Season 8, Episode 20
Aired April 13, 1997
Directed by Dominic Polcino
Written by Ron Hauge
Synopsis: After digging through the family's mail, Bart takes up an offer to receive a credit card, using the dog's name to bypass the law. After his attempts to win over the Comic Book Guy, who recognizes Bart's name, fall through, he does what any other child with a credit card would do and goes crazy with mail-in orders. One thing he orders is a collie from an ad which promises "the world's best dog", which introduces Bart and the Simpson family to Laddie, who's practically perfect in every way, totally outshining Santa's Little Helper. The family falls in love with Laddie, while their main dog is left out. However, Bart's poor financial decisions come back to haunt him (happens to the best of us), and when the credit company puts two and two together, they repossess every Bart ordered with the card, including the $1200 dog, which Bart convinces is actually Santa's Little Helper. If you had to pick between a dog who could use a toilet AND flush or one who rips up your photobooks, which would you choose? Laddie continues to prove himself around Springfield and wins over everyone while he slowly starts to wear the family out. While Bart covers for their first dog's absence, he's worried sick about Santa's Little Helper's fate, worried for the worst. However, Bart does get a chance to get his dog back after a walk with Laddie helped save Baby Gerald and he becomes a hero. As Chief Wiggum becomes head over heels with the hero pup, Bart decides to give Laddie away to the Springfield PD. Bart eventually comes clean to the family, that Laddie has a new, better home, and Santa's Little Helper isn't at the "kennel". The family is surprisingly calm at Bart's news, but encourage him to go searching for their dog. After a few helpful clues result in dead ends, Bart is eventually sent to the dog's new location, as Mr. Mitchell, a blind man's seeing dog who rechristened him as Sprinkles. While Bart doesn't do anything at first, he sets up a plan to sneak into the house and save his dog. Yes, Bart is going to steal a blind man's dog. And he nearly succeeds, until Santa's Little Helper steps on his squeak toy and startles his new owner. Bart dashes to the door out of desperation, but ends up trapping himself in a closet. After Mr. Mitchell calls the police, assuming Bart to be a burglar, he reveals his true intentions, which has Mitchell decide to see what the dog wants, if he wants to return to his family or stay as Sprinkles. The dog chooses Bart, which almost leaves Mitchell without a dog, but Laddie barges into his house with Wiggum as they finally answer his call. While Laddie appears to take a liking to the blind man, instead it turns out that he found a bag of marijuana in his pocket. This almost ends badly for Mitchell, until he insists that it's medical, which makes Wiggum decide to test it out. Bart doesn't even stick around, though, as he and his dog go home.
Historically, dog episodes have been seldom more than just fine. Just fine isn't a problem if your standard doesn't often go above that level, but considering how strong an average Simpsons episode is, it does feel that the show is at its weakest when it diverts attention to its four-legged members.
That said, there are moments where "The Canine Mutiny" comes close to topping most of Santa's Little Helper's previous episodes. It's a solid script, for one, featuring sharp, matter-of-fact dialogue from Ron Hauge. He continues to get the characters down, even for little moments, like Lisa's confession that she'll let Bart's crazy scheme slide only for the dog, and keeps things light throughout.
I say this, even though that same script calls for Bart attempting to rob a blind man with some of the cheapest slapstick this side of Mr. Magoo, and later tries to justify said robbing because said blind man is a pothead. It's a bad look, and I think that Hauge could have came up with a stronger final act.
Still, I think the first act is a lot of fun and "The Canine Mutiny" remains entertaining throughout. I don't know why the family keeps the dog, but whatever.
