They Saved Lisa's Brain

A low-fat pudding, Grandma Plopwell's, is the sponsor of a Springfield contest that promises a luxurious trip to the most disgusting and dimwitted contest participant in town. Many Springfield residents enter the contest, but things do not go well when one of the judges, Rainier Wolfcastle, declares himself the winner for "being seen with you freaks". The contest ends in a riot and Lisa ends up hit in the face twice with pudding. She denounces Springfield for its anti-intellectualism in an open letter that ends up in the newspaper, for which no one reads. This impresses the Springfield Mensa chapter, which accepts her for membership after Principal Skinner shared her placement tests and she brought them a pie for their latest meeting.

Lisa joins Mensa alongside Comic Book Guy, Dr. Hibbert, Principal Skinner, Professor Frink, and Lindsay Naegle. After the pleasantries, Lisa finds herself at home alongside the Mensa members, whose sense of humor is so esoteric that it is said to be enjoyed by the "Dennis Miller ratio" of Americans. After being bullied out of their reserved gazebo at a park by drunks and Chief Wiggum, they fear that Springfield's quality is poor because of the city's stupidest residents having power over their civic institutions. The Mensa group goes to confront Mayor Quimby about the gazebo incident, until he escapes from the city when he mistakenly thinks the group has evidence about his corruption. The town's constitution states that in the absence of the mayor, the town is to be governed by the smartest by geniocracy. Now in control of Springfield, the group hopes that things will become much better.

Once in control, however, the group allows power to go to their heads. At first they efficiently implement their ideas for Springfield, which include banning green traffic lights and playing only classical music at the dog races, which elevates Springfield past East St. Louis on the list of America's 300 Most Livable Cities. However, they begin to internally fight over other ideas such as having theaters for shadow puppets and a broccoli juice program, and their wildly unpopular plans at a public meeting (including the banning of all contact sports and Comic Book Guy's plan to limit breeding to every 7 years) further expose the rifts inside the group.

The Springfield townspeople, angered by the new laws, surround the intellectuals in an angry mob and bring an end to Mensa's rule. Stephen Hawking has shown up to see what the Mensa group is up to and makes it clear he is unimpressed; however, he saves Lisa from being seriously injured by the angry townspeople. In the end, Hawking and Homer meet at Moe's Tavern for a drink. Homer imitates Hawking in an attempt to make him pay the tab and gets punched by a boxing glove on a spring, which is concealed in Hawking's wheelchair.

In the episode's other storyline, Homer steals a gift certificate during the post-contest and has erotic photos taken of himself as a gift to Marge, who gets distracted by the interior design Homer did in their basement.

Lisa's Rival

Lisa feels her status as top student in the class is threatened when a new student named Allison Taylor arrives at Springfield Elementary. While Lisa initially admires having another 8 year old who matches her intellectual prowess, she becomes shocked upon learning that in fact Allison is a year younger than her and had been skipped ahead from the 1st grade in addition to which she is also an aspiring saxophone player.

Lisa tries to befriend her, though she battles her envy and fears that she will lose her purpose. At a band practice, the two girls end up in a saxophone duel that results in Lisa passing out from over-exertion. Their rivalry comes to a head during Springfield Elementary's annual diorama building competition. Allison constructs a scene from "The Tell-Tale Heart", by Edgar Allan Poe. Lisa goes to great efforts to produce a better diorama, a scene from Oliver Twist, but it is immediately destroyed by an electric fan that Lisa utilizes, along with fake snow, to simulate a "bitter snowstorm". Bart decides to intervene and help Lisa sabotage Allison's entry so she can win. On the day of the diorama contest, he distracts the other students with his own demonstrations to give Lisa time to switch Allison's entry with one containing a cow's heart. After Principal Skinner chases Bart away, he discovers the cow's heart in the diorama and proceeds to humiliate Allison in front of the entire school. Soon Lisa's conscience intervenes and she produces the real diorama.

However, Skinner is unimpressed by both Lisa's and Allison's work and declares Ralph Wiggum's collection of Star Wars action figures to be the winner. In the end, Lisa and Allison put aside their differences and become friends as they walk off into the sunset, picking up Ralph along the way after he accidentally trips and breaks his action figures.

The episode's subplot follows Homer after he encounters and then steals hundreds of pounds of sugar he finds at the site of Hans Moleman's truck accident. Homer decides he can get rich by selling the sugar door-to-door. He keeps the sugar in a pile in his back yard, where he obsessively guards it from thieves. Soon, the sugar attracts bees from a local apiary. The beekeepers track the swarm down and offer to buy the bees back from Homer for $2,000. Before the transaction can be completed, however, it begins to rain, dissolving the sugar; the bees fly away, leaving Homer without any money or sugar.

I bent my wookie.

How many gazebos do you shemales need?