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. Also making his first appearance: 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 don't have an elephant. However, Bart insists that he won 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. 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 isn't 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. Homer tries to get paying customers to view and ride Stampy, but he fails to make enough money to cover the elephant's food costs for one day.
Just 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.
Trivia
- 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.
- Stampy has returned in the comics and in the Season 14 episode Large Marge.
- This episode introduces the character Cletus Spuckler (better known as "Cletus, the Slack-Jawed Yokel"), though he is not named and only appears in the sequence of Homer exploiting the elephant to pay off the bills on the part where Lisa says, "Yeah, you'd be ill-tempered too if you were taken out of your natural habitat and gawked at by slack-jawed yokels!"
- In the basement, Homer comments on an old calendar, "Sure, it's not 1985 right now, but who knows what tomorrow will bring?" 1985 is a common year starting on Tuesday; he could have used it in 1991, and could be saving it for 2002.
Cultural references
- "Do-Re-Mi" - The lyrics to The Sound of Music are parodied in the scene where Homer crashes the car into a deer statue.
- Jurassic Park – Stampy's eye in the window is just like T. Rex's.
- La Brea Tar Pits – The Springfield Tar Pits are inspired by the tar pits located in Los Angeles, California.
- The 1950s version of The Price Is Right – Much of Act 1 (where 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.
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