(originally aired February 24, 2002)
It’s important when you’re writing a TV show, a movie, a song, anything creative, really, that you should… care about it. Or at the very least come across like you do. This has been a problem of recent years, but there are a few parts in this episode in particular that are really jarring to me. This show is so aimless and lackadaisical, and when the writers point out how stuff makes no sense, it just illuminates the laziness even more. This episode is kind of a first in that it literally has no story. There have been thin premises in the past, but this is the first one where I really couldn’t tell you what this episode is about. We open with an angry dog chasing Bart across town, who seems to only have an out for him. And that’s not just the first scene, that’s the entire first act. It’s almost like the Bart digging a hole thing at the beginning of “Homer the Moe,” except that was half the length, and was weirdly intriguing in its own way. This is just empty time-killing, a clear indication that the episode has nowhere to go.
Bart ends up meeting veteran Western actor Buck McCoy, voiced by Dennis Weaver, and develops a shining for him and cowboys in general. That’s basically act two. This episode feels really strange, they centered the whole show around Buck, as if he were a big star they had to cater to, and while Weaver is a known celebrity, it’s not like he was that big at the time. The writers seem to find Buck a lot more interesting and entertaining than we do. Some of the bits are amusing, but a lot of it is very dry and boring. And again, there is no story to be had. There’s an odd running bit of Homer feeling betrayed that Bart idolizes Buck instead of him, which feels kind of bizarre. It’s like a throwback to the very early seasons where Homer wanted his son’s respect more than anything, but after the complete desecration and tarnishing of his character up to this point, it doesn’t really make any sense. It’s just to grasp at anything to try and trick the audience into thinking something is happening.
The closest I can grasp at a story happens at the end of the second fucking act when Buck goes on Krusty’s show drunk and reveals he’s an alcoholic. Then Homer and Marge try to get him to sober up… for some reason. It kind of makes sense for Homer to step up to rehabilitate his son’s hero, but through this whole episode, Marge has sat on the sidelines spouting hollow, expository lines (“I think Westerns are due for a comeback!”) The scene that really sticks out to me is when Buck leaves the rehab center, and says this to Marge: “Look, I worked long and hard, got rich and now I’m retired. Why shouldn’t I be able to drink all I want?” An excellent point. Buck’s not some sad sack old man desperate to reclaim his fame, he’s just an older actor who had his time in the limelight and now is living a comfortable retirement. Marge responds, “Well, I don’t know. I just naturally assumed it was some of my business.” So, to translate, when asked what the point of this story is, the writers say, “We don’t know.” At that point what does any of this matter? I don’t even hate this episode. It’s like being mad at a kid who didn’t even bother writing answers on his test paper. I’m just disappointed.
Tidbits and Quotes
– The dog opening is astounding. Like, that’s really what you’re going to draw six minutes of material out of? And then they bring it back at the very end for absolutely no reason? It’s hands down the worst first act of the series.
– “Little Grampa Simpson” on Abe’s childhood badge bothers me. It’s just a gag, but it always bugs me in the show when characters outside the family call Abe “Grampa.”
– There are some Buck bits I actually chuckled at: riding his horse the short distance to the laundry room, calling his films as good wholesome family entertainment (“No drugs, no nudity, no cussin’, just drinkin’, fightin’, and trippin’ horses with wires,”) getting excited about refried whiskey, and his in-show endorsement of Drunken Cowboy Whiskey (“I’m not sure I approve of selling whiskey to children.” “Well that was aimed at children who were already heavy drinkers.”)
– When we get to Brockman’s newscast and Apu’s singalong, I’m just exhausted. I can’t stress enough how this episode literally has no story. It’s twenty two minutes of filler, and no amount of them referencing their flaws excuses them of that.
– Krusty and Buck have some brief small talk before the show. Buck comments how much things in show business have changed since his day, to which Krusty gruffly responds, “I don’t care…” My sentiments exactly.
– So Buck gets drunk and shoots Krusty in the stomach on stage. Does he get put up on charges? Arrested? Nope! (“This is horrible! All my spit takes have blood in them!”)
– Homer’s Farrah Fawcett poster… my God. Any attempt at making this emotional through-line of Homer wanting to be his son’s hero feel genuine in any way plummets to the earth.
– The ending with the robbery makes absolutely no sense and is stupid in every way, but it gives us the only two great lines in the show. First when the criminals attempt to thwart Buck (“I’m shooting at the lasso, but the bullets just go right through the middle!!” “It’s the ultimate weapon!”) Dan Castalleneta’s read on the first guy is so panicked and shocked, it’s great. Then we get Buck’s outtro (“Goodbye, Bart! Never bother me again!”) It gets the idea across that Buck’s this old guy who never wanted to be bugged by this stupid kid, and makes him, and Homer and Marge, seem more like irritants to intruded on his life and tried to change him. If the episode commented on this at all or made that more of the point of the show, it would kind of work, but instead we get this uninspired schlock. Way to go, writers.
Me Blog Write Good 
By this point Jean was just picking out random words from a hat. Don’t even know why John stayed around this long.
Pretty much everything about this episode annoys me, even the downright awful pun in the episode title (and there were still worse to come!). This is probably the point where my patience of the ‘unrelated first act tangent’ was wearing incredibly thin. Whatever happened to Groening’s insistence that animals actually ACT LIKE animals? Everything the dog does is ridiculous.
John Swartzwelder’s Season 13 episodes seem to delight in what I call “humor of the lame”. They’re fully aware that this episode makes no sense and has nothing going for it, and we in the audience are supposed to laugh at it because of that. “The Sweetest Apu” is very much in the same vein. The show used to get great laughs out of intentionally lame stuff (“A master craftsman can build three mailboxes an hour!”), but those were just isolated jokes. Here, it’s the entire damned episode.
