Stark Raving Dad

Lisa reminds Bart that he forgets her birthday every year, so he promises to get her a present for her eighth birthday. Meanwhile, Homer panics after seeing that all his white work shirts are dyed pink because Bart tossed his "lucky" red hat into the laundry; therefore, Homer is forced to wear a pink shirt to work. Mr. Burns notices Homer's pink shirt and assumes Homer is a "free-thinking anarchist". Homer is sent home with a psychiatric quiz to allow Dr. Marvin Monroe to assess his sanity. However, Homer is unwilling to complete the quiz himself and gives it to Bart. Bart answers "yes" to all the questions, which ask if Homer hears voices, is quick to anger, or wets his pants. When Burns and Monroe see the results, they send Homer to a mental institution to undergo further testing. After Homer loses his temper during a Rorschach test when he sees an inkblot that resembles Bart, he is committed to the institution. Homer is put in a cell with a large white man who introduces himself as Michael Jackson. Being unfamiliar with the real Michael Jackson, Homer believes and quickly befriends him. When Marge visits Homer at the mental hospital, she convinces the doctors that he is not insane by revealing that Bart is a real person, rather than a figment of Homer's imagination like the doctors assumed. When Jackson reveals that he is in the asylum voluntarily, Homer invites him to stay with the Simpsons. Despite promising to keep it secret, Bart tells everyone he knows about Jackson coming to his house; soon, the entire population of Springfield gathers to see the pop star. When Homer introduces Jackson, the townspeople realize he is an impostor and leave, angry at Bart. In his excitement over Jackson's arrival, Bart fails to acknowledge Lisa's birthday. Lisa becomes distraught and writes a letter to Bart indicating she will hate him forever. Jackson convinces Bart to heal his rift with Lisa. Together, Bart and Jackson write and perform a song called "Happy Birthday Lisa". The song thrills Lisa, who declares, "This is the best present I ever got!" Jackson reveals he is really Leon Kompowsky, a bricklayer from Paterson, New Jersey. He explains that he had been filled with anger most of his life, but found solace when talking in Jackson's voice because it made people happy. After Leon says goodbye to the Simpsons, he begins singing "Happy Birthday Lisa" to himself in his normal voice. ==Production==

co-wrote the episode with Mike Reiss. |alt=A man with glasses and a red shirt sits in front of a microphone. "Stark Raving Dad" was written specially for Michael Jackson, a fan of The Simpsons, who had called Matt Groening one night and offered to do a guest spot. The offer was accepted and a script was written by Al Jean and Mike Reiss, based on an idea pitched by James L. Brooks. According to Jean, Jackson would not commit to the episode until after a read-through of the script. The read-through was held at Jackson's manager Sandy Gallin's house, and Dan Castellaneta (the voice of Homer) was 30 minutes late. Jean recalls that "no one said a word, we just sat there waiting". Following the read, Jackson stipulated his conditions: he would go uncredited, and his singing voice would be performed by a soundalike. The episode originally was supposed to end with Kompowsky singing a portion of Jackson's song "Man in the Mirror", but it was changed to "Happy Birthday Lisa". Similarly, in season two, actor Dustin Hoffman had guest-starred in the episode "Lisa's Substitute" under the name "Sam Etic". After "Stark Raving Dad", the producers decided that guest stars would have to agree to be credited. Jackson was a fan of Bart, and wanted to give Bart a number one single. He co-wrote the song "Do the Bartman", which was released as a single around the same time the episode was produced. Jackson could not take credit for his work on the song due to contractual reasons. "Stark Raving Dad" is the first Simpsons episode originally produced and broadcast in Dolby Surround. To mark the change, the producers commissioned the show's in-house music composer Alf Clausen, who was originally hired after providing all the music for the first annual "Treehouse of Horror", to arrange a re-recorded version of the theme song for the opening sequence. This version of the theme has remained in the opening sequence since. Alternate opening . The January 30, 1992, rerun of the episode featured a brief alternate opening, which was written in response to a comment made by the then President of the United States George H. W. Bush three days earlier. The show had previously had a "feud" with the President's wife Barbara Bush when, in the October1, 1990, edition of People, she called The Simpsons "the dumbest thing [she had] ever seen". The writers decided to respond by privately sending a polite letter to Bush in which they posed as Marge Simpson. Bush immediately sent a reply in which she apologized. Later, on January 27, 1992, George Bush made a speech during his re-election campaign which included the statement: "We are going to keep on trying to strengthen the American family, to make American families a lot more like the Waltons and a lot less like the Simpsons." The writers decided to add a brief response to the next broadcast of The Simpsons, a rerun of "Stark Raving Dad" on January 30. The broadcast included a new tongue-in-cheek opening. The scene, from the episode "Simpson and Delilah", begins in the Simpsons' living room where the family is watching Bush's speech. Bart replies: "Hey, we're just like the Waltons. We're praying for an end to the depression, too." The opening is featured on the season four DVD box set. ==Unproduced sequel==

was asked to guest star as Leon Kompowsky in a sequel to "Stark Raving Dad"; the episode was never produced. A year after "Stark Raving Dad" aired, the writers planned a sequel in which Kompowsky would return, this time claiming to be the pop star Prince. The script became one of the few unproduced Simpsons scripts. Following Prince's death in 2016, showrunner Al Jean posted two screenshots of scenes from the script. ==Cultural references==

