Tom Savini, practical special effects artist, does a guest shot in this episode as himself where he espouses how said practical effects are still impressive, but he does so while performing the sorts of tricks that maybe could only be done in a cartoon.
There’s also a subplot where two of the meanest, cruelest, and least likable people in Springfield start dating, that being Comic Book Guy and Agnes Skinner. That was a rather foul subplot I shall speak no more of.
Homer foolishly made a bet he couldn’t eat the contents of the box of baking soda that actually came with the house. He loses and Bart gets fifty bucks. While out spending with Milhouse, the two take their last ten dollars to buy Radioactive Man #1000. They don’t have enough money, but then Martin’s mother wanders in looking to sell her son’s junk. Comic Book Guy will give her five dollars for what Bart and Milhouse correctly point out is incredibly valuable collectables. The sale ruined, Bart and Milhouse are rewarded with a ban for life from the store. Who else is banned? Nelson, Sideshow Bob, and…Matt Groening? Huh.
Well, as it turns out, Comic Book Guy has a heart attack, or cardiac episode to reference the episode title, while Tom Savini is mocking him in his own business. His job would be referred to as the widow maker if comic book store owners ever actually got married. He’s ordered to take some time off and leaves Bart and Milhouse in charge of the store since they called 911. That would be when the relationship mentioned above the cut happened, and I will not mention again.
But Bart makes Milhouse do all the real work while he does…well, whatever it is Bart does. Then Milhouse is offered a new comic about a guy named Biclops, an awkward superhero who wore glasses. Sure, Milhouse did it to impress Lisa for some reason, but it was a bad purchase and both the boys ended up in a fight that accidentally revealed Comic Book Guy’s secret film stash.
What’s down there? The good version of The Godfather Part 3, drunk Mr. Rogers, and police informant videos. It seems Homer let a radioactive ape into Flanders’ house, but to be fair, that ape totally tricked Homer.
Chief Wiggum raids the place while a movie about how Springfield was chosen to be the nuclear missile calibrating site was playing for a large, juvenile, paying audience. That gets Comic Book Guy arrested, so Bart and Milhouse…have to go back to school?
Huh. Well, maybe they learned something anyway. And that ape is still messing with Flanders.
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