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"Cape Feare" is the second episode of The Simpsons' fifth season. The title—and plot—are a spoof of the 1991 film Cape Fear. This is also the last episode written by the original writing staff.

Synopsis

Template:Spoiler Bart gets many letters, which threaten to kill him, all written in blood. One letter which is not written in blood was actually written by Homer, because Bart tattooed "Wide Load" to his butt. Homer believes it is "probably the person you least suspect". Bart is left on edge by this, which results in him overreacting to several innocuous situations.

Marge pleads with Chief Wiggum for protection, but in vain. Lisa thinks the culprit could be Moe, who may have discovered that it was Bart who had been making prank calls to his bar. It turns out that Moe is only stocking pandas in the backroom. Bart still wonders who the culprit really is...

The scene switches to the Springfield State Prison, and we see that the writer is Sideshow Bob. He writes another threatening letter in blood to Bart and then proceeds to write to Reader's Digest (in blood). He faints due to the blood-loss and his cell-mate, Snake, advises him to use a pen. The next day, Sideshow Bob's parole hearing is up. Wiggum and Selma give their testimonies, which Bob's lawyer rebuffs. After promising that he is no threat to Bart, he is paroled. Later, the Simpson family goes to watch a movie "Ernest Goes Somewhere Cheap". Sideshow Bob is also there sitting in front of them, smoking a cigar and laughing quite exaggeratedly. Homer (who is smoking an even larger cigar) bends over to Sideshow Bob, asking him to quiet down, but a funny moment in the film causes Homer to nearly bust Bob's eardrums. When Bob protests, the family on seeing who it is, realise that Bob had actually sent those letters.

At the Simpson home, Chief Wiggum helps set up a network of trap strings attached to a Krusty doll, with Wiggum assuring the Simpsons that the trap is infallible and once someone is in your home, whatever you do to him is nice and legal. Homer, eager to try that theory out, invites Flanders over, but Wiggum says that it doesn't work when you invite them over. Later, Homer goes to a shady-looking vigilante, who promises to run Sideshow Bob out of town, but actually pleads with him and fails. The next day, Bob goes around Evergreen Terrace in an ice-cream truck, calling out all the people whom he won't kill, and Bart's name is not on that list.

The Simpsons decide to opt for the FBI's Witness Relocation Program. After a lengthy tutoring by the Fed, Homer becomes Homer Thompson. The Thompsons move to Terror Lake, with new identities, jobs and a new houseboat to live in. The Feds also throw in a free set of cassette tapes, "The FBI Light Opera Society Sings the Complete Gilbert and Sullivan". As they drive in the car, we see that Sideshow Bob has strapped himself to the underside of the car. But Homer racing on speedbumps, throwing out extremely hot coffee and driving through a cactus patch don't exactly give him the smoothest ride ever.

We see an intro sequence very similar to that from "The Simpsons", except the name is "The Thompsons". They go inside their houseboat, after driving away all their neighbours with their manic laughing. Bob gets out, bruised and battered, from under the car and steps on a set of rakes repeatedly with his oversized feet in an absurd, prolonged sequence. Later, as Bart walks down the road, he hears Sideshow Bob's sinister voice and sees him extricate himself from the underside of another car. As he lies in the middle of the road, a parade (with elephants) comes through, celebrating Hannibal crossing the Alps. The elephants then start walking on him.

Bart runs home and warns his parents that Sideshow Bob is threatening to kill him. That night, as Bart sleeps, Homer runs in with a knife... to cut him some brownies before he goes to bed. Again, Homer busts in the room asking Bart if he saw his new chainsaw and hockey mask. Bart nearly goes catatonic with shock.

