The Heartbroke Kid
"The Heartbroke Kid"
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Episode Information
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"The Heartbroke Kid" is the seventeenth episode of the sixteenth season of The Simpsons.
Plot
Principal Skinner is looking for a company to sign a vending machine contract with Springfield Elementary, with half of the machine's profits going to the school. He looks at suggestions from the Sea Captain and from Gil and rejects them, until he gets a suggestion from Lindsay Naegle, and the school has its vending machine. The machines feature starngly named snacks, some of which contain harmful ingredients including depleted uranium. Of course when has something like radioactivity ever stopped kids as they line up to chow down. The machine's biggest customer is Bart, who now won't eat any food that isn't vended including his mothers lovingly prepeared tuna steak, and in just three weeks fast he has gained a lot of weight, and he suffers a heart attack.
Bart sees Dr. Hibbert, who says that a snack—malted milk balls—has clogged his arteries. Either way, Bart still gets addicted to junk food heavily, continuously eating it until Marge intervenes and puts Bart on a diet. When that suggestion fails, he is caught by two representatives of a maximum security fat camp, Serenity Ranch. Bart ends up there with Apu, Rainier Wolfcastle (who was last seen fattening up for a movie), and Kent Brockman, and the camp's leader is none other than former junk food magnate Tad Spangler (who is dealing with many anger issues). However, when Bart is there, the family is faced with an expensive bill. To pay for the camp, the family converts their house into a youth hostel which attracts German tourists.
Bart has a hard time at camp, and Tad Spangler takes him home to visit the family to show him the horrors that occur as they are humiliated by the Europeans. He suggests Bart fight his addiction, and he does, by destroying the vending machines in school. His addiction to junk food is over, and he steals the money from the vending machines, which the family uses to pay for the bill and give the Germans "Das Boot". Tad Spangler says that they still have three weeks left of treatment, and Homer goes with him (if this is by choice or not is unknown), where the episode ends with them driving in Tad's car getting into an argument over the cheeseburger Homer is eating.
Production
This episode was originally set to be the 350th episode (despite being the 352nd to air), but was inexplicably switched with Don't Fear the Roofer.
