Bull-E

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"Bull-E"
The Simpsons episode
Episode no.Season 26
Episode 21
Directed by Lance Kramer
Written by Tim Long
Production codeTABF15
Original air dateMay 10, 2015 (2015-05-10)
Guest appearances
Episode features
Couch gag Homer fails at making goal saves, as Maggie continues kicking soccer balls at him until he is buried in them.
Episode chronology
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The Simpsons season 26
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"Bull-E" is the twenty-first episode of the twenty-sixth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons , and the 573rd overall episode of the series. The episode was directed by Lance Kramer and written by Tim Long. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on May 10, 2015.

Contents

In this episode, the town passes an anti-bullying law when Bart is bullied, but Homer is arrested when he is accused of bullying Ned. Albert Brooks guest starred, and musician Johnny Mathis appeared as himself. The episode received positive reviews.

Plot

Bart is not excited about going to his first school dance, but after he accidentally destroys the orange drink machine that Nelson's mom's fiancé brought over, a 5th grade girl is impressed and asks him to dance. Bart then wins the "Best Dancer" trophy and his date asks him to meet her outside, but the bullies are waiting for him and they break his trophy and mock him, leading his date to desert him. After a humiliated Bart tells Marge about the incident, she goes to a City Council meeting and says it is time to make bullies feel scared instead of their victims, and a bill giving the police wide powers to crack down on bullying is passed unanimously.

Chief Wiggum starts out by legitimately arresting bullies like Jimbo, Kearney, and Dolph after they try to steal Bart and Milhouse's sleds. However due to how vaguely the law defines a bully, Wiggum soon begins to arrest anyone he wants to even if they are wrongly accused. Homer, who has abused the new law on anyone who even mildly inconveniences him, gets a taste of his own medicine when Rod and Todd Flanders, fed up with how Homer treats their father Ned, have him arrested and sentenced to 90 days of treatment. While in the center, Homer has an epiphany that he is cruel to Ned because his neighbor is better than him in every way. A distraught Homer begs for forgiveness which an angry Ned refuses several times for how he treated him. But after Homer penitently kneels on Ned's lawn for a long stretch, Ned reluctantly forgives him. The Simpsons and the Flanders then join together and have brunch.

During the episode's subplot, Otto, who's also in the school dance, doesn't even realize that there were drugs in the fruit punch, and that causes him to hallucinate the School Train (a parody of Soul Train). Whilst on his acid trip, he meets Miss Frizzle, who uses her Magic School Bus to see inside his brain. This enrages Otto, so he takes the now shrunken bus and squishes all of the people in it. He wakes up from his dream, only to see that he was arrested and put in court.

Production

In September 2014, an interview was published that revealed that singer Johnny Mathis had recorded lines for The Simpsons. He was able to observe Dan Castellaneta perform before he recorded his part as a gardener who sings a modified version of his song "Chances Are." [1]

Cultural references

While on drugs, Otto encounters characters that parody the ones from The Magic School Bus [2] and the episode's title is a reference to the Pixar film WALL-E .

Reception

The episode received a 1.2 rating and was watched by a total of 2.77 million people, making it the most watched show on Fox that night. [3]

Dennis Perkins of The A.V. Club gave the episode a B, saying "since the Homer-Flanders dynamic can only stretch so far—Flanders has to stay Flanders, Homer Homer—an episode that sets out to seek an emotionally satisfying rapprochement between the two has to earn its eventual big moment, and "Bull-E" comes up just short." [2]

Tony Sokol of Den of Geek gave the episode 4 out of 5 stars. He enjoyed the social commentary of the episode and the sight of Moe's seven seconds of cursing. [4]

Stacy Glanzman of TV Fanatic gave the episode 4.5 of out 5 stars. She liked Homer modulating his voice for different reasons but disliked the repeated instance of Bart's interest in a girl and Otto's hallucination. [5]

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References

  1. ↑ Fekadu, Mesfin (September 12, 2014). "Q&A: Mathis on new box set, yoga and 'Simpsons'". Associated Press . Archived from the original on July 9, 2023. Retrieved July 9, 2023.
  2. 1 2 Perkins, Dennis (May 10, 2015). "The Simpsons: "Bull-E"". The A.V. Club . Retrieved May 11, 2015.
  3. ↑ Bibel, Sara (May 12, 2015). "Sunday Final Ratings: 'Once Upon A Time' & 'Brooklyn Nine-Nine' Adjusted Up". TV by the Numbers . Archived from the original on May 14, 2015. Retrieved May 12, 2015.
  4. ↑ Sokol, Tony (May 11, 2015). "The Simpsons: Bull-E Review". Den of Geek . Archived from the original on July 23, 2024. Retrieved July 22, 2024.
  5. ↑ Glanzman, Stacy (May 10, 2015). "The Simpsons Season 26 Episode 21 Review: Bull-E". TV Fanatic. Archived from the original on March 5, 2021. Retrieved December 13, 2016.
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