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"Bart Gets an Elephant" is the seventeenth episode of The Simpsons' fifth season. This episode introduced the fictional elephant Stampy. Also making his first appearance: Cletus Spuckler.

Synopsis

Template:Spoiler During cleaning day at the Simpsons' house, the inane chatter of KBBL crackles in the background. The radio station's disc jockeys, Bill and Marty, are conducting the "KBBL Wants to Give You Something Stupid" radio contest, where a listener is called at random, and if he/she answers the phone with the phrase "KBBL's going to give me something stupid!" he/she wins either a gag prize or $10,000.

Bill and Marty call the Simpsons, and it isn't long before Bart says the winning phrase. His choice – either a live African elephant or the cash. For Bart, the choice is easy ... the elephant. Bill and Marty are taken aback, especially since the intended prize was $10,000. However, Bart insists that he won an elephant, and everyone's attempts to reason with him fail.

Word spreads throughout town about Bill and Marty's refusal to make good on awarding the prize, prompting their boss to give them a choice: either arrange for delivery of Bart's elephant, or have their show replaced by an automated disc jockey. The disc jockeys decide on the former option.

Bart names his new elephant Stampy, and begins giving him undue attention while neglecting Santa's Little Helper and Snowball II. It isn't long before Stampy eats the Simpsons out of house and home, and Lisa begins complaining that keeping an elephant as a pet – and thus, away from its native habitat - is cruel. Homer tries to get paying customers to view and ride Stampy, but he fails to make enough money to cover the elephant's food costs.

Just as the family is pondering what to do about Stampy, a wildlife poacher named Mr. Blackheart offers to buy Stampy. Homer wants to take the money, but Lisa is against the idea – particularly since Mr. Blackheart openly admits he plans to have Stampy killed for his ivory tusks. Just as Homer and Mr. Blackheart reach a deal, Bart plans to run away with Stampy. However, Stampy runs off, wreaks havoc throughout Springfield and is soon nowhere to be found. Bart begins looking for his elephant.

The family soon finds Bart, but then Homer begins sinking in the Springfield Tar Pits. Stampy frees Homer, and he finally agrees to donate the elephant – at a loss – to a wildlife preserve, where Stampy quickly takes his place as the jerk of the elephant herd.

Trivia

• When Chief Wiggum nonchalantly answers distress phone calls late in the episode, he says "Yeah...right, and I'm Edward G. Robinson" sarcastically. Hank Azaria, the voice of Wiggum and many other residents of Springfield specifically based Wiggum's voice on that of Robinson.

• Though rare, Stampy does return in the comics and once or twice in the show.

Cultural references

• "Do-Re-Mi" - The lyrics to The Sound of Music are parodied in the scene where Homer crashes the car into a deer statue.
• Jurassic Park – Stampy's eye in the window is just like T. Rex's.
• La Brea Tar Pits – The Springfield Tar Pits are inspired by the tar pits located in Los Angeles, California.
• The 1950s version of The Price Is Right – Much of Act 1 (where Bart wins his elephant and then gets it after KBBL's disc jockeys are threatened with dismissal) is inspired by an incident on the original The Price is Right. A contestant won a grand piano and – as his bonus prize – was told he won a full-sized African elephant (for "extra ivory"). Even though the actual prize was $4,000, the contestant demanded an elephant, and it wasn't long before the show's producer/creator Bob Stewart was forced to arrange delivery of a live elephant.

Quotations

• Homer: I'm alive. I'm alive! And I owe it all to this feisty feline.
  Lisa: Dad, feline means cat.
  Homer: Elephant, honey. It's an elephant!
• Homer: (crashes car into preserved deer statue) D'oh!
  Lisa: A deer!
  Marge: A female deer!
• Homer: Bart, with ten thousand dollars, we'd be millionaires! We could buy all sorts of useful things like...love.
  Marge: Or double-ply windows! They look just like regular windows but they'll save us 4% on our heating bill. (everyone looks blankly at her) Well, they will.
• Bart: (after being inhaled by Stampy) Wow…he tried to kill me.
• Bart: Don't worry, Stampy. I won't let Dad sell you to that ivory dealer. You and me are going to run away together. We'll stick to the back roads and make our way south. Then, if I know my geography, it's only twelve miles to Africa.
• Homer: Marge, don't humiliate me in front of the money.
• Homer: He took Bart too? That wasn't part of our deal, Blackheart! THAT WASN'T PART!!!!
• Homer: Lisa, a guy who's got lots of ivory is less likely to hurt Stampy than a guy whose ivory supplies are low.
• Lisa: Mr. Blackheart?
  Blackheart: Yes, my pretty?
  Lisa: Are you an ivory dealer?
  Blackheart: Well, little girl, I've had lots of jobs in my day: whale-hunter... seal-clubber... president of the Fox network... and, like most people, yeah, I've dealt a little ivory.
• Bart: "KBBL's gonna give me something stupid!"
• Homer: Marge, I agree with you in theory. In theory, communism works. In theory.
• Grampa: Hey, they're playin' The Elephant Song.
  Jasper: I like this song. It reminds me of elephants.
• Bart: Uh, it's hard for us to leave when you're standing there mom.
  Homer: Push her down, son.
• Homer: (when Marge asks everyone to clean the house) I call the basement!
  Bart + Lisa: Fine.
  Homer: D'oh? (opens the basement's door, sees the huge mess) D'oh!
• Barney: (After being saved from the tar pits by Stampy, he starts walking away covered in tar) Thanks, Stampy! (lights up a cigarette but he catches fire) Ow.
• Homer: Look at these bills: chains for elephant. Shots for elephant. "Oversized decorative poncho"?!
  Bart: Technically it's for a giraffe, but I think I can let it out a little.
  Homer: Well these bills will have to paid out of your allowance.
  Bart: You'll have to raise my allowance to about $1000 a week.
  Homer: Then that's what I'll do, smart guy.
• Marge: (uneasy) Homer? It looks like he could gore.
  Homer: (optimistic) Heh-heh-, he does look like Al Gore.
• Homer: Oh, everything's cruel according to you. Tying him up the backyard is cruel. Pulling on his tail is cruel. Yelling in his ears is cruel. Everything is cruel. So excuse me if I'm being cruel!
• Homer: these TV Guides, so many meories. (reads) "Gomer ticks Sgt. Carter." Oh, I'll never forget that episode!
  (thinks of Gomer Pyle & Sgt. Carter repeating their catchphrases)
  Sgt. Carter: PYLE!!! (three times)
  Gomer Pyle: SHAZZAM!!! (three times)
  Homer: Heh heh heh. "Shazam".
• Chief Wiggum: Help! Help us! They stole our uniforms, guns, and tasers!
  Snake: (wearing a stolen police uniform) Fry, piggy. (charges taser)
  Chief Wiggum: No, no—no don't—aargh! Aargh! A little to the left...ah, that's the stuff.
• Boss: This is the DJ 3000. It plays CDs automatically, and it has three distinct varieties of inane chatter.
  DJ 3000: Hey, hey. How about that weather out there? Woah! That was the caller from hell. Well, hot dog! We have a weiner.
  Bill: Man, that thing's great!
  Marty: Don't praise the machine!
  Boss: If you don't get that kid an elephant by tomorrow, the DJ 3000 gets your job.
  DJ 3000: Those clowns in congress did it again. What a bunch of clowns.
  Bill: How does it keep up with the news like that?
• Homer Oh relax. I'll pull my feet out with my arms......and my arms out with my face.

External links

• "Bart Gets an Elephant episode capsule". The Simpsons Archive.

• The Simpsons episodes, season 5