Stop or My Dog Will Shoot (S18, E20-398)

The design flaw here is that now, Robodog can not literally take a bite out of crime.

Plot Summary
The Simpsons go to a Harvest Festival, but end up getting stuck in a massive cornfield maze.  For some reason, the family splits up, and eventually Marge and the kids escape.  Homer, though, is unable to get out and he remains stuck inside for hours.  The police arrive to help, but their retrieval dog has gotten old and has given birth to puppies, so that's no help.  Instead, Bart calls over Santa's Little Helper, who had been resting in the car, to come and help.  After picking up Homer's scent, the dog is able to locate and bring out Homer.  The police are impressed with the dog's effort and invite him to be a police dog.

After some brief training, Santa's Little Helper becomes part of the force, teaming up with Lou in the K-9 unit.  As Bart begins to miss his dog, Santa's Little Helper quickly becomes overwhelmed with his new life on the force, and begins to display a more aggressive attitude to stay in the game.  The dog is able to catch and apprehend Snake after he tried to sell illegal steroids, but after incorrectly filing the paperwork, the court is forced to let Snake go.  Lou lets the dog go home for awhile to cool off, but it does little good; as Bart comes from behind to greet his dog, the dog reacts aggressively and bites Bart in the leg.

After some discussion, its decided that the dog will stay with Lou.  Homer and Marge decide to get Bart a new pet, and Bart eventually decides on a Python he calls "Strangles".  Bart takes Strangles to school for show and tell, but the python slithers away, forcing the evacuation of the school.  The police arrive with its K-9 unit, but as they go in the python slithers into the science lab, unwittingly creating a toxic gas.  The police are forced to flee the school, but its learned that Bart is still inside, looking for Strangles.  Santa's Little Helper storms in to rescue Bart.  Bart does succumb to the gas, but is rescued by Strangles and/or the dog, and Bart decides to let the dog finish saving him.  The dog is freed of its responsibilities as police dog, reuniting him with Bart, while Strangles becomes Willie's new pet, though its new role at the school is something I'm not quite sure of.

Quick Review
This ended being a pretty weak episode.  Stephen Hawking makes a quick cameo during the dog's search in the cornfield maze, and it was appreciated, but there was hardly much else to like here.  Once the dog became part of the force, it was hard to find anything worth laughing, though the bit with Snake (Jailbird) was alright.  Strangles had its moments too, but it all still made for a less-than episode.

Final Score: 6.4

Old Yeller Belly (S14, E19-310)

Beer commercials will probably never be this wild again. :(

Plot Summary
Bart's treehouse is destroyed, but Homer promises to build him a new one.  However, Homer isn't exactly doing a fast, good, or a job of it, so Marge brings in the Amish to build the treehouse.  They build a rather spectacular treehouse, enough to fit in a party's worth of people.  They also add electricity, which, well, isn't their specialty, and sure enough a faulty outlet causes the treehouse to set on fire.  Homer has an ice sculpture of himself fall on him, trapping him.  He sees Santa's Little Helper nearby, but the dog is scared of the fire and runs off (not before grabbing some turkey), and Homer passes out.  After a short period of time, the cat, Snowball II, goes in to wake Homer and with the sculpture now melted, Homer and the cat quickly escape.

Snowball is hailed a hero by both the town and especially by Homer, who denounces his cowardly dog in the process.  When interviewed, Homer even claims he has no dog, that's how mad he is at Santa's Little Helper.  Bart and Lisa try to toughen the dog up, but that's not working out so well.  One day, Santa's Little Helper is left outside after eating Homer's hamburger, and gets a hold of a nearby can of beer, balancing it on his nose.  A photographer gets a picture of it, and it makes the news.  The owner of Duff sees this and decides to make the dog the beer's new spokesman, with Duffman all washed up.  The family gets royalties and such, and so the dog becomes Suds McDuff, who appears in commercial as one cool dog.  However, the dog's previous owner, that guy at the race track who dumped him way back when, comes back to claim legal ownership of the dog, using Homer's dog-denouncing interview as proof that, at least, the dog doesn't belong to the Simpsons.

As the guy has the dog appear all over the place for Duff, the Simpsons decide to get their dog back.  They find the guy who was Duffman, Barry Duffman, and convince him to help them remove the dog as Duff's mascot.  At a beach function, they concoct a plan where Homer will pretend he's drowning, and the dog will prove too cowardly to save him, and then Duffman can come in and save both Homer and his old job.  With Homer floating on a beer keg, the plan starts off fine as the dog indeed proves his cowardice.  However, a shark sees Homer flailing about, and decides to circle him, forcing Duffman to cower away in fear as well.  Homer gets out of the way just as the shark makes its move, and the shark devours the beer keg instead.  It gets really wasted in front of the large crowd, causing Duff to make it its new mascot: Duff McShark.  The race track guy realizes the dog is finished, and gives it back to the Simpsons.

Quick Review
This was a fairly good episode.  I felt the best jokes came during the part where the cat was being hailed as a hero, and the middle portion was overall pretty great.  Duffman is a pretty good character for laughs, and he doesn't fail to provide them here either.  The episode's slow start bogs it down somewhat, but its still one of the best episodes of the season.

Final Score: 8.0

The Canine Mutiny (S08, E20-173)

"Remember the time he ate my goldfish, and you lied to me and said I never had
any goldfish?  Then why did I have the bowl, Bart?  Why did I have the bowl?"