Season 8, Episode 21
Aired April 20, 1997
Directed by Mark Kirkland
Written by John Swartzwelder
Synopsis: Lisa takes a crack at recycling for the Junior Achievers Club, who hope to earn enough money for a trip to Albany. To inspire them, Principal Skinner is able to secure a meeting with Mr. Burns, which doesn't go well when the students (ie Lisa) start asking him about recycling, which he dismisses. Why should he care when Burns is worth $200 billion, after all? Although according to a biography of his that Lisa is combing through, he's only worth $100 million, but Smithers reveals that he's likely worth considerably less. It turns out that Burns hasn't looked at his stock investments since September 1929. Yes, literally right before the stock market crash. Realizing that he's down to the wire, Burns decides to fight upward and invest the rest of his wealth into some haphazard ideas, but Smithers and his yes men are afraid to say no. Sure enough, Burns is flat broke and has both the power plant and his house foreclosed. The bank owns both now as he has no choice to move into Smithers house, while Lenny takes over the power plant. Between his senile nature and spending most of his life oblivious to the common man, Burns struggles to adapt to his newfound poverty, and when Smithers leaves for the plant, Burns finds himself lost and confused in the supermarket. A couple of grocers notice how the once formidable Mr. Burns is struck by the difference between ketchup and catsup and send him to a retirement home. By coincidence, Lisa goes to the same nursing home as she continues to collect as much as possible for her club and runs into Burns, who has a new plan to recover his wealth- follow this shrill girl's example. The only problem is that Lisa refuses to work with an evil old man like Burns and turns him away, no matter how hard he tries. When Burns comes begging on his knees at the Simpson house, hoping for forgiveness from this most eccentric girl, Lisa eventually caves in and shows the former billionaire the joys of recycling. While it seems like underwhelming returns at first, a nickel for a soda can, Burns' determination and Lisa's moxy help them to eventually make a fortune. Burns eventually is able to open a recycling plant under Lisa's name and image, as she's guaranteed 10% of the profits. But Lisa soon regrets this when she comes inside and sees that, as Burns took one of her lessons to heart- earlier, Lisa taught him that fish can get caught from the rings that contain six-packs of cans, so Burns invested in giant nets full of these rings to capture as many fish and sea creatures as possible to turn into sludge composites. Lisa is mortified and doesn't understand how Burns can go from bad to worse, although Burns similarly doesn't understand why Lisa doesn't see things from his point of view. Realizing the error of her ways, Lisa tries to stop the people of Springfield from recycling and helping out Burns, but they're entrenched into the environmental way of thinking. Lisa has no choice but to give up, although she receives a surprise at a later point when Mr. Burns returns and reveals that his recycling company was bought for $120 million, which he used to reclaim the plant and stop Lenny's reign of terror. He came to thank Lisa and give his former business partner her 10% of the purchase, which she struggles to accept. A disappointed Marge tells Lisa to do what she thinks is best, if that means standing by her principles or selling out just this once, and she ultimately does the former, ripping up the check. You can hear Marge's further disappointment, but she remains proud of her daughter, while Homer has four consecutive heart attacks after she gave up $12,000. He's still going to come out okay, until Lisa tells him how much that ten percent was really worth, and the episode ends with him returning to cardiac arrest.
The thing that really sells "The Old Man and the Lisa" is that Mr. Burns genuinely seems to have wanted to change. We see him consider his time with Lisa to be more fulfilling than most of anything he's done in The Simpsons to date, and he cherishes doing good work.
But Burns can't be a profit of good for long, and eventually returns to his old ways. The thing is, his desire to profit from an ethical business like recycling is sincere, but Burns' mentality only allows for him to do so in the most despicable (and ethically dubious- don't you need a license to capture and profit from sea creatures?) way possible.
But this is the only way that Swartzwelder, or really The Simpsons at large, can handle an episode like this. Messing with the status quo is not something the show likes to do, and Burns won't remain as entertaining or chilling a presence if he doesn't find a way back into his unbelievable wealth, by whatever means possible.
But hey, this is what we want from the show, and it delivers. This is classic Simpsons, through and through.
"The Old Man and the Lisa" won the Environmental Media Award for TV Episodic Comedy, which is funny, considering how the episode ends with Lisa calling recycling bad. But ah well.
Homer's Bar Tab:
Yes, we have a chalkboard gag! "A fire drill does not demand a fire" cuts to the chase but works well.
Couch Gag Wars- Grampa sleeping on the pull-up couch vs. the family popping up like wack-a-moles. The latter is pretty cute.
"Our phone doesn't go up to 800. Unless..."
From what I've read, Bret Hart was called in to voice a generic wrestler, with the crew not realizing how famous he was before being called in. That's why he looks and sounds kind of bland.
We may have seen Homer at his most drunk in "The Old Man and the Lisa", but it's nice how he'll do anything for his daughter, even drink all the beer in the house.
"I'll do it this afternoon." Bart is me, I am Bart.
I want to go to wherever it is that a nickel can buy you a steak and kidney pie, a cup of coffee, a slice of cheesecake, a newsreel and a trolley ride. Because here, a nickel can't buy you a game at a penny arcade.
Next Week: First, Marge helps out Reverend Lovejoy, which is good. Then, Homer's new coworker doesn't like him, which is bad. Yes, it's time for Grimey.