The Canine Mutiny
Encyclopedia
"The Canine Mutiny" is the twentieth episode of The Simpsons
' eighth season
, which originally aired April 13, 1997. It was written by Ron Hauge
and directed by Dominic Polcino
. It guest stars voice actor Frank Welker
as Laddie, a parody
of Lassie
. The episode's title references the novel The Caine Mutiny
.
complains he never gets any mail, Marge
gives him the family's junk mail. One piece contains a credit card
application, which Bart fills out under the name of his dog Santa's Little Helper
, whom he claims to have the occupation "butt doctor". The company misreads the name as "Santos L. Halper", and the credit card application is approved. Before long, Bart receives a credit card. Bart goes on a shopping spree, buying the family some very expensive gifts from a mail order catalog: Vancouver
smoked salmon
and a radio
-frying pan
for Marge, a golf
shirt with corporate logo for Homer, "Trucker's Choice Stay-Alert Capsules" for Lisa and many things for himself. The item that Bart anticipates the most is a finely-bred, pre-trained collie
. Not letting its US$
1,200 purchase price stand in the way, Bart promptly orders one. Upon its arrival Bart learns the dog's name is Laddie, and the rest of the family fall in love with the new dog, while Santa's Little Helper goes unnoticed.
Bart fails to pay off "Santos L. Halper's" credit card bill, and it is not long before he gets a call from a debt collection agency
demanding payment. When the calls and collection letters persist, Bart enlists Laddie to help him bury his ill-gotten credit card. Later, repo men
arrive to take back all of the things Bart has purchased. Lisa
demands an explanation, and Bart is forced to admit the truth. When a repossessor demands the $1,200 collie be returned, Bart identifies Santa's Little Helper as the dog he purchased. The greyhound
is herded into the truck and Bart sadly watches as it drives away. Noticing that Santa's Little Helper is gone, the family begins to bond with Laddie, except for Bart, who fears for Santa's Little Helper's fate. When an exhausted Bart gives Laddie yet another walk, the collie saves the life of Baby Gerald. At the ceremony honoring Laddie's heroism, Chief Wiggum decides that Laddie would make the perfect police dog
. Bart gives him to the Springfield police force and is forced to explain why the family now has no dog at all. Homer instructs Bart to do whatever it takes to get Santa's Little Helper back and he goes hunting around the town, trying to find his old pal. Bart eventually learns from Reverend Lovejoy
that the dog was given to a parishioner named Mr. Mitchell.
Bart visits Mr. Mitchell, who is blind
and lonely
, and asks for his dog back, but when he sees how the man and Santa's Little Helper have bonded, he grows heartsick and leaves. Still determined to get his dog back, Bart makes a late-night visit to Mr. Mitchell's home in hopes of retrieving Santa's Little Helper. The pair are reunited, but Bart traps himself in a closet. Mr. Mitchell calls the police and demands that Bart be charged with burglary, but Bart explains that Santa's Little Helper was his dog and that he wants him back. To solve the problem, Bart and Mitchell let Santa's Little Helper decide where he wants to go, with him choosing Bart. Chief Wiggum arrives with Laddie, who immediately sniffs out a bag of marijuana in Mr. Mitchell's pocket. Bart and Santa's Little Helper head home, leaving the police to "finish up" with Mitchell.
Laddie was designed to resemble a real dog. The catalog Bart uses is a combination of the Lillian Vernon
catalog and The Sharper Image
. The opening stemmed from the fact that the show had not had a sequence where the family received mail, and the writers wanted to create a joke about the different types of mail each of the family get. After Bart's "dog burning" fantasy, when he hears a ship's horn in the distance, there was originally going to be a faint cry of "more dogs", but it was deemed that it took the joke too far. Hank Azaria
ad-libbed the entire sequence during the credits in which Chief Wiggum and Lou sing along to "Jammin'".
and film
The Caine Mutiny. The dog "Laddie" is a play on Lassie
, in terms of name, appearance and uncanny intelligence. Marge listens to the song "You Really Got Me
" by The Kinks
played on the frying pan radio. At the end of the episode, the song "Jamming
" by Bob Marley
is played. The design of the "Repo Depot" is based very loosely on the repossession agency from Repo Man. The address of Mr. Mitchell's house 57 Mt. Aubum Street is one of addresses of the Harvard Lampoon
. Mr. Mitchell having a dead parrot that he believes to still be alive is a reference to the "Dead Parrot
" Monty Python
sketch.
of 8.1, equivalent to approximately 7.9 million viewing households. It was the fourth highest-rated show on the Fox network that week, following The X-files
, King of the Hill
, and Beverly Hills, 90210
.
