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"Brother from the Same Planet" is an episode of The Simpsons from the fourth season.

Synopsis

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After playing soccer, Bart waits for Homer to pick him up. However, Homer forgets, and Bart is left alone as a storm approaches. When Homer finally remembers after a dream about seeing Bart's skeleton on a soccer field, he rushes out to pick up Bart and tries to put the issue behind them, but Bart isn't buying.

When they return home, Bart watches TV when the Big Brothers commercial comes up. This gives him an idea and he goes to the Big Brothers Agency disguising himself with accent as a brave young boy whose father left him six years ago. Afterwards, Bart is assigned a big brother called Tom whom Bart first meets when he comes to school to pick Bart up by letting him ride on the back of his motorcycle. Later on, Bart and Tom meet up for Tomato Day at the Springfield Stadium. Afterwards, they go to lift weights and watch Ren and Stimpy. Eventually, Homer finds out about Bart's Big Brother and goes to the Big Brothers Agency where he is assigned the child Pepi. Homer then shows Pepi the garage door, "a wonder of modern technology" and then the two look at the stars together.

Meanwhile back at the Simpsons household, Marge finds a $378.53 phone bill for calls made to the Corey hotline. Because of this, Marge headed up to talk to Lisa who was hiding in her room, as the entrance was decorated with a Corey poster. Marge tells Lisa that she understands what she was going through and that when she was a girl she had a crush on Bobby Sherman, which causes Lisa to laugh uproariously. Even so, in the end Lisa agrees to never make anymore calls. However, Lisa continues to make the calls until eventually she stops after taking Marge's advice in that if she could make it until 12 o'clock without calling, she would have conquered her addiction.

Elsewhere, Homer takes Pepi and Tom takes Bart to Marine World to attend Big Brothers Day. There, Homer meets up with Tom and the two fight because Tom was angry after hearing Bart's stories about his father being a gambling drunk. In the end, Homer ends up in a stretcher leaving Tom without a child to take care of and Pepi without a Big Brother. Seeing this, Bart makes an obvious conclusion, telling them that Tom should become Pepi's big brother. Afterwards, Bart and Homer reconcile and the episode ends with Homer and Bart sitting on the couch.

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Trivia

• Bart's telephone only has buttons from 1 to 9 with no zeroes or punctuation marks.
• According to the DVD commentary for this episode, the role of Tom was written with Tom Cruise in mind. However, after being repeatedly turned down by Cruise, the producers went with Phil Hartman.
• The name I.P. Freely that Kent Brockman was given was one of the prank names Bart gave in one of his calls to Moe's bar.
• Bart is asked to go to the movies by his friends, who are standing in the box of a pickup truck, which classmate Jimbo is driving.

Cultural References

• The episode's title is a play on John Sayles' movie The Brother from Another Planet. The Simpsons has also spoofed this title with the episode title "Brother from Another Series.
• When Tom and Bart are watching TV, they are watching Ren and Stimpy. The producers had to get Nickelodeon to let them use it, and the scene follows like this:

Ren: (eating a dinner made by Stimpy) mmm... Stimpy, this meatball soup is delicious!!

Stimpy: Oh that's not meatball soup, Ren, that's my collection of furballs and stomach acid!

Ren: WHAT?! YOU EEDIOT!!! YOU'RE TRYING TO KILL ME MAN!!!

(Ren's eyes then wrap around each other and burst into blood.)

(Tom and Bart laugh.)

The Ren and Stimpy reference is intriguing, given the fact the plot of this episode is so similar to a Ren and Stimpy cartoon produced around the same time and vice versa.

