Brother's Little Helper
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"Brother's Little Helper" is the second episode of The Simpsons' 11th season. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on October 3, 1999. In the episode, Bart floods the school gymnasium, which prompts the school's principal Seymour Skinner to diagnose Bart with ADD. Bart is prescribed a psychostimulant drug called Focusyn (a parody of Ritalin), and initially starts paying more attention to his studies. After a while however, Bart starts turning psychotic and is convinced that Major League Baseball is watching over the people of Springfield.
The episode was directed by director Mark Kirkland and was the first episode staff writer George Meyer received a sole writing credit for since the season 5 episode "Bart's Inner Child". Meyer, who was facing some psychological difficulties while writing the episode, felt so dissatisfied with the episode's first draft that he turned it in with a pseudonym. The episode satirizes the perceived misdiagnosis of behavioral disorders in children, which was a controversial topic at the time the episode was written.
The episode features former Major League Baseball player Mark McGwire as himself. Finishing in 51st place, ratings for "Brother's Little Helper" were considered disappointing by Deseret News, although the episode became the most watched program on the network that night. Following its broadcast, the episode was positively received by critics. Coincidentally, five months after the episode originally aired, United States president Bill Clinton held the first ever White House conference on Mental Health.
Read more about Brother's Little Helper: Plot, Production, Themes and Cultural References, Reception
Famous quotes containing the word brother:
“I was interested to see how a pioneer lived on this side of the country. His life is in some respects more adventurous than that of his brother in the West; for he contends with winter as well as the wilderness, and there is a greater interval of time at least between him and the army which is to follow. Here immigration is a tide which may ebb when it has swept away the pines; there it is not a tide, but an inundation, and roads and other improvements come steadily rushing after.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)