The episode's ending with Chief Wiggum and Lou singing along to "Jamming'" by Bob Marley is often cited as one of the best endings in the history of the show. The authors of the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, called it "A sweet episode". Homer's line "There, there, shut up boy" is one of Josh Weinstein
's favorites.
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
The Simpsons (season 8)
The Simpsons eighth season originally aired between October 27, 1996 and May 18, 1997, beginning with "Treehouse of Horror VII". The show runners for the eighth production season were Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein. The aired season contained two episodes which were hold-over episodes from season...
, which originally aired April 13, 1997. It was written by Ron Hauge
Ron Hauge
Ron Hauge is an American television writer and executive producer. In his earlier career Hauge was a contributor to National Lampoon. After this he wrote for Seinfeld, In Living Color, The Ren & Stimpy Show, and a short lived reincarnation of The Carol Burnett Show...
and directed by Dominic Polcino
Dominic Polcino
Dominic Polcino is an animation director who has worked on The Simpsons, Mission Hill, King of the Hill, and Family Guy. Dominic worked on the first season of Family Guy, then left to direct for King of the Hill and then returned to Family Guy...
. It guest stars voice actor Frank Welker
Frank Welker
Franklin Wendell "Frank" Welker is an American actor who specializes in voice acting and has contributed character voices and other vocal effects to American television and motion pictures.-Acting career:...
as Laddie, a parody
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
of Lassie
Lassie
Lassie is a fictional collie dog character created by Eric Knight in a short story expanded to novel length called Lassie Come-Home. Published in 1940, the novel was filmed by MGM in 1943 as Lassie Come Home with a dog named Pal playing Lassie. Pal then appeared with the stage name "Lassie" in six...
. The episode's title references the novel The Caine Mutiny
The Caine Mutiny
The Caine Mutiny is a 1952 Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Herman Wouk. The novel grew out of Wouk's personal experiences aboard a destroyer-minesweeper in the Pacific in World War II and deals with, among other things, the moral and ethical decisions made at sea by the captains of ships...
.
Plot
When BartBart Simpson
Bartholomew JoJo "Bart" Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons and part of the Simpson family. He is voiced by actress Nancy Cartwright and first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...
complains he never gets any mail, Marge
Marge Simpson
Marjorie "Marge" Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons and part of the eponymous family. She is voiced by actress Julie Kavner and first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...
gives him the family's junk mail. One piece contains a credit card
Credit card
A credit card is a small plastic card issued to users as a system of payment. It allows its holder to buy goods and services based on the holder's promise to pay for these goods and services...
application, which Bart fills out under the name of his dog Santa's Little Helper
Santa's Little Helper
Santa's Little Helper is a recurring character in the American animated television series The Simpsons. He is the pet greyhound of the Simpson family. The dog was introduced in the first episode of the show, the 1989 Christmas special "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire", in which his owner abandons...
, whom he claims to have the occupation "butt doctor". The company misreads the name as "Santos L. Halper", and the credit card application is approved. Before long, Bart receives a credit card. Bart goes on a shopping spree, buying the family some very expensive gifts from a mail order catalog: Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
smoked salmon
Salmon
Salmon is the common name for several species of fish in the family Salmonidae. Several other fish in the same family are called trout; the difference is often said to be that salmon migrate and trout are resident, but this distinction does not strictly hold true...
and a radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
-frying pan
Frying pan
A frying pan, frypan, or skillet is a flat-bottomed pan used for frying, searing, and browning foods. It is typically in diameter with relatively low sides that flare outwards, a long handle, and no lid. Larger pans may have a small grab handle opposite the main handle...
for Marge, a golf
Golf
Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....
shirt with corporate logo for Homer, "Trucker's Choice Stay-Alert Capsules" for Lisa and many things for himself. The item that Bart anticipates the most is a finely-bred, pre-trained collie
Rough Collie
The Rough Collie is a long coated breed of medium to large size dog that in its original form was a type of collie used and bred for herding in Scotland. Originating in the 1800's, it is now well known through the works of author Albert Payson Terhune, and through the Lassie novel, movies, and...
. Not letting its US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
1,200 purchase price stand in the way, Bart promptly orders one. Upon its arrival Bart learns the dog's name is Laddie, and the rest of the family fall in love with the new dog, while Santa's Little Helper goes unnoticed.