• Milhouse writes "Trab pu kcip" on the wall, which is "Pick up Bart" backwards, a reference to Danny Torrance writing "red rum" which is "murder" backwards, in The Shining.
• The woman that Bart mistakes for Homer in an ironic touch sings "I Am Woman".
• While Bart is stuck in the storm waiting for Homer, a nun is lifted up by the wind, a reference to the TV series The Flying Nun.
• The grapefruit scene is a reference of the James Cagney movie, The Public Enemy.
• When Bart tells himself "Eye of the Tiger, Bart" he is making a reference to what Rocky says to himself in Rocky III.
• When Homer tells Bart "You've been flouncing around with that floosy of a bigger brother of yours, haven't you? Haven't you!" he is making a reference to Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? when Richard Burton accuses his wife of adultery.
• Skinner makes a reference to the movie Psycho when he says "Oh... there's mother now." This is the first time Skinner has been portrayed as a Norman Bates like character.
• During the part where Bart watches "Tuesday Night Live" (an obvious jab at NBC's Saturday Night Live), Bart comments that he misses Joe Piscopo. It parodies how the loss of a cast member or members from one season leaves the next season to be mediocre in the eyes of SNL fans because of the loss of said cast member (or castmembers).
• Krusty's line during Tuesday Night Live, "We've got a great show, except the last half hour is a real garbage dump" is a jab at SNL putting on weaker, less funny sketches and performances in the last half hour of the show.
• Another criticism of SNL comes when Krusty is in a sketch called "The Big Ear Family", which could be a reference to either the Coneheads (a family of space aliens played by Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtin and Laraine Newman) or the Widettes (a family with really big rear ends, played by Jane Curtin, John Belushi, Gilda Radner, and Dan Aykroyd). Krusty's line, "This sketch goes on for 12 minutes", is a jab at SNL trying to milk out humor from one-joke sketch premises, which was a complaint from SNL fans in the 1990's (and still is to this day).
• At one point, Bart tells Homer that he would fake the excitment he would have when Homer pushed him on the swing and demonstrates it, to Homer's horror. This is a reference to the infamous fake orgasm scene in When Harry Met Sally.
• Before Homer lands on the fire hydrant, Tom mimics the pose and punches of the fighter from the opening titles in Street Fighter 2.

Quotes

• Dealer: Nineteen.
  Homer: Hit me.
  Dealer: Twenty.
  Homer: Hit me.
  Dealer: Twenty-one.
  Homer: Hit me.
  Dealer: Twenty-two
  Homer: D'oh!
  
• Bart: You've been really great to me, but there's probably some other kid who needs you even more.
  Tom: Bart, I could kiss you. If the Bigger Brothers didn't make me sign a form promising I wouldn't.
  
• Homer: Hey, boy. Where ya goin'?
  Bart: Father-son picnic.
  Homer: Have a good time! Wait a minute…
  
• Administrator: And what are your reasons for wanting a Little Brother?
  Homer's brain: Don't say revenge! Don't say revenge!
  Homer's mouth: Uh, revenge?
  Homer's brain: That's it, I'm gettin' outta here.
  
  Administrator: Welcome aboard Mr. Simpson.
• Bart: Dad, remember when Tom had you in that headlock and you screamed "I'm a hemophiliac" and when he let you go, you kicked him in the back?
  Homer: Heh heh heh. Yeah?
  Bart: Will you teach me how to do that?
  Homer: Sure, boy. First, you gotta shriek like a woman and keep sobbing until he turns away in disgust. That's when it's time to kick some back! (he and Bart laugh) And then when he's lying down on the ground...
  Bart: Yeah?
  Homer: kick him in the ribs...
  Bart: Yeah?
  Homer: step on his neck...
  Bart: Yeah?
  Homer:Then, run like hell. (Bart and Homer laugh together)
• Pepi: I love you, Papa Homer.
  Homer: I love you too, Pepsi.
  Pepi: Pepi.
  Homer: Pepi.
• TV Announcer: Tonight on Wings...(apathetically): ah, who cares?
• Bart (as he's watching Tuesday Night Live go to commercial break): I miss Joe Piscopo.
• Homer (who is bent backwards over a fire hydrant following a punch from Tom): This is even more painful than it looks.
• Marge: Homer, I'm heading down to the store. Remember, pick up Bart.
  Homer: I'm on my way.
  
• Homer (holding the garage door opener): I push this button and the door opens like magic. (the door goes up a little bit, then stops)
  Pepe: Why does it stop there?
  Homer: Because it is a stupid PIECE OF JUNK!! (begins banging on the door)
• (Homer and Bart see each other at the aquarium)
  Homer: It's you! (pause) So, you're looking well.
  Tom: Come on, Bart. You know better than to talk to strangers.
  Homer: For your information, I'm his father!
  Tom: His father, the drunken gambler?!
  Homer: (pleasantly)That's right, and who might you be?
• Kent Brockman: This just in. A fistfight is in progress in downtown Springfield. Early reports indicate, and this is very preliminary, that one of the fighters is a giant lizard. Do we have a source on this? ... Uh huh. A bunch of drunken frat boys? All right, I could use some names. I. P. Freeley. Eh, hey!

External links

• "Brother from the Same Planet episode capsule". The Simpsons Archive.

• The Simpsons episodes, season 4