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"My Mother the Carjacker" is the second episode of The Simpsons' fifteenth season. The episode aired on November 9, 2003.

Synopsis

Template:Spoiler

Our Favourite Family, the Simpson family, is busy doing chores in the yard, when Marge comes out and calls everyone inside immediately. They are a bit reluctant, thinking that she has a "super-chore" waiting for them inside. She manages to get them inside and tells them to watch TV. They watch the "Oops Patrol", hosted by Kent Brockman. He displays a rather ambiguous and funny headline, which Marge had noticed and called in, and got a T-shirt for it. She starts to wear it everywhere she goes and attracts a lot of attention and a bit of envy, especially from Homer. At home, he tries to put on her T-shirt, but it's too small for him. Marge enters and yanks it off him, but it's now too loose for her.

Homer starts to go crazy, wondering how to win a T-shirt. The next day, he brings a bunch of headline clippings to breakfast, in the hope of finding something funny to submit to the "Oops Patrol". All his ideas are too dumb and even Bart doesn't want anything to do with them. That night, he sticks up newspaper clippings all over his room (in a spoof of A Beautiful Mind) and tries to find some funny headline. He sees an article about the "World's Biggest Pizza" and checks it out. When he looks more closely at it, he actually finds a secret message created from the first character of each row in the article. The message informs him to meet the mystery person at the 4th Street overpass at midnight. So he decides to follow his gut (again) and go. He takes Bart along and arrives at the overpass. They wait for a while. Suddenly, the mystery person comes and Homer gets scared. Bart tries to jump on the stranger, but the stranger sidesteps and holds out a sweater, into which Bart slides as he jumps. The sweater says "World's Best Grandson" and the stranger reveals herself to be Grandma Simpson. Homer, at first conflicted about meeting his mother after so long, is ecstatic and hugs her (after he hugs a bum and tries to steal his wine).

They go to a nearby diner, where Mona apologises for all the cloak and dagger, but the government is still after her for sabotaging Mr. Burns' Germ Warfare lab back in the 1960s. She tells him that they are probably tapping his phone and reading his mail. She tells them she came back to town because she missed Homer. Just then a police car pulls up at the diner and Chief Wiggum, Lou and Eddie get out. They see Mona and recognise her and head inside. Homer, Mona and Bart run out the backdoor and drive away. Homer swears on Mona's "eventual grave", that he will not allow the cops to arrest her. Easier said than done, since Homer drives directly into the Police station and slams through the front door. The cops level their guns at them. Wiggum tells Homer he's lucky that he only destroyed bricks, mortar and attorneys. However, Mona is arrested.

Mr. Burns wants to have Mona put on trial for having sabotaged his lab. Kent Brockman does a report on Mona Simpson's exemplary life working as a crossing guard, oral historian, reader for the blind, listener for the deaf and reacher for the short. At the trial, Lisa tells the court that Mona is far less dangerous than Bart, which earns her an Indian burn from him, with the permission of the judge (who has issues with his own sister). Homer (not a man who's good with words) makes a rather emotional and heartfelt request to the jurors not to take his mother away from him again. The jurors are moved and decide to acquit Mona, much to everyone's joy and Mr. Burns' anger.

Mona is happy to be free and wants to be close to Homer and he's happy that he can be a little boy again (who gets some on the side). So she starts to give him baths, go to his "school plays", knits for him, pushes him as he cycles (though he cycles directly into rush hour traffic on the freeway). He even has Marge act like she's giving birth to Bart for Mona. He takes her to Moe's and introduces her to the patrons, although she already knows Lenny and Carl. He shows her her new room, which is filled with rather nice-looking furniture, which he stole from Ned Flanders' home.

The next day, Mr. Burns, who seems to have let bygones be bygones, announces that he is renaming the "Germ Warfare Laboratory" to the "Grandma Simpson Peace Museum and Kid-teractive Learnatorium". Homer and Mona are at the unveiling, along with a crowd of cheering onlookers. He asks her to be the first to sign in the museum's guest book. As she does it, she unwittingly tells him that she had been signing false names when visiting state and national parks. Burns records her statement and calls for the Feds, who are hiding nearby, to arrest her for supplying false information on a national park register. She is arrested again and taken away in a Fed car. Homer, unwilling to lose his mommy again, runs after the car, but keeps on losing it.

