YMMV / The Simpsons S6 E18: "A Star Is Burns"

• Adaptation Displacement: To The Critic, for anyone living outside the US, as well as anyone too young to have seen the show while it was on the air. This episode, on the other hand, has been in constant rotation since it first appeared.
• Base-Breaking Character: Does Sherman exist to promote a TV show shamelessly? Or is he a character who brings his own charm and humor to the Simpsons universe?
• Broken Base: Jay Sherman's appearance and Matt Groening's decision not to be associated with it. Is this a bad episode and did Groening do the right thing in distancing himself from it or is it a good-to-average episode and did Groening overreact?
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • In Barney's film, we see him introducing himself at what seems to be an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, but we zoom out and see Lisa informing him he's actually at a Girl Scouts meeting. To which Barney says, "Is it, or is it that you girls can't admit you have a problem!?"
  • Bart filming Homer in embarrassing and private situations without his knowledge is disgusting and a clear violation of Homer's privacy. Bart filming Homer in embarrassing and private situations and turning it into a series of low-budget arthouse films (Homer in the Shower, Homer on the Toilet, and The Eternal Struggle^note which consists entirely of Homer trying and failing to put on his blue pants) is hilarious.
  • Mr. Burns claiming that he and Oskar Schindler are alike because they both made shells for the Nazis, with the main difference being that Mr. Burns' shells actually worked.
  • The trailer for McBain: Let's Get Silly. After being heckled for bombing one joke, he opens fire on the entire audience and then when he gets heckled again for bombing another one, he kills the heckler with a grenade. Apparently, the entire movie consists of this over and over.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The episode's a lot more popular outside of the U.S., since The Critic didn't get exported to that many countries (and wasn't promoted much in the ones that did manage to get it). As a result, the whole crossover controversy went over the heads of most international viewers, who tended to assume that Jay Sherman was either a real-life film critic from America or a character created specifically for this episode.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Patty joining Selma in beating up Jay in response to calling MacGyver gay becomes this, now that Patty's come out of the closet.
  • Matt Groening criticized the episode because he promised his sitcom would be different from others and one of the sitcom conventions he hated is the crossover episode that plays out like a 20-odd minute advertisement for another show, even removing his name from the credits in protest. Since then, The Simpsons has had crossover with The X-Files ("The Springfield Files"), two Jay Sherman cameos ("Hurricane Neddy" and "The Ziff Who Came to Dinner"), a 24 crossover ( "24 Minutes"), a The Terminator parody featuring the characters from Futurama and a special guest appearance on Family Guy where the Simpsons bond with the Griffins (all of which had Matt Groening credited as executive producer, even though he hasn't been active with the show since season 10).
  • Bart's movie is about Homer trying to put his pants on; he then realize the belt was buckled and still struggles to put them on. One of the Simpsons animators, Brad Bird, worked on The Incredibles, in which the teaser trailer has a Formerly Fit Mr. Incredible trying to tighten his belt.
  • Mr. Burns demanding a Mexican Steven Spielberg-equivalent can be considered this, after during the 2010s the Academy Awards were dominated by the "Three Amigos" trio of Mexican directors: Alfonso Cuarón, Alejandro González Iñárritu, and Guillermo del Toro. Back when the episode aired, having a Mexican director implied being low-rent, but after a series of critically-acclaimed productions made by Mexican filmmakers, it implies the complete opposite. Then again, "Señor Spielbergo" is a non-union replacement.
  • Burns, in this episode, tries to put a friendly face on his evil enterprise with a Propaganda Piece that fails miserably. Come 2015, and FIFA, another organization with a shady background, would try and put out a movie that glorifies FIFA President Sepp Blatter, only for it to be one of the worst received and worst grossing movies of all time, with many people directly comparing the Blatter biopic to Burns's.
  • During his acceptance speech, Barney declares "From now on, there'll be a new Barnard Gumble: hardworking, clean, and sober!", but immediately gives in to his alcoholism when the prize is a lifetime supply of Duff Beer. In season 11's "Day Of Wine And D'oh'ses", Barney goes sober and actually stays that way for a few seasons.
• Informed Wrongness: Homer initially prefers "Man Getting Hit by Football" to either of the serious contenders, frustrating Marge by leaving Burns' and Barney's films tied. However, the fact that the remade film ends up beating Burns' film to an Academy Award despite Burns bribing everyone in Hollywood kind of vindicates Homer's judgement.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "That's the joke."
  • Hans Moleman getting hit by a football.
  • "I was saying Boo-urns".
  • Steven Spielberg's non-union Mexican equivalent, Señor Spielbergo.
  • "On closer inspection, these are loafers."
  • "We did twenty takes, and that was the best one." Used for subpar line readings in films that still made it into the final cut.
  • "The Ball! His groin! It works on so many levels!" is also a popular template for praise.
  • Saying the quiet part out loud^Explanation When Krusty accidentally reveals that Mr. Burns bribed him for a favorable vote, he mutters that he "said the quiet part loud and the loud part quiet." In the 2010s, the phrase became a popular idiom in political discourse for whenever politicians and other public figures bluntly and shamelessly say questionable or outright offensive things that would otherwise be dogwhistled.
  • "Just hook it to my veins!" is very commonly used a way of expressing enthusiasm for something based on it's premise.
  • "Don't cry for me, I'm already dead."
• Narm Charm: Barney's film is a hilarious send-up of independent arthouse movies. But the black-and-white tone and serious subject matter do create a sense of genuine pathos.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: Any attempt to discuss the episode tends to get bogged down in arguments as to the idea of a crossover with The Critic, to the extent where staff writer Ian Maxtone-Graham (who didn't start working on the show until the season after this episode was made) was criticized by many fans for attempting to defend it as a good episode if you take it purely on its own merits.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis: As mentioned earlier on this page, The Critic is almost entirely unknown outside the U.S., not to mention The Simpsons has... outlasted it by a "few" years. So unless you already know it's a crossover episode with a show that most people today probably haven't heard of, it's easy to assume Jay Sherman is a character created for this episode.
• So Okay, It's Average: For those who don't like the presence of Jay Sherman, the episode still has quite a few hilarious and quotable scenes.
• Unintentional Period Piece:
  • Jay Sherman's appearance became this when The Critic was not renewed for the 1995-96 season. Though he has shown up in cameo appearances in later episodes.
  • “Man Getting Hit by Football”‘s reception puts this episode squarely in this territory. While at the time it would have been seen as lowbrow, that kind of comedy has gained more and more critical clout during the years.
  • It is jarring to see people making their own movies without using computers or social media to market them.
  • George C. Scott is depicted as staring in Hans Moleman's movie. Scott's death in 1999 places this episode squarely in the 1990s.
  • Similarly, Krusty claims to have a date with Eudora Welty, who passed away in 2001.
• Values Dissonance: Patty and Selma beat up Jay for insulting MacGyver (1985). Except he didn't. All he did was tell them that MacGyver was gay, which, by most accounts, is not a bad thing (and, as we will later learn, Patty is herself gay). Although Patty and Selma could also interpret it as MacGyver having no chance in being romantically interested in them, which would still be a huge blow to them.

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