Also, there’s two jokes in here that might just be the biggest non-sequiturs Swartzwelder has ever written: “Mom, a dog ate my clothes!” “Nice try, but we’re still going to Riverdance!”, and “Oh, I’m sick of this Tarzan movie!” “Dad, it’s a documentary on the homeless.” The first one almost makes sense, but the second one just sails clean over my head.
As brilliant as Swartzwelder clearly is, I always assumed he was handing in joke scripts by the end that he did really quickly and maybe even assumed they’d be edited into something useable later (I mean “an alcoholic ex-cowboy star” COULD turn into something… the evil dog part, not sure, but you know, maybe… who ever thought one of the best episodes of this show would involve a dental plan or a teddy bear?)… I’m a big fan of how abstract and CLEARLY under-the-influence his later scripts are, even if the shows themselves kinda don’t work…
Speaking of scripts, HAVE Simpson scripts ever come out, aside from the Treehouse one with the 3D segment? I don’t mean the SNPP synopsises, I mean official scripts…
Oh yes, “Goodbye, Bart! Never bother me again!” was my fav. line too. I thought it was the creators basically saying, “Well, glad that episode is over with, don’t worry folks you’ll never see this guy again.”
Anyway, this episode should have AT LEAST had Lester and Eliza in it. Just sayin’.
I actually own a script for a Season 15 episode (“The President Wore Pearls”).My dad used to work in radio, and I guess he had a co-worker who knew somebody on the staff. I’ll talk more about that one when Mike gets around to it.
the one thing that’s always stuck with me in this episode (which i haven’t seen for probably 5-6 years) is at the second act break, when buck reveals he’s an alcoholic. (i believe the line is “i’m an alcoholic!”) and bart GASPS IN HORROR
it’s always struck me as one of the most out of place things i’ve ever seen in the show. it’s not like it’s horrible joke (or even a joke at all), but it’s just so hopelessly earnest.
Amazing how many people stopped watching around this time. This is the first episode you’ve reviewed I’ve never seen (‘She Of Little Faith’ was I think the one I first missed the first time around).
‘Helpfully’, Channel 4 in the UK are showing series 13 now, so I saw this one today. I really like Buck as a character, and quite like Bart’s hero-worship of him, but Homer’s whiny crybaby act really ruins it, leading up to another action set-piece finale. And the dog segment is such a cut-and-shut of terrible sketches (which they don’t even bother to hide – Bart’s clothes come and go, Homer makes contradictory comments immediately after each other). Better than a lot of series 11-12, but overall pretty poor.
I can’t believe no one’s mentioned these exchanges… two of my favorites…
“Have you ever tried to catch a boar with a teaspoon?”
“No.”
“Then what do you kids do all day?!”
“Right now, I’m supposed to be in school.”
“Ah, I quit after the 4th grade and I ain’t never not going back!”
Also…
“Could you lasso me a banana?”
“Now how in the hell am I supposed to do that?!”
To me, this episode is the spiritual successor to “Burns, Baby Burns”, in that it is built on a character who only makes sense if you’re familiar with the celebrity voicing him. Growing up in Germany, I was unfamiliar with Rodney Dangerfield, which is why to me, Larry was just a guy constantly making strange jokes which didn’t fit into the dialogue of the Simpsons. In the same way, since I’ve never heard of Dennis Weaver, to me Buck McCoy is simply some random cowboy character speaking in an irritatingly slow manner. And since the staff seems to love him so much, he’s getting sooooooo much screentime, delivering lines which just aren’t funny or interesting in the slightest.
As you’ve pointed out, there really isn’t any story here. It’s just: Bart gets chased by a dog for ages, then McCoy shows up, making the whole town suddenly love cowboys for some reason, then Homer and Marge meddle around a bit, Buck leaves, the end. Say what you will about episodes like “Kill The Alligator And Run” or “Saddlesore Galactica”, but at least things happen in those episodes. And even the plotless gimmick episode “Bart Gets An Elephant” (my personal worst episode from the classic years) still had enough good jokes to make it watchable, while this one is just 22 minutes of boredom.
There’s one redeeming feature though: McCoy’s habit of riding off into the sunset, immediately followed by mundane everyday tasks. That’s why the ending, which has him riding into his mansion, tying his horse in the garden, lowering the blinds and taking out the trash – all set to cliché western music – is the only thing that works about the episode.
I think I’m one of the few people who actually likes this episode. The stuff with Bart and the dog was kind of amusing, and the whole Buck “plot” has a lot of jokes that actually land with me. It’s an episode that doesn’t really have a story as you’ve said, but I find a lot of it really funny. Buck’s character has this sort of ironic anti-humor aura to him, where he is really incredibly dull and uninteresting and talks extremely slow and quietly, but Bart being totally enthralled by him somehow makes it work. As a user above had said, this episode thrives on “humor of the lame”, and that sort of humor just resonates well with me.
I’m not gonna claim this episode is like an overlooked gem or anything that could compare to practically any episode in the first 8 seasons, it’s just a pretty funny episode that doesn’t feel bland and boring to me, that has decent characterization and is pretty solidly entertaining show from start to finish. Which seems to make it to be a highlight of season 13.
This was another episode I didn’t find to be particularly bad, just nothing to gawk about. I agree, the first act with the dog is rather pointless. If they wanted to go for something so out there, they could have at least explained the dog better. Like maybe Bart did something to warrant the chase or something. The cowboy dude is pretty entertaining, especially the scene you mentioned of him riding his horse to go down one room. I like the way the show turned out with him just wanting to be left alone as some people are like that.