Reception
In its original broadcast, "Bart Gets an Elephant" finished forty-second in the ratings for the week of March 28 to April 20, 1994, with a Nielsen rating of 10.7, equivalent to 10 million viewing households. It was the highest-rated show on the Fox network that week. The episode won an Environmental Media Award in the Best Television Episodic Comedy category, which has been awarded every year since 1991 to the best television episode with an environmental message. The episode has also received a Genesis Award in the Best Television Comedy Series category. The Genesis Awards are given out annually by the Humane Society of the United States to "to the news and entertainment media for shining that spotlight into the darkest corners of animal abuse and exploitation."
Since airing, the episode has received mostly positive reviews from television 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: "Another favourite. It's hard to explain the special appeal of this episode. Perhaps it's because Homer is so exceptionally dumb. Or perhaps because it contains the 'D'oh!' 'A deer!' 'A female deer!' gag." This gag was also praised by BBC News's Mark Milne, who said: " just cracks me up every time. Brilliant!" DVD Movie Guide's Colin Jacobson thought the fifth season included "plenty of programs with potentially cheesy concepts", such as "Deep Space Homer" and "Bart Gets an Elephant". However, he thought the episode managed to "easily overcome its possible flaws" to turn into a "very fine program". Homer's line "Marge, I agree with you in theory. In theory, communism works — In theory" was Jacobson's favorite of the episode. Patrick Bromley of DVD Verdict gave the episode a grade of A, and Bill Gibron of DVD Talk gave it a score of 4 out of 5.
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