Brother's Little Helper

Infobox Simpsons episode
episode_name = Brother's Little Helper


image_caption= Bart becomes smart after he starts taking "Focusyn".
episode_no = 228
prod_code = AABF22
airdate = October 3, 1999
show runner = Mike Scully
writer = George Meyer
director = Mark Kirkland
blackboard = "Pork is not a verb"
couch_gag = The Simpsons are blank paint-by-numbers figures; Asian animators come in and color the family, but don’t detail their eyes.
guest_star = Mark McGwire as himself
season = 11"Brother's Little Helper" is the second episode of the eleventh season of "The Simpsons". It aired on October 3, 1999. The title refers to an early Rolling Stones song, titled "Mother's Little Helper" (the song is about pill abuse).

Plot

Principal Skinner introduces a fire safety skit to the students. When Ned Flanders catches on fire, the fire department tries to extinguish him, but it does not work because Bart is pulling a prank with the fire hose. Skinner has Homer and Marge come to the school. It is then when Bart is diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). Principal Skinner recommends that Bart take a behavior drug called "Focusyn", otherwise he will be expelled.

After several failed attempts by Homer, Marge convinces Bart to take the medication, and his behavior immediately improves. He begins paying attention in school and being respectful to his parents. However, side effects soon occur as Bart becomes paranoid that Major League Baseball is spying on the town using satellites. The doctors recommend that Bart go off Focusyn, but he refuses. Before anyone can stop him, he swallows several handfuls of Focusyn and runs away.

Bart wanders onto an Army base and manages to steal a tank (ala Shawn Nelson). He cuts a swath of destruction through the town, until he eventually stops at the school. There, he points the tank's cannon into the sky and shoots down a Major League Baseball satellite, proving his theory right. Mark McGwire appears, but instead of explaining the bizarre situation, he distracts the townspeople by hitting some "Dingers" (baseballs which fly out of sight) and then runs off with the evidence under his cap. Marge takes Bart off Focusyn for good and puts him back on "good old Ritalin", which he is okay with.

Cultural references

* The Fire Safety Day slogan, "Learn, Baby, Learn", is a spoof of "Burn, Baby, Burn".
* Homer remarks that Bart has gone from Goofus to Gallant.
* When on his rampage, in a tank, Bart sings "Don't Stop" by Fleetwood Mac.
* One of Bart's classmates (Sherry) reads aloud the poem "The Daffodils" by William Wordsworth.
* The book that Bart gives to Homer, "Chicken Soup for the Loser", is a spoof of the book "Chicken Soup for the Soul."
* On their date, Marge and Homer see the movie "Showgirls".
* Bart's Ritalin song at the end is a parody of the theme song sung at the conclusion of the Popeye animated shorts.
* The Pharm Team building is modeled after Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim Museum in New York.
* The book that Bart is reading when Lisa enters in his bedroom, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Pre-Teens", is a spoof of the book "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People".

Note

This episode marks the last time that Maggie Roswell voices Maude Flanders before Maude's death in "Alone Again, Natura-Diddly" (however Maude's voice fluctuates between Maggie Roswell and Marcia Mitzman-Gaven in the scene where she and Ned Flanders perform the play at Springfield Elementary's Fire Prevention Day).

External links

*snpp capsule|AABF22
*imdb episode|id=0701075|episode=Brother's Little Helper