He gets depressed about losing Mona so soon. He looks at photos, which they took together, and broods. Lisa tells him that she found out that Mona is being transferred to a federal prison the next day, and suggests that they hold a candlelight vigil there. But Homer has better ideas and decides to bust Mona out.

The next day, as the bus carrying Mona and other female convicts, drives to the federal prison, Homer and Bart come to an electronic road sign and change it to say that there is a snowstorm ahead and tire chains must be used. When the guards in the bus get off to put on the tire chains, Homer sneaks inside and drives off, much to the delight of the convicts. He drops off the other convicts and tells them that they can make it back to the prison on their own! Mona and he drive off and Homer promises to hide her. Suddenly, a huge convoy of police cars get on their trail and chase them. Mona, unwilling to get Homer in trouble, pushes him out of the bus onto an abandoned bed (phew!), which rolls into a large patch of brambles, briars and nettles. Meanwhile, the cops are still chasing the bus on a cliff and Mona refuses to give herself up, despite Wiggum's hippie-translated warning. As Homer watches on in horror, the bus falls off the cliff into a lake. The bus then blows up and a huge avalanche of rocks from the opposite cliff, covers up the lake. Homer cries at the thought that his mother is dead.

The next day, they hold a funeral for her and Homer is heart-broken. He gets even unhappier, when the coffin rolls down the hill, and kicks the headstone erected for Frank "Grimey" Grimes. That night, he looks at newspaper headlines, in the hope that his mother has left a message for him. He tells his family that they never found Mona's body; the coffin contained last week's garbage. He finds an article, in which the first letters of each row spell out "I M O K". Happy in the knowledge that she is alive, he goes to sleep. However, he has overlooked one article about a giant taco, in which Mona has encoded another message, saying that she escaped from the bus and made some friends with a nice young couple, with whom she visited a Seaside Diner and had Rhode Island-style clam chowder with crackers.

Trivia

• This is the second episode to feature Grandma Simpson.
• This is the first episode that was written by Michael Price.
• The newspaper headline Homer holds up reading "Cranford Man Missing" is a reference to Cranford, New Jersey, the home town of writer Michael Price's parents.

Cultural references

• The title is a play on the 1960s sitcom My Mother the Car.
• The Oops Patrol segment on the news is a play on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno's segment Headlines, where people submit absurdities in the newspaper, such as a sale advertisement for "Protestant" Armor-All Wipes, when the wording should be "Protectant" Armor-All Wipes.
• The scene where Homer puts all the articles on the wall is a direct parody of A Beautiful Mind.

Newspaper Articles

Iowa Home to World's Largest Pizza

'Home sweet home. That's{cutoff}
One pizza that's making its'{cutoff}
Most sizeable pizza in the'{cutoff}
Every state wants to hold it'{cutoff}
Rhode Island is our smalle'{cutoff}
Montana boasts the bigge'{cutoff}
Even Idaho brags about its'{cutoff}
Eventually wanted to mak'{cutoff}
To many in Ames, Iowa, w'{cutoff}
Men and women who dre'{cutoff}
Eat pizza like LA students'{cutoff}
4th attempt at doing some'{cutoff}
Saved the state. "There wa'{cutoff}
To brag about," said Dale'{cutoff}
Recently moved to Nebras'{cutoff}
Entertainment, if you can'{cutoff}
Eating a slice of big pizz'{cutoff}
To draw him back "for goo'{cutoff}
Others in the state seemed to'{cutoff}
Very enormous pizza was bei'{cutoff}
Eaten, and when informed of'{cutoff}
Responded, "Who cares? I do'{cutoff}
Pizza, or any un-American fo'{cutoff}
Asparagus, or something gro'{cutoff}
Sure, I'll give it a whirl. It can'{cutoff}
Smallish food, I don't care. Th'{cutoff}
Mean it won't taste good. It o'{cutoff}
It won't make the evening ne'{cutoff}
Don't quite a lot of things we'{cutoff}
Neglected by you liberal rep'{cutoff}
Intensely anti-U.S focus on w'{cutoff}
The uneaten portion of the 3'{cutoff}
Eventually be turned into lux'{cutoff}

Giant Taco built in Mexico

How about those crazy Mexicans?
One day they're attacking our best Alamos, or
Manufacturing nice leather belts to sell
Eager U.S tourists with uneventful trousers.
Recently, though some students in Northern
Yucatan tried to make something to wear under
One's belt. They ended up making... history.
Until yesterday, the largest taco every built
Resided in the LA, home of Dom Deluise, who
Moved it from room to room to view it as he
Oversaw the operation of his bustling career.
That taco is now among the world's smallest.
He was unavailable for comment at press time.
Earlier this month, in attention-straved Iowa,
Residents made what they believed would be the
Largest food ever prepared, a 378-ton pizza.
Once the Yucatan Taco tipped the scales at a
Very impressive 413,845 tons, Iowa's feat was
Eclipsed, and the state was, again, forgotten.
Some in Iowa vowed revenge on the citizens of
Yucatan saying, "If they want war, bring it
On. The people of Iowa are prepared. We've
Used this week bulking up on American pizza".
I uhjdbrghbdjkthbgkuhtbrtihihtilhdtkjgkjdkjdkjkjh
E dfjhgdkjhfjdfng djhgkhedrghek
S regkkjbdrfbnkjdhfgnrgfherhjhjrdhfhfhf
C dkfnkjdgkuhertuiuhtihegkjerkhgieuthgkurhtiugh
A ieutkhkuhetiugheriuthgihetgkhnekdrnkdnkjndfg
P nekdnknjrthkjnrethg;ieuthr;oiwjhoh[pjhtgjhrpiht
E iuhrethgieuhgiuherngunrerununrrgrunrngnurn
D etgiuhetuhertighukrehthnetkughkuehtriuhti;hgr
F ikthn;klijrshjk;ushk;ushtiughsreiputhgipuehrtgiu
{cutoff}

Quotes

• Homer: I couldn't sleep because I thought there might be a sign of my mom in one of these articles. They never did find her body.
  Bart: Then what was in the coffin?
  Homer: Last week's garbage. I missed the pick-up date.
• Bart: Mom made the Oops Patrol! Hot damn!
  Homer: Bart, you're not at school! Don't swear!
• Homer: Marge, wake up! The newspaper's talking to me!
  Marge: Oh, relax. I'm sure it's just your brain going crazy.
  Homer: I wish!
• Bart: Can't we go home? This overpass smells like urine.
  Homer: They all do.
  Bart: Fresh urine.
  Homer: (zips up pants) The bathroom's a block away.
• Homer: I love you so much, but it's so hard for me to trust you. Oh, what the heck? Give me a hug, you.
  Mona: Homer, you're hugging a bum.
  Homer: I know. I'm working my way up to you.
  Bum: Hey! Gimme back my wine! (takes a bottle from Homer)
• Homer: Hmmm. I think the government has better things to do than to read my mail.
  (elsewhere)
  Government agent: Most people write letters to movie stars. This Simpson guy writes to movies. "Dear Die Hard, You rock. Especially when that guy was on the roof. P.S.: Do you know Mad Max?"
• Female convict: I hope this ride never ends 'cause I'm getting executed after it's over.
• Mona (into bus radio): Granny to the man! Granny to the man!
  Wiggum (reading a "Hippie-English" dictionary while speaking into his radio): This is the man. We'd think it'd be a gas if you turned that magic bus around and kept on truckin' to our pigpen!
  Mona: I don't know what you're saying, but I'm not turning back!
  Wiggum: Then listen to me, lady! The only way you are getting off this mountain is in a box or a funicular.
  Lou: What about a hot-air balloon?
  Wiggum: Yeah, pipe down, Jules Verne.

• The Simpsons episodes, season 15