Das Bus

"Das Bus" is the fourteenth episode of season 9. It originally aired on February 15, 1998. The episode was written by David S. Cohen and directed by Pete Michels. Phil Hartman guest stars as Troy McClure and James Earl Jones guest stars as the narrator.

Plot
The Simpsons are watching a film about 's Ark, starring Troy McClure. When Marge announces that it's bed time for the kids, they convince her to let them stay up to finish the film. The film goes on until the morning when the kids have to go to school without any sleep. At school, several kids are doing the, with Principal Skinner leading them. The kids act immature and eventually start fighting. They then leave to go to the Model U.N. on the school bus.

Back at home, Homer goes through the mail and finds a letter for Ned Flanders mixed in with his mail, labeled FlanCrest Enterprises. Homer questions Ned about this, when Ned reveals to Homer that he runs a home business that sells religious hook rugs over the Internet. Homer is inspired by this idea and decides to make his own Internet business, setting up an office in the dining room.

On the school bus, the children are singing songs when Otto gets annoyed and puts on his own music. The kids then decide to race fruit down the bus, with Bart rolling an apple, Nelson rolling an orange and Ralph attempting to roll a banana. Milhouse then rolls a grapefruit down, which gets stuck under the brake of the bus. Otto tries to brake but squirts grapefruit juice into his eyes instead and the bus crashes off a bridge and starts to sink. As the bus sinks, Otto goes to swim for help as the kids get sucked out of the bus and end up on a deserted island. On the island, the kids bicker about whose fault it is, before settling on Milhouse as he rolled the grapefruit down the bus. Bart then convinces everyone to get along, saying they'll live like kings in a huge treehouse with lots of food and monkey butlers. The kids then get to work building a treehouse and gathering food.

Back at the Simpson house, Homer is struggling to find a name for his new business. Marge then suggests Compu-Global-Hyper-Mega-Net as a name. Homer then decides to make himself junior vice president of the company when the phone rings. Homer answers it, stating his business name and job title, only to hand the phone to Marge as it's Patty.

On the island, the food gathering party hands over a few poisonous berries they found, which Ralph had tested and got ill from. The treehouse Bart and Nelson had built was also very lackluster and fell apart easily. Bart laments that the kids should have just swam for it like Otto did. In the ocean, Otto had just about given up when a fishing net picks him up along with a load of fish. The fishermen decided to make Otto into a slave. Later, Milhouse runs to the other kids saying he saw a monster, but nobody believes him. They light a fire and are all getting hungry when Bart remembers the cooler of snacks they had on the bus. Bart swims down to the wreck of the bus and grabs the cooler, bringing it back to the island. All the kids start to eat greedily when Lisa reminds them that the food has to last a long time.

In the morning, the kids find the food has all gone, with Milhouse lying next to the cooler. Milhouse gets the blame and the other kids start to attack him. Lisa then decides to give Milhouse a fair trial to prove he took the food or not. Back in Springfield, Comic Book Guy is surfing the Internet, trying to download porn, when an advert for Homer's company comes up. He goes to the Simpson house to see if they could improve his Internet speeds but Homer had no idea what he was talking about and just asked for money.

The trial begins on the island with Milhouse being kept in a cage. After Lisa shows that there's no proof Milhouse took all the food as nobody saw him eat it, Bart declares Milhouse not guilty. The other kids are against this verdict and chase after Bart, Lisa and Milhouse. Meanwhile in the Simpson house, Marge informs Homer that Bill Gates has arrived to speak to Homer. Gates told Homer that he had no idea what Compu-Global-Hyper-Mega-Net did and wanted to buy him out rather than risk a competitor. Homer agrees to this and Bill Gates' goons break everything in Homer's office, with Gates saying he didn't get rich by writing checks.

On the island, Bart, Lisa and Milhouse are still running. They get to a cave where they are cornered by the rest of the kids. Then they see the monster which Milhouse was scared of, which turned out to be a boar. Lisa points out that since the boar is alive, there must be food. They then see the boar licking slime off a rock. The kids then kill, cook and eat the boar with Lisa licking slime off a rock because she's vegetarian. The narrator then states that the children learned to function as a society and says they were eventually rescued by Moe.

Production
A deleted scene had Homer buying anti-stress instruments. He uses them all and gets stressed. According to Mike Scully, this scene was regrettably deleted due to the episode being too long. The couch gag for the episode was suggested by Dan Castellaneta's niece. The film  was the inspiration of the bus crashing against the bridge. To get the Chinese that the fishermen spoke accurate, Cohen called a friend of his. When the Chinese actors came, they spoke in Mandarin but the producers thought that Cantonese would be better so it was changed. Moe was chosen to rescue the children as the producers thought it was funny.

Reception
In a 2006 article in , "Das Bus" was highlighted among the six best episodes of season 9, along with others including "Trash of the Titans," "The Last Temptation of Krust," "The Cartridge Family," "Dumbbell Indemnity," and "The Joy of Sect".

As of July 2018, the episode has an 8.2 rating on and an 8.6 rating on.