Bart Gets an Elephant

"Bart Gets an Elephant"
The Simpsons episode
File:Bartgetsanelephant.png
Episode no.	Season 5
Directed by	Jim Reardon
Written by	John Swartzwelder
Original air dates	March 31, 1994
Episode features
Chalkboard gag	"Organ transplants are best left to the professionals"
Couch gag	The family's eyes run in with the lights off. When the light turn on, the bodies run in and push the eyes back into their sockets.
Commentary	Matt Groening David Mirkin David Silverman

"Bart Gets an Elephant" is the seventeenth episode of The Simpsons' fifth season. This episode introduced the fictional elephant Stampy. This episode also marks the first appearance of the character Cletus Spuckler.

Plot

During cleaning day at the Simpsons' house, the inane chatter of KBBL crackles in the background. The radio station's disc jockeys, Bill and Marty, are conducting the "KBBL Wants to Give You Something Stupid" radio contest, where a listener is called at random, and if he/she answers the phone with the phrase "KBBL's going to give me something stupid!" he/she wins either a gag prize or $10,000. Bill and Marty call the Simpsons, and Bart immediately says the winning phrase. His choice – either a live African elephant or the cash. For Bart, the choice is easy ... the elephant. Bill and Marty are taken aback, especially since the intended prize was $10,000, and the fact they do not have an elephant. However, Bart insists that he wants an elephant, and everyone's attempts to reason with him fail. Word spreads throughout town about Bill and Marty's refusal to make good on awarding the prize, prompting their boss to give them a choice: either arrange for delivery of Bart's elephant, or have their show replaced by an automated disc jockey and the twosome lose their jobs. The disc jockeys decide on the former option.

Bart names his new elephant Stampy, and begins giving him undue attention while neglecting Santa's Little Helper and Snowball II. It is not long before Stampy eats the Simpsons out of house and home, and Lisa begins complaining that keeping an elephant as a pet – and thus, away from its native habitat - is cruel. In an effort to offset food costs, Bart and Homer exhibit Stampy by charging customers to pet and ride him, but they fail to make enough money to cover the elephant's food costs for one day. Homer and Marge decide that their house is unsuitable for an elephant to live in, and that Stampy is way too expensive to maintain as a pet, and tell the kids the elephant must go. The family is visited by a representative of a game reserve, who says their acres of open land similar to African Savannah would be a good habitat for the elephant to live in. However, as the family is pondering what to do about Stampy, a wildlife poacher named Mr. Blackheart offers to buy Stampy. Homer wants to take the money, but Lisa is against the idea – particularly since Mr. Blackheart openly admits he plans to have Stampy killed for his ivory tusks. Just as Homer and Mr. Blackheart reach a deal, Bart plans to run away with Stampy. However, Stampy runs off, wreaking havoc throughout Springfield and is soon nowhere to be found. Bart begins looking for his elephant.

The family soon finds Bart, but then Homer begins sinking in the Springfield Tar Pits. Stampy frees Homer, and he finally agrees to donate the elephant – at a loss – to a wildlife preserve, where Stampy quickly takes his place as the jerk of the elephant herd.

Debut Appearance

This episode introduces the character Cletus Spuckler (better known as "Cletus, the Slack-Jawed Yokel"), though he is not named. He appears after Lisa says "Yeah, you'd be grumpy too if you were taken out of your natural habitat and gawked at by a bunch of slack-jawed yokels!".

Cultural references

• The lyrics to The Sound of Music song Do-Re-Mi is parodied in the scene where Homer crashes the car into a deer statue. The dialogue from the scene was later used by Rush at the end of the song, The Big Money on the Vapor Trails tour.
• Stampy's eye in the window is just like T. Rex's in the film Jurassic Park.
• The Springfield Tar Pits are inspired by the La Brea Tar Pits located in Los Angeles, California.
• While Bart is listening to KBBL while cleaning, he starts to not pay attention and accidentally scrubbed the American Gothic painting that is in the house. After he scrubbs all the paint off the picture, a message appears saying: "If you can read this, you scrubbed to hard". Signed Grant Wood (who is the painter of American Gothic).
• When Bart wins his elephant and then gets it after KBBL's disc jockeys are threatened with dismissal is inspired by an incident on the original The Price Is Right. A contestant won a grand piano and – as his bonus prize – was told he won a full-sized African elephant (for "extra ivory"). Even though the actual prize was $4,000, the contestant demanded an elephant, and it wasn't long before the show's producer/creator Bob Stewart was forced to arrange delivery of a live elephant.
• When Marge turns on the radio, the song Sixteen Tons is heard.
• Homer reads an old TV Guide, where the synopsis of an episode of Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. reads "Gomer upsets Sgt. Carter." Despite this being a possible synopsis for every episode of that series, Homer claims to "remember that one." Indeed, all he can remember are Sgt. Carter and Gomer Pyle repeating their respective catchphrases (PYLE! Shazam! PYLE! Shazam! PYLE! Shazam!) while jumping up and down.
• The rumor mill and media hoopla that ensues in the wake of KBBL being unable to honor the prize of an elephant is an example of the similar media irresponsibility that sought to demonize one side and glorify the other. A headline says how KBBL cheated Bart, whom they claim is a straight-A student, in an attempt to have curry readers' sympathy for Bart. It is obvious to any viewer that Bart is hardly a straight-A student. This is similar to the novel Bonfire of the Vanities, where it is claimed Sherman McCoy harmed an "honor student at Riddell High School" in the media, sparking tremendous mob outrage when the facts were different. An interview with one of the teachers at the inner-city high school sarcastically states that "at our school, an honor student is someone who occasionally comes to class and does not harass the teachers", a much lower standard for honor students than most other schools.
• Patty and Selma are sucked up by a tornado and seen flying harmlessly through the air in rocking chairs just like a character in The Wizard of Oz.

Legacy

Stampy has returned in the Simpson comic books, in the season 14 episode "Large Marge" and a cameo in The Simpsons Movie (he is the elephant who charged its head into the dome).

Notes

When Chief Wiggum nonchalantly answers distress phone calls late in the episode, he says "Yeah...right, and I'm Edward G. Robinson" sarcastically. Hank Azaria, the voice of Wiggum and many other residents of Springfield, specifically based Wiggum's voice on that of Robinson. Melissa was depicted with a black skin tone in this episode.

External links

• "Bart Gets an Elephant episode capsule". The Simpsons Archive.