| "Das Bus" | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| The Simpsons episode | |||
| Episodeno. | Season 9 Episode 15 | ||
| Directed by | Pete Michels | ||
| Written by | David X. Cohen | ||
| Production code | 5F11 | ||
| Original air date | February 15, 1998 (1998-02-15) | ||
| Guest appearances | |||
| |||
| Episode features | |||
| Couch gag | The family is portrayed as frogs (withMaggie as atadpole) on a lily pad.[1] | ||
| Commentary | Matt Groening Mike Scully George Meyer David X. Cohen Pete Michels | ||
| Episode chronology | |||
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| The Simpsonsseason 9 | |||
| List of episodes | |||
"Das Bus" is the fifteenth episode of theninth season of the American animated television seriesThe Simpsons. It originally aired onFox in the United States on February 15, 1998. In an extended parody ofLord of the Flies,Bart,Lisa, and other students fromSpringfield Elementary School are stranded on an island and are forced to work together. Meanwhile,Homer founds his own Internet company. It was written byDavid X. Cohen and directed byPete Michels. Guest starJames Earl Jones narrates the final scene of the episode.[1]
TheSpringfield Elementary SchoolModel United Nations club is going on a field trip. On the bus,Bart,Nelson,Ralph, andMilhouse play a game by racing fruit down the aisle, which ends with Milhouse rolling agrapefruit that gets stuck under the bus's brake pedal. WhenOtto tries to press down on the pedal, it squirts juice into his eyes, causing him to lose control and drive the bus off a bridge into a large body of water. While swimming for help, Otto gets swept away by the current and picked up by foreign fishermen, who plan to use him forslave labor below the deck of their ship.
The students swim to a nearby desert island, where everyone falls to accusing each other before Nelson points out that the bus accident was Milhouse's fault. Bart tries to tell everyone that being stranded is fun, and imagines a lavish island lifestyle similar toThe Swiss Family Robinson, but reality sets in when the island is found to be largely barren. With no natural food, no survival skills and no adult supervision, the kids end up relying on acooler of snack food that Bart retrieves from the sunken bus.Lisa quickly imposes arationing system on the cooler, only for the kids to awake the next morning and find that all the food has been eaten overnight. They accuse Milhouse of eating everything, while Milhouse instead tries to blame a mysterious island "monster". As they prepare tolynch him, Lisa reminds them of why they travelled in the first place – the Model UN – andMilhouse is allowed a trial, with Bart as a judge.
With Milhouse on trial, Nelson has no case for the prosecution other than trying tocoerce a confession out of him, and the trial ends with Bart begrudgingly acquitting Milhouse due to insufficient evidence. However, the other kids refuse to accept Bart's verdict, and the situation descends into outrightmob rule as Milhouse, Bart and Lisa are chased into a cave. There, the children are spooked by the island's "monster", which turns out to be awild boar. On one of the boar's tusks is an empty bag of chips, revealing that it had eaten all the snacks. Lisa realizes that there must be a nearby food source to sustain the boar, and sees it lickingslime from a nearby rock. Lisa however is the only one who takes to licking the slime herself, with the other kids killing and eating the boar instead. A narration by actorJames Earl Jones recounts that the kids learned to live in peace andwere rescued soon after by "oh, let's say,Moe".[1]
Back at home,Homer discovers thatNed Flanders has his own home-basedInternet business and decides he wants to start his own company. However, it turns out that Homer has no idea how to run an Internet business, does not provide any goods or services, and does not even own a computer. He is later visited byBill Gates and his goons, who offer to buy out Homer's company but instead destroy his office.
According to theDVD commentary forThe Simpsons' ninth season, the couch gag was suggested byDan Castellaneta's niece.[2] To make the fishermen's speech as accurate as possible, Cohen called a friend who spoke Mandarin. When theChinese actors came, the actors did not feelMandarin was geographically appropriate, and it was changed toCantonese, which is spoken more inChina's coastal regions and would be more appropriate for sailors and fishermen.[3] In a deleted scene, Homer furnishes his home office with anti-stress toys, but becomes angry and stressful himself when he tries each of them due to their failure to work or their immediate breakage due to shoddy manufacturing. The producers said the decision to cut that scene was for timing purposes.
Most of the episode's plot, namely a group of children trapped on an island and the breakdown of law, order and civility, is a reference toWilliam Golding's 1954 novelLord of the Flies, including the use ofdeus ex machina as a plot device that saves the children.[3] A main diversion was while the episode showed the kids learning to live in peace, the novel had the boys' "war" broken up when they are rescued by a Navy ship, which, ironically, was in the middle of a war itself. The title comes from the 1981 filmDas Boot, although it would be "Der Bus" in German.[1]
When the children are squabbling in the classroom,Principal Skinner restores order by banging his shoe on the desk. Skinner's actions are a reference to theshoe-banging incident bySoviet leaderNikita Khrushchev at theUN in 1960.[2] The bus plunge off the overpass was inspired by the climax of the 1994 filmTrue Lies, although some animators remarked a similar scene happened in the 1989 James Bond filmLicence to Kill, where a corrupt cop helps to free the Bond villain from custody.[3]
When the kids are on a manhunt of Lisa, Bart and Milhouse, they use charcoal ash on their faces like war paint, and Ralph Wiggum paints his in a cat style akin toPeter Criss ofKISS. When escaping from the other children, Bart, Lisa and Milhouse have to swing across a gap on a vine; Milhouse goes across first, but refuses to throw the vine back (calling out that "there's no time") in a reference to the opening scene of the 1981 filmRaiders of the Lost Ark, where Satipo does the same toIndiana Jones (but as an act of betrayal).[4]
In its original broadcast, "Das Bus" finished 17th in ratings for the week of February 9–15, 1998, with aNielsen rating of 9.9, equivalent to approximately 9.6 million viewing households. It was the third highest-rated show on the Fox network that week, followingThe X-Files andKing of the Hill.[5] In a 2006 article inUSA Today, "Das Bus" was highlighted among the six best episodes ofThe Simpsons season 9, along with "Trash of the Titans", "The Last Temptation of Krust", "The Cartridge Family", "Dumbbell Indemnity", and "The Joy of Sect".[6]
The authors of the bookI Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, called it a "fantastic episode", adding: "Ignore the Internet business side, and wallow in the cleverness of the children trapped on the island. Bart has never been cleverer, Nelson more menacing, and Milhouse more geekish. Great stuff with a delightful ending that is so witty and obvious, that it's annoying you never imagined they'd get away with it."[1]
The episode has become study material for sociology courses atUniversity of California, Berkeley, where it is used to "examine issues of the production and reception of cultural objects, in this case, a satirical cartoon show", and to figure out what it is "trying to tell audiences about aspects primarily of American society, and, to a lesser extent, about other societies". Some questions asked in the courses include: "What aspects of American society are being addressed in the episode? What aspects of them are used to make the points? How is the satire conveyed: through language? Drawing? Music? Is the behavior of each character consistent with his/her character as developed over the years? Can we identify elements of the historical/political context that the writers are satirizing? What is the difference between satire and parody?"[7]
