Lisa is trying to come up with something special to cook for Oliver's birthday, some 3 weeks away. Oliver is not interesting in Stuffed Kangaroo Tail or Stewed Elephant, and she eventually settles on Spaghetti and Meatballs-except instead of reading the directions on the box, she tosses the whole box of spaghetti into the huge pot of boiling water and cooks it for hours until she had a big lump about 10 inches long and 6 inches high. She also tries a meatball and winds up with a small volleyball-sized piece of meat.
Meanwhile, Oliver is approached by a man named Lester Luster who represents the Luster Paint Company. They would like to use the Douglas farm for advertising pictures-before and after they paint the house-for free.
They run into a problem when they go to paint it. The paint goes on nicely but after a couple of seconds, we hear a giant sucking sound and the paint disappears. Even multiple layers on the same area, it keeps disappearing.
Mr. Haney comes by and, more or less, explains the problem. The house, he says, is made of genuine Mississippi Chittlin Wood, that is very porous and actually needs to breathe. He tells Oliver that he can seal it off by closing the pores by using a key, and does his usual when Oliver tells him he doesn't have a pore key: "You don't have a pore key?" (with his high-pitched voice of surprise). Haney happens to have such a key and he finds the "pore key hole" but says he can't do anything because his pore key spring is busted.
Not believing Haney, Luster asks for a board to take to his company's laboratory to see what they can learn. He returns with one short board, painted bright green like Lisa wanted, but when you hold it up near your ear, you hear what sounds like an old man who just ran two blocks down the street. Oliver tells Luster he'd rather have an unpainted breather than a nicely painted wheezer.
We finish with Oliver taking Lisa to Pixley to a restaurant to see what a real spaghetti dinner looks like. I guess we should have seen it coming-the waiter brings out a tray with a lid and when he removed the lid-we see a big hunk of spaghetti with one giant meatball on top. He explains they just got a new cook from Hungary. So Lisa heads for the kitchen saying the cook might be her mother.
There were a lot of laughs despite the simplicity of the plot. Oliver has trouble picking up Lisa's dress at a dry cleaner-it is the shade of green she wants for the house-because the guy thinks Oliver is picking up his own dress, even asking if he'd like to try it on to make sure it didn't shrink. Mr. Luster is flustered when he first knocks on the door at the farm and is greeted by Arnold, the pig. One of my favorite scenes was when the man was trying to take the "before" picture of the house and Kimball kept getting in his way.
Overall, this was a very good episode featuring all new material. That makes it a 9 from me.
Meanwhile, Oliver is approached by a man named Lester Luster who represents the Luster Paint Company. They would like to use the Douglas farm for advertising pictures-before and after they paint the house-for free.
They run into a problem when they go to paint it. The paint goes on nicely but after a couple of seconds, we hear a giant sucking sound and the paint disappears. Even multiple layers on the same area, it keeps disappearing.
Mr. Haney comes by and, more or less, explains the problem. The house, he says, is made of genuine Mississippi Chittlin Wood, that is very porous and actually needs to breathe. He tells Oliver that he can seal it off by closing the pores by using a key, and does his usual when Oliver tells him he doesn't have a pore key: "You don't have a pore key?" (with his high-pitched voice of surprise). Haney happens to have such a key and he finds the "pore key hole" but says he can't do anything because his pore key spring is busted.
Not believing Haney, Luster asks for a board to take to his company's laboratory to see what they can learn. He returns with one short board, painted bright green like Lisa wanted, but when you hold it up near your ear, you hear what sounds like an old man who just ran two blocks down the street. Oliver tells Luster he'd rather have an unpainted breather than a nicely painted wheezer.
We finish with Oliver taking Lisa to Pixley to a restaurant to see what a real spaghetti dinner looks like. I guess we should have seen it coming-the waiter brings out a tray with a lid and when he removed the lid-we see a big hunk of spaghetti with one giant meatball on top. He explains they just got a new cook from Hungary. So Lisa heads for the kitchen saying the cook might be her mother.
There were a lot of laughs despite the simplicity of the plot. Oliver has trouble picking up Lisa's dress at a dry cleaner-it is the shade of green she wants for the house-because the guy thinks Oliver is picking up his own dress, even asking if he'd like to try it on to make sure it didn't shrink. Mr. Luster is flustered when he first knocks on the door at the farm and is greeted by Arnold, the pig. One of my favorite scenes was when the man was trying to take the "before" picture of the house and Kimball kept getting in his way.
Overall, this was a very good episode featuring all new material. That makes it a 9 from me.
