Reception
In its original broadcast, "The Last Temptation of Krust" finished 21st in ratings for the week of February 16–23, 1998, with a Nielsen rating of 9.7, equivalent to approximately 9.5 million viewing households. It was the fourth highest-rated show on the Fox network that week, following The X-Files, The World's Scariest Police Chases and King of the Hill.
In 2006, USA Today highlighted the episode in a review of The Simpsons ninth season. In his review of the season nine DVD, Joseph Szadkowski of The Washington Times noted: "Among the 22-minute gems found in the set, I most enjoyed ... work with Jay Leno." Mark Evans of the Evening Herald wrote, "'The Last Temptation of Krust' is a winner for its title alone as Krusty the clown becomes a satiric 'alternative' comedian but then sells out by advertising the Canyonero SUV road hazard." Alan Sepinwall wrote positively of the episode in The Star-Ledger, citing the Canyonero sequence as "the real reason to watch" the episode and that "It's an oversize vehicle that will create oversized laughs." Some sources mistakenly refer to this episode as "The Last Temptation of Krusty".
In the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood characterized the episode as "a good twist on the never-ending Krusty story" and suggested that while "Jay Leno turns in a nice cameo the show is stolen by the advert for the Canyonero". The authors also praised Krusty's "ponytail and black sweater" look. In the DVD audio commentary for "The Last Temptation of Krust", Leno said that he believed the essence of comedy clubs was depicted very well in the episode and referred to Krusty's remodeled appearance as " Carlin post-Vegas act". He also appreciated Krusty's poke at Leno's use of news headlines on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and said that he could not figure out whether parts of the episode were making fun of him or complimenting him. William Irwin's The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh! of Homer references a scene from the episode as an example of Marge's passive resistance, her moral influence on Lisa and her value as a role model for her children.
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Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul. A true conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be made by the reception of beautiful sentiments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“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)