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| airdate = {{Start date|2014|10|12}}
| guests =
| couch_gag = A parody of the cover of the 1970 [[Cat Stevens]] album ''[[Tea for the Tillerman]]'', with its closing track playing over it.<ref name=stevens>{{cite news|last1=Goldberg|first1=Lesley|title=Watch 'The Simpsons' Take On Cat Stevens in Latest Couch Gag|url=http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/watch-simpsons-take-cat-stevens-739863|accessdate=October 12, 2014|work=[[The Hollywood Reporter]]|date=October 12, 2014|archive-date=October 13, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141013040221/http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/watch-simpsons-take-cat-stevens-739863|url-status=live}}</ref>
| commentary =
| prev = [[The Wreck of the Relationship]]
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[[Ned Flanders]] and his sons are trying to reduce their use of electricity in the house but discover that [[Homer Simpson|Homer]] is using their electricity to power a [[Ferris wheel|Ferris Wheel]] and a freezer full of meat. When Ned confiscates the freezer, [[Marge Simpson|Marge]] puts the meat to use by making sandwiches, which prove popular at [[Springfield Elementary School]] when [[Bart Simpson|Bart]] and [[Lisa Simpson|Lisa]] take them there as currency.
Trudy Zangler of Mother Hubbard's Sandwich Cupboard advises Marge to open a franchise with the company. It initially struggles due to its incompetent staff (Marge fires Gil Gunderson for doing two jobs at once and Shauna Chalmers for stealing the register money), but begins to make a nice profit when the family takes over. However, business slows again when an express outlet with the same franchise opens across the road,<ref>{{cite web|title=(SI-2519) "Super Franchise Me"|url=http://thefutoncritic.com/listings/20140917fox17/|website=[[The Futon Critic]]|accessdate=October 9, 2014|archive-date=July 28, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240728211431/http://thefutoncritic.com/listings/20140917fox17/|url-status=live}}</ref> operated by [[Cletus Spuckler|Cletus]] and his family. Marge is depressed and goes to [[Moe Szyslak|Moe's]], who tells her a scam to get out of her contract with the franchise. Homer goes into the restaurant in disguise and has hot coffee spilled on his crotch and gets hit by a fire extinguisher; Marge then tells a previously unsympathetic Trudy that the family's lack of emergency medical training is a violation of her franchise contract. To prevent a massive lawsuit, Trudy reluctantly gives Marge back all of her costs and Marge exults that things turned out relatively well for the family as they broke even.
The episode ends with a scene showing a [[caveman]] Homer making the first ever sandwich from [[Megatherium|ground sloth]] meat between two [[squirrel]]s, but then he wanders to his death inside a tar pit. In the present, Homer admires the fossilized sandwich.
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"Super Franchise Me" received generally positive reviews. ''[[The A.V. Club]]'' gave the episode a B. Dennis Perkins wrote in the review, "Possessed of a unity of purpose, 'Super Franchise Me' allows its characters to breathe. Written by Bill Odenkirk, the episode sees Marge opening a franchised sandwich restaurant. No guest stars, no special events, no B-story—the episode avoids much (if not all) of the clutter that’s been distracting in many of the Simpsons episodes of the last few years and focuses on the story at hand. If that story isn’t anything special, it’s at least peppered with enough funny little character touches and low-key laughs to make the show resemble itself at its best."<ref name=":0">{{cite web|last=Perkins |first=Dennis |url=http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/simpsons-super-franchise-me-210397 |title="Super Franchise Me" |website=[[The A.V. Club]] |date=2014-10-12 |accessdate=2015-08-04}}</ref>
Stacy Glanzman of ''TV Fanatic'' gave the episode a rating of 3.0/5, calling it an "okay episode".<ref>{{cite web|first=Stacy|last=Glanzman|url=http://www.tvfanatic.com/2014/10/the-simpsons-season-26-episode-3-review-super-franchise-me/
''[[The Hollywood Reporter]]'' contrasted the nostalgic couch gag with the futuristic [[Don Hertzfeldt]]-directed one for the episode "[[Clown in the Dumps]]" which aired two weeks prior.<ref name=stevens/>
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