Bart fails to pay off "Santos L. Halper's" credit card bill, and it is not long before he gets a call from a debt collection agency
Collection agency
A collection agency is a business that pursues payments of debts owed by individuals or businesses. Most collection agencies operate as agents of creditors and collect debts for a fee or percentage of the total amount owed....
demanding payment. When the calls and collection letters persist, Bart enlists Laddie to help him bury his ill-gotten credit card. Later, repo men
Repossession
Repossession is generally used to refer to a financial institution taking back an object that was either used as collateral or rented or leased in a transaction. Repossession is a "self-help" type of action in which the party having right of ownership of the property in question takes the property...
arrive to take back all of the things Bart has purchased. Lisa
Lisa Simpson
Lisa Marie Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons. She is the middle child of the Simpson family. Voiced by Yeardley Smith, Lisa first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987. Cartoonist Matt Groening...
demands an explanation, and Bart is forced to admit the truth. When a repossessor demands the $1,200 collie be returned, Bart identifies Santa's Little Helper as the dog he purchased. The greyhound
Greyhound
The Greyhound is a breed of sighthound that has been primarily bred for coursing game and racing, and the breed has also recently seen a resurgence in its popularity as a pedigree show dog and family pet. It is a gentle and intelligent breed...
is herded into the truck and Bart sadly watches as it drives away. Noticing that Santa's Little Helper is gone, the family begins to bond with Laddie, except for Bart, who fears for Santa's Little Helper's fate. When an exhausted Bart gives Laddie yet another walk, the collie saves the life of Baby Gerald. At the ceremony honoring Laddie's heroism, Chief Wiggum decides that Laddie would make the perfect police dog
Police dog
A police dog, often referred to as a "K-9 dog" in some areas , is a dog that is trained specifically to assist police and other law-enforcement personnel in their work...
. Bart gives him to the Springfield police force and is forced to explain why the family now has no dog at all. Homer instructs Bart to do whatever it takes to get Santa's Little Helper back and he goes hunting around the town, trying to find his old pal. Bart eventually learns from Reverend Lovejoy
Reverend Timothy Lovejoy
Reverend Timothy "Tim" Lovejoy is a recurring character in the animated television series The Simpsons. He is voiced by Harry Shearer, and first appeared in the episode "The Telltale Head". Lovejoy is the minister at The First Church of Springfield—the Protestant church in Springfield which most of...
that the dog was given to a parishioner named Mr. Mitchell.
Bart visits Mr. Mitchell, who is blind
Blindness
Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...
and lonely
Loneliness
Loneliness is an unpleasant feeling in which a person feels a strong sense of emptiness and solitude resulting from inadequate levels of social relationships. However, it is a subjective experience...
, and asks for his dog back, but when he sees how the man and Santa's Little Helper have bonded, he grows heartsick and leaves. Still determined to get his dog back, Bart makes a late-night visit to Mr. Mitchell's home in hopes of retrieving Santa's Little Helper. The pair are reunited, but Bart traps himself in a closet. Mr. Mitchell calls the police and demands that Bart be charged with burglary, but Bart explains that Santa's Little Helper was his dog and that he wants him back. To solve the problem, Bart and Mitchell let Santa's Little Helper decide where he wants to go, with him choosing Bart. Chief Wiggum arrives with Laddie, who immediately sniffs out a bag of marijuana in Mr. Mitchell's pocket. Bart and Santa's Little Helper head home, leaving the police to "finish up" with Mitchell.
Production
The episode uses the full opening sequence because the story came out short. Despite this, a large sequence was cut from the middle of the episode, with half of the episode having to be re-written after the animatic had been finished. The main plot of the episode came from an original idea that the family would be issued a credit card in the name "Hobart Simpson" and that Bart would use that. An original side-story was that Lisa would become addicted to the "Trucker's Choice" pep pills. Originally, instead of going to the dog park, the family took Laddie to a waterfall and he performed a series of dives, but it was scrapped as it had already been proven that Laddie was a form of "superdog". Likewise, Laddie rescuing Baby Gerald was originally a complicated rescue scene, but was cut into showing the aftermath.Laddie was designed to resemble a real dog. The catalog Bart uses is a combination of the Lillian Vernon
Lillian Vernon
Lillian Vernon Corporation is an American catalog merchant and online retailer that sells household, children's and fashion accessory products. In business since 1951 Lillian Vernon Corporation is an American catalog merchant and online retailer that sells household, children's and fashion...
catalog and The Sharper Image
The Sharper Image
The Sharper Image is an American product brand, formerly associated with a defunct retail company, now licensed for use on consumer electronics and gift products....
. The opening stemmed from the fact that the show had not had a sequence where the family received mail, and the writers wanted to create a joke about the different types of mail each of the family get. After Bart's "dog burning" fantasy, when he hears a ship's horn in the distance, there was originally going to be a faint cry of "more dogs", but it was deemed that it took the joke too far. Hank Azaria
Hank Azaria
Henry Albert "Hank" Azaria is an American film, television and stage actor, director, voice actor, and comedian. He is noted for being one of the principal voice actors on the animated television series The Simpsons , on which he performs the voices of Moe Szyslak, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, Chief...
ad-libbed the entire sequence during the credits in which Chief Wiggum and Lou sing along to "Jammin'".
