Bart Stops to Smell the Roosevelts (S23, E02-488)

All hail President Roosevelt!  May his four years be full of conquest!

Plot Summary
Bart's latest prank leaves Principal Skinner looking like a fool during a school auction.  Frustrated, Skinner isn't willing to deal with Superintendent Chalmers' usual remarks.  Instead, Skinner lashes out against Chalmers, insisting he try teaching Bart once to see what hell he goes through everyday.  Chalmers casually agrees, though in a private moment he needs to get himself together, not having actually taught in quite some time.

Chalmers meets up with Bart at the library, and though Chalmers has trouble getting Bart to care about Presidents at first, the wise Superintendent gets Bart to focus on a specific one: Theodore Roosevelt, who led quite the wild life in his day.  Bart becomes completely engrossed in the life of the first President Roosevelt, and to supplement Bart's learning, Chalmers takes Bart out to a park founded by Roosevelt.  Bart recounts the tales of ol' Teddy to Milhouse, Nelson, Jimbo and Dolph, and they all want to be taught by Chalmers instead.

Chalmers is happy to see so many boys take an interest in Roosevelt, especially as he believes that public schools have become too wrapped up in teaching feelings instead.  He takes the five boys camping in hopes of uncovering a pair of spectacles worn by the President.  On that trip, Nelson finds the glasses while hanging off the edge of a cliff, but it gives way and Nelson takes a small yet painful fall.  Later, Nelson's mom threatens to sue the school for Nelson's injuries and as Chalmers took the boys on an unapproved trip, the comptroller relieves Chalmers of his duties.

Bart finds regular school boring again, and finds a defeated Chalmers hard to talk to.  Soon, Bart gathers up the "Brotherhood of the Spectacles", which includes himself, the four other boys as well as Kearney now, to come up with a plan to get Chalmers' job back.  Bart's plan is simple: take over the school and not relinquish it until Chalmers is hired again.  The operation goes rather smoothly as Bart is able to convince Skinner and every teacher to go outside to check on their equally pathetic cars.  As the boys threaten to ruin an expensive photocopier should Skinner try to break in, the police are brought in to end the standoff.  Chalmers then appears and tries to convince the boys to stand down, but they hold their ground.  Chief Wiggum is about to storm the school, but fumbles his gun and it shoots the comptroller in the knee.  The comptroller willingly gives Chalmers a better version of his job back, and Chalmers is back making Skinner feel bad again.  Chalmers and Bart go on another ride through Roosevelt's park, probably friends or something.

Quick Review
Not that long ago, I lamented over the change of Superintendent Chalmers' character, how even a character such as him that was introduced as being so normal could also succumb to be a caricature of his former self.  For the most part, this episode does a better job treating Chalmers' character right aside from a couple of odd Skinner-related moments.  The humor is also much improved from the previous episode, but there some sketchy moments as well that held the episode back a bit.  Overall, its still nothing special in terms of comedy but I appreciate the effort of an episode that focuses on Chalmers and doing it decently well.

Final Score: 6.9