Who Shot Mr. Burns?

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Episode of the series The Simpsons
title Who Shot Mr. Burns?
Original title Who Shot Mr. Burns?
Country of production United States
original language English
length 46 minutes
classification Season 6, episode 25
128th episode in total (part 1)
Season 7, episode 1
129th episode in total (part 2) ( list )
First broadcast May 21, 1995 (Part 1)
September 17, 1995 (Part 2)
on FOX
German-language
first broadcast		 November 3, 1996 (part 1)
November 4, 1996 (part 2)
on ProSieben
Rod
Director Jeffrey Lynch (Part 1)
Wes Archer (Part 2)
script Bill Oakley
Josh Weinstein
music Alf Clausen
cut Don Barrozo (Part 1),
Mark McJimsey (Part 1),
Larry Field (Part 2),
Joe Hathaway (Part 2)
synchronization

 ►  Main article: Dubbing The Simpsons

Who Shot Mr. Burns? (Original English title Who Shot Mr. Burns? ) was, notwithstanding the previous series The Simpsons Shorts with the episode Maggie in Danger , the first double episode of the US animated series The Simpsons (2017 followed in season 28 another double episode "The Great Phatsby") . It consists of the episodes Who Shot Mr. Burns? - Part 1 (Original English title Who Shot Mr. Burns? (Part One) ) and Who Shot Mr. Burns? - Part 2 ( Who Shot Mr. Burns? (Part Two) ). In the first part, Mr. Burns makes himself unpopular with the people of Springfield and is then shot down. The second part is about the investigation.

action

Part 1

Caretaker Willie comes across oil on the Springfield Elementary School compound . At the same time, Mr. Burns wants to have a letter passed on at the nuclear power station until it ends up with Homer Simpson. He returns the letter to Mr. Burns, who scolds Homer because he is the sender and not the recipient, but he cannot remember Homer's name. When he tries to say it, he gets a one kilo weight on his head, so that he gets angry easily.

After finding out in elementary school that the black mass is petroleum, a worker tells them that it is one of the richest schools in the state. When Mr. Burns learns of the elementary school event, he is upset because, according to him, an oil well does not belong in the hands of "liberal-minded social pity spots". Then he goes into the elevator with Smithers, where they meet Homer, among others. Even though he has made himself a name tag, Burns does not recognize him. This makes him sad again.

In pondering what to do with the money, Principal Skinner and High School Councilor Chalmers decide to ask the students and teachers. Lisa wants a new jazz program for her music lessons, whereupon Tito Puente is hired as a music teacher and the caretaker Willie gets a crystal cleaning bucket for his dirty water. But Burns also comes disguised as a student and wishes that the oil should be handed over to the local energy companies. But this is rejected and Burns threatens to take action against him.

When Homer talks to his family at the dining room table about his naming problem, Marge suggests sending Burns a box of chocolates with a family photo on it. This receives the box in his chambers. Together with his butler, they watch his oil drilling station and that of the school. When Smithers told Burns that his plan was not okay and that other people would not understand his behavior because it was not competition for him, Burns said that it would be easier than taking candy away from a child. The old man then sees a child with candy and tries to take them away from him, but is persuaded by Smithers to take the Simpsons chocolates box. They eat all of them except the one that Homer's head is covering because Burns' quince is not tasty, and then they throw the box away. Burns remembers all members of the family except Homer and writes them a thank you letter.

After Lisa has pulled the lever to pump out the oil, only a drop comes out. The reason for this is that Burns tapped the school's oil with its inclined oil drilling station. Although Smithers is not enthusiastic about it, the station is put into operation. The oil splashes out in such a way that it destroys Bart's tree house and injures him and the family dog Knecht Ruprecht . After they have been to the vet, the dog has to be in a wheelchair. Bart then swears revenge on the perpetrator.

Since one can not accuse Burns (is the law that the one part of the oil, first promotes it) is, impoverished school again and announce needs the music teacher Largo and Puente, and the Groundskeeper Willie to get the money for the rig to cover . Now Skinner and the fired employees also want revenge on Burns and Lisa after she was informed of the events.

Moe has to close his tavern as Burns' hole measured more than 20 different toxins in the air in his bar. Now he too wants to take revenge on Burns with his regular customer Barney. During the night, the old people's home collapsed due to the drilling and the subsequent instability of the building . Abe now has to live with his son's family and now he, too, is angry with Burns along with the other residents of the retirement home.

When Smithers looks at the damage done by Burns, he asks if he is satisfied. Burns, maddened by power, says no and says he must shut out the sun, as it is the primordial enemy because it supplies customers with light, heat and energy free of charge. Smithers does not want to have anything to do with it and is therefore fired by his boss. Furious, he leaves the nuclear power plant.

The next morning, Marge is mad at Burns about what happened at school. Since Homer was not mentioned in the thank-you letter, he rushes into the nuclear power plant, breaks into Mr. Burn's apartment while he is away and sprays huge letters on the wall that he is Homer Simpson. When Burns enters, Homer yells at him by name but doesn't understand him and has his guards take him away. Homer now swears to death.

At a town hall meeting, the whole town complains about Burns and they have their weapons ready. But then he appears in person and is also armed, as he has given the reason that "an unknown person" (Homer Simpson) broke into him and no one would dare to kill him. Then he darkens the sun with a large disk, whereupon everyone depends on his electricity. Burns, delighted, goes to a parking lot. There the viewer only sees his shadow. A shot sounds and Mr. Burns staggers back into the picture. Burns drops onto the city's sundial and points with the last of his strength in the cardinal points south and west.

In a final scene of the first part, Marge says it would be difficult to find the culprit because everyone in town has a motive. But the police chief Wiggum thinks that it is his duty to find the perpetrator.

Part 2

After Mr. Burns' established death, he was taken to a better hospital to be resuscitated. However, he is in a coma . Smithers wakes up a drunken wreck. He previously dreamed that Mr. Burns was in the shower and is still alive.

At the Simpsons dining table, Lisa enumerates the motives a Simpson would have had to kill Burns. However, Homer interjects that the police had previously arrested a suspect, namely Smithers. He wonders beforehand if he really killed Mr. Burns. He was shocked to find a gun in his breast pocket that he had just shot out of. Now he recalls: The day Burns was shot, he shot an old man drunk. He thinks it was Burns.

At the same time, the disk of the sun that was darkening Springfield is being torn off.

Smithers wants to go to church and confesses the sin of shooting Burns. On the other hand, it is not a priest who is listening to him, but Chief Wiggum, who then arrests him. Smithers tries to justify his crime at the police station. During the removal, in an interview in front of the camera, he jokes a joke about Madonna , which he stole from the TV show Sorry for the insult .

Tingeltangel-Mel, who is watching the interview with Krusty, is startled because the show was on when Burns was gunned down. So it couldn't have been Smithers because he was watching TV at home. He then goes to the police station with Krusty. Once there, they explain to Wiggum that Smithers could not have killed Burns. Now Smithers also remembers: The man he actually shot is Jasper Beardley. But since no second murder case was known, they go to this one. He reveals that Smithers shot him in the peg leg and Smithers is released from custody.

When the Simpsons hear about it, Lisa decides to search for clues herself. When she arrives at the police station, she suspects Moe, Barney, Willie and Skinner because they have all lost something to Burns. However, Wiggum is more likely to believe that it was Tito Puente, since he threatened vengeance on Burns. You go to him and question him. But he says that he meant the revenge not physically but psychologically and plays the revenge song to the police as evidence.

Now, with the exception of Barney, the suspects on Lisa's list, are questioned: Skinner, who wanted to pursue Burns, was acquitted with Chalmer's testimony that he was said to have seen the director at the time of the murder; Willie is exonerated because he has arthritis on his fingers and therefore cannot use a gun, and Moe is given a polygraph that proves that he did not shoot Burns either.

At the police station it is decided that the victim's suit should be examined. There they find a hair. This is used as a DNA analysis and proves that the hair came from a Simpson. At the same time, Burns wakes up from his coma and answers every question with Homer Simpson. The Simpsons has the gun that was used to shoot Burns. A fingerprint proves that Homer used this weapon. He is being taken away for attempted murder.

Lisa later comes to the conclusion, however, that despite the evidence, Homer doesn't have to be the culprit, as the DNA applies to all Simpsons and Homer's fingerprint could have been on the gun when his ice cream ball fell on the floor. In the meantime, Homer manages to escape from the police car. When this is discovered, a reward of $ 50,000 is offered to him. So they all run into Burns' sick room, which is also where Homer is. You see him furiously asking Burns to say that he wasn't the killer. After saying only Homer Simpson for a long time, Burns suddenly claims again that he doesn't know this man and says that Maggie shot him: When he went to the parking lot, he found Maggie. He wants to take the lollipop away from her, so that an argument starts between them. Burns drops his gun and Maggie accidentally shoots him at him.

Burns now wants Maggie to be arrested by the police. But Wiggum refuses, claiming that the court would not convict a baby and that the act was probably not intended.

production

Matt Groening came up with the idea of ​​producing a double episode of The Simpsons when he was going to film an episode in which Mr. Burns would be shot. He wanted to use the double episode as a publicity stunt. The scriptwriters then decided to split the plot into two parts, with the first part having a mysterious ending with the option to start a competition. They felt it was important to invent a mystery that would provide clues, take advantage of still image technology, and be constructed around a person who appeared to be the culprit. Oakley and Weinstein, when considering who should be the culprit, picked Barney Gumble, as that character could go to jail and change the dynamics of the series. David Mirkin suggested Maggie, however, because it would be funnier on the one hand and she would be a Simpson on the other. Although the decision was ultimately accepted, Oakley and Weinstein were initially unsure about the proposal.

It was difficult for the producers to keep the ending a secret. At the time of production, only David Silverman was the only animator to know who the real culprit was. Even the director Wes Archer didn't know who the culprit was at the beginning and shot the episode until the end. While the ending was to be animated, Silverman and Archer waited until the end of the summer of 1995 for work to continue. Now they realized they needed help with the design. Therefore they gave small parts to different draftsmen without any recognizable connection between the works.

Although the scriptwriters didn't know Tito Puente , they wrote him and his Latin American band in the script because Matt Groening was a fan of his. However, they mistook him for the singer of his band, but later found out that he was the drummer and not the singer. Therefore the song "Señor Burns" was sung by a band member.

Who Shot Mr. Burns is a parody of the season three finale of the hit television series Dallas , titled Who Shot JR? . This was the biggest television event in US film history to date.

The first part of the double episode contains several clues as to who actually shot Burns. For example, almost every clock is set to 3:00 or 15:00 or 9:00 or 21:00. If you were to turn a clock set to 3:00 or 3:00 p.m., it would appear as if it was set to 9:00 or 9:00 p.m. The same effect occurs the other way around. That means, you should turn the picture of the sundial that Burns was on at the end so that the initials M and S (Maggie Simpson) can be seen. However, incorrect information was also incorporated. Burns raises his arms in front of Moe's tavern (which says MOES on it), whereupon a YES can be seen because he is covering the letters M and O.

To confuse the production team, multiple endings to the double episode were written and produced to cover up the real ending. In the episode The 138th episode, a special performance , a sequence of scenes shows how Apu, Moe, Barney, Tito Puente or Knecht Ruprecht shoot Burns from the same position. In addition, a scene was shown with a completely resolved scene. Burns tells the hospital that he went to the parking lot and took her lollipop away from Maggie. The drunken Smithers emerges from ambush and shoots him down. As a punishment, Burns Smithers deducts five percent from his salary.

Between episodes

In the period between the first and the second part of the double episode, there was a lot of discussion among fans about who shot Burns. Fox offered a competition at the time, in which the caller had to guess who the perpetrator was. The competition ran from August 13, 1995 to September 10, 1995 inclusive. This was one of the first competitions to combine elements of television with elements of the Internet. Fox registered a new website, www.springfield.com, dealing with the episode's mystery, which had over 500,000 hits in the summer of 1995. The winner was originally intended to be animated and appear as a character in a Simpsons episode. However, there was no winner, as Fox pulled the answer of a randomly selected person from a pot of all answers and the answer was wrong. Even so, this person got a cash prize. So it is possible that several participants sent in the correct answer, but were not selected.

In the broadcast prior to the broadcast of the second part of the episode, the program Springfield's Most Wanted was broadcast on September 17, 1995, at 7:30 p.m. local time. It was hosted by John Walsh , lasted 22 minutes (including 30 minutes commercial break) and is a parody of America's Most Wanted , which was also hosted by Walsh. The show was directed by Bill Brown, with Jack Parmeter and Bob Bain being the scriptwriters. The special was designed to help viewers figure out who shot Burns by evaluating clues as they identify the prime suspects. Although the special consisted mainly of old episodes, the show also received opinions from Daryl Gates , the former Los Angeles police chief , and predictions from Andrew Shue , Courtney Thorne-Smith , Chris Elliott , Kevin Nealon and Dennis Franz .

reception

According to Nielsen Ratings, the second part of the double episode had an audience rating of 12.9 million households in the United States and thus landed 16th in the USA in the rating week from September 11th to 17th, 1995.

In 2003, Entertainment Weekly magazine published a list of the 25 best episodes of The Simpsons , of which this double episode ranked 25th. They wrote the following comment: “a two-part comedic homage to Dallas' Who shot JR? stunt, [Who Shot Mr. Burns] is perhaps The Simpsons' most grandiose pop moment ever ”. The Daily Telegraph even counted both episodes in the top ten of the entire series.

The sixth season cliffhanger was admired by many critics as being awesome. Jake Rossen from Wizard magazine said “Sometimes it's better to make up your own ending, kids.” And placed him sixth among the 25 best cliffhangers of all time. In addition, in 2008 Entertainment Weekly's Gary Susman added that the first part had one of the eleven best endings in television history.

The song "Señor Burns", which was composed by Alf Clausen and written by Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein , was nominated in 1996 for a Primetime Emmy Award . According to AOL, Tito Puente is number 19 of the series' 25 favorite guest stars.

German synchronization

In the German dubbing there is a significant difference between Part 1 and Part 2. In Part 1 you can't see who the killer is - but there is a dialogue in which Burns saves his attacker. In the resolution in part 2, the same dialogue is shown again in retrospect - here Burns does duet with Maggie, who was then convicted as an attacker. In the English version, both dialogues with "you" are identical. The synchronization is explained by the fact that a somewhat formal "you" in Part 1 would have already indicated a child as the perpetrator.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bill Oakley's Comments on Who Shot Mr. Burns - Part 1 , ( The Simpsons - Complete Season Six - Collectors Edition , 20th Century Fox , 2005)
  2. ↑ a b c David Mirkin's comments on the episode Who Shot Mr. Burns - Part 1 , ( The Simpsons - The Complete Season Six - Collectors Edition , 20th Century Fox , 2005)
  3. ↑ Josh Weinstein comments on the episode Who Shot Mr. Burns - Part 2 , ( The Simpsons - The Complete Season Seven - Collectors Edition , 20th Century Fox , 2005)
  4. ↑ a b David Mirkin's comments on the episode Who Shot Mr. Burns - Part 2 , ( The Simpsons - The Complete Season Seven - Collectors Edition , 20th Century Fox , 2005)
  5. ↑ a b Bill Oakley's comments on the episode Who Shot Mr. Burns - Part 2 , ( The Simpsons - The Complete Season Seven - Collectors Edition , 20th Century Fox , 2005)
  6. ↑ a b David Silverman's comments on the episode Who Shot Mr. Burns - Part 2 , ( The Simpsons - The Complete Season Seven - Collectors Edition , 20th Century Fox , 2005)
  7. ↑ Wes Archer's comments on the episode Who Shot Mr. Burns - Part 2 , ( The Simpsons - The Complete Season Seven - Collectors Edition , 20th Century Fox , 2005)
  8. ↑ The Biggest TV Events of All Time: Dallas 1980 (June 23, 2011)
  9. ↑ Burns raises his arms in a YES (accessed June 25, 2011)
  10. ↑ Tim Cuprisin (1995-08-10). "Broadcast bucks, events get bigger - Networks step up battle with cable to get viewers to tune in". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel . p. 3.
  11. ↑ Kristi Turnquist: To Be Continued… Cyberspace Has Been , The Oregonian . July 11, 1995, p. D01. Retrieved May 2, 2008. 
  12. ↑ Associated Press (1995-09-21). "CBS comes tumbling down, if to 4th place in week's ratings". The Plain Dealer . see. 4F.
  13. ↑ Entertainment Weekly (June 24, 2011)
  14. ↑ Walton, James (July 21, 2007). The 10 Best Simpsons TV Episodes (In Chronological Order) . The Daily Telegraph : cf. Page 3.
  15. ↑ THE TOP 25 CLIFFHANGERS OF ALL TIME! ( Memento of September 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (June 24, 2011)
  16. ↑ TV's Best Season Finale Ever (June 24, 2011)
  17. ↑ Primetime Emmy Awards Advanced Search . In: Emmys .org
  18. ↑ Potts, Kimberly: Favorite 'Simpsons' Guest Stars (June 24, 2011)