Lost Aesop: Difference between revisions

** Another ''Simpsons'' episode with a [[Lost Aesop]] can be the 10th season episode "Lisa Gets an 'A'". This episode was about Lisa getting sick from having Homer shove her into a supermarket's ice cream freezer a little too long. Marge makes her stay home from school and she does so with Marge's advice that she forget about trying to learn and play some of Bart's video games. Lisa does so playing a ''[[Crash Bandicoot]]'' spoof to the point she is hooked. In the process she gets a homework reading assignment: her class started reading ''[[The Wind in the Willows]]''. She spends the duration of her sick leave playing the game. When she goes back to the class, she had not read the book and her class is now being tested on it. Finally with some urging from Bart and Nelson Muntz, Lisa takes a cheat sheet and attains a very high grade. Later Principal Skinner calls her to the office to discuss the test: her lone test grade brought the entire school's GPA up to its minimum standard and the school now qualifies for a grant. Even after Lisa deliberately confesses to having cheated, Principal Skinner and Superintendent Chalmers try to have her stay quiet long enough so the school can get the grant money, feeling it would do a lot of good for the school. In the end Lisa fixes her grade in the privacy of her own home, while the school staff gets the grant money and they cash it at a liquor store. What... exactly is the message of this episode? [[Family-Unfriendly Aesop|It's okay to cheat as long as it helps?]] No, that's not right. Could it be "[[Space Whale Aesop|Don't worry about your grades Lisa, you're surrounded by idiots]]"? No, measuring intelligence on nothing but academic achievements is rather asinine. Maybe it's [[Captain Obvious Aesop|Do your homework and don't abuse your sick leave?]] Eh, too blatant. Maybe it's... you know what, forget it. I'll just say the message truly lies in the subplot with Homer and his pet lobster Pinchy: If you adopt a lobster as a pet, don't give it a hot bath for too long or you'll accidentally cook it. There, satisfied.

** Yet another example in ''Itchy and Scratchy The Movie'':

'''Homer''': I like stories. }}

** Another arises in "The Cartridge Family". In this episode, Marge and Homer are at odds over a gun he buys, which even leads Marge to briefly leave him. In the end, Homer finally agrees to let Marge get rid of the gun, so Marge heads to the nearest garbage bin to throw it out. However, seeing herself holding the gun from a reflection in the lid, she decides to hold on to the gun, putting it in her purse. The writers said that there was no real message from the story, but if there was, it'd be that a man like Homer Simpson should not have a gun, so... mission accomplished?

* The ''[[Thomas the Tank Engine]]'' special ''Misty Island Rescue''. The film is supposedly about making good decisions... only the writers themselves can't seem to decide whether or not Thomas should make decisions and think for himself, and the other characters never seem to object to Thomas's stupid choices, making the whole thing quite vague.

* ''[[Powerpuff Girls]]'' "Imaginary Fiend." The episode was about a boy who {{spoiler|made an imaginary friend, only the imaginary friend turned out to be real. He was still imaginary, but he could move things without being seen. In the end, the Powerpuff girls invented their own imaginary friend to fight him.}} In the beginning, the moral appeared to be "Don't invent an imaginary friend to blame on your actions," but {{spoiler|even Bubbles said it "Wasn't (Mike's) fault, he was evil to begin with."}} In the end, the message seemed to be {{spoiler|when you can't battle an imaginary-realistic friend, invent your own.}} <br />Not to mention what Buttercup says in the end:

* In ''[[Family Guy]]'' episode "Stew-Roids", the [[Alpha Bitch]] Connie D'Amico starts dating Chris as part of a [[Pygmalion Plot]] bet, but when he treats her kindly and with respect she abandons the bet and starts dating him for real. Chris gets spillover popularity from dating Connie, which results in his [[Acquired Situational Narcissism|becoming an asshole]] and breaking her heart. Rather exploring this idea (that pretty people aren't always jerks and that popularity can go to anyone's head), the rest of the plot focuses on Connie trying to win back her popularity purely for comedic purposes.

** There are way too many other episodes of ''[[Family Guy]]'' with Lost Aesops to list here.