Plot Summary
Marge gives Bart some junk mail after he gets no regular mail one day.  Among the junk mail is a credit card offer, which intrigues Bart.  Bart decides to apply for one and, despite him entering obviously fake credentials and the name "SANTAS LITTLE HELPER", he gets a credit card a few weeks later anyway under the name "Santos L. Halper".  He finds, though, that he can't use the card anywhere where somebody knows him, or at least knows his name isn't Santos, but he finds a catalogue, and decides to buy things from that, and he buys a ton of crap from it.  One of the final things he orders is a rarely bred, well trained $1200 collie, and as soon as the dog arrives it makes an immediately impression on Bart and the family, while Santas Little Helper is left ignored.  The collie, named Laddie, is some kind of superdog (as Homer would say), able to perform tricks and feats and such.

Soon, Bart receives a call from a collection agency, as Bart obviously never did pay off the credit card bill.  Realizing his mistake, he and Laddie go off to bury the card.  Upon their return home, the repo men have come to reclaim Bart's purchases.  They've collected all but one thing: the $1200 dog.  Panicked, Bart tells the repo man that Santa's Little Helper is the dog, and they take him away as Bart is somewhat stunned by these turn of events.

Lying that Santa's Little Helper is at a kennel two towns over while Laddie settles in, Bart begins to feel remorse for his actions.  Though the family, and the town as a whole begin to appreciate Laddie and his abilities, Bart is less impressed as the dog is and never will be Santa's Little Helper.  One day, during a walk, Laddie forces Bart to take him to rescue a baby.  As Laddie is giving a medal for his heroics, Chief Wiggum goes over to the two, openly wishing the police had a dog like that.  Bart decides to give Laddie to him as the dog just wasn't for him.  Back home, Bart tells the family that he gave Laddie to the police, and then reveals that he gave Santa's Little Helper away as well.  Homer (in an attempt to get Bart to eat dog food), convinces Bart to search for his dog, and off he goes.

At the repo station, Bart learns the the dog had been taken in by a "man in a dress".  After visiting his aunts with no luck, Bart tries Groundskeeper Willie, who is wearing a kilt.  Willie admits to having picked up the dog, but hated him so he gave him up to the church.  There, Bart learns that the dog was causing hell there, and that Reverend Lovejoy gave him to a parishioner.  Bart visits this person, seeing the dog in the backyard, but learns that parishioner is a blind man, a Mr. Mitchell.  Unwilling to talk about the dog with him, Bart takes his leave, but is still determined to get the dog back.

That night, Bart sneaks in to get the dog back, but the dog barks upon seeing Bart, alerting Mitchell.  Bart tries to run, but flees into a closet, where Mitchell locks him in, calling the police.  Bart yields and tells the man his story, and Mitchell decides to let the dog choose between him and Bart.  Santa's Little Helper chooses Bart, leaving the blind man without a companion, much to Bart's sorrow.  Just then, the police barge in, with Laddie.  As Laddie jumps on the blind man, it seems like there's a happy ending to be had.  Instead, Laddie finds a bag of pot in the man's pocket, and when Mitchell claims it to be medicinal, Wiggum advises Bart to leave as "this could take awhile".  Bart and Santa's Little Helper head for home just as more police arrive to start up to "handle" the pot situation.

Quick Review
This episode definitely has its moments, including Milhouse's line above and Homer's "dog food" line to Bart later on, and the ending had a neat little twist as well.  It all makes for another excellent episode for the season.

Final Score: 9.0

Dog of Death (S03, E19-054)

All hail King Homer!

Plot Summary
Its lottery fever in Springfield, and everybody is buying tickets, including Homer who buys 50 in the frenzy.  While this is occurring, though, Santa's Little Helper appears to be sick and barely able to stand (also his nose is gray the entire episode which is kinda odd).  It isn't until after Homer loses the lottery (but hey at least Kent Brockman won) where Grampa points out that the dog is dead.  Well, its sick but Grampa doesn't care.

A trip to the vet later, its learned that Santa's Little Helper has a twisted stomach, which will eventually kill the dog if left untreated.  An operation is needed to fix it, but it'll cost $750.  Homer and Marge are initially unwilling to do so because of the high cost, but Bart and the dog convince them otherwise, and Marge is able to devise a plan to save enough money, by having everyone make sacrifices.  Soon enough the money is scrounged up, and the dog is saved.

Just two days later, everyone is disgruntled, particularly Homer as his precious pork chop night has been replaced with chub.  As one would expect, the sacrifices the Simpsons made to pay for the operation is biting them hard.

• Marge gave up her weekly lottery ticket, but it turns out that her winning numbers finally come up.
• Homer gave up beer, and goes to the bar just to poorly sing songs for quarters.
• Lisa was getting volumes of the Encyclopedia Generica at the grocery store, but gave that up before she could get the volume on Copernicus: the next subject of Lisa's essay.
• Bart agrees to get haircuts at the Springfield Barber College for free.  That doesn't work out well.
• Maggie doesn't get any new baby clothes, while her current set just happen to fall apart at the right time.

As a result, everybody in the family gets angry at the dog.  Feeling unwanted, the dog is able to run away and go on an adventure for awhile before being picked up by the dog pound.  Mr. Burns, in need of a new attack dog, gets Santa's Little Helper to condition him into being a vicious attack dog.  Bart stumbles upon Burns' house in search of the dog, and upon being attacked by Santa's Little Helper, he's able to 'reach' his dog, returning him to normal.  The dog is brought back home and everybody loves him again.

Quick Review
Dog of Death is a weaker episode compared to several of the episodes that preceded it, but like with a lot of these early episodes there's still some good laughs to be had.  Much of the lottery-related storyline was great whether it was Homer's deluded dreams of using the winnings to become the pictured King Homer or Kent Brockman after he wins the lottery.  Still, one of Season 3's lesser episodes.

Final Score: 7.9