Later, Sideshow Bob arrives on the houseboat, cutting it loose from the dock, as he holds a knife that he hopes to kill Bart with, and he approaches Bart in his bedroom. Bob has also tied up the other members of the Thompsons. Bart escapes out the window and tries to hide from Bob, but he can't jump off the boat, as there are crocodiles and electric eels in the water. He sees that they are 15 miles from Springfield. Bob advances on Bart and asks if he has any last requests. Thinking fast, Bart asks Bob to sing the entire score to the H.M.S. Pinafore, much to Bob's delight and he obliges. After he finishes, he advances on Bart again, but the boat runs aground and Bob is apprehended by the cops there (who were incidentally visiting a nearby brothel).

Bob is taken away and the Simpsons (no longer the Thompsons) return home, to find Grampa looking like a woman, because he could not get to his medication while the family was away.

Template:Endspoiler

Trivia

• There is a classic scene where Sideshow Bob steps on nine rakes, just as soon as the Thompsons move to Terror Lake. DVD Commentary on the episode reveals that this sequence was extended because the episode ran short. This gag was repeated in "Day of the Jackanapes" and "The Italian Bob" as a tribute to its infamy.
• Germany banned this episode from airing for a few years due to the Up Late with McBain part in the beginning, where the announcer is shown wearing a Gestapo uniform and a swastika arm band.
• When Homer mistakes a letter as threatening to himself and the family rushes to him, a mouse can be seen rushing out of a mousehole on the lower-left corner of the screen.
• Tattoos appear prominently in this episode: Bart writes "WIDE LOAD" on Homer's butt (which prompts him to write an angry letter in black ink), and Sideshow Bob has many tattoos throughout the episode, which include a tattoo of Bart's severed head saying "Ouch, man!" on a skateboard, a skull and crossbones on his right arm, a tombstone on his left arm, the infamous "Die, Bart, Die" tattoo on his chest, and tattoos of three-letter words on three fingers on hands, which are "L-U-V" and "H-Ā-T" (in tribute to The Night of the Hunter).
• "Die, Bart, Die" is German for "The, Bart, The" indeed (as Bob claims), but "die" is the feminine German article. In order to be correct the masculine article "der" would have to be used, though using an article with a given name is very uncommon and colloquial in German anyway. "Bart" is also German for "beard", but is a masculine noun and also requires "der" rather than "die".
• A brief part of the episode can be seen in the movie One Hour Photo.
• The Union Jack seen behind Sideshow Bob is inaccurate.
• Homer is smoking a Knoxville World's Fair cigar in the movie theatre.
• This is the first of the "Sideshow Bob episodes" to air while Frasier was in production.
• The Simpson family sings Three Little Maids on their way to Cape Feare. Kelsey Grammer would also sing the song in the Frasier episode "Leapin' Lizards."
• A plot similar to this episode was used in the Family Guy episode "To Love and Die in Dixie".

Cultural References

• The "L-U-V" and "H-Ā-T" tattoos on Sideshow Bob's hands reference the tattoos "L-O-V-E" and "H-A-T-E" on Robert Mitchum's character's fingers in The Night of the Hunter. Mitchum also starred in the original 1962 Cape Fear.
• This episode spoofs three of horror films' most renowned characters: Freddy Krueger, Leatherface and Jason Voorhees. When Ned Flanders encounters Bart, he is wearing the trademark Freddy Krueger finger-razors (albeit to trim his hedges). Later, in Terror Lake, Homer scares Bart, wearing a hockey mask (like Jason) and brandishing a running chainsaw like Leatherface (although he was simply showing them off).
• The angel that Flander makes out of a large bush is a reference to Edward Scissorhands.
• The motel that Sideshow Bob was in when writing his plans to kill Bart was called the "Bates Motel", the name of the motel where the classic thriller Psycho takes place.
• Bart and Lisa watch an episode of Itchy & Scratchy which parodies the famous laser scene from the James Bond movie Goldfinger. The same scene is also parodied in the later episode You Only Move Twice.

Awards

This episode earned composer Alf Clausen an Emmy award nomination for the musical score in the episode.

External links

• "Cape Feare episode capsule". The Simpsons Archive.

• The Simpsons episodes, season 5