The Simpsons/Krusty Gets Kancelled

Krusty Gets Kancelled
Season 4, Episode 22
Airdate	May 13, 1993
Production Number	9F19
Written by	John Swartzwelder
Directed by	David Silverman
← 4x21 Marge in Chains	5x01 → Homer's Barbershop Quartet
The Simpsons — Season Four

Krusty Gets Kancelled is the twenty-second episode of the fourth season of The Simpsons, and the eighty-first episode overall. Krusty's show finds itself in cancellation when a ventriloquist's dummy named Gabbo takes Springfield by storm.

Special Guest Voices: Johnny Carson (Himself), Hugh Hefner (Himself), Better Midler (Herself), Luke Perry (Himself), Red Hot Chili Peppers (Themselves), Elizabeth Taylor (Herself), Marcia Wallace, Barry White (Himself)

Also Starring: Pamela Hayden (Milhouse Van Houten)

Plot Overview

While watching the Springfield Squares get washed out by a tidal wave, Homer and Bart are bombarded with an ambiguous commercial saying, simply, "Gabbo!" A flood of advertisements for Gabbo ensues over the next several days, building up the moment as much as possible without revealing what exactly Gabbo is. Eventually, Gabbo makes his debut on television in a commercial, revealing himself to be a Jerry Lewis-like ventriloquist's dummy, along with his partner Arthur Crandall. Gabbo has strategically positioned himself in a timeslot opposing Krusty the Klown, which immediately worries Bart and Lisa.

Krusty isn't worried, despite being beaten by The Bumblebee Man on Channel Ocho. Sure enough, Krusty caves and tries a ventriloquist act on his own, but his dilapidated puppet only frightens his slowly diminishing audience of children. Not content with stealing away his audience, Gabbo also takes Itchy & Scratchy, forcing Krusty to show a Soviet cartoon called Worker & Parasite which has no discernible plot but is almost certainly about communism. By now, Krusty's entire audience is gone and his show cancelled.

Now unemployed, Krusty seeks advise from the retired Johnny Carson, who is doing well for himself, before going out on an ill-advised audition for Melrose Place and blowing his last ten bucks on a horse race. Meanwhile, Gabbo's popularity continues to grow, but Gabbo's humiliating bit pranking Krusty sends Bart looking for retribution. He manages to sneak into Gabbo's studio and distract the cameraman long enough for him to get footage of Gabbo calling all the kids in Springfield "S.O.B.s." The resulting media reaction has no effect at all on Gabbo's popularity, although Kent Brockman does wind up fired.

Bart and Lisa find Krusty panhandling for cash and take him back to his home where they find photos of Krusty with many famous celebrities like his half-brother Luke Perry, Elizabeth Taylor and Bette Midler. Lisa hatches a plan to get all of Krusty's famous friends together for a comeback special to relaunch his career. Along with Midler, Hugh Hefner and Red Hot Chili Peppers are picked up along the way for the show as well. When the kids come back with good news, they discover find Krusty fatter than ever after a misguided attempt to lose weight with milk-shakes.

The Simpsons allow Krusty to stay with them until he's back in top condition for the show. After losing the weight, Krusty begs Sideshow Mel to come back to the show, but Mel refuses, forcing him to replace him with Luke Perry. On the day of the comeback special, he easily outperforms Gabbo, whose only guest is Ray Jay Johnson.

The special features Krusty and Sideshow Mel singing "Send in the Clowns", Luke Perry being shot out of a cannon, a performance by the Chili Peppers, Johnny Carson lifting a 1987 Buick Skymark over his head and singing an aria from Carmen, Hugh Hefner playing the glasses and Midler singing "Wind Beneath My Wings" to Krusty. In the end, the special is a great success and Bart declares him the greatest entertainer ever... except maybe Carson, who plays the Simpsons theme on the accordion while balancing Grandpa and Jasper sitting on a board on his head.

Notes

Title Sequence

• Blackboard: "I will not charge admission to the bathroom." The last line cuts off at "admi."
• Couch Gag: The family races towards the couch, but is caught in a large net.

Trivia

The Show

• Two gags included in the original script were either removed or modified:
  • At one point, Krusty – in a desperate attempt to win back viewers – promises he'll mail them $40 if they tune in, after which a hasty voiceover quickly states, "Checks will not be honored." This was substituted in place of the originally intended gag where Krusty promised new viewers copies of his new book, depicting him in sexually-explicit positions (a reference to Madonna's Sex).
  • Removed entirely was a gag where Krusty learns his show was being replaced by infomercials, one of which was to be TV star Claude Atkins pitching hemorrhoid relief medication, then Krusty being turned down (twice) to appear in the infomercial to endorse the product. (Atkins' mention was another reference to, late in his career, often appearing in commercials pitching medication and related products targeted to plus-55 people.)
• Chili Peppers: This incarnation of Red Hot Chili Peppers is as follows: Anthony Kiedis, Flea, Chad Smith and Arik Marshall. Marshall was only a temporary replacement member of the band, however, and had only been in the band for less than a year.
• Ad-Libbing: The Red Hot Chili Peppers were asked to adlib their greetings to Moe, but Flea kept swearing into the mic. In the end, he screamed "HEY MOE!" and was only able to get that into the episode because he was standing far away from the microphone.

