Sunday, Cruddy Sunday

"Sunday, Cruddy Sunday" is the twelfth episode of Season 10. It aired on January 31, 1999. The episode was written by Tom Martin, George Meyer, Brian Scully and Mike Scully. Steven Dean Moore directed.

Homer meets a travel agent named Wally Kogen who offers to send him to the Super Bowl for free if he can sign up all of his friends for a special travel package. Homer convinces Moe, Barney, Lenny, Carl, Kirk Van Houten and a bunch of other guys to sign up. All the men pile into a bus Wally furnishes for the trip and drink their way to Miami for the game. When they get there, however, they discover that the tickets Wally sold them were counterfeit.

Plot
When Springfield Elementary takes a field trip to the local post office, they are offered some undelivered mail as favors (And as a bribe to keep quiet about seeing mailmen open magic letters and take money inside). Bart ends up finding a savings book and gives it to Homer for his birthday. Homer is amazed at what the books has in store and "paints the town red" with the savings. He goes to get his tires balanced when he is conned by the mechanic that he can't leave with buying new tires. In the waiting room, he meets a travel agent, Wally Kogan, who was also suckered into getting new tires. They go to Moe's where they see a promo for the Super Bowl on TV and yearn for it. Wally reveals he's got a charter bus headed there and if Homer can fill it up, he will get to go to the big game. Homer fills up his list and he, Wally, Bart and a group of Springfield males are off to the game.

Meanwhile, Marge and Lisa fight their boredom by playing with the "Vincent Price's Egg Magic". They soon discover that the box is "feet-less" and call up the company for replacements.

Once at the game, and after enjoying the pre-game fun, the gang goes to the entrance of the stadium only to find that their tickets are phoney (and are printed on some type of cracker). Bart then spots the Super Bowl Halftime costumes and they seize the opportunity...to use them to knock the guards down and run inside. They are soon caught and put it the stadium jail.

The crew starts kicking Homer in the rear end when Dolly Parton wanders by. Having being a friend of Wally's (since he books a lot of trips to Dollywood and Euro Dollywood) she offers to help them out by combusting the lock with her own brand of makeup remover. Now free, the boys set out to find seats. After running around screaming for an hour, they wander upon a skybox and decide to eat the food rather than watch the game. Soon after, Rupert Murdoch flys in via helicopter and forces them out his skybox. They see an entrance to the field and head for it, but are pushed backwards by the winning team into their locker room and get to celebrate with them. After a day of excitement, the boys get on their bus and head for home, with Homer stealing the Super Bowl trophy.

As soon as their bus leaves, John Madden and Pat Summerall comment on the episode, praising the character of Wally and the "B-story" and showing extreme dislike of the fact that despite being a Super Bowl episode with Dolly Parton, little or no football or singing was shown. Just then, a bus arrives...with Vincent Price as the driver!

Production
This episode was shown after the Super Bowl. The writers though that the audience would be "footballed-out" by then, so they used that as a cheat for not showing any football. Also, the episode was animated before the actual Super Bowl, so to be as accurate as they could be with the teams, they used the passing of the beer mug to accurately give the names of the teams without having to reanimate the scene.

The writers were also impressed with the voice impression Dan Castellaneta did of Vincent Price, so they decided to use his character again at the end of the episode.

Among the characters Homer takes to the Super Bowl are Lenny, Carl, Bart, Barney, Wally, Rev. Lovejoy, Ned Flanders, Dr. Hibbert, Dr. Nick Riviera, Charles, Comic Book Guy, Moe, Hans Moleman, Squeaky-Voiced Teen, Blue-haired Lawyer, Krusty the Clown, Sideshow Mel, Chief Wiggum, The Sea Captain and Kirk Van Houten.