Who does billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk turn to when he's run out of ideas? Homer Simpson, of course.
The CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Motors made a guest appearance on this week's episode of The Simpsons, titled "The Musk Who Fell to Earth."
Cited by kid genius Lisa Simpson as "possibly the greatest living inventor," Musk lands his rocket ship on the cartoon family's lawn, utterly drained of inventive ideas. But as soon as Homer opens his mouth, Musk finds the bizarre ramblings that pour out to be the perfect springboard for potentially life-changing concepts.
"Oh, man. I wish those were white meatballs," the always-hungry Homer says of the growing pile of Musk's crumpled notepad pages.
With a flourish of trumpets, the inventor has a spark of genius: "Synthetic meat that you can print in your printer," he ponders, urging Homer to "say something else."
"Don't tase me, bro. Chocolate rain," Simpson spouts, inspiring Musk's idea to use electroplating to remove metal ions from rainwater to make it suitable for drinking.
"What about the chocolate?" Homer implores.
"We'll make the device a soothing chocolate color. Brilliant," Musk says.
Finding a new muse in Homer, Musk presents plans like a cream cup made out of sugar so it dissolves in coffee, a yoga mat that rolls itself up, and baseball tickets that guide you to your seat.
He even debuts the Springfield "Hyperloop"—a sort of first look at Musk's $6 billion high-speed travel circuit to transport passengers between U.S. cities. A recent tweeted suggested a real-life Hyperloop test track may be developed somewhere in Texas. Let's just hope it fares better than the animated version, which spun a hamster in circles before it lost its lunch.
Musk's pie-in-the-sky ideas leave Springfield in an economic depression, forcing the inventor to depart with his tail between his legs—while flying away in a SpaceX Dragon rocket ship.
"For a man who likes electric cars, he sure burns a lot of rocket fuel," Lisa muses.
Musk described the experience as "trippy" and took to Twitter on Tuesday to discuss some of the episode's science, explaining, among other things, that his private space company doesn't use an electric rocket to reach orbit "cuz that is impossible."
Reason is Newton's Third Law. In vacuum, there is nothing to "push" against. You must react against ejected mass.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 26, 2015
And pls don't ask me about space elevators until someone at least builds a carbon nanotube structure longer than a footbridge
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 26, 2015
In 140 characters, Musk also covered ion thrusters and space elevators. But he failed to mention perhaps the most important moment of Monday night: the self-packing suitcase.
Watch the full episode online via Hulu Plus. And check out Our Favorite Geeky Moments on The Simpsons in the slideshow above.