Like all episodes of The Simpsons, "Stark Raving Dad" features a variety of references to popular culture. When Homer starts mumbling in his sleep, Kompowsky tells his stuffed animal: "Bubbles, it's going to be a long night." Bubbles is the name of Jackson's chimpanzee. Kompowsky also says he was upset when "his" 1979 album Off the Wall received only one Grammy Award nomination; the writers had read that the real Jackson was genuinely upset. ==Reception==

In its original airing on Fox, "Stark Raving Dad" acquired a 13.9 Nielsen rating and 23 percent share of the audience. It was viewed in approximately 12.8 million homes, finishing the week ranked 33rd. The Simpsons was the second-highest rated show on Fox the week it aired, behind Married... with Children. The episode has been generally well received, being praised by many critics for its writing. In a 2009 review for Slate, Josh Levin wrote that "The greatness of 'Stark Raving Dad' has a lot more to do with The Simpsons writing staff than with Jackson's voice-over talents. The show's scripters came up with a plot device far more ingenious than simply dropping the singer into Springfield." Monica Collins of the Boston Herald also enjoyed the episode. On the day it first aired, she wrote that "This episode is vintage Simpsons, crammed with divinely vulgar visual oddities. And Michael Jackson, of course, is just so weird anyway that he fits right in." Mark Lorando of The Times-Picayune commented that "throwaway lines on The Simpsons are funnier than the big punchlines on most so-called comedy series; [this episode] has layers of humor, satirical touches that enrich the story lines," singling out jokes like the ''America's Funniest Home Video'' parody. "The laughs are literally non-stop, and Jackson's unmistakable vocal presence [...] adds a thousand watts of star power." In 2011, Television Blend's Eric Eisenberg named "Stark Raving Dad" the best episode of the entire series. He praised it for being heartful and said that what "prevents the episode from seeming artificial or manipulative is that the writing in the episode earns the earnest moments", elaborating that while "strong emotions might be the hallmark of 'Stark Raving Dad', it would be a sincere mistake to ignore how funny it is." He concluded that the episode "is perfectly constructed, is filled with both deep belly laughs and tears, and is simply the greatest episode of The Simpsons". In 1998, TV Guide listed it in its list of top twelve Simpsons episodes. In a DVD audio commentary, writer Mike Reiss said he felt that Michael Jackson is "not a terrific actor [...] but he did fine. He was really nice, he was a great sport." Tom Ganjamie of Best Week Ever called Jackson's guest appearance the "cleverest [...] ever on The Simpsons". Writing for IGN, Robert Canning said in a 2009 review that "Stark Raving Dad" is a "solid, funny and touching episode" and described Jackson's performance as "heartfelt yet self-parodying". In a 2011 article, Andrew Martin of Prefix Mag named Michael Jackson his second-favorite musical guest on The Simpsons. In 2003, DVD Movie Guide's Colin Jacobson commented that the episode was a good start to season three, but it "gets sappy on more than a few occasions, and it lacks the acerbic bite of the series' best shows. Nonetheless, it tosses out some good laughs, and the guest appearance by Jackson—under a pseudonym—works well; Michael shows an ability to mock himself that still surprises me." In a 2004 review for Digitally Obsessed, Nate Meyers wrote that "there are many funny gags in this episode, especially in the first act when Homer gets a tour of the [mental] hospital. Some clever references are made to ''One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, but the second half of the episode is not especially funny. The jokes seem forced and there is too much of an effort to sentimentalize the relationship between Bart and Lisa, causing the show to lose its narrative drive." In 2007, Ben Rayner of the Toronto Star listed "Stark Raving Dad" as one of the three worst episodes of The Simpsons. Likewise, writer Al Jean listed that scene as one of his five favorite moments from The Simpsons in 2003. The reaction to the song "Happy Birthday Lisa" was mixed. Ben Rayner called it a "crap tune", and Chris Selley of Maclean's magazine wrote that "Stark Raving Dad" is "an unbearably sappy episode, and that birthday song for Lisa is just... bad." Dave Walker of The Times-Picayune'' listed the episode as one of Jackson's "many memorable TV moments" and called the song "unforgettable". ==Reruns and pull from circulation==

After Jackson's death in 2009, Fox reran "Stark Raving Dad" on July5 in tribute. The producers had intended to air the episode on June 28, three days after Jackson's death, but could not resolve problems with syndication rights, so the "Do the Bartman" music video was aired instead. The producers screened the episode first. The only change was the blurring of a phone number. Brooks told The Wall Street Journal: "This was a treasured episode. There are a lot of great memories we have wrapped up in that one, and this certainly doesn't allow them to remain. I'm against book-burning of any kind. But this is our book, and we're allowed to take out a chapter." The episode was also omitted from the streaming service Disney+. The Slate journalist Isaac Butler criticized the removal as "an offense against art and the medium of television, and part of a growing trend of corporations using their consolidated power and the death of physical media to do damage control by destroying works by troublesome artists". ==References==