How Munched Is That Birdie in the Window?

"I'm contractually obligated by my sponsors to appear in random fans' fantasies."

"How Munched Is That Birdie in the Window?" is the seventh episode of season 22.

Plot
During a thunderstorm, a carrier pigeon flies into the Simpsons's house. After discovering that its wing is injured, Lisa instructs Bart to take care of it, because she has a phobia of pigeons. Bart agrees to take it in, and nurses it back to health over several weeks. He tries to release it back into the wild, but he and the pigeon (nicknamed "Ray") have become too close, so he decides to keep it as a pet.

After seeing an advertisement for a video about the role of carrier pigeons in the, Bart and Homer decide to train Ray to carry messages, while Marge teaches Lisa that it is okay to be afraid of a single animal while caring about all others, as she herself is scared of opossums.

After training Ray to deliver messages, Bart and Homer use his ability for several pranks, such as Bart sending Mrs. Krabappel a message stating "who cares?" during a lesson and Homer sending Mr. Burns a message suggesting he should "do a ballet dance without no clothes on". Bart also sends Milhouse a message to become friends with him again, as they had had a fight earlier over a toy Milhouse had broken because he thought it was a Transformer.

Moe comes by the house, suggesting that Ray might become a racing pigeon. As he is discussing it with Homer and Bart, however, Santa's Little Helper eats Ray, despite Homer's attempts to rescue him. Overcome with grief, the family holds a funeral for Ray and Bart becomes resentful of Santa's Little Helper.

Marge and Homer take Bart to see Dr. Thurston, a psychologist. She suggests to Bart that he should forgive Santa's Little Helper, as he is the smarter of the two and knows that dogs do not have the brain capacity to know that it is wrong to kill small birds. Bart still cannot forgive Santa's Little Helper, so the family plan to take him to live on a farm upstate, Ostrich World. Bart shares parting words with Santa's Little Helper, telling him never to kill a bird ever again.

As the family are about to leave, Homer releases an ostrich and it starts attacking the family. Bart calls for Santa's Little Helper to help, but he is confused, since Bart told him earlier it was wrong to hurt birds. Bart ends up clobbering the bird with some nearby tools, forgives Santa's Little Helper, and the family leaves happily, taking the seemingly dead ostrich as meat for dinner. As they are driving, though, the bird wakes up, breaks through the roof, and starts strangling Homer with its foot. The episode ends with the car swerving down the roads as Homer tries to steer.

Production
The episode was written by Kevin Curran and directed by Michael Polcino. The episode guest starred Danica Patrick as and Rachel Weisz as Dr. Thurston.

Reception
In its original American broadcast, it was viewed by 9.42 million. This is due to an NFL overrun.