By Brandon Nolta

THE SIMPSONS: After an injury involving an open grave and too much dirt going down his gullet (oh, don’t ask), Homer makes a discovery: As long as he’s lying on his back, he has a beautiful singing voice.  Recruited by the hospital to calm patients with his singing, Homer finds himself in demand all over town, hobnobbing with Placido Domingo, opening hockey games, and performing the lead in LA BOHEME at Mr. Burns’ opera house.

But, the perks of fame can be a little overwhelming for our favorite nuclear plant hazard, who finds himself pursued by lust-crazed fans. Will his marriage to Marge survive? More importantly, will Homer survive the murder attempts of the ex-president of his fan club? This week’s episode probably won’t achieve classic status, but it was much more relaxed and amusing than the series premiere. Come on, just the idea of Homer singing opera is funny. And, good news; according to Bart, the Wall Street Journal is better than ever.

KING OF THE HILL: It’s self-pity time for the Landry Longhorns, and Bobby is in full-on auto-loathe. All around, his friends are pairing up and dating, but there’s nobody for him. Thanks to a well-timed remark from one of his fellow social outcasts, Bobby seizes on the omnipresent soda machines as the cause of his fat-and-lonely status, and stands up to the principal on the issue.

Bobby’s complaints get the soda machines removed—not good for the teachers, who use the proceeds from the soda machines to fund their annual “retreats”—and the rush of power Bobby feels (and the attention of a cute blonde school reporter) starts a chain reaction.  In an attempt to get somewhere with his girl, Bobby goes head-to-head with the principal, leading to a student walkout. Since there don’t seem to be any real adults in Arlen except for Hank and maybe Peggy, the walkout becomes a near-riot, until Hank’s sound advice for surviving the inevitable police action defuses the situation.

Fortunately for everyone involved, violence is averted, Bobby finds another girl to hang out with, and the teachers all get to go to Cancun and get wasted. KING OF THE HILL may be an acquired taste, but it’s one worth acquiring; I didn’t laugh out loud like I did during a few of THE SIMPSONS moments, but it was an amusing half-hour nonetheless. Plus, I totally sympathized with the principal’s glee when he found out he could take alcohol up on the hang glider.

FAMILY GUY: So, against all the laws of the universe as established in previous seasons, Meg manages to get a job. That’s right, somebody liked Meg enough to offer her a job, other than Neil what’s-his-name. Meanwhile, Brian ditches Jillian for a day, who ends up hanging out with Peter at Disney on Ice. Because they inhabit the same side of the bell curve, they hit it off immediately and have a long conversation about, among other things, FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF.

Long and short, Jillian pushes Brian to move in with her, scaring the big dog who’s not into a committed relationship. Still, he proceeds to move in, and finds himself enjoying his new living standards, but too broke to afford it. Then, here comes Stewie with a proposal … Chris, not wanting to be left out of the economic paper chase, wheedles his way into a job with Meg, and soon eclipses her in the manager’s good graces, ending up with the assistant manager position Meg was promised and restoring the universe’s natural balance.

Now, as much as I like FAMILY GUY, I find any episode with Jillian in it to be a gigantic drag. Not just because she’s dumber than a bag of hammers, but because it brings the natural give-and-take flow between the characters to a dead stop; everything seems to come to a halt around her, because once you insert her in a scene, it becomes all about her. She’s simply too dumb to do anything else. Oh, and it’s just damn weird to see a dog in bed with a woman trying to find a condom. Call me old-fashioned. Other than that, it wasn’t bad.

AMERICAN DAD: Don’t blame the fish. I’m going to have to remember that pearl of wisdom from this week’s episode, the season premiere. Francine decides that Stan and the kids are connecting as a family, to which Stan suggests a family vacation. Off they go to Maui for some fun and sun … or so they think, until Roger breaks in and asks to borrow a blue dress for an audition. Turns out that all the Smith family vacations are fake; every year about the same time, Stan rents a set of goo chambers from the CIA, tosses the fam in, and programs a vacation to remember while he and Klaus watch the game. Shades of TOTAL RECALL!

Anyway, while Roger begins his soap opera career following the Tootsie Handbook of Acting, the Smiths break down and give into Francine’s demand to have a real vacation. They book a cruise, and wonder of wonders, Roger’s working the same boat. However, due to certain things not being in their right place—Roger on the same boat as them, the family all getting along, a hot blonde cruise employee wanting to bang Steve—Francine is certain they’re still in the goo and goes diving off the boat. Now, the episode turns into SURVIVING THE GAME, as the Smiths land on a tropical island where hunting castaways is the official sport. Or so they think … but they learn an important lesson: Nothing binds a family like a dark, horrible secret.

For those who haven’t watched AMERICAN DAD before, it’s basically FAMILY GUY with political content put in and political correctness taken out. As a result, it’s a lot more anarchic and outrageous than any other show in the Sunday night animation block, so if that’s your bag, it’s worth waiting ‘til the end of the night to see. The premiere was rude, raunchy and funny, just what I and many other viewers have come to expect from a Seth MacFarlane production. Mainly, though, I think it’s the fish. A German goldfish; fried gold all the way.