"They Saved Lisa's Brain" is the twenty-second episode of Season 10.

Synopsis[]

After a riot breaks out at a local gross-out contest, Lisa writes an open letter to the town about the people's lack of intellectualism, which captures the attention of the local MENSA chapter, who end up running the town after Mayor Quimby flees Springfield, thinking MENSA is after him for a lottery winning scandal. Meanwhile, Homer steals runner-up prize from the gross-out contest: a boudoir photography session, which he tries to keep it hidden as the photographer tries to make a sex symbol out of a fat, ugly, balding man.

Full Story[]

The citizens of Springfield take part in a contest hosted by KBBL Radio to see who can do the stupidest thing, in order to win a trip to Hawaii (really Hartford, Connecticut). Lisa, who is forced by Marge to watch, is very disgusted by this as it shows how dumb the town is, especially with participants like Bart swallowing various objects, Barney belching after drinking an entire six pack of Duff (though Barney is applauded off the stage before he can juggle chickens), and Homer singing a spoof of Foreigner's "Hot Blooded" while dressed in a suit made of popcorn kernels and popping them with hair dryers (which ends with Homer's indignant reaction to getting a four by the judges and Barney's chickens attacking him). The contest (much like most public events in Springfield) soon descends into a riot after Rainier Wolfcastle declares himself the winner for "...being seen with you freaks", Lenny hurls a urinal cake off his urinal costume at Krusty's head, Krusty chucks a trophy at Lenny, which ends up hitting Kirk van Houten (dressed as a baby, complete with pacifier), and everyone hurls Grandma Plopwell brand pudding at everyone and turns over a truck filled with fine art (but not before Homer vandalizes a van Gogh self-portrait).

Lisa is disgusted and writes a letter to the newspaper criticizing the town's lack of refinement. Lisa's letter is published, but she is miserable when no one will read it. Lisa receives a letter to go to a house for a secret meeting. Upon visiting the place, she is welcomed as a member of Springfield's MENSA chapter, a group of highly intelligent people. Among them are Principal Skinner, Dr. Hibbert, Comic Book Guy, Professor Frink and Lindsey Naegle.

During a recreation of the renaissance in Springfield Park, their gazebo is wrongfully being used by Lenny, Carl, Barney, Sam and Larry, who stand around drinking and tell Principal Skinner to beat it when he says that MENSA booked the gazebo. When the group complains to Chief Wiggum, he ignores them, calls them shemales, and joins the others in drinking. Outraged that, as Dr. Hibbert puts it, "they live in a town where the smartest have no power and the stupidest run everything", they confront Mayor Quimby for their grievances, who mistakenly thinks they found stolen lottery money and flees town indefinitely. Now without a leader, the group consult the city's constitution

, which allows for the most educated citizens to run office on his behalf. The newly appointed leaders then take this opportunity to make beneficial changes to Springfield, including euphemizing jury duty to "the Justice Squadron" to encourage more people to attend, remove the green light from the traffic lights and implementing clocks to run on the metric system. However, their governance starts crumbling when each member selfishly chooses to pass laws on their own without consulting with the others. During a town meeting in the park, they openly argue about which laws ought to be passed, when Stephen Hawking makes a surprise visit and criticizes their falling utopia. The town falls into a riot and Hawking reassures Lisa that

sometimes even the most intelligent are fallible, except him, of course. Marge tells Lisa that everyone has a different idea of the perfect world, only to be caught by Hawking reading that message off his computer screen.

In the subplot, Homer steals a prize from the gross-out contest and gets a coupon for a free pornographic photo session. He shows his pictures to Marge, but to his discomfort, she is more fascinated by the background setting than Homer's sex appeal.

Behind the Laughter[]

Production[]

This episode marks the first named appearance of Lindsey Naegle. She had previously appeared in other episodes (The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show and Girly Edition), but as an unnamed network executive. Stephen Hawking who guest starred on the show was more than happy to appear in the episode, only on condition he wasn't shown drunk on screen.

Citations[]