Behind the Scenes

• Celebrity Nightmare: A big part of this episode is the celebrity cameo aspect. It was at least partially conceived as a way that producers could burn through the backlog of celebrities who wanted to do voices for the show. Despite this backlog, however, production was nearly shut down when the celebrities who agreed slowly began to back out. Eventually the various parts were filled at the last moment.
• Live on The Simpsons: Originally, the writers wrote parts for four different musical groups including The Rolling Stones and Aerosmith. In the end, they settled on Red Hot Chili Peppers. As a side note, the band actually did their performance in the recording booth in their underwear.
• Dubbing Change: In the Latin America dub of this episode, Luke Perry was renamed to Robert Redford for no given reason, which is strange considering that the Peephole magazine wasn't changed to reflect the change. Also in the dub, instead of Ray Jay Johnson, Gabbo's show had Luis Miguel and Juan Gabriel as guests.

Allusions and References

• Steve Allen: While Steve Allen was hosting The Tonight Show in the mid-1950s, he and guest Johnny Carson call comedian Jack Paar (who'd later host The Tonight Show) as a joke, but Paar catches on almost immediately and is not amused; Allen also used prank calls as part of his act. It was these that inspired the gag where Gabbo and Crandall, during one of their live telecasts, make a phone call to a now-unemployed Krusty as a cruel joke, to which Krusty immediately catches on and warns them, "Unless you're Steve Allen, you're stealing my bit."
• Celebrity comebacks
  • Elvis Presley: The Krusty Komeback Special is heavily inspired by the legendary Elvis Presley's '68 Comeback Special, where Elvis Presley, after a several-years hiatus from live performing, is featured in his own live concert special. Unlike Krusty, who began wallowing in self-pity and due to poor management of his finances went broke shortly after his show was cancelled, Elvis remained active during his "down years," and while he had several hit singles and continued to make a fortune in the mid-1960s, the King's focus during this time was moreso on the movies.
  • Frank Sinatra: "'Ol Blue Eyes Is Back," Sinatra's 1973 comeback album after taking a four-year sabbatical from performing, was a critical and sales success. The album includes the track "Send In the Clowns," and it is his version that Krusty stylizes his show-opening performance of the song after.
• Desilu Studios: KrustyLu Studios is an obvious pun.
• The Ed Sullivan Show: Krusty instructing the Red Hot Chili Peppers to alter the lyrics of "Give It Away" to a more conservative-audience friendly lyric is a reference to Sullivan once telling the rock group The Doors to change the lyrics to "Light My Fire." Unlike The Doors, the Chili Peppers happily accept the new lyric.
• The Hollywood Squares: Homer and Bart watch a local version, The Springfield Squares. Gags inspired by happenings on the real-life show include taping "on-location" in Florida (the 1986-1989 John Davidson-hosted version once taped a week of shows in the Sunshine State) and a Charley Weaver-expy refusing to leave his square when a tidal wave warning and mandatory evacuation order is issued (a mild earthquake during a 1971 taping had Paul Lynde refuse to leave his square; Lynde was shaken but uninjured ... unlike "Weaver," who is swept away).
• Muscular Dystrophy Telethon: The reunion between Krusty and Sideshow Mel was much like how Dean Martin once surprised and happily reuinted with MDA Telethon host Jerry Lewis in 1976.
• The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson:
  • Bette Midler's performance to close Krusty's special is a near frame-for-frame re-creation of Midler's serenading of Johnny Carson on his last Tonight Show from 1992.
  • Earlier, Krusty remarks that he once was so popular he beat Joey Bishop's late-night show in the ratings, just as Carson's show did.
  • Carson's doorbell uses a five-note bar from "Johnny's Theme" (the Carson-era theme song).
• Rocky: Krusty, who gained weight and grew obese during his absence from TV, gets into shape by punching large sides of beef at a local packing plant, much like the training regiment of Rocky Balboa in several of his films.
• Uncle Don: A widespread rumor from the early days of radio, wherein a popular children's radio show host makes an inappropriate remark about his audience, inspired the gag where Gabbo mocks the children who have become his fans, but – thanks to Bart, who sneaks into the studio and turns on a camera to switch the broadcast to on-air – the dummy's candid remarks are broadcast live. Later, Kent Brockman reports on Gabbo's blunder, which has gained outrage in Springfield ... until public opinion almost as quickly changes back in favor of Gabbo after Brockman, thinking a commercial was airing and that his mic had been turned off, makes a crude remark about his audience being beneath him, leading to his (temporary) suspension from the air.
  • The urban legend itself had Uncle Don signing off a radio broadcast of children's programming, then – unaware that the network feed and his microphone were still live and thus on-the-air – make the remark, "There! That ought to hold the little bastards!" after which outrage was immediate and he was fired. Debunked as completely false for more than 20 years, the alleged incident re-entered the public mainstream when a bloopers album was released in the mid-1950s, with one track containing Don's alleged gaffe (a re-creation that was later proven to be complete fiction). It was also possible the urban legend grew moreso from a remembrance of a cautionary lesson often taught in broadcasting school: Always assume the mic is live and to carefully guard one's comments whether live on the air or not and as if your life depended on it, because the wrong words said could have career-damaging if not career-ending consequences, as many well-publicized incidents decades later (and the gag involving Brockman) have proven. Indeed, one version of the original "Uncle Don" urban legend claimed that said radio host, after losing his job, was unable to find work, lost everything and died an alcoholic.