"Make Room for Lisa" is the sixteenth episode of the tenth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons.
Following the home video release of The Simpsons - The Complete Tenth Season, "Make Room for Lisa" received mixed reviews from critics.
As he is unable to pay the $10,000 repair bill OmniTouch installs a cellular transmitter on the roof of his house, with the control equipment in Lisa's room.
To placate her, Homer takes her to a New Age store where they try out sensory deprivation tanks and each experience their own spiritual journey.
Lisa sees herself from the perspective of figures in her life, eventually realizing that Homer loves her enough to take her to events that he does not personally like just to make her happy.
In the episode's subplot, Marge becomes obsessed with eavesdropping on private calls picked up from the cellular tower on Maggie's baby monitor.
"Make Room for Lisa" was written by Brian Scully and was the first full episode Matthew Nastuk directed for The Simpsons.
The storyline was based on former Simpsons showrunners Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein, who also used to listen to other people's phone calls through airwave signals.
[4] While inside the isolation tank, Homer gets bored and starts singing "Witch Doctor" by Armenian-American singer Ross Bagdasarian Sr. aka David Seville.
Karma Waltonen and Denise Du Vernay analyzed "Make Room for Lisa" in their book The Simpsons in the classroom: Embiggening the Learning Experience with the Wisdom of Springfield.
The scene shows Homer, Bart and Lisa visiting the Smithsonian Exhibition, where a jacket worn by Fonzie, a character from another 70's series, Happy Days, receives more attention from visitors than the Bill of Rights.
It does however catch the attention of Homer, who picks it up and reads it while sitting in a wing chair owned by Archie Bunker, a character from All in the Family.
Homer is accosted by two security guards, who assault him using, according to Alberti, "the kind of language we have learned to accept from the erstwhile occupant of that chair [Bunker].
[7]Alberti opines that, rather than denying All in the Family's influence on The Simpsons, the series writers "mockingly embrace it" by having Homer visually likened to Bunker as he sits on his chair.
Alberti also noted that one of the security officer's use of the word "pinko", a term used for a person who is regarded as sympathetic towards communism, is "ironic" as it was used by Bunker, whose chair Homer is sitting in.
In its original American broadcast on February 28, 1999, "Make Room for Lisa" received a 7.6 rating, according to Nielsen Media Research, translating to approximately 7.6 million viewers.
Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood of I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide described the episode as having "two distinct halves, although the second far outweighs the first.
"[11] Colin Jacobson of DVD Movie Guide gave the episode a mixed review, and described its main plot as "feeling a bit stale.