Homer and Ned's Hail Mary Pass

The Simpsons go to Springfield Park and find it run down. They also find a charity carnival which is raising money to help the park. Bart wins the grand prize in a carnival game, and then Homer beats him, going into his victory dance. Ned Flanders captures the dance on video and Comic Book Guy places it on his website. Soon, the entire world has seen Homer's embarrassing dance, much to Homer's anger. However, major sports stars ask Homer to teach them his dance for use in victory.

Meanwhile, Ned uses his camera to make a rather violent movie about Cain (Rodd) and Abel (Todd). Everyone loves the film, except Marge, who finds it bloody and disgusting. Mr. Burns decides to finance Ned's next film, "Tales of the Old Testament" (which has a running time of 800 minutes (more than 13 hours). The bloodiness of the film angers Marge and she announces at the screening that she will protest anything that Burns owns. Burns retorts, noting that he owns the town's nuclear power plant and there is no alternate power source to it. When the crowd blurt out alternate forms of power they can use Burns admits defeat and says the film will never be seen again, much to Ned's dismay.

Homer's victory dances find criticism with fans but the football national committee loves them as Homer's dancing has raised ratings. They ask him to choreograph the Super Bowl Halftime show. Unable to develop any idea for the show Homer finds Ned at church. Together they decide to stage one of Ned's violent Bible stories at the half-time show. At the Super Bowl Ned and Homer stage the story of Noah's Ark. At the end the of the show Ned appears and reads scripture from the Bible relating to performance. To this the audience jeers and boos. The media later accuses the Super Bowl of forcing Christianity onto the country.

[edit] Cultural references

Video game character Mario makes a cameo in this episode, where a disgruntled Homer fights with him due to his annoyance. The fight is a direct parody of Donkey Kong with Homer tossing garbage cans like Donkey Kong tossing barrels at Mario.
Flanders' violent bible-themed films are a parody of The Passion of the Christ.
Flanders playing the role of the devil in his films, accompanied with full costume, is an allusion to the fact that Flanders actually is the devil in the non canon Treehouse of Horror episodes.^{[citation needed]}
The outrage over Homer and Ned's halftime show parodies the controversy over the halftime show of Super Bowl XXXVIII.
When Marge confronts Flanders about his movie, he mentions another movie that he describes as "a film about a liberal European wizard school". This is a reference to the Harry Potter movies.
Michelle Kwan's phrase "Beware the wrath of Kwan" is a reference to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
When Ned Flanders pulls the video camera from the shelf in his home, a script from Citizen Kane can be seen on the shelf.
JockCenter is a parody of SportsCenter.
At the beginning of Flanders' second movie, there is a parody of the Columbia Pictures logo with Mr. Burns in place of the Torch Lady. The Burns on the screen then says, "I'm richer than you!"
The episode title is a reference to the football play sometimes used out of desperation in close-scoring games.
At the part when Homer tries to find an inspiration for his Halftime Show by watching the previous ones, one of the Halftime Shows is the wedding of Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man, which has the actors in the suits of Pac-Man and his wife and the ghosts. Shortly after they start dancing all together.

[edit] Reception

23.1 million people watched the original broadcast of the episode, and it finished sixth in the weekly ratings for the week of January 31 - February 6, 2005.^[1]