TV Recap / Review: Superintendent Chalmers Gets Fired In "The Simpsons" - "Keep Chalm and Gary On"

Last night saw the debut of the second episode of The Simpsons’ 37th season, entitled “Keep Chalm and Gary On" (a riff on the “Keep Calm and Carry On" World War II-era motivational poster used by the British government). Below are my recap and thoughts on this installment of the long-running animated sitcom.

“Keep Chalm and Gary On" begins in the Simpson family kitchen, where Bart (voiced, as always, by Nancy Cartwright) proudly posts an “A"-graded paper he wrote on the refrigerator. But his sister Lisa (Yeardley Smith) quickly figures out that Bart used A.I. to write the paper, and even their father Homer (Dan Castellaneta) can’t respond to the accusation without using A.I. to come up with a reaction. Then we cut to the teachers’ lounge at Springfield Elementary School, where the educators are in a panic because of the rampant use of A.I. in class. This eventually leads to Superintendent Gary Chalmers (Hank Azaria) to ban all smartphone usage in the school.

Stripped from their phones, the kids enlist Martin Prince (Grey DeLisle) to help them find a way to get Chalmers fired, even though Bart used to like him because he yelled at Principal Skinner (Harry Shearer). The solution is hoisting him by his own petard– the board of education is alerted to minor citational errors in Chalmers’s Masters thesis, and he is let go due to technicalities. Saddened, Chalmers heads to Moe’s Tavern, where proprietor Moe Szyslak (also Azaria) attempts to comfort him with beer, but no job means no money, so Moe’s tap sucks all the beer back up out of the glass. But after being bored by his stories (“We hoped he would be our Frasier, but he turned out to be our Rebecca.") Homer and the other barflies decide to help get Chalmers a job at the Nuclear Power Plant.

So Chalmers begins working as a “super-custodian" at the Power Plant, where Homer tells him he’s putting in too much effort and teaches him how to goof off– cutting 110% in half to become… 55%? “No, that’s still too much." Unfortunately the plant’s owner Mr. Burns (also Shearer) catches Gary loafing, so he has Smithers (Shearer once more) punish him by having him clean the tunnels behind the cooling towers. There, Chalmers discovers a race of enormous mutated snails that attack him… very slowly… and this is where things begin to get weird.

After he returns home from his workday covered in mutant snail slime, Gary is told by his daughter Shauna (Tress MacNeille) that the slime could actually be worth a fortune as a skin moisturizer treatment. So Chalmers goes into Burns’s office the next day, strips off his janitor coveralls to reveal a three-piece suit (“A businessman!" exclaims Burns) and pitches a plan. Next thing you know, Gary Chalmers is riding high as the CEO of Escarbro, which proves to be a smash-hit with middle-aged men.

Now a mega-rich Chalmers is living a new life, running the company and giving inspirational speeches. He’s even invited back to Springfield Elementary to talk to the students about his success story, where he’s shocked to discover that the kids are all using Escarbro as well, obsessed with the idea of looking even younger than they actually are. So this story wraps up with Gary using his newfound wealth to purchase the school– reclaiming the title of superintendent– and ban his own skincare products, though he maintains a stake in Escarbro and is confident that the mutant snails will continue producing slime for years to come. But there’s only one problem: he left Homer and his bumbling pals in charge of the snails’ care, and they reward their slimy wards with salty potato chips and beer. I think we all know what that does to snails.

I didn’t think “Keep Chalm and Gary On" was quite as funny as last week’s season premiere, but it still had a good amount of laughs, and the introduction of the mutant snails was such an absurd turn that I couldn’t help but appreciate it. I’m also a fan of when The Simpsons pivots its spotlight to feature some of its underutilized characters, and I believe Superintendent Chalmers counts as one of those. So as silly as those snails were, this episode gets a passing grade from me.

New episodes of The Simpsons air Sunday evenings on FOX.