Brother's Little Helper is the second episode of Season 11 (produced as a season 10 episode).

Synopsis[]

Bart is diagnosed with ADD after his latest prank during a "Fire Prevention Day" assembly at school, but his new medication makes him paranoid over Major League Baseball spying on him.

Full Story[]

During Fire Safety Day, the Springfield Volunteer Fire Department arrives at the school to teach kids about fire safety. Although Lisa has a genuine interest in fire safety, Bart namely asks for the names of fire safety equipment namely to have Principal Skinner utter double entendres. Principal Skinner introduces a fire safety skit to the students. The skit consists of Ned and Maude playing a hippie couple who use drugs. During the skit, Ned catches on fire as part of the act, but it goes awry when his life is endangered due to it spreading to the extent that not even the stop-drop-and-roll method worked ("It's not working, it just spreads the flames!"). The fire department tries to extinguish the flames, but they can't do it. Bart has flooded the gymnasium with the fire hoses and a tidal wave bursts from it with Bart surfing on the basketball hoop, wrecking the Fire Safety Day site despite inadvertently saving Flanders. Bart laughs at his prank really hard, despite Lisa warning him he's in trouble he just claims "It all came together". His joy is short lived as a furious and irritated Principal Skinner appears as a shadow over Bart. Skinner has Homer and Marge come to the school, and is left so furious with the stunt Bart pulled that he ends up spending what is presumably a long time beating up a stress clown while meeting his parents to calm himself enough to talk with them. It is then when he says Bart is diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder or A.D.D.. Skinner recommends that Bart take a behavior drug called Focusyn, and states that the only alternative is that he will expel Bart if his parents don't give him the drug. They go to two pharmisit who explains how the drug works which Marge and Homer are impressed with

After several failed attempts by Homer to get Bart the medication (Bart not wanting to take drugs at all), Marge convinces Bart to take the medication, and his behavior immediately improves. He begins paying attention in school and being respectful to his parents although he is somewhat rude to Lisa. However, side effects soon occur as Bart becomes paranoid that Major League Baseball is spying on the town using satellites. The doctors recommend that Bart go off Focusyn, but he refuses. Before he can be stopped, he swallows several handfuls of Focusyn and runs off.

Bart wanders onto an army base and manages to steal a tank (a la Shawn Nelson). He cuts a swath of destruction through the town, until he eventually stops at the school. There, he points the tank's cannon into the sky and shoots down a Major League Baseball satellite, proving his theory right. Mark McGwire appears, but instead of explaining the bizarre situation, he distracts the townspeople by hitting some baseballs and then takes off with the evidence. Marge takes Bart off Focusyn for good and puts him back on "good old Ritalin", which he is okay with.

Citations[]