C.E.D'oh

Plot

A sleepy Marge is too tired on Valentine's Day to have sex with an eager Homer, who leaves the house. He sees a billboard for a school offering extension courses. He attempts to take a stripping course taught by Dr. Hibbert but is kicked out for hogging the oil. By accident, Homer ends up in a class on workplace success strategies.

Inspired, he investigates problems at the power plant and proposes solutions to Mr. Burns, who rejects them. Homer later overhears Burns say he made a canary named Canary M. Burns the legal owner to avoid consequences. Homer tricks Burns into believing inspectors are coming; when Burns cannot find the canary, he names Homer the new owner. Homer throws Burns off the balcony, and employees crowd-surf him into a taxi.

Burns and Smithers flee to Marrakesh to buy opium. Running the plant forces Homer to work constantly, and he becomes miserable after laying off employees. Burns visits Homer, shows him graves of people whose relationships with Burns suffered from overwork, including his wife.

Homer returns ownership to Burns, who drugs him and tries to wall him up in a crypt. Burns is so slow that Homer steps over the few bricks and leaves. Homer returns home to barbecue with his family.

Production

The live-action flipbook couch gag was intended for another episode but placed into this one. Couch gag director Mike Frank Polcino hired a hand model to play the animator, referencing how animators flip through drawings to check action flow. The short gag was used because this episode is longer than the one originally planned. The writers did not want characters "walking around" as unfunny, preferring to "go from joke to joke."

They noted the end of the first act has Homer wandering through town, justifying it as building a "sweet romantic" mood needing a slower pace. Another suggested stripper name for Dr. Hibbert besides "Malcolm Sex" was "Crispus Buttocks." The strip seminar scene used regular characters rather than "Simpsonized" extras, leading to cameos from Cletus and a mobster. Series director Steven Dean Moore posed for the scene where Snake strangles inmate Terrance, which Homer misinterprets as love.

Cultural references

Lenny and Carl fight with plutonium rods as lightsabers, arguing over whether Star Wars films The Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones "sucked more." The Itchy & Scratchy short "Bleeder of the Pack" parodies a prank from the 1973 film American Graffiti. At its end, Scratchy is in a plane crash with Ritchie Valens, Buddy Holly, and The Big Bopper, referencing the 1959 plane crash that killed them. Legoland is referenced when Smithers says Burns dumped nuclear waste under it for years; animator Edwin E. Aguilar did all the Legoland animation uncredited.

Ned Flanders staring at Homer and Marge from his dark bedroom window with a lit cigar parodies the 1954 film Rear Window. Burns attempting to brick Homer up satirizes Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado." Executive producer Al Jean said Matt Groening pitched Homer putting a blanket over Burns after the failed bricking. The episode ends with the theme from The Courtship of Eddie's Father.

Bart exclaims "Look at me! I'm Tomokazu Ohka of the Montreal Expos!" and Milhouse replies "Well, I'm Esteban Yan of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays!" referencing the pitchers' obscurity.

Reception

12.96 million people tuned in, making it the 20th most-watched program of its week. Colin Jacobson of DVD Movie Guide was puzzled that a Valentine’s Day episode aired in March and, despite enjoying the Mr. Burns segments, deemed it “not that entertaining.” Jackson Cresswell of Collider called it the season’s best, applauding its focus on character dynamics rather than “extreme circumstances.” On Four Finger Discount, Guy Davis and Brendan Dando described it as a “mixed bag” with three consecutive plots. In 2014, Simpsons writers chose “Bleeder of the Pack” among their nine favorite Itchy & Scratchy shorts.