Reception
In its original American broadcast, "Radio Bart" finished 31st in the ratings for the week of January 6–12, 1992, with a Nielsen rating of 14.1, equivalent to approximately 13 million viewing households. It was the highest-rated show on the Fox network that week. The episode was nominated for an Emmy Award in the "Outstanding Animated Program" category, but lost to Will Vinton's A Claymation Easter on CBS. "Radio Bart" was submitted for consideration because it was the staff's favorite episode of the season. Executive producer Al Jean said they thought this episode or an episode of Ren & Stimpy would win and they were "absolutely floored" when neither did. The Simpsons director David Silverman said he thinks The Simpsons and Ren & Stimpy split the vote, allowing A Claymation Easter to win the Emmy.
Since airing, the episode has received mostly positive reviews from television critics. It was named the second best episode of The Simpsons by Kirk Baird of the Las Vegas Sun and the third best episode by Sarah Culp of The Quindecim. DVD Movie Guide's Colin Jacobson commented: "Despite the potential for some heavy-handed moralizing, 'Radio Bart' provides a terrific show. From Bart’s crappy birthday to his pranks to the public reaction to Timmy’s trapping, the humor flies fast and furious in this excellent episode. It’s one of the better ones." The Daily Telegraph characterized the episode as one of ten best episodes of The Simpsons. DVD Times's Chris Kaye said "Radio Bart" is "another demonstration of the series' knack for cultural references, parodying the Billy Wilder movie Ace in the Hole." Entertainment Weekly ranked "Radio Bart" as the twentieth best episode of The Simpsons and commented that "it's a media parody so sharp, we're still stinging a bit."
Monsters and Critics's Trent McMartin praised Sting's guest performance, calling it "humorous". Total Film's Nathan Ditum ranked his performance as the 11th best guest appearance in the show's history. The authors of the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, commented that "The Police had a song called 'Canary in the Coalmine', and Sting had made a point of campaigning for good causes, which explains why he was singled out in this sharp critique of celebrity posturing and media panic." Tom Nawrocki of Rolling Stone rated the "We're Sending Our Love Down the Well" song as one of the best musical moments in the history of the show.
Read more about this topic: Radio Bart
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)