Mom and Pop Art

"Gotta build fast, cement drying! Oh, English side ruined! Must use French instructions! Le Grille? What the hell is that?!"

- Homer Simpson

Mom and Pop Art is the nineteenth episode of Season 10 and aired on April 11, 1999. The episode was written by Al Jean and directed by Steven Dean Moore. Jasper Johns and Isabella Rossellini where the guest stars of the episode.

Synopsis
When Homer learns to vent his anger through home-grown artwork, he attracts the attention of a professional art dealer.

Full Story
Marge tells Homer that she wants him to do some work around the house and yard. Because of this, Homer takes Bart to the Mom & Pop Hardware store to pick up some supplies. Instead of purchasing working equipment he instead decides to purchase a D.I.Y barbecue pit. Homer makes Lisa lay the cement, and tries to assemble the pit but drops the parts into some wet cement ("Aah! Stupid Lisa!"). Homer frantically tries to get the barbecue out of the wet cement before it starts to set but makes things much worse. He gets angry at the failed barbecue and starts to beat it with an iron bar, bending and deforming it. Homer places the whole thing in a Toy wagon and takes it back to the hardware store, where he is refused a refund. On the way home, the barbecue wagon is attached to his rear bumper. While lamenting that it will follow him to the ends of the earth, the bumper falls off, the barbecue wagon hitting a woman's car. The woman, Astrid Weller, catches Homer at home and states that his barbecue mess is an artistic masterpiece. She decides to send it to the Louvre: the American Style museum and it becomes a huge success.

At home, Homer uses Bart and Lisa to help him create more sculptures. He tell them to get them mad, and Lisa tells him that Marge found out that her engagement ring is made of rock candy, and Bart says that he is failing math and that the other day, he was attracted to Milhouse. Both of these statements enrage Homer, although Bart's statement seemed to make Homer almost cry.

Marge soon becomes jealous after Homer becomes a professional artist and creates more 'masterpieces', because it is what she always wanted to do. Astrid tells Homer that he is going to appear on "Art of America", but everyone claims his new masterpieces are the same as his first one was.

Homer now needs some inspiration in order to create more art and so, by the advice of Lisa, decides to go to the Springfield Art Museum. This gives him no inspiration, and makes him feel even worse after seeing other artist's works - He also falls asleep in the museum and has a nightmare of the art attacking him. Later, Lisa tells Homer about an artist named Christo and how his art was groundbreaking. Homer finds inspiration from this: That night he and Bart cover the drains with the neighbours stolen doormats, fit all the animals in the zoo with snorkels and finally open all the fire hydrants. In the morning, Springfield is flooded - Everyone is very impressed with Homer creating the 'Grand Canals of Springfield'. The episode ends with Homer and Marge sitting down together observing his work, after Marge paints the scene (her painting is stolen by Jasper Johns).