The Twisted World of Marge Simpson

"The Twisted World of Marge Simpson" is the eleventh episode of "The Simpsons"' eighth season. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on January 19, 1997. It was written by Jennifer Crittenden and directed by Chuck Sheetz. The episode guest stars Jack Lemmon as Frank Ormand and Joe Mantegna as Fat Tony. In the episode, Marge starts her own pretzels business.
Plot.
The Springfield Investorettes — Maude Flanders, Helen Lovejoy, Agnes Skinner, Luann Van Houten and Edna Krabappel — expel
Marge from their investment group because she is wary of high-risk ventures. The group returns Marge's $500 initial investment and Lisa convinces her to use the money to buy her own franchise. To compete with the Investorettes' Fleet-A-Pita franchise, Marge buys a Pretzel Wagon, franchised by its owner, Frank Ormand.
Marge parks her Pretzel Wagon outside the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant and Homer persuades his coworkers to patronize it. The Investorettes' Fleet-A-Pita van parks nearby and lures away Marge's customers. To drum up business, the Pretzel Wagon sponsors Free Pretzel Day at the Springfield Isotopes baseball stadium. Before fans can consume their pretzels, they learn that Mr. Burns has won a 1997 Pontiac Astro Wagon when an announcement blares from a loudspeaker. The fans react angrily to the news and bombard the field with pretzels, knocking out Whitey Ford who tried to quell the crowd's anger. Marge's efforts end in vain again and she becomes deeply depressed, so Homer searches for someone who can help her.
After discovering that Frank Ormand has died in a car accident along with the executor of his estate, Homer establishes a secret business agreement with Fat Tony, the Springfield Mafia don. The next day, Marge receives a large order of 300 pretzels, reinvigorating the Pretzel Wagon. The mob drives several of Marge's competitors out of business through intimidation, eventually destroying the Investorettes' Fleet-A-Pita van with a car bomb.
Soon, Marge receives an order to be delivered to a remote location on the outskirts of town, where she is approached by Fat Tony and his gang. He informs her of the deal he made with Homer and claims that he is entitled to a 100% stake of Marge's profits. Marge confronts Homer and he explains that he was only trying to help. She then refuses to pay Fat Tony and continues making pretzels.
As the mob advances on Marge, the Investorettes arrive with the Japanese "yakuza" to counter Marge's alliance with Fat Tony. The rival gangs get into a brutal fight and the Simpsons retreat into their house. Marge forgives Homer for meddling and making the situation worse, and instructs the kids to go back to bed when they overhear the racket caused by the gangs.
Production.
The main plot of the episode concerning the two rival snack food franchises was selected because at the time of production, pita bread and pretzels were "becoming popular". Josh Weinstein expressed his wish that the ideas had been changed to something more "fun", as both snacks have since "gone out of fashion". The Fleet-A-Pita chef was an early version of the "Khlav-Kalash" man from "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson". At the Expo, many of the franchises were based on real franchises and get-rich-quick schemes. In the scene where Homer is inspecting pretzels, there was originally a shot where he gave a thumbs down to Maggie's pretzel.
The episode was written by Jennifer Crittenden who wrote four other episodes. Homer's line "Yeah, Homer's right" during the scene where the pretzel wagon arrives was ad-libbed by Dan Castellaneta. In another scene, Cletus calls for his many children to come out of the house; the names of which were all "trendy names from the nineties". The 1997 Pontiac Astrowagon that Mr. Burns wins was designed to accurately resemble the GM minivans on sale at the time. The episode's final scene, the mob war, was conceived by Matt Groening as no one else could come up with an ending.
Cultural references.
The scene in which the Springfield Mafia destroy all of the competition to "Pretzel Wagon" is based on a scene from "Goodfellas". Frank Ormand's "You'll be there" speech mirrors that of Tom Joad from John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath". Lemmon's portrayal of Frank Ormand is based on the character Shelley Levene from the film "Glengarry Glen Ross", also played by Lemmon. The character Gil Gunderson, who would not be introduced until the ninth season episode "Realty Bites", was also based on Levene. Rumer and Scout, two of Cletus's children, are named after Bruce Willis and Demi Moore's children. The scene where baseball fans cause a riot by throwing pretzels after Mr. Burns wins a new car, is based on an incident where the Los Angeles Dodgers were forced to forfeit. It happened on August 10, 1995, when the fans threw promotional baseballs onto the field to protest a bad call during the 9th inning.
Reception.
In its original broadcast, "The Twisted World of Marge Simpson" finished 55th in ratings for the week of January 13–19, 1997, with a Nielsen rating of 8.2, equivalent to approximately 8.0 million viewing households. It was the fifth-highest-rated show on the Fox network that week, following "The X-Files", "King of the Hill", "Melrose Place", and "Beverly Hills, 90210".
The authors of the book "I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide", Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, called it "A clever, and rather unusual, idea for an episode that shows a frightening bitchiness beneath the middle-class veneer of smalltown businesswomen." The scene with Cletus's children is one of two scenes from this episode that Josh Weinstein considers to be "classic", with the second being the sequence when the crowd throw their free pretzels onto the baseball field, knocking Whitey Ford unconscious. The Ford scene was placed 24th on ESPN.com's list of the "Top 100 Simpsons sport moments", released in 2004. Greg Collins, the author of the list, added that "Every time it looks like a fight is about to start at a baseball game, I start quoting this scene." "The A.V. Club" named the baseball commentator's line "Aaaannnd heeerrre come the pretzels" one of the quotes from "The Simpsons" that can be used in everyday situations.