How the Test Was Won

Plot

The new school year begins with Marge and Homer celebrating, though Bart and Lisa’s classes are unchanged. Bart learns he supposedly aced a practice test for the Vice President’s Assessment Test by scrawling “Slurp My Snot” across the page, earning him a helicopter ride to a pizza party. In truth, the helicopter is a disguised school bus, and the whole event is a trick to expel underperforming students. Bart, Nelson, Ralph, Kearney, Dolph, and Jimbo are driven to Capital City by Otto, with Principal Skinner also aboard—tricked onto the bus by Superintendent Chalmers for the same purpose.

When Ralph stops for a bathroom break, vandals dismantle and steal the bus while Otto remains seated inside. The group continues on foot but loses Ralph on a garbage barge. Skinner signals a slingshot cargo ship to rescue Ralph using its crane, but accidentally knocks out the driver. Skinner then saves Ralph by leaping onto a shipping container lifted by the crane, using the law of conservation of angular momentum to rotate it.

This allows Skinner, the boys, and Otto to run across the container’s top and jump onto the barge. The barge turns out to be heading toward Springfield Elementary School. Impressed by Skinner’s heroics, the boys now see education as worthwhile, and Skinner reads Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to them until they arrive. At school, Lisa cannot concentrate on the test because she is haunted by the idea that Bart might be smarter.

She leaves every question blank, and the test itself is nearly impossible—all answer choices mean the same thing, and there is a penalty for guessing. Skinner returns just in time to cancel the test and end the school’s ban on dancing. Meanwhile, Homer has missed his insurance payment deadline and won’t be covered until 3:00 PM, so he must avoid any injury. He imagines Marge’s book club dying in a series of freak accidents, including Marge kissing Lindsey Naegle.

Homer keeps the book club safe while uninsured, then, at exactly 3:01, throws a knife into Mr. Burns’ head when Burns wanders onto the property. Marge is satisfied to learn exactly what Homer is capable of.

Production

The clips showing Homer remembering past injuries are flashbacks from 33 episodes, including "Homer at the Bat", "Bart's Friend Falls in Love", "Homer's Triple Bypass", "Marge in Chains", "Deep Space Homer", "Bart Gets an Elephant", "Homer Badman", "King-Size Homer", "Two Bad Neighbors", "Homerpalooza", "A Milhouse Divided", "The Homer They Fall", "Homer to the Max", "Faith Off", "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes", "Tennis the Menace", "Bye Bye Nerdie", "Simpson Safari", "Weekend at Burnsie's", "I Am Furious (Yellow)", "Helter Shelter", "Pray Anything", "Dude, Where's My Ranch?", "Brake My Wife, Please", "Marge vs. Singles, Seniors, Childless Couples and Teens, and Gays", "Blame It on Lisa", "Lost Our Lisa", "Lard of the Dance", "Trilogy of Error", "Million Dollar Abie", "He Loves to Fly and He D'ohs", "Dumbbell Indemnity", and "Treehouse of Horror XIII".

After reminiscing, Homer remarks, "What a week!" Michael Price wrote the episode, basing it on his experience as a former high school English teacher. An earlier draft of the third act had Skinner and the boys learning the Vice President was in Capital City and planning to meet him to explain why they missed the test.

Cultural references

The episode wraps up with the characters dancing just like the cast does at the end of the 1984 movie Footloose, with Kenny Loggins' song playing. Ralph mistakes a rat for Elmo from Sesame Street. Skinner reads The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to the class. The couch gag shows the family copying scenes from sitcoms across the decades: The Honeymooners from the 1950s, The Dick Van Dyke Show from the 1960s, The Brady Bunch from the 1970s, and Cheers from the 1980s.

As a joke for fans, Sideshow Bob walks into the Cheers part dressed as Dr. Frasier Crane, since Kelsey Grammer voices both characters. Homer’s vision of a huge accident at home is like the premonitions in the Final Destination movies. When Homer finds out he has no insurance, he yells, "I'm not in good hands!" and "Like a bad neighbor, no one is there!"—twisting the slogans of Allstate and State Farm. Otto hums Richard Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries while thinking he’s flying a helicopter, a nod to the helicopter attack in Apocalypse Now.

The episode also plays Beethoven's "Ode to Joy," Chopin's "Fantasie Impromptu 66," and "Gonna Fly Now" from Rocky. Ralph sings "Wannabe" by the Spice Girls.

Reception

The episode scored a 2.3 rating and pulled in 6.53 million viewers, landing it at number 43 for the week. Critical reaction after it aired was split. Steve Heisler of The A.V. Club gave it a C-, calling it the season's worst and one of the worst he had seen in the show's modern era. Erich Asperschlager of TV Verdict noted that while the episode had three promising setups and a strong first act, it quickly fizzled out, crash-landing before a bizarre Footloose finale; he found the Skinner plot meandering and dull.

On the other hand, Robert Canning of IGN awarded it an 8.8 out of 10, describing it as a smart and very funny half-hour. He praised the couch gag and Homer's subplot, though he admitted the ending fell short of what came before. IGN also named it the best episode of the season.