Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious

Plot

After discovering that she is losing hair at an alarming rate, Marge visits Dr. Hibbert, who informs her that stress is the cause. The Simpson family decides to hire a nanny who can help clean the house and take care of the children. They start interviewing candidates, but none of them are right for the job (as Homer believes every candidate is a man in drag, à la Mrs. Doubtfire). Bart and Lisa sing a song about what they would consider to be the perfect nanny, and their wishes are answered when a woman with an umbrella glides down from the sky and introduces herself as Shary Bobbins, an obvious parody of Mary Poppins, which she vehemently denies. She seems perfect and is immediately hired.

Shary Bobbins proves to be very helpful for the Simpson family, helping the kids clean their rooms, singing them to sleep, and even making Mr. Burns happy. Marge recovers from her stress, and her hair returns to normal. The next day, as the reformed Simpsons sit down to a perfect dinner, Shary Bobbins declares that her work is finished and leaves the house. Just as she is starting to miss the Simpson family, she sees Homer strangling Bart as they are smashed through the living room window, Maggie attempting to put out a fire, and Marge losing her hair again; the family has instantly reverted to its previous state of dysfunction. Shary realizes that she must stay.

The family now starts to treat her rudely and lose interest in her songs and zest for life. Declaring that the Simpsons would be the death of her, she becomes depressed and starts drinking (while singing "Margaritaville") with Barney. The family realizes that they have "crushed her gentle spirit", and Marge admits to Shary that nothing can be done to change the Simpsons; through song, the family state that they are happy just the way they are. Shary accepts this, and leaves using her magical umbrella. As Shary glides away, Lisa asks whether they will see her again, and Homer is positive that they will. Shary is then sucked into a jet engine and killed, which is unnoticed by the family.

Production

Although the majority of the season eight episodes were executive produced by Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein, former executive producers Al Jean and Mike Reiss had signed a deal with Disney that allowed them to produce four episodes of The Simpsons. The idea for this episode originated several years before its airdate when Jean and Reiss were the regular showrunners. The idea was pitched at a writers' retreat by Al Jean, but nobody had wanted to flesh it out. After being allowed to come back to produce some Simpsons episodes, Jean and Reiss decided to write this episode. At first, Mike Reiss was against the episode and had felt that it was a bad idea. He felt that the plot was slightly ridiculous and that the show should not feature any magic; except for a few moments, he largely kept magic out of the episode. He now considers it one of the best episodes that he co-wrote.

At the time, "Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious" had more music in it than any other episode. While writing, Jean thought that the songs would stretch out and make the episode the proper length, but it was considerably shorter than required. Several additional scenes, such as the Itchy & Scratchy segment, were added to pad out the episode. There was originally a sequence where Bart, Lisa and Shary Bobbins visit Patty and Selma who sing "We Love to Smoke", a parody of "I Love to Laugh". The song was cut because it wasn't getting any laughs, but the full version was included on the album Go Simpsonic with The Simpsons