Cultural references
The title is a reference to the novelThe Caine Mutiny
The Caine Mutiny is a 1952 Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Herman Wouk. The novel grew out of Wouk's personal experiences aboard a destroyer-minesweeper in the Pacific in World War II and deals with, among other things, the moral and ethical decisions made at sea by the captains of ships...
and film
The Caine Mutiny (film)
The Caine Mutiny is a 1954 American drama film set during World War II, directed by Edward Dmytryk and produced by Stanley Kramer. It stars Humphrey Bogart, José Ferrer, Van Johnson and Fred MacMurray, and is based on the 1951 Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Herman Wouk The Caine Mutiny. The film...
The Caine Mutiny. The dog "Laddie" is a play on Lassie
Lassie
Lassie is a fictional collie dog character created by Eric Knight in a short story expanded to novel length called Lassie Come-Home. Published in 1940, the novel was filmed by MGM in 1943 as Lassie Come Home with a dog named Pal playing Lassie. Pal then appeared with the stage name "Lassie" in six...
, in terms of name, appearance and uncanny intelligence. Marge listens to the song "You Really Got Me
You Really Got Me
"You Really Got Me" is a rock song written by Ray Davies and performed by his band, The Kinks. It was released on 4th August 1964 as the group's third single, and reached Number 1 on the UK singles chart the next month, remaining for two weeks...
" by The Kinks
The Kinks
The Kinks were an English rock band formed in Muswell Hill, North London, by brothers Ray and Dave Davies in 1964. Categorised in the United States as a British Invasion band, The Kinks are recognised as one of the most important and influential rock acts of the era. Their music was influenced by a...
played on the frying pan radio. At the end of the episode, the song "Jamming
Jamming (song)
"Jamming" is a song by the reggae band Bob Marley & the Wailers from their 1977 album Exodus. The song also appears on the compilation album Legend....
" by Bob Marley
Bob Marley
Robert Nesta "Bob" Marley, OM was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and musician. He was the rhythm guitarist and lead singer for the ska, rocksteady and reggae band Bob Marley & The Wailers...
is played. The design of the "Repo Depot" is based very loosely on the repossession agency from Repo Man. The address of Mr. Mitchell's house 57 Mt. Aubum Street is one of addresses of the Harvard Lampoon
Harvard Lampoon
The Harvard Lampoon is an undergraduate humor publication founded in 1876 at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.-Overview:Published since 1876, The Harvard Lampoon is the world's longest continually published humor magazine. It is also the second longest-running English-language humor...
. Mr. Mitchell having a dead parrot that he believes to still be alive is a reference to the "Dead Parrot
Dead Parrot
The "Dead Parrot Sketch", alternatively and originally known as the "Pet Shop Sketch" or "Parrot Sketch", is a popular sketch from Monty Python's Flying Circus, and one of the most famous in the history of British television comedy...
" Monty Python
Monty Python
Monty Python was a British surreal comedy group who created their influential Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series...
sketch.
Reception
In its original broadcast, "The Canine Mutiny" finished 43rd in ratings for the week of April 7-13, 1997, with a Nielsen ratingNielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
of 8.1, equivalent to approximately 7.9 million viewing households. It was the fourth highest-rated show on the Fox network that week, following The X-files
The X-Files
The X-Files is an American science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. The program originally aired from to . The show was a hit for the Fox network, and its characters and slogans became popular culture touchstones in the 1990s...
, King of the Hill
King of the Hill
King of the Hill is an American animated dramedy series created by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels, that ran from January 12, 1997, to May 6, 2010, on Fox network. It centers on the Hills, a working-class Methodist family in the fictional small town of Arlen, Texas...
, and Beverly Hills, 90210
Beverly Hills, 90210
Beverly Hills, 90210 is an American drama series that originally aired from October 4, 1990 to May 17, 2000 on Fox and was produced by Spelling Television in the United States, and subsequently on various networks around the world. It is the first series in the Beverly Hills, 90210 franchise...
.
The episode's ending with Chief Wiggum and Lou singing along to "Jamming'" by Bob Marley is often cited as one of the best endings in the history of the show. The authors of the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, called it "A sweet episode". Homer's line "There, there, shut up boy" is one of Josh Weinstein
Josh Weinstein
Josh Weinstein is an American television writer and producer, known for his work on the animated comedy series The Simpsons. Weinstein and Bill Oakley became best friends and writing partners at St. Albans High School; Weinstein then attended Stanford University and was editor-in-chief of the...
's favorites.
External links
- "The Canine Mutiny" at The Simpsons.com