Difference between revisions of "Wild Barts Can't Be Broken"

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"Wild Barts Can't Be Broken"

Episode Information Showrunner: [[{{{showrunner}}}]] DVD features

"Wild Barts Can't Be Broken" is the eleventh episode of season 10. It originally aired on January 17, 1999. The episode was written by Larry Doyle and directed by Mark Ervin. Cyndi Lauper guest stars as herself.

Synopsis

"Homer and his drunken cohorts celebrate an improbable victory by the Springfield Isotopes by trashing the local elementary school. But when the police force fails to locate the actual vandals, the town's children are hastily blamed for the rowdiness and punished with a new sunset curfew."

Plot

The family attends a Springfield Isotopes game and Homer is disappointed with the results. He later goes to Moe's where he finds all his bar mates rooting for the Isotopes, as they seem to be actually winning. Homer quickly changes sides and starts cheering for the team. He, Lenny, Carl and Barney, all drunk, start driving around town and spot the baseball field at Springfield Elementary School and start driving around the school grounds and indoors, wrecking it completely. The wreckage is shown on the news the following morning and since no evidence was left by Homer, Chief Wiggum places the blame squarely on the kids of the town. He solves this problem by placing a curfew on the town, stating children must be indoors by sundown, or else.

The kids are bored with their new-found curfew, especially at the TV selections and the fact that all fun things seem to be postponing until sundown (i,e a carnival that only opened at sunset). But they see a commercial on TV for a movie called "The Bloodening" about creepy children who know all of the town's citizen's secrets. Bart and the other kids set out to see this movie, despite it being shown after curfew. However, they are soon caught by Wiggum and are forced to clean his billboard.

To get even with the adults, the kids swipe a bunch of electronic devices, piece them together and form a working radio transmitter and start their own radio program called "We Know All Your Secrets". This show spreads the town's most well kept secrets across town and angers the adults even more. They track down the transmitter and bust them. They start to fight, leading into a song about kids and adults ("Adults/Kids"). The elderly citizens are woken up by the song and get enraged at the adults and kids. To get even with all of them, they vote on a new curfew, which places anyone under the age of 70 in their homes after sundown.

Production

Mike Scully wanted to do an episode where the kids of Springfield had a curfew. He came up with the idea for an episode where the kids and adults face off with the kids being blamed for something the adults have done.^[1] The baseball announcer Dennis Conroy is named after writer Larry Doyle's uncle. Dan Castellaneta ad-libbed Homer singing the line "Hitler is a jerk, Mussolini...."^[2] This was only added to the episode in order to fill time.^[1]

Reception

As of April 2018, the episode has a 7.8 rating on IMDb^[3] and a 9.0 rating on TV.com.^[4]

References

Wikisimpsons has a collection of images related to "Wild Barts Can't Be Broken".