Air Date: April 29, 1990
Production Episode: 7G12
Written by: Jay Kogen and Wallace Wolodarsky
Directed by: Brad Bird
Here we go. This is it folks. The first time Sideshow Bob turned to a life of eeeeevil.
Get used to it, Mr. Terwilliger.
This is easily one of the most complicated episodes of Season one. All the clues to the real identity of the Krusty that robbed the Kwick-E-Mart had to be brought out one by one over the episode. We learn a lot about Krusty and Sideshow Bob, more than any other secondary character at this point. And they had to do it all while somehow making Bart a part of it all. For a celebrity, Krusty sure spends a lot of time hanging out with nobodies over the series.
Viewers might be aware of the trivia that Krusty was originally Homer in disguise. Whether the idea was nixed here or in The Telltale Head, which also had Krusty speaking directly to Homer, is unclear, since both were being produced very close together. On the topic of plot points that were dropped early on, did you also know Marge used to be a giant rabbit?
The episode starts off with an episode of The Krusty the Clown Show. This is an interesting bit of framing. Each act begins with a shot of Krusty's face, showing the progression of the episode. The first act opens with the curtain on his show. The second act begins with a shot of his face behind bars. The third and final act starts with Sideshow Bob's face in the office instead of Krusty's.
Krusty opens his episode with a birthday wish, where the lucky viewer gets to choose between a song or seeing Sideshow Bob shot out of a cannon. Sideshow Bob's resignation to being shot out of a cannon clearly shows how poorly he is treated on the show. Back in the Simpsons household, Patty and Selma are arriving with the first of many, many vacation slideshows. I'd like to imagine they're still using a projector even in 2015. They seem like the type. Marge calls Homer at work and sends him off to get ice cream for them.
At the Kwick-E-Mart, Homer is a witness to "Krusty" robbing the store at gunpoint. Here's where we see the clues that are revealed throughout the episode. Krusty is microwaving a burrito as Homer walks in. He's reading the Springfield Review of Books. And finally, when Homer turns around, he steps on the end of Krusty's foot. All three of these events eventually prove the culprit couldn't have been the real Herschel Krustofski.
Kent Brockman makes his first appearance in this episode in the second act, giving us the expository information on Krusty. We learn about Krusty's heart problems and habit of blatantly hawking products on his show. It makes me wonder how many people realized his pacemaker meant he couldn't be near the microwave in the Kwick-E-Mart, given how prominent the warning label was on the screen.
In the courthouse we meet Judge Snyder for the first time. We also meet a lawyer who eventually prosecutes Bart for the murder of Principal Skinner in Bart the Murderer. The beloved Lionel Hutz and the Blue Haired Lawyer don't exist yet. During the trial we see Krusty's illiteracy and small feet brought up, revealing the final two clues that he's innocent.
Entering the third act, we see Sideshow Bob taking over the show and speaking for the first time. His erudite voice and penchant for the arts is introduced. While Lisa is overjoyed at the more highbrow show, Bart is still convinced that Krusty was set up. He implores Lisa to help him figure it out, as she is the smart one, now officially declared as such on the show, instead of implied as in earlier episodes. They go to see Sideshow Bob, where we see his gigantic feet, giving us the final clue as to the robber's true identity.
Bart and Lisa receive tickets to the show, where Bart is called onstage to talk to Sideshow Bob. Bart goes over the first two clues before Bob cuts him off, resulting in a clever joke that I didn't notice for twenty six years.
Sideshow Bob says " Bart, open your heart. I admit I have some mighty big shoes to fill.". This triggers Bart to recall all the events while that phrase is repeating in his head. We see the robber shouting as his foot is stepped on over and over again with neon feet spiraling towards the center of the screen and, well, see for yourself:
Twenty six years, Wallace and Jay. Twenty six years that joke went over my head.
Bart interrupts Bob and reveals his giant feet, declaring him the robber. Wiggum, who is still a competent police officer at this point, sends Eddie and Lou to arrest Sideshow Bob. He declares revenge as he's dragged away, and Krusty tells Bart he'll never forget him, a promise that is immediately broken in season 2 and onward.
The shot of Sideshow Bob being arrested is a perfect example of how they were still working out the animation in the first season. We see a circle of people, with the camera situated behind the first row, blocking off some of the action. It makes for the same claustrophobic feel a lot of the early episodes had, until they began dropping extraneous details to keep the scenes less cluttered.
As first season episodes go this one is easily the best. It also introduced two characters who get a surprising amount of mileage over the years, to the point that Krusty received his own videogames and almost even had his own spinoff series. Sideshow Bob of course breaks out of jail over and over. Which is one of the first examples of the timeline issue the show has. Since the characters don't age, the show has to take place over the same year and some odd months. At first, they were repeating all Bob's antics each time he appeared. Eventually, this resulted in a criminal being let loose after a matter of weeks over the course of a few months, so they stopped. The fact that it would take most of an act to list them all probably didn't help.
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