How The Test Was Won
Well first of all: The Simpsons have a new intro, instead of the “glow stick” that Homer chucks out of the window bouncing on the street, Otto sucks it up, then the end seqence when both cars arrive and Homer gets slammed into the door is longer with the Simpsons family performing a “mini story” every episode. This time it is about different times and series. This episode, “how the test was won” is all about Springfield Elementary – a new school year is about to kick-off and federal funds are to be distributed which is why a federal test is being prepared for. To get better results, Principal Skinner’s superior sacks all the usual suspects (Bart and the rowdie crew along Nelson and Wiggum’s stupid boy). They go on a fun journey and learn that school “outside school” is quite interesting. Homer in the meantime had forgotten to mail in his insurance letter and freaks out when he realizes that “he is know responsible for his own actions” – quite hilarious to see what happened to him in the past (ouch)…

Download Simpsons S20E11 – How The Test Was Won via Rapidshare.com

not my links

Episodes in between will be posted soon or later, enjoy!

The Burns and the Bees
Mr. Burns wins a professional basketball team in a poker game at the annual billionaire’s retreat. In an effort to lure fans he decides to build a state-of-the-art facility, but the stadium site is on the last remaining bee colony in Springfield and Lisa leads the charge to block Burns’ building.

Download Simpsons S20E08 – The Burns and the Bees via Rapidshare.com

not my links – according to the FOX website and other blogs there seem to be no other series (cartoons, the usual suspects, Ad, FG) this week. Simpsons only this week then.

Mypods and Boomsticks
Last week’s Simpsons was a bit shit with the crossword puzzling theme, so here is another one. In this episode Homer suspects Bart’s new friend, Bashir, of involvement with a terrorist plot to destroy the Springfield Mall. Sounds like a decent EP to me

Download Simpsons S20E07 – Mypods and Boomsticks via Rapidshare.com

not my links

Homer and Lisa Exchange Cross Word
Lisa discovers she has an impressive knack for solving crossword puzzles and she enters in a city-wide crossword tournament. Feelings are hurt though when Homer bets against Lisa in the championship match.

Download Simpsons S20E06 – Homer and Lisa Exchange Cross Word via Rapidshare.com

not my links

Dangerous Curves
The Simpson clan takes a road trip to a cabin in the woods that Homer and Marge once vacationed at 20 years ago. In a series of flashbacks Homer and Marge reflect on some history from their courtship and Bart and Lisa recall some pleasant memories from their very early days.

Download Simpsons S20E05 – Dangerous Curves via Rapidshare.com

not my links

Download Simpsons S20E04 – Treehouse of Horror XIX via Rapidshare.com

not my link

Download The Simpsons S20E03 – Double, Double, Boy in Trouble via Rapidshare.com

not my link

American Dad S04E02 The One That Got Away

Roger is certain that someone has stolen his identity when he discovers that someone has maxed out his credit card. While he attempts to do the crook justice, he realizes things are not quite right and seem all too familiar. Meanwhile, the rest of the Smith family gets sucked into a mean game of Simon.

Download American Dad S04E02 via Rapidshare.com

Family Guy S07E02 I Dream of Jesus

When Peter becomes completely obsessed with “Surfin’ Bird”, a 1963 hit song from the Trashmen, Brian and Stewie are determined to destroy every last copy of it. When Peter goes searching every record store in Quahog for it, he runs into Jesus.

Download Family Guy S07E02 I Dream of Jesus via Rapidshare.com

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The Simpsons S20E02 Lost Verizon

Through his new job at a country club, Bart acquires Denis Leary’s cell phone after Leary angrily chucks it away. Bart keeps the phone and makes prank calls pretending to be Leary and even accepts a job offer from producer Brian Grazer for a role in the upcoming movie Everyone Poops. When Marge finds out what Bart has been doing, the chase is on. Using the GPS device in Leary’s phone the family, along with Leary, set out to hunt Bart down.

Download The Simpsons S20E02 Lost Verizon via Rapidshare.com

And to continue in good fashion, here Friday’s Vice Presidental Debates featuring Palin vs. Biden (GoBama!)

Can be joined by HjSplit on a PC and Mac or Machacha on Mac

American Dad – 1600 Candles
The Smith family gets ready to celebrate Roger’s big 1-6-double-0, but are sidetracked by Steve’s horrifying announcement that he’s going through puberty! With the wounds still fresh from Hayley going through “the change” in their minds, Stan and Francine use experimental medicine to try and bypass the growing pains of having another teenager with raging hormones.

Download American Dad S04E01 via rapidshare.com (one file)

Family Guy – Love Blacktually
Brian meets the girl of his dreams, Carolyn. However, Cleveland moves right in and sweeps Carolyn off her feet. Desperate to win her back, Brian must do anything he can, even if it means involving Cleveland’s ex-wife, Loretta.

Download Family Guy S07E01 via rapidshare.com (one file)

The Simpsons – Sex, Pies and Idiot Scrapes
Once Ned and Homer’s bounty hunting partnership takes a turn for the worse, Homer becomes the hunted, as Ned is on the prowl for him after he skips bail. Meanwhile, Marge mistakenly takes a job at an erotic bakery.

