The Otto Show - Reception

Reception

In its original airing on the Fox Network, the episode had an 11.5 Nielsen rating and was viewed in approximately 10.59 million homes. It finished the week of April 20–26, 1992 ranked 41st, up from the season's average rank of 35th. The Simpsons was the fourth highest rated show on Fox that week after Married... with Children, Beverly Hills, 90210 and In Living Color.

The episode, like the whole of the third season, received mostly positive reviews from critics. The authors of the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, wrote, "A nice episode for Otto and some great moments for Skinner as he tries to drive the bus, but especially memorable for Homer's moment of forgetfulness after the concert. Michael McKean, Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer reprise their roles from This Is Spinal Tap perfectly." MovieFreak.com's Dennis Landmann named "The Otto Show" as one of the stand-out episodes from the third season. Nate Meyers of Digitally Obsessed was also positive about the episode, giving it a rating of five donuts out of five and writing "The writing is at full throttle here, cramming tons of jokes into the episode's 20-minute runtime with stunning success." DVD Movie Guide's Colin Jacobson wrote that it was "another solid episode. Actually, it regresses somewhat from the high quality of its predecessors. The Spinal Tap material feels somewhat tacky – it was a tie-in with their then-current attempt to sell a new album – and Otto's not a strong character. I don’t think the series ever made him the lead again, and he works best in small doses. "Otto: remains very good, but it doesn’t compete with the year’s best shows.""

Especially the guest appearance of Spinal Tap was noticed. Bryce Wilson, in his review of the third season for Cinema Blend, wrote "Simpson’s voice actor Harry Shearer...reunites Spinal Tap just for "The Otto Show", an episode full of the trademark Tap banter and stage disasters that rival even the mighty 18 inch Stonehenge." IGN named Spinal Tap as the '18th best guest stars' in the show's history for this episode. Andrew Martin of Prefix Mag named Spinal Tap his favorite musical guests on The Simpsons out of a list of ten.