The Crepes of Wrath

"The Crepes of Wrath" is the eleventh episode of The Simpsons first season. Bart is sent to France on a student exchange trip, where his hosts treat him as a slave; meanwhile, an Albanian student taking his place shows great interest in Homer's work at the nuclear power plant. According to this episode's production code, was the last episode produced in the season. Ugolin has appeared in at least one other episode of the show.

1 Plot
2 First Appearences
3 Cultural references
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Plot

Homer trips over Bart's skateboard and falls down the stairs, crippling his back. He is confined to the couch for several days. Marge punishes Bart by forcing him to clean his room and as he does, he discovers an old cherry bomb among his things and decides to flush it down the toilet in the boys' restroom at school. On the day he plans to flush it, Principal Skinner's mother accompanies him to school, calling him "Spanky" in front of his students. Bart ends up pulling his prank at the same time as Principal Skinner's mother is in the girls' restroom. The resulting explosion blows her off of her seat and enrages Skinner. In order to punish him, Skinner proposes "deportation" to the Simpsons, by having Bart participate in a foreign exchange program. Bart is sent to France, while the Simpsons host a student from the Socialist People's Republic of Albania, named Adil Hoxha, or known as the Sparrow. Bart is shown a picture of a lovely chateau in the heart of France and he immediately agrees to go, much to Homer and Skinner's delight.

In France, Bart arrives at the "beautiful chateau", which is actually a dilapidated farmhouse on a run-down vineyard. He is greeted by the two unscrupulous winemakers, César and Ugolin, who proceed to treat him like a slave. Bart is made to carry buckets of water, collect and crush grapes, sleep on the floor and test wine contaminated with antifreeze.

Meanwhile, in Springfield, Adil arrives and turns out to be a sweet and helpful boy. Homer immediately takes a shine to him, and it is noticeable that he is a better son and role model than Bart ever was. Unbeknown to the family, Adil is actually a spy sent by his government to obtain blueprints of the nuclear plant's reactor. Homer unwittingly takes him on a tour of the power plant and thinks nothing of the many photographs Adil takes, which Adil sends home by a secret fax machine in Bart's treehouse.

When Bart is sent by his captors to Paris to buy a case of antifreeze, he sees a gendarme and tries to ask for help, but the gendarme doesn't understand English, and only gives Bart a piece of candy. Bart walks away, despairing over his own stupidity, then unconsciously begins speaking French to himself. Realizing he has become fluent in French, he runs back to the gendarme and tells him everything. The wine-makers are swiftly arrested and Bart finishes his stay in France being hailed as a hero.

In Springfield, Adil is caught by the FBI and is exchanged for another boy of the same age who was an American spy caught in Albania. Bart returns to his family, bringing them French gifts. When Homer has trouble opening a bottle of wine, Bart mutters "Mon père, quel bouffon" ("My father, what a buffoon!" in French), Homer declares that he is proud that his son can speak French and then opens the bottle.

[edit] First Appearences

First appearences in this episode are for:

Agnes Skinner

[edit] Cultural references

César (left) and Ugolin (right).

The episode's title is a play on John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath.
The two winemakers, César and Ugolin, are named after the peasants from the 1986 French films Jean de Florette, and Manon des Sources.^[1]
On the way to the chateau, Bart and Ugolin driver pass through scenes depicted in several famous paintings, notably Bassin aux nymphéas by Claude Monet, Champ de blé aux corbeaux by Vincent Van Gogh, Le rêve by Henri Rousseau and Déjeuner sur l'herbe by Édouard Manet.^[1]
Bart's airplane on his way back is called "Air France 1789", the year the French Revolution took place.