Some Enchanted Evening

"Some Enchanted Evening" is the thirteenth and final episode of Season 1. 
This episode was given the production code 7G01, which means that this is the first episode of the series to ever be produced; and it was intended to air as the series premiere in fall 1989, but aired as the season one finale due to animation problems. The Christmas special "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire" premiered in its place on December 17, 1989. 
==Synopsis==
After Marge calls a radio station psychiatrist and spills her guts on how uncaring Homer is, Homer makes up for it by taking Marge out on the town and leaving the kids with the only babysitter who isn't afraid of caring for the Simpson kids...who turns out to be a wanted fugitive.
==Full Story==
On a Friday morning, the Simpson family are eating breakfast together. Lisa and Bart have a tug-of-war over a donut, causing the box to rip open, and Homer (who eats the donut, much to Bart and Lisa's disapproval) is reading the newspaper. After Bart and Lisa leave for school, Homer leaves for work at the power plant without noticing and saying goodbye to Marge. Marge and Maggie are then left alone at home while listening to Bill Pye on the radio. Not long later, a commercial comes on the radio, which wants Marge to call Dr. Marvin Monroe's on-the-air therapy if she has problems with life. She does so, and tells Monroe that she is tired of Homer.
At work, Homer hears Marge talking about him on the phone, which other power plant employees also hear, and they laugh at it. Homer, who is embarrassed about hearing Marge over the radio, later goes to Moe's Tavern instead of home that night, where he asks Moe for advice. Moe tells Homer that he should take her to a fancy restaurant, spend one night at a hotel, and buy her some flowers. Back at home, as a furious Marge impatiently waits for him to come home and tell him off, Bart, Lisa and Maggie wisely keep their distance from her. At the florist's, Howard's Flowers, Homer buys a single rose, as the flowers are very expensive. Homer arrives home with the wilted rose and a box of chocolates and tells Marge that he loves her. Marge's complexion softens and tells Homer that she loves him and apologizes for taking him for granted. Homer forgives Marge and chooses to take her out to where Moe suggested.
Meanwhile, Bart has made various prank calls to Moe's Tavern. However, his folks are faced with a problem when they realize that their kids have no one to watch over them. To find a babysitter, Marge picks up the phone, and is surprised that Moe is still yapping at Bart for the "Oliver Clozoff" prank and hangs up, assuming that it was a crossed wire. She picks it up again and calls the Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers Babysitting Service. However, the receptionist immediately freaks out, telling her that she must be kidding when Marge identifies herself as Mrs. Simpson. She quickly refuses their services to the Simpson children due to their bad reputation with the babysitting service for a long time, which resulted in the Simpsons being blacklisted from being babysat by them. Not giving up in the slightest, Homer then calls under the alias "Homer Samson", and hires a rather rude babysitter named Miss Botz.
When Miss Botz arrives (with two suspicious looking suitcases nonetheless), Marge (who's already pampered up for her night with Homer, who's also pampered up) tells her that Maggie has to go to sleep immediately, but Bart and Lisa can stay up for an hour longer and watch The Happy Little Elves Meet the Curious Bear Cub (much to Bart's horror and hatred of the elves). When Bart tries to suggest alternate viewing in order to avoid watching the elves, Miss Botz quickly puts him in his place by mentioning that she dealt with troublesome children like him before and makes him watch the video with Lisa while she puts Maggie to bed. After a while, Bart starts to get sick of the elves, so he plans to switch to "America's Most Armed and Dangerous", where the host is talking to the audience about the notorious "Babysitter Bandit", whose real name is Lucille Botzcowski. The host also warns the viewers that she might be using a clever alias. He then shows a mugshot of the criminal on TV, who looks just like Miss Botz.
Later, as if on cue, Miss Botz, who really is the Babysitter Bandit, comes into the room, which scares Bart and Lisa as they scream and run out of the room to hide. Bart hides in the basement, while Lisa goes into the kitchen and tries to call "1-800-U-SQUEAL" on the phone. When Miss Botz tries to look for Bart in the basement, he tries to knock her out with Marge's bowling ball, but to no avail as Bart drops onto the floor and Miss Botz notices him, thus getting caught by her. In the kitchen, Lisa reports over the phone about Miss Botz, but Miss Botz is behind her, pulling her in with a rope. Lisa notices this, but just as when she is in the middle of reporting about the bandit, Miss Botz captures Lisa.
Back in the living room, Miss Botz puts Bart and Lisa on the couch and ties them up. Bart keeps on talking and moaning that she won't get away with it, making Miss Botz tape Bart's mouth up, thus being gagged and can't talk. Miss Botz then turns on the Happy Little Elves video again for them, which bothers Bart a lot more as he makes noises from underneath the tape. Eventually, a smug Lisa tells him to shut up and make the best of the situation. Meanwhile, Homer and Marge are enjoying a fancy dinner at Chez Paree, having lobsters. Once done with their meal, they go to the Ye Olde Off-Ramp Inn, where Marge has some time together with Homer in their hotel room.
Back at the house, Maggie wakes up and goes downstairs to find her siblings tied up, just as The Happy Little Elves video ends. Bart has finally had it with the elves, so he pounds his head on the couch in anger. Lisa tells Maggie that she will be able to watch the video again if she unties her. Maggie complies, saving the day once more.
The kids then decide to plan a strategy to kidnap Miss Botz. Maggie goes up the stairs and is nearby her parents' room, where Lucille Botzcowski is robbing their closet. Botzcowski, tired of the incompetent and bothersome Simpson children, follows Maggie's pacifier sucking sounds and into Bart's room with the lights off, where she is hit on the head by Bart, wielding a baseball bat. It turns out that Bart was also using Maggie's pacifier to accomplish the deed. Meanwhile, Marge discovers that there is no answer at home due to Miss Botz disabling all of the phones in the home. Back at home, with no way to call about the bandit from their home, Bart, Lisa and Maggie rush outside to a local pay phone and alert the authorities, but not before tying Lucille Botzcowski up and gagging her, and then forcing her to watch The Happy Little Elves video.
Marge and Homer arrive home, still worried about not getting an answer. Eventually, they find Lucille Botzcowski bound and gagged, and after they ungag her, she begs them to turn off the tape and warns Homer not to take his eyes off of Bart for a second. They then send her home with all of her suitcases (in which the stolen items are contained, which Homer and Marge didn't notice), plus three times her regular pay. The police then arrive along with the media, but as Bart tries to lead them to the living room, Homer grabs Bart by the shirt and berates him for his behavior towards Miss Botz. However, Homer's cut off by a reporter who asks him if he's saying that he unwittingly aided the escape of the Babysitter Bandit. Realizing his mistake, a humiliated Homer tries to save face by claiming that he fought Miss Botz before she escaped, much to the children's dismay.
Later, Homer and Marge are in bed, where Homer is watching himself looking foolish on television, so he turns it off while lamenting about being branded a, "boob" by the entire community, remarking that he just isn't that bright. Marge says that she loves him the way he is, and that if he has three children who managed to capture a criminal by themselves, he must be doing something right. She then kisses Homer as she turns the lamp off for bedtime.
==Broadcast History==
===United States===
Broadcast date(s)	Channel aired
*May 13, 1990
*August 12, 1990
*October 4, 1990
*February 12, 1995	
==Behind the Laughter==
===Production===
Due to overload and to save costs, episodes of The Simpsons are often animated overseas in South Korean animation studio AKOM, with the domestic studio producing only the character and background layout of episodes (unlike the previous series of shorts, which were entirely produced in-house in Klasky-Csupo). A work print of this episode was the first to come back from Korea. The original, rough version of "Some Enchanted Evening" is incomplete as it ends when Bart and Lisa just find out Miss Botz is America's Most Wanted. Sound effects and a soundtrack are absent and would have been inserted had there been a final version. The work print was not well received in the Gracie Films bungalow, with James L. Brooks giving a response with profanity. "Some Enchanted Evening" was the first one ever produced, explaining why it is 7G01.
thumb|Some scenes of the original version of the episode
The producers wanted a realistic environment for The Simpsons as other studios had unrealistic styles for animation such as Disney, Warner Bros, Hanna-Barbera, etc. The former two had a bendy universe where characters seemed to be made out of rubber, while Hanna-Barbera used cartoon sounds which were also declined. While the shorts lacked much realism in animation, the half-hour series had been intended to be as realistic as possible despite the unrealistic animation. 
70% of the episode's animation had to be redone. The episode was worked on during the course of the first season until finally being aired on May 13, 1990 as the season finale. The producers considered aborting production of the series if the next episode, "Bart the Genius", had similar production difficulties (it did have several fixable animation problems). They convinced FOX to postpone the season premiere for several months, although "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire", the eighth episode in production order, had to be aired as it was a Christmas special in December of 1989, becoming the first episode of the first season and the first episode of The Simpsons overall.
Also, at the end of this episode, Marge would originally reveal that under her blue hair she had a pair of rabbit ears, a clear reference to Matt Groening's comic "Life in Hell", but this ending was scraped for unknown reasons. This theory made it into The Simpsons Arcade Game. When Marge gets electrified in the game, rabbit ears can be seen in her hair.Five-minute clip.
==Transcript==
* Some Enchanted Evening/Transcript
==Citations==
de:Der Babysitter ist los
fr:Une soirée d'enfer
it:Sola, senza amore
ja:子守のおばちゃま
pl:Some Enchanted Evening
pt:Numa noite encantada
Category:Crime-themed Episodes
Category:Bart episodes
Category:Lisa episodes
Category:Season finales
Category:Maggie episodes
Category:Romance-themed Episodes
Category:Homer episodes
Category:Marge episodes
Category:Episodes featuring guest stars
Category:Dr. Marvin Monroe episodes
Category:Episodes with prank phone calls
Category:Episodes in which Homer almost loses Marge
Category:Episodes on DVD
Category:Dramatic episodes
Category:Public domain cartoons in Wales
Category:Episodes with mixed reviews
Category:Episodes where Marge cries
Category:Episodes Where Marge cries
Category:Mystery-themed episodes