"Bart's Dog Gets an F" is the sixteenth episode of The Simpsons' second season. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on March 7, 1991. In this episode, the Simpson family's dog, Santa's Little Helper, manages to infuriate the entire family by destroying Homer's new shoes, ruining a family heirloom, and devouring Homer's cookie. As a result, Bart is forced to train Santa's Little Helper at an obedience school so that the family will not have to give him away. At first, the dog is extremely disobedient, but, at the last minute, passes the test.
The episode was written by Jon Vitti and directed by Jim Reardon. Tracey Ullman guest starred as Emily Winthrop, the instructor at the obedience school. The animal noises for the episode were performed by Frank Welker. "Bart's Dog Gets an F" features cultural references to films such as Predator, Jaws, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and National Lampoon's Animal House. Since airing, the episode has received mostly positive reviews from television critics. It acquired a Nielsen rating of 13.8, and was the highest-rated show on the Fox network the week it aired.
Read more about Bart's Dog Gets An F: Plot, Production, Cultural References, Reception
Famous quotes containing the word dog:
“That hour in the life of a man when first the help of humanity fails him, and he learns that in his obscurity and indigence humanity holds him a dog and no man: that hour is a hard one, but not the hardest. There is still another hour which follows, when he learns that in his infinite comparative minuteness and abjectness, the gods do likewise despise him, and own him not of their clan.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)