Download The Simpsons S20E01 via rapidshare.com (one file)

And just for you, as Obama “Change – yes we can” fans, I am throwing in this one:
2008 US Presidential Debate 1 (this is the first US Presidential debate aired on TV last Friday (thought McCain suspended the debate, what a nut…)

http://rapidshare.com/files/148887296/Obama_McCain_Presidential_Debate__1__09-26-08_.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/148897438/Obama_McCain_Presidential_Debate__1__09-26-08_.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/148906163/Obama_McCain_Presidential_Debate__1__09-26-08_.part3.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/148915026/Obama_McCain_Presidential_Debate__1__09-26-08_.part4.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/148915847/Obama_McCain_Presidential_Debate__1__09-26-08_.part5.rar

Download: Part 1 (100MB) / Part 2 (80MB) / rapidshare.com

As always I do not know how long these links are accessible nor will I provide an alternative download. I merely index what I find on the net. Take what you can or look for yourself and share those links!

“I Don’t Wanna Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” is the 4th episode of The Simpsons’ nineteenth season, and first aired on October 14, 2007, although it was originally scheduled to air on September 30, 2007. It was written by Dana Gould and directed by Bob Anderson. It guest stars Steve Buscemi as Dwight, Ted Nugent as himself and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who reprises her role as Snake’s girlfriend Gloria for the first time since the episode “A Hunka Hunka Burns in Love”.

Plot

Lisa is named “Student of the Millennium”, so Marge stresses that Homer has to attend her ceremony due to past absences at most of the kids’ events. Homer then wakes up early and takes Maggie to the school auditorium. Meanwhile, Marge is waiting in line at the bank, and gets impatient after the line doesn’t move, so she strikes up a conversation with an apparent charming man named Dwight. He later takes out his pistol and holds up the bank. Gil Gunderson then arrives, prepared for his new job as a security guard, however he is repeatedly shot by Dwight’s accomplice and is apparently killed.

Homer is smugly waiting for Marge at the ceremony. Marge privately calls Homer, informing him she’s a hostage at a bank robbery. Dwight notices Marge on the phone. Dwight makes a compromise; he will promise to turn himself in as long as Marge promises to visit him in prison, to which she reluctantly agrees.

A nervous Marge returns home. Homer attempts to convince Marge not to visit Dwight in the prison, but Marge wishes to honor her promise and visit him. However, while going to the prison, she makes continuous stops to avoid going to the prison, and misses visiting hours. At the prison, Dwight expectantly waits for Marge. While watching Snake Jailbird and his girlfriend, Gloria, Dwight becomes depressed. Dwight becomes angry, and Marge’s guilt begins to get to her while watching a frightening horror movie about a prisoner who was to be electrocuted. At the same moment, Dwight is breaking out of Springfield Penitentiary. He finds Marge’s address in a newspaper, and sets out to find her.

At home, while watching TV, Kent Brockman makes a news report on “Dwight David Diddlehopper’s” escape from prison. Dwight begins stalking Marge in various places, and successfully catches up to Marge and keeps her as his hostage. Dwight takes her to the same amusement park where he was abandoned by his mother, with the intention to have Marge help him repay the time he had lost, and promises to let her go afterwards, to which Marge, out of sympathy, agrees. He and Marge then ride the Viking ship ride together. Chief Wiggum arrives attempting to save Marge, but he is caught in the ride. Dwight jams the ride’s gears by throwing in his own body to save Wiggum. He survives, fortunately, and returns to prison after being hospitalized and making a full recovery. Back at the prison, Marge finally visits Dwight, who gives her a flattened dandelion encased in a bar of soap he had carved for her with a message on the back intending to recruit her in helping him attempt another prison break. Marge does not agree to the escape attempt and Dwight, although saddened, says she can keep the token.

Reception

The episode had 8.83 million people on its first run. Robert Canning of IGN throughtly enjoyed Buscemi’s appearance, who particularily enjoyed the scene where the fun house mirror ballooned Buscemi’s eyes to a “hilarious extreme”; he also felt Buscemi’s voice was the first guest voice of the year to have been used to its fullest potential. Despite the humour of the episode, he also stated the ending of the episode did indeed falter a bit at the end, and felt it couldn’t deliver as many laughs as everything that came before it. This episode was also one of two episodes he enjoyed this season, the other being “Midnight Towboy”[2]

Cultural references

* The title of this episode is a play on the title of the 1969 autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou.
* The bank robbery is a parody of Dog Day Afternoon. Dwight’s partner has the same long but receding hairstyle that John Cazale wore in that movie.
* When Dwight crawls though the prison sewage pipe, this is a parody of Shawshank Redemption, where the main character in that film gains freedom from prison by crawling through a dirty sewage and waste pipe.
* The song featured when Dwight stalks Marge is “Who Can It Be Now?” by Men at Work.
* When Marge and Dwight are at the amusement park you can see the ride “Dilbert’s Flying Cubicle” in the background, a reference to Scott Adams’s popular comic Dilbert. The theme song of the Dilbert animated series, “Forbidden Zone”, can be heard in the background for a large portion of the remaining scene. A character in the previous episode Please Homer Don’t Hammer ‘Em appeared wearing a shirt reading Dilbert’s Flying Cubicle.
* The Itchy & Scratchy episode “The Un-Natural” parodies the baseball steroids scandal. The title references the book and movie The Natural.
* Chief Wiggum watched The Negotiator on a portable DVD player to learn how to deal with a hostage situation. He mentions several plot points to the movie as he is calling out the chapter titles. He also mentions that the lead characters names are Danny Roman and Chris Sabian.