Apocalypse Cow

Plot

Bart and Lisa start their Saturday watching cartoons, beginning with "Trans-Clown-O-Morphs," where the main character gets into immediate danger and begs viewers to buy the new Trans-Clown-O-Morphs cereal to save him. Marge, annoyed by what she sees as commercial messages in every show, sends Lisa to bake banana bread and Bart to Shelbyville with Homer to get their beanbag chairs "rebeaned." On the drive, they see Martin Prince driving a combine harvester.

Bart asks why someone like Martin would drive a tractor, and Martin says he joined 4-H. Lured by the chance to operate heavy machinery, Bart joins and quickly masters driving a tractor. The 4-H volunteer then introduces a competition, taking the members to a calf pen and telling them each to pick a calf and raise it over the summer, with the cattle judged at the county fair. Bart gets stuck with the runt of the litter and cannot trade it. He meets Mary, who encourages him not to give up.

Bart agrees, and they rename the young bull Lou (previously Lulubelle). Over the following weeks, Bart takes good care of Lou, helping him become stronger while bonding with him. On competition day, Lou has matured into a large bull and wins the blue ribbon. Bart is ecstatic until Lisa tells him the next step is sending Lou to a slaughterhouse.

Bart tries to convince Marge and Homer to buy the bull, but they refuse, knowing from experience how expensive it is to care for a large animal. That night, Bart hears mooing in bed and thinks it is a hallucination from his guilt. Lisa reveals it is a CD of Tress MacNeille's "Anguished Animals III," which she placed to turn him vegetarian. Bart, Lisa, and Lisa's friends "Compost" and "Solar Panel" go to the slaughterhouse at night to save Lou.

They find Lou, now much bigger from growth hormones, and use a forklift to carry him away. They take him to Mary's home on a farm, only to discover Cletus Spuckler is her father. Bart gives the cow to Mary, and she agrees to take it. Cletus then yells for Brandine, who explains that giving a cow constitutes a formal proposal of arranged marriage.

Against both Bart and Mary's wishes, Cletus and Brandine plan the wedding for the next day. Lisa convinces Bart to go along with it long enough to figure out how to save Lou, correctly suspecting Cletus will not keep the bull if Bart refuses. Homer and Marge are shocked, and Marge devises a scheme to stop the wedding while also saving Lou, knowing how rarely Bart cares about anything. The next day, Marge arrives to stop the wedding, prompting Cletus to send Lou to the slaughterhouse.

However, the "Lou" sent was actually Homer in a cow mascot suit, while the real Lou is being sent to India to be treated like a god. They save Homer from the slaughterhouse after a close shave, and Homer vows to cut back on meat. Bart reflects with pride that he can finally say, "I had a cow, man."

Cultural references

The episode's title references the film Apocalypse Now. "Trans-Clown-O-Morphs" parodies Transformers, with a cartoon opening reminiscent of 1980s cartoons. On the way to Shelbyville, Bart questions Homer's story about Dean Martin because it does not match his Wikipedia entry. Homer replies calmly, "Don't worry about Wikipedia, son.

When we get back, we'll change it. We'll change a lot of things." The scene of Bart driving the combine features a theme song from The Comancheros. Lou's training of punching meat is similar to a scene in Rocky.

Spider Pig appears as a present at Bart and Mary's wedding. Lisa plays "The Anguished Animals III" CD by Tress MacNeille, who voices several Simpsons characters. When Bart is combining, he goes over manure and creates DVD copies of Pirates of the Caribbean 3. The farming scenes use music from Aaron Copland's "The Red Pony - Dream March."

The pre-nuptial party music is a yokel version of Pachelbel's Canon. Marge stops the wedding just like she does in "Little Big Girl." When Bart says goodbye to Lou at the airport, he uses the same speech Rick says to Ilsa at the end of Casablanca, with "La Marseillaise" playing. Mary's middle name is WrestleMania.

Reception

7.7 million viewers tuned into this episode, higher than the previous three episodes. Richard Keller of TV Squad thought it was another decent installment like other Bart and Lisa-centric episodes. He said it was unfortunate these kinds of episodes could not have been dispersed more evenly throughout the season, and that episodes centering around Bart and Lisa tend to be more interesting because those characters have more dimensions and diverse personalities to explore.

He also thought the idea of Bart in a nature-related environment was unnatural, like putting Dustin Diamond in an Academy Award-nominated film. Robert Canning of IGN also enjoyed the episode, giving it 7.5 out of 10.

He mentioned the plot had been done numerous times but enjoyed the unique way it was told and was surprised by elements like Bart being forced to marry Mary. In a 2008 interview, Matt Groening named the episode his favorite of the series, citing the part with Homer in the slaughterhouse as the scene he liked best. Jeff Westbrook won a Writers Guild of America Award in the animation category for writing the episode.