Last Exit to Springfield

While awaiting the arrival of his employees' union president (who is heavily implied to have been murdered for his attempts to clean up corruption in the organization) to discuss the latest contract, Mr. Burns reminisces of simpler times back in 1909, when his grandfather would seal his workers away in abandoned coke ovens. Burns decides to challenge the union's demands by revoking their dental plan.

Lisa has a dentist appointment where her dentist, Dr. Wolfe, informs the family that Lisa needs braces. Homer tells a worried Marge that the dental plan the union won during a strike at Springfield Nuclear Power Plant will cover the cost. Later, at a union meeting, Carl announces that the newest contract requires them to give up their dental plan in exchange for a free keg of beer at union meetings. Homer slowly realizes that giving up their dental plan would require him to pay for Lisa's braces and jumps into action, reminding everyone how their dental plan has helped them all. After encouragement from Carl, Homer is promptly elected the new union president.

Burns invites Homer to his office with the intent of bribing him, but Homer misconstrues Burns's sly innuendos as sexual advances. Homer declares that he is not interested in "backdoor shenanigans" and promptly leaves, leading Burns to wrongly infer that Homer is honest and incorruptible. Meanwhile, after learning the family has no dental insurance, Dr. Wolfe fits Lisa with the cheapest (and ugliest) braces available, causing her self-esteem to drop.

Homer is kidnapped from his house by "hired goons" and taken to Burns's mansion. Burns gives Homer a tour of the mansion to get him in a good mood, but when the tour ends and the two men sit down to negotiate the contract, Homer suddenly needs to use the bathroom. Homer's delayed attempts to find the restroom lead Burns to inaccurately assume that Homer is a tough negotiator who is unwilling to hear him out. At a later union meeting, Homer tries to resign, tired of meeting with Burns. The union misinterprets his frustration, and the members decide to strike. Burns is undeterred by the strike and tries several methods of breaking it up but fails.

As a last resort after weeks of failed attempts, Burns deliberately causes a power outage throughout Springfield to break the union's spirit. However, the strikers do not lose hope and begin to sing a protest song written by Lisa. Burns finally calls a meeting with Homer to concede their demands on one condition: that Homer resign as union president. Homer loudly celebrates both of Burns's demands, leading Burns to finally realize that Homer is not the "brilliant tactician" he thought he was. With the Simpson family insured again, Lisa gets invisible, painless new braces.

The idea for this episode came from Mike Reiss, who thought it would be funny if the plant went on strike. The writers of the episode, Jay Kogen and Wallace Wolodarsky, would later add the dental plan aspect of the plot.[5] During the production of this episode, an ABC camera crew was allowed into the rewrite room, which Al Jean says he regrets because they were working on stage direction, and they came off as not being very funny.[5]

The producers originally asked Anthony Hopkins and Clint Eastwood to provide the voice of the dentist, Dr. Wolfe, but they both turned the role down.[5] Anthony Perkins was eventually cast in the role, but died before his recording session. In the end, the role went to Simpsons regular Hank Azaria. As well, the original panelist on Smartline was supposed to be O. J. Simpson, but he turned it down, much to the relief of the writers when Simpson was later tried for murder.[5]

Lisa's dream sequence, based on Yellow Submarine.[2] Everything in the sequence had to be slightly changed for copyright reasons.[5]

The title of the episode is an homage to Hubert Selby Jr.'s novel Last Exit to Brooklyn, one subplot of which involves the corruption and downfall of a union leader during a strike.[6] The body of the union president, Chuckie Fitzhugh, is seen buried under a football field, an homage to the mystery surrounding the whereabouts of Jimmy Hoffa and his alleged burial at New Jersey's Giants Stadium.[5] Mr. Burns' outfit in the flashback to his childhood is based on Buster Brown.[7] Homer's imagination of a life of organized crime is based on Don Fanucci's first appearance in The Godfather Part II, accepting donuts rather than a necklace and an orange.[8]

Lisa has a nitrous oxide-induced hallucination that echoes The Beatles film Yellow Submarine, which Al Jean says had to be changed slightly for legal reasons. This included changing the name of the short sequence to "purple submersible"; Paul McCartney calls her "Lisa in the Sky", while George Harrison notes "no diamonds though". This is a reference to the Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds".[5] The scene where Lisa acquires her monstrous braces, laughs maniacally and breaks her mirror is based on a scene from the 1989 Tim Burton film Batman where Jack Napier discovers his transformation into the Joker.[2]

When Homer is escorted by the hired goons into what appears to be Burns' conservatory, a Burns-headed bird (presumably a vulture) is sitting in front of the screen, which then flies away. This is a reference to the cockatoo in Citizen Kane.[5] The page Mr. Burns reads from the monkey's typewriter is a reference to the first line of A Tale of Two Cities. The episode features a sample of "Classical Gas", a popular piece of incidental music by Mason Williams played by Lisa on a request from Lenny.[3] The sequence of Mr. Burns and Smithers going through multiple doors to get to the main power switch, and the music accompanying it, is a parody of the opening credits of Get Smart except for the part with the book case and twin fireman poles which is a reference to the original Batman television series, simultaneous with this the score referencing the theme by Danny Elfman. Before Mr. Burns shuts off the power to the town in response to the strike, he says, "From Hell's heart I stab at thee" which is a reference to Captain Ahab's curse, from the novel Moby-Dick.[9] The workers' resistance to the power outage, and Mr. Burns's response, is a parody of How the Grinch Stole Christmas.[7]

When Homer succeeds in getting the dental plan reinstated, he celebrates by spinning around on the floor and yelling “woo-woo-woo” a la Curly Howard of The Three Stooges.

In its original broadcast, "Last Exit to Springfield" finished 19th in ratings for the week of March 8–14, 1993, with a Nielsen rating of 13.7, equivalent to approximately 12.8 million viewing households. It was the highest-rated show on the Fox network that week.[10]

The episode is generally ranked as being one of the best of all time and is on a number of Top 10 lists;[5] the BBC stated it is "frequently cited as the show's best-ever episode".[11] An Entertainment Weekly article from January 2003 looking back at the top 25 episodes of the series chose the episode as the show's greatest, saying "this episode is virtually flawless, the product of a series at the height of its creative powers -- when the satire was savage and relevant" and "the stuff of syndication legend: Burns facing down brilliant labor kingpin Homer Simpson; Homer Simpson facing down his own brain (DENTAL PLAN!/Lisa needs braces!); Grampa rattling on about wearing onions on his belt. Last Exit is a glorious symphony of the high and the low, of satirical shots at unions."[4] In 2020, Al Jean acknowledged "Last Exit to Springfield" as an episode many consider to be a favorite.[12]

In his book, Planet Simpson, Chris Turner calls it the best episode of the series, saying "Episode 9F15 of The Simpsons should be taught in schools, in history, economics, social studies, literature and art class. It's flawless".[13] He also called it "the funniest half-hour in TV history", and provided a full analysis of the episode, only criticizing the chalkboard and couch gags.[13] He maintains that he chose the episode as best ever before Entertainment Weekly's list was published.[13]

In 2003, to celebrate the show's 300th episode, USA Today published a top 10 chosen by the webmaster of The Simpsons Archive, which had this episode in first place.[14] The BBC website says, "This fine episode contains several of our favourite sequences ... A classic, and the series' most marked expedition into the surreal - up to this point."[2] Today, who listed the episode as their favorite, stated, "This is the episode that every self-respecting Simpsons geek must be able to recite verbatim."[15]

Michael Moran of The Times ranked the episode as the sixth-best in the show's history.[16] Screen Rant called it the best episode of the fourth season and the second greatest episode of The Simpsons (behind "Homer's Enemy").[17]

Director Mark Kirkland considers the episode to be one of the most surreal episodes that he has worked on because it has a lot of story crammed into it, many parodies and contains several visual sequences.[7] Al Jean has also called it one of the "craziest" episodes.[5] Homer's line "uh... Yeah" after being asked if he found the bathroom is one of Jay Kogen's favorite Simpsons jokes.[8]

The scene in the episode in which Mr. Burns shows his room with a thousand monkeys working at a thousand typewriters, a reference to the infinite monkey theorem, has inspired a real-life experiment about the theorem.[18] The episode has become study material for sociology courses at University of California Berkeley, where it is used to "examine issues of the production and reception of cultural objects, in this case, a cartoon show", and to figure out what it is "trying to tell audiences about aspects primarily of American society, and, to a lesser extent, about other societies."[19]

Bibliography

Wikiquote has quotations related to "Last Exit to Springfield".

• "Last Exit to Springfield episode capsule". The Simpsons Archive.
• "Last Exit to Springfield" at IMDb