24 Minutes

"24 Minutes" 250px

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

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The Split Screen in Action

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Jack Bauer in the episode

"24 Minutes" is the twenty-first episode of The Simpsons' eighteenth season. It aired as part of the one hour season finale, alongside the episode "You Kent Always Say What You Want". It was originally promoted as being the 400th episode, but aired as the 399th.

Plot

Principal Skinner opens a CTU – Counter Truancy Unit – at Springfield Elementary School with Lisa heading up the operation over Milhouse, Martin and Database. When the bullies Jimbo, Dolph and Kearney play truant, Milhouse is assigned on a mission to spy on them.

An expired and highly pungent container of yogurt at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant is found to belong to Homer, who is ordered to dispose of it by Mr. Burns. After failing to persuade Apu to take it, the yogurt falls into the hands of the bullies. Homer then unwittingly uncovers Milhouse spying on the bullies, causing the bullies to throw them both in a dumpster.

Meanwhile, Marge forgets about the bake sale, and only has a half hour to make a raisin sponge cake. In order to save time, Marge drastically increases the oven temperature to 1,200 degrees, burning the cake and making it rock-solid. Marge attempts to cover it up with pink and white frosting before leaving for the bake sale.

At Jimbo's house, the three bullies make a powerful stink bomb from the expired yogurt (along with other ingredients), and plan on detonating it at the bake sale. After Milhouse's failed attempt to track the bullies, Lisa suggests that Bart help them, which he does after negotiating immunity from punishment for all his past and future pranks. During his investigation, Bart's phone call is accidentally crossed with a call from Jack Bauer of 24 and turns it into a prank call against him. After finding out about the stink bomb, Bart returns to the school to tell Lisa, but is knocked out and captured by Martin, a double-agent who had been blackmailed into working for the bullies.

At the bake sale, the bullies start the three-minute timer for the bomb. Bart, locked in the ventilation room, contacts Lisa by his cell phone and shows her a picture of the stink bomb, telling her to have Principal Skinner dump the hot dog water and short circuit the ventilation fan. Skinner fills up the room with the water. Running out of air, Bart attempts to swim out, but cannot break through the room's only window. Marge helps him, breaking the glass by throwing her burnt cake through the window. Lisa then defuses the bomb, saving the bake sale from the stench. However after that, Jack Bauer & several CTU field agents break inside the bake sale, destroying it, and start to arrest Bart for his "annoying prank call". A nuclear bomb then goes off in the distance, but everyone sighs with relief after Bauer reassures them that the nuclear bomb went off in Shelbyville.

Production

An original idea saw Edgar Stiles from 24 appearing in the episode and being killed, but the concept was dropped.

Reception

Robert Canning on IGN named "24 Minutes" the best episode of the season, citing "this smart, funny, spot-on parody of 24 was so good that it came very close to redeeming the entire season."

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The Mook, the Chef, the Wife and Her Homer • Jazzy and the Pussycats • Please Homer, Don't Hammer 'Em • Treehouse of Horror XVII • G.I. (Annoyed Grunt) • Moe'N'a Lisa • Ice Cream of Margie (with the Light Blue Hair) • The Haw-Hawed Couple • Kill Gil, Volumes I & II • The Wife Aquatic • Revenge Is a Dish Best Served Three Times • Little Big Girl • Springfield Up • Yokel Chords • Rome-Old and Juli-Eh • Homerazzi • Marge Gamer • The Boys of Bummer • Crook and Ladder • Stop, or My Dog Will Shoot! • 24 Minutes • You Kent Always Say What You Want