Sweet Seymour Skinner's Baadasssss Song

After failing to find an adequate object to bring for show and tell at Springfield Elementary School, Bart decides to bring Santa's Little Helper to school. Bart's show and tell presentation is well received by the class, but the dog escapes into the air ducts. Principal Skinner sends Groundskeeper Willie through a vent to retrieve Santa's Little Helper. Willie catches Santa's Little Helper but becomes trapped in the ducts. As firemen attempt to rescue him, Superintendent Chalmers arrives for a surprise inspection. Willie falls from the vent and lands on Chalmers. Chalmers reveals he has reached a breaking point with Skinner's administration of the school, and fires Skinner.

Chalmers hires Ned Flanders as the new principal of Springfield Elementary School. When Ned is hesitant to use discipline, the children run amok and their academic ability falls further. Instead of rejoicing at the lack of discipline, Bart feels guilty for getting Skinner fired. He befriends the former principal and shares stories about Ned's failure as the school's head. Feeling lonely, Skinner decides to re-enlist in the United States Army, However, he and the Army's new recruits do not get along well and Skinner soon wants to de-enlist.

To get Skinner his job back, Bart helps Skinner get out of the Army by violating Don't Ask, Don't Tell and tries to expose Ned's poor leadership to Chalmers with Homer's help, though Skinner and Bart sadly note that it will mean their friendship cannot continue unless Bart becomes a good student, which Bart bluntly says is unlikely to happen. Despite the chaos at the school, Chalmers is unconcerned because he always disliked Skinner and thinks the school is no worse under Ned than most public schools end up being. After hearing Ned utter a brief mention of God during school announcements, however, Chalmers realizes in horror that Ned is conducting a school prayer in a public school, leading him to fire Ned and re-hire Skinner. Bart and Skinner lament the end of their friendship, but both secretly enjoy their rivalry starting up again.

Bill Oakley wrote the episode along with Josh Weinstein.

"Sweet Seymour Skinner's Baadasssss Song" was written by Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein, and directed by Bob Anderson.[1] Oakley and Weinstein decided to do a Skinner and Bart episode because the staff wanted to take a diversion from the relatively wacky, fast-paced episodes that had comprised Season 5 so far and, according to show runner David Mirkin, "slow down parts of the show to take time for more emotional episodes like this one". Much of Principal Skinner's behavior in the episode is based on teachers Oakley and Weinstein had in high school who, according to Oakley, were "sad, lonely guys who lived with their mothers".[2] It was selected to air as the 100th episode of the show because the staff wanted that particular episode to focus on Bart.[3]

Baby Gerald, Luigi Risotto, Assistant Superintendent Leopold, and Flanders' parents make their first appearances on the show in this episode. Leopold and Luigi were designed by David Silverman, one of the show's directors. Anderson thought Luigi was one of the funniest characters on the show when he first read Luigi's lines in the script during a table read of the episode. When Anderson skimmed through the script and saw Luigi's lines, he said he "frightened Julie Kavner because I was laughing to myself, but trying to keep the laughter in because it was so damn funny."[4]

"Sweet Seymour Skinner's Baadasssss Song" originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on April 28, 1994.[5] The episode was selected for release in a 1999 video collection of selected episodes called, The Simpsons: Greatest Hits,[6] which also included the episodes "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire", "Lisa's First Word", "Trash of the Titans", and "Bart Gets an 'F'".[6] The episode was again included in the 2003 DVD release of the Greatest Hits set, which also included all the other episodes except "Trash of the Titans".[7] "Sweet Seymour Skinner's Baadasssss Song" was also included in The Simpsons season five DVD set, which was released on December 21, 2004.[8]

• The episode's title is a reference to the 1971 Melvin Van Peebles film Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song.[5]
• Skinner's quote "We'll always have the laundromat" is a reference to a famous quote by Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca.
• The beginning scene of the episode, in which Marge, Lisa, and Bart watch a home video, is a parody of the television series The Wonder Years; the Joe Cocker version of the song "With a Little Help from My Friends" from that series is also used in the background of the opening scene.[2]
• The scene in which Santa's Little Helper runs through the school vent is a reference to a scene in the film Alien, as is Skinner's use of a heat-seeking tracer to pin down the positions of Groundskeeper Willie and Santa's Little Helper within the ventilation system.[1]
• Skinner says he was shot in the back at a United Service Organizations (USO) show while trying to get "Joey Heatherton to put some pants on", a reference to American actress Joey Heatherton.[5]
• Skinner's attire and shots of him running with his troops are references to the 1987 film Full Metal Jacket.[3]
• Skinner tells Apu Nahasapeemapetilon of his plan to write a novel about an amusement park with dinosaurs called Billy and the Cloneasaurus, which Apu rightfully (and angrily, at great length) condemns as plagiarism; the book is a reference to the Michael Crichton novel Jurassic Park.[9]
• When Martin is in a cage, he is singing the Toreador Song from the opera Carmen.
• In describing the relationship of Bart and Skinner, Lisa compares them to Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty, the famous characters from the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle detective stories; she also compares them to Mountain Dew and Mello Yello, which she describes as mortal enemies, concluding that Bart needs Skinner as an adversary in order to be truly happy.[10]

Wikiquote has quotations related to "Sweet Seymour Skinner's Baadasssss Song".

• "Sweet Seymour Skinner's Baadasssss Song episode capsule". The Simpsons Archive.
• "Sweet Seymour Skinner's Baadasssss Song" at IMDb