Burns' Heir

While Homer is bored at work at the power plant, he suddenly wins the employee raffle. He is forced to be an industrial chimney sweep, where he is strung from a crane with batting wrapped around him and dipped into the industrial smokestacks. Even with all his misfortune, Homer is happy, saying that guys at the top work much harder than him. Meanwhile Mr. Burns is watching Homer while taking a bath and wearing a top hat, smoking a cigar and eating a bag of extra-fancy potato chips, with Smithers scrubbing him with a sponge.

Smithers leaves Burns for a second to find a spherical sponge and places the one he had on Burns's top hat, causing him to sink and almost drown which triggers Burns's life to flash before his eyes (where he's shown firing a nanny in his infancy, forcing a homeless man to dance by shooting at him in his adolescence, and sabotaging a Greenpeace ship in the 1960s). After Smithers rescues him, Burns realizes that no one would carry on his legacy when he dies (Smithers could not do this, because he has been arranged to be buried alive with Burns when he dies). Because of this, he holds an audition to find an heir; all the boys in Springfield try out. Lisa attempts to reason with Burns to consider using girls as heirs, but Burns insists on boys, much to the dismay of Milhouse (who failed the audition earlier on the basis of being a geek and was about to try again disguised as a girl). Bart tries out but fails miserably after reading Homer's badly-worded proposal ("Hello, Mr. Kurns. I want money now. Me sick"). Angry after the audition ends, Bart vandalizes Burns's house. Burns's watches Bart destroy his house and decides he wants him as his heir (as Burns approves of malevolence).

However, once Bart becomes Burns's heir, he abandons his family after Burns promises to give Bart whatever he wants out of life (including a pizza delivered by Krusty the Clown [who had to air a dated rerun of his show instead of perform a new one live in order to deliver the pizza]). The family becomes angry and wants Bart back, so they hire a lawyer, Lionel Hutz, to help them win Bart back. The case does not turn out in their favor. His family also tries to get a deprogrammer to kidnap Bart, but the deprogrammer takes Hans Moleman instead and brainwashes him into thinking he's a part of the Simpson family.

Meanwhile, Bart becomes lonely and wants to go back to his family. Burns does not want him to leave and tries to trick him into thinking that his family hates him, using a falsified video with actors playing the Simpson family. Back at the Simpson house, as Marge remembers Bart as a baby, Lisa tries to fill the void left by Bart by ripping up the wallpaper and tripping Homer. Burns then tries to break Bart's ties with his family by forcing him to fire Homer, but Bart "fires" Burns instead and drops him through a trap door. Back home, the family tells Bart about the fake family he saw on the video and that they really do love him. Homer then introduces the still-deprogrammed Hans to Bart as his new brother ("Cowabunga, dudes"), but Marge wants him out of the house.

[edit] Cultural references

Hans being deprogrammed in Room 101 is similar to 1984.
The beginning of the "Siskel and Ebert" movie parodies the THX sound Deep Note. In fact, this scene was made into an actual THX movie trailer, with the scene being redone for the widescreen aspect ratio. That trailer can be seen on Season 5 of The Simpsons DVD box set.
The trailer advertising Mr. Burns' heir search is a loose parody of the trailer for Toys, a 1992 surrealist black comedy starring Robin Williams.
The young boy saying, "Today, sir? Why, it's Christmas Day!" makes a reference to Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.
The scene where Burns appears dead in the bathtub and then attacks Smithers is a reference to the climatic Fatal Attraction scene where Alex appears dead in the bathtub before springing up to kill Dan.
Marge's fantasy with Lee Majors is accompanied by the bionic sound effect from his series The Six Million Dollar Man.
Martin's song at the audition is a reference to the song in Meet Me in St. Louis except with different lyrics.
Milhouse's audition is similar to that from The Little Drummer Boy.
The Krusty the Klown rerun mentions the Falkland Islands' invasion by Argentina on April 2, 1982.
Burns dancing in a lineup of concession stand treats is a parody of Let's All Go to the Lobby.
Moe using a home-made sliding action holster with a pistol is a reference to Travis Bickle from the Taxi Driver.
In a deleted scene, Mr.Burns sends out a robotic Richard Simmons to get Homer off his property, it works but the robot goes haywire which results in Smithers shooting it but it heals itself similar to the T-1000 from Terminator 2 Judgement Day

[edit] Deleted Scenes

[edit] Robotic Richard Simmons

The Robotic Richard Simmons (Lorenzo Lamas in the Spanish dub) was a clip which included a humorous reference to the hit film Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and was cut in production and later shown in the Simpsons clip show episode, "The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular".

The episode had one part where Homer Simpson went to Mr Burns' house to retrieve his son and is snubbed by Burns and Bart. In the deleted scene, Mr. Burns commands Smithers to release one of the many things at his disposal to be rid of Homer, a Robotic Richard Simmons. A panel opens, the robot emerges and begins dancing to a recording of Shake Your Booty , which indeed does scare Homer away from Burns' Mansion. It continues to dance though without stopping, out of control. After Smithers shoots the robot with a shotgun, its face turns to liquid metal and molds back into place (a la Terminator 2). The robot continues to sing and dance (gradually slowing) until it explodes on Burns' doorstep. In the aired episode, when told to do his worst, Burns instead slammed the door and locked it, with Homer subsequently trying to pull a doorbell prank on him.

According to the DVD commentary, the real Richard Simmons was going to lend his voice to the episode, until he read the script and declined to appear because he was playing a robot.

The DVD commentary track also explains that the scene was removed as the show's writers did not find it to be funny after it was animated, and test audiences never really liked the scene either. However, to their surprise, upon screening it at conventions or college presentations it would make the audience erupt with laughter. This scene is shown on the clip show episode, "The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular".