[zooms out to Lisa's story]Lisa: Treasure?[zooms out to the main story]Homer: Moe has a cappuccino machine?
- Continuity Nod: Unlike most of the adult cast, Edna Krabappel wasn't born in Springfield, as mentioned offhandedly in "Lisa the Skeptic." Her arrival in town shortly before the events of the series started forms the impetus of Moe's plot over the course of the episode.
- Did Not Think This Through: Moe brought a baseball bat to the face off over the stolen gold. He didn't expect everyone else to bring guns. It's especially hilarious given that Moe is shown to own a gun in other episodes.
- Enthusiastic Newbie Teacher: The episode shows us Edna Krabappel after her divorce, but before she got beaten down by Springfield, Springfield's school district, and Bart. She really believed in her power to make a difference in kids' lives, which was what caused her to stay and take the teaching job instead of skipping town with Moe.
- Fallen-on-Hard-Times Job: Mr. Burns working at Moe's. Burns actually considered it as a way to get up to zero.
- Formula-Breaking Episode: A Nested Stories-meets-The Rashomon style story.
- Funny Background Event: Krabappel tells Moe that she can't leave Springfield with him because children like Bart Simpson need her, "sweet, misunderstood boys that just need somebody to recognize the basic goodness that's trapped inside them and is desperately trying to get out," while behind them Bart gleefully helps Nelson rob the classroom and spray-paints some parting graffiti for good measure.
- Go Through Me: Mr. Burns pulls this in order to protect Lisa from a goat. Burns being Burns, it doesn't do much, but Lisa still appreciates the attempt.
- Herbivores Are Friendly: Lisa encounters a goat in the forest, hoping it'll be friendly to a fellow herbivore, until it chases her into Mr. Burns' mansion. It turns out it was trying to bring back her necklace, which she'd lost in the woods.
- Hilarious in Flashback: The flashbacks show us Edna as an Enthusiastic Newbie Teacher whose heart instantly goes out to Bart, as well as Snake Jailbird as a successful archaeologist.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Burns, of all people, when he willingly stands between Lisa and the goat. It's possibly the most human thing he's ever done in the entire show.Burns: Without my power plant, I have nothing to live for. Take me, a barren old thistle, and spare this sweet young flower.
- Jerkass: The goat is very aggressive as it chases down Lisa and then Mr. Burns, only it becomes really friendly when it reaches and gives her necklace back to her.
- Mexican Standoff: A four-way one at the end of the episode, between Rich Texan, Mr. Burns, Moe, and Snake, over the stash of pre-Columbian gold. Marge ultimately defuses it by hurling the gold down a chasm so none of them can have it.
- Mundane Object Amazement: Bart tries to run out on the cave expedition upon realizing it's a "nature walk." Lisa successfully keeps him busy with a quarter in a plastic bottle.Marge: He'll sleep tonight!
- Mythology Gag: In Lisa's story, Smithers wasn't there to help them because he was getting a spray-on tan. According to Mr. Burns, "He comes back orange and stains the furniture.". This may be a nod to how in his first on-screen appearance in "Homer's Odyssey",
Smithers had orange skin instead of yellow
◊, with Word of God humorously explaining it away as "an extreme tan". - Nested Story: At its greatest extent, we have Krabappel's story, inside Moe's story, inside Mr. Burns' story, inside Lisa's story, inside Bart's story. Lampshaded by Homer when Lisa first segues into Burns' tale:"Now we're telling Mr. Burns's story?!"
- Never Bring a Knife to a Gun Fight: Moe brings a baseball bat to a gunfight (or at least, a Mexican standoff), though he tries to pretend otherwise.
- No MacGuffin, No Winner: Marge, infuriated by the greed of those who are after the gold, dangles it over a chasm, and when they refuse to listen to reason, she drops it. The story ends with Burns climbing down the ravine in an attempt to retrieve the gold and subvert the trope, but we don't see whether he succeeds.
- Not Evil, Just Misunderstood: Mrs. Krabappel believes this about Bart upon meeting him. When you consider that he only talked to her in the first place to keep her distracted while Nelson robbed the school, this is debatable.
- Offscreen Teleportation: Barney somehow keeps getting in Moe's bar, no matter how many times he is thrown out.
- Pet the Dog:
- Burns protecting Lisa.
- Edna was going to leave town with Moe without taking the teaching job at Springfield Elementary, but stayed behind after a conversation with Bart which convinced her that he needed her.
- Real After All: At the end, the story is revealed to be Bart's explanation to Skinner as to why he was unable to study for his geography test. Skinner dismisses it as a lame excuse, only to look out of the window and see Krabappel and Moe rekindling their romance from the story.
- Rule of Three: Moe throws out Barney three times, and each time Barney appears back inside.
- Senseless Sacrifice: A non-fatal example that turns into a subversion. Burns pulls a Take Me Instead on the goat that's pursuing Lisa, but after it headbutts him, it goes after Lisa anyway... and reveals it was only trying to return her necklace. Burns despairs that he has sacrificed himself for nothing, but Lisa is so touched that she asks to take a photo with him — which just so happens to be the final scavenger hunt item he needs. The sacrifice was ultimately beneficial, just not in the way Burns intended.
- Shout-Out: The Excluders Club member who referees the scavenger hunt is Commander McBragg from The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle.
- So Long, Suckers!: When the goat chases Lisa and Mr. Burns up the staircase of Burns' mansion, Burns rides a stair lift past Lisa while uttering this phrase, only for the stair lift to break down, leaving him to meekly say, "I mean, 'Don't leave an old man to die.'" He then exclaims these words again when the stair lift starts working again.
- Start of Darkness: After Moe steals his stash of Mayan gold, Snake decides he'll "take my revenge on society — by which, I mean convenience stores."
- Take Me Instead: Burns implores this of the goat pursuing Lisa, though it's more out of suicidal despair over the loss of his nuclear plant than actual selflessness. It also doesn't work, not least because the goat doesn't actually want to hurt Lisa at all.
- This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: When Rich Texan announces his intention to win Mr Burns' nuclear plant, Burns responds "Dream on, bitch!"
- Twist Ending: It turns out the entire episode is Bart's explanation to Principal Skinner why he didn't have time to study for his geography test.
- The Un-Smile: Mr. Burns bets his fortune to the Rich Texan over who can get a photo with a kid smiling. He loses because he is so creepy when smiling that all the town's children (and Otto) cry when standing next to him.Milhouse: It's the boogeyman's grandfather!
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Had Bart not lied to Mrs. Krabappel about having detention all summer, she would have left Springfield with Moe, the gold would have gone with them, and the entire show would have been very different. Instead, she chooses to stay, Moe angrily breaks up with her, and the gold passes from him to Burns to Rich Texan, all culminating in the four-way Mexican Standoff at the episode's climax.
- What Happened to the Mouse?:
- Why Bart needs an operation is never explained. Homer tells him "That's a story for another day"; fifteen years later and counting, that day has yet to come.
- As the Simpsons leave the cave, Mr. Burns is climbing down the ravine in search of the gold. We never find out if he successfully retrieved it or not.
- Whole Episode Flashback: Courtesy of Bart explaining to Skinner why he couldn't study for his geography test.
