Take My Life, Please

"Take My Life, Please"
The Simpsons episode
Bart's chalkboard gag in the new opening
Episode no.	430
Directed by	Steven Dean Moore
Written by	Don Payne
Showrunner(s)	Al Jean
Production code	LABF01
Original air date	February 15, 2009
Chalkboard gag	"HDTV is worth every cent"
Couch gag	The Simpsons travel around the world and into outer space to find their couch. The new Plasma TV that displays the credits promptly falls off the wall.
Season 20 episodes September 28, 2008 – May 17, 2009 "Sex, Pies, and Idiot Scrapes" "Lost Verizon" "Double, Double, Boy in Trouble" "Treehouse of Horror XIX" "Dangerous Curves" "Homer and Lisa Exchange Cross Words" "MyPods and Boomsticks" "The Burns and the Bees" "Lisa the Drama Queen" "Take My Life, Please" "How the Test Was Won" "No Loan Again, Naturally" "Gone Maggie Gone" "In the Name of the Grandfather" "Wedding for Disaster" "Eeny Teeny Maya Moe" "The Good, the Sad, and the Drugly" "Father Knows Worst" "Waverly Hills, 9-0-2-1-D'oh" "Four Great Women and a Manicure" "Coming to Homerica"
Seasons
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

"Take My Life, Please" is the tenth episode of the twentieth season of The Simpsons. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on February 15, 2009. In the episode, Homer finds out that the class presidential election he lost in high school was rigged, and he gets the opportunity to find out what his life would have been like if he had become class president.

The episode was written by Don Payne and directed by Steven Dean Moore. It was the first episode of The Simpsons to air in 16:9 720p high-definition television. It was also the first episode to use the new HD opening sequence. Since airing, the episode has received mixed reviews from television critics. 6.82 million people watched the episode, and coupled with an episode of King of the Hill, it won its hour in the 18-49 demographic.

A man named Vance Connor is inducted into the Springfield Wall of Fame, and Homer recounts how he ran against Vance for class president in high school and lost. Later, at Moe's Tavern, Lenny and Carl confess to Homer that his old high school principal had ordered them to bury the ballot box containing the votes to the election. After they dig up the ballot box, Lisa counts the votes, and Homer is shocked to see that the votes put him as the winner. Outraged, he meets his old principal, Dondelinger, in a retirement center, who explains why he had to hide the ballot box: two students had talked their classmates into voting for Homer so that, after he had lost, they could laugh at him all the way through high school. He revealed it worked out well for them and Vance.

The Simpsons later have dinner at Luigi's Restaurant, where Homer remains miserable. Luigi Risotto introduces him to his saucier, who he claims can tell what someone's life could have been like by stirring tomato sauce in a certain way. By using his magical tomato sauce, he helps Homer see what his life would have been like if he had won the election: Homer would have been rich, he would have had a better position at the nuclear plant, would have lived in a mansion on the site where the Flanders now live, been closer to Abe that he would live in the house the Simpsons currently live, and would not be bald. The kids would not have been born because Homer would have remembered to use protection before sex (apparently, Marge is confused by this).