Bart The Mother

Bart The Mother

"Bart the Mother" is the third episode of the 10th season of The Simpsons, originally airing on September 27, 1998. The episode was written by David X. Cohen and directed by Steven Dean Moore. It was the last full-length episode Cohen wrote for The Simpsons before leaving to work on Futurama. The original idea for the episode was intended to be a B story, but because it was too difficult to work into other episodes, it eventually became a primary plot. "Bart the Mother" contains the final appearance of the character Troy McClure, by the voice actor Phil Hartman, who was killed by his wife on May 28, 1998, four months before the episode aired. In the episode, Bart Simpson accidentally kills a mother bird with a BB gun, and decides to hatch and take care of the two eggs he found in the bird's nest.

In its original American broadcast, "Bart the Mother" finished 58th in ratings for the week of September 21–27, 1998, with a Nielsen rating of 7.4, translating to 7,355,600 households. Nancy Cartwright, the voice actor who portrayed Bart, described the episode as one of her favorites. Several reviewers, who called the tenth season of The Simpsons one of the series' less humorous seasons, chose "Bart the Mother" as one of its better episodes. Bart's moral dilemma and soul searching moments near the end of the episode was praised by some as a refreshing turn of events for the series, and a number of reviewers also called "Bart the Mother" a memorable episode.