Simpsons Did It!: “Frinkcoin”

There’s a minor subplot here where Smithers calls Mr. Burns by the old man’s first name, like, twice, and Smithers ends up going to a support group for people who act as assistants for demanding celebrities.  Many of the people present apparently work for either Roseanne or Donald Trump.  Beanie Feldstein voices the counselor there.

That’s about all I want to say about that.  I always try to reference the celebrity cameos.

Oh, and the cold open mocked Cats because, well, it’s Cats.

But our story really begins as Homer and Marge have taken Lisa (and the other two) out to dinner at a vegan restaurant.  Sure, Home says he doesn’t mind if he can put a pair of googly eyes at the top of his plate, but that sure does seem weird and wrong.  Why would Lisa’s parents be this nice to her?

She has to write a paper about someone she admires for school.  Both Marge and Homer are, essentially, jockeying to be the subject of the paper, but Lisa already selected Professor Frink, causing Homer to bust out a couple sausages to eat.

Truthfully, this episode seems to go all over the place.  Lisa’s interview has Frink discuss his childhood, and his dad still looks like the guy from that one Halloween episode where Jerry Lewis voiced him.  Now Frink shares office space with a disagreeable woman who teaches humanities, and he’d like to start his own cryptocurrency.  He even has a video where guest star Jim Parsons explains how cryptocurrencies work.

Now, I have no idea if all that stuff is accurate or not.  Truthfully, I don’t really care.  Crytpocurrencies coming from a show that has been around as long as The Simpsons doesn’t seem like it’ll come off well, and I won’t be looking into it regardless.  Point is, Frink makes his Frinkcoins and is suddenly the richest guy in town.

That doesn’t sit well with Mr. Burns, who hires the nerds to either make his own currency, preferably one where men die mining the metal its made of, or else crash Frink’s.

Frink, meanwhile, has friends for the first time when Lisa suggests the prof hang out with Homer, and Homer becomes interested to get out of spending time with Patty and Selma.  They’d smoke, but they can’t now that Disney owns them.

Frink gets to go to Moe’s, and he becomes popular there, first by being the first ever winner of the Tavern’s trivia contest.  He even beat out guest star Ed “Too Tall” Jones on a question about Ed “Too Tall” Jones.  Is it because he’s Professor John “Too Fast” Frink?  No.  That’s a silly thing to say, and I made it up so I would know.

Anyway, it sure looks like Frink is happy, and that’s when Burns shows up on Frink’s yacht to casually suggest the guys are only interested in Frink’s money.  Sure enough, Frink sees Lenny swipes some cash, Barney swipe a telescope, and Homer swipe the anchor.

Burns appears to be right.  Burns also figures he can leave a chalkboard out in the town square, since said chalkboard has a formula on it that, once solved, will ruin all cryptocurrencies.  Surely the wisdom of the crowd can do that!

Um, it can.

Then again, Frink did it himself since he wanted friends, not wealth.  And Lisa is his friend now, so there’s that.

What an odd episode.  Then again, my interest in cryptocurrencies is about the same as my interest in 19th century Canadian tariff policies, which is to say it’s nonexistent.  But at least Frink is maybe happy.

Maybe.