‘The Simpsons’ Recap: The Fight Before Christmas
“The Fight Before Christmas” episode develops in a similar fashion as the Halloween special with different self-contained segments. In this case, all the segments are the dreams of Bart, Marge, Lisa, and Maggie. The segments are all within a bigger narrative, in which Marge attempts to get the family into the holiday spirit.
First up it’s Bart, who is mad at Santa because he has never gotten him a dirt bike. Bart goes to the North Pole and gets a job in Santa’s toy factory. First, he goes to the wrapping section, where his idea of just putting bows on the toys lands him a promotion as toy supervisor. There he has another idea about selling a bear missing an eye as a pirate teddy bear. This gets him another promotion and closer to Santa. When he goes to Santa with a gun, he is surprised to find Santa is broke. After Bart apologizes and leaves, we learn that Santa puts on the broke show for all kids that come to complain, but in reality he is so rich he’s using money to light cigarettes.
Lisa goes to sleep and gets transported to Christmas of 1944. In this reality, Marge has been sent to war in Germany. Homer gets a Christmas tree for the family, but Lisa doesn’t like them because they remind her of last year’s Christmas when Marge was taken away from her. Homer and Lisa get a telegram stating that Marge is MIA. Lisa attributes this to the tree. Lisa runs around Springfield, but there are Christmas trees everywhere. To her dismay, Lisa ends up at the street store where Marge was taken away. The salesman gives her the tree Marge bought last year. The form of the tree reminds him of Marge. Back at home, Lisa puts up the tree. In Germany, Marge ends up at a theater where Hitler is watching a movie. Marge burns down the theater Inglorious Basterds style.
Third comes Marge with the continuation of the opening. Marge sends a letter to Martha Stewart to help her and her family get into the Christmas spirit. Martha turns the house into a model house for Christmas. However, Homer, Bart, and Lisa are no part of this, and Marge feels like Christmas spirit doesn’t really work without her family there. Marge wishes things to go back to normal. When she wakes up, the family comes in and attempts to make her breakfast in bed. When they fail, the whole Simpson family goes out for breakfast.
The final dream comes from Maggie. After she didn’t get to see her Muppets DVD, she dreams about the family as Muppets. The family is preparing to go on vacation to Hawaii. They enlist Moe to sit the house while they are out. Mr. Burns comes to visit Homer, who got his vacation days by pretending he has a neck injury. Moe’s girlfriend arrives and it’s none other than Katy Perry. Katy gets Mr. Burns in a better mood and the family can go on their vacation. Katy and Moe have some time to themselves.
Originally aired on 12/5/2010