The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular

"The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular" is the tenth episode of Season 7.
==Synopsis==
In this spoof of anniversary shows and sitcom retrospective clip show episodes, Troy McClure, whom you may remember from such Fox Network specials as Alien Nose Job and Five Fabulous Weeks of The Chevy Chase Show, hosts a behind-the-scenes look at The Simpsons, which includes clips from their humble beginnings as filler on The Tracy Ullman Show, answers to popular fan questions, and never-before-seen deleted scenes, including the alternate ending to the "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" two-parter.
== Full Story ==
In honor of the 138th episode of "The Simpsons", Troy McClure hosts a Simpsons TV special looking back at the history of the show. The opening has "I Will Only Do This Once A Year" as a chalkboard gag and the couch gags from "A Streetcar Named Marge" (also used in "Last Exit to Springfield"), "Lisa The Beauty Queen" (also used in "Duffless"), "Marge vs. the Monorail", "Homer's Triple Bypass" (also used in "Marge in Chains") "Burns Verkaufen der Kraftwerk" (also used in "The Otto Show"), "Homer Goes To College" (also used in "Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy"), "A Star Is Burns" (also used in "'Round Springfield"), "Homer The Great" (also used in "The PTA Disbands"), "Homer Badman" (also used in "Two Dozen and One Greyhounds"), "Lisa's Rival" (also used in "Bart vs. Australia"), "Bart's Comet" (also used in "Lemon of Troy") and "Lisa's First Word" (also used in "The Front", "Cape Feare" and "Fear Of Flying"). 
The first act is composed of various Tracey Ullman shorts, like "Good Night", "The Perfect Crime", "Space Patrol", "World War III" (in 1987) and "Bathtime" in 1989.
Next, Troy answers some viewer mail, with questions about Homer getting increasingly dumber (with clips between seasons 2 and 6 showing how Homer has gotten stupider), how Matt Groening can create an episode a week (which a cameraman tries to get an answer from Matt Groening, depicted as an eye-patched, alcoholic, redneck, conservative nutjob, but ends up getting shot), and whether or not Smithers is a homosexual, which Troy doesn't directly answer (instead, he says that Smithers is in his early 40s, lives in Springfield, and works for Mr. Burns).
The final act is a collection of actual deleted scenes from select episodes, including Krusty's show getting cancelled after his arrest for trying to sell a pornographic photo book to minors in "Krusty Gets Kancelled" (and a subsequent scene where Krusty is told his show is canceled and will be replaced with a hemorrhoid informercial, with Krusty begging to play either a hemorrhoid sufferer or one of the "After" guys); Homer's head being used as a bowling ball in the Treehouse of Horror story, "The Devil and Homer Simpson" (along with Bart trying to sell his soul for a Formula-One racing car, and Lionel Hutz coming back with a box of pizza, thinking he lost the case, but when Marge tells him they won, he reveals the box was empty all along); Homer eating food from his mom's undelivered care packages and talking about how he's taking the nuclear plant down from the inside in "Mother Simpson", Apu showing a Bollywood film to The Simpsons in "Homer and Apu"; Mr. Burns using a robotic Richard Simmons to scare Homer away in "Burns' Heir"; and a montage of alternate scenes made for "Who Shot Mr. Burns? (Part Two)" to keep the real shooter's identity secret until broadcast, presenting everyone from Moe to Tito Puente to Santa's Little Helper as the culprit. This is followed by a complete alternate ending in which Smithers turned out to be the culprit all along (which would have conflicted with the plot point about the attempted murderer being someone having Simpson family DNA).
McClure closes the show with the real reason people want to watch the show: "Hardcore nudity!" (albeit PG-rated hardcore nudity, where the nudity is censored and either shown mostly for laughs, such as Homer and Bart mooning people, or briefly shown as an establishment to an implied sex scene) set to K.C. and the Sunshine Band's "Shake Your Booty."
==Behind the Laughter==
=== Reception ===
The episode ranked among the ten most viewed episodes of the seventh season. After its initial American airing, the episode received a Nielsen rating of 9.5 and a Nielsen rank of 48. 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 satirical 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."
The episode received positive reviews from critics. The authors of the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, thought "the out-takes are up to standard" and contains "a number of great self-referential moments". Simone Knox praised its visual style in her article "Reading the Ungraspable Double-Codedness of The Simpsons". DVD Movie Guide's Colin Jacobson said even though the episode is a clip show, it "gussies up the concept with some interesting elements and keeps repetitive material to a minimum. Instead, it offers lots of then-unseen footage as well as old snippets from The Tracey Ullman Show. It still feels like a cheap way to crank out a new episode, but it’s one of the better clip shows you’ll see."
== Citations ==
fr:138e épisode, du jamais vu !
pl:The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular
pt:138º Episódio espetacular de Os Simpsons
Category:12-rated episodes
Category:Episodes
Category:Clip Show
Category:Troy McClure episodes
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Category:Written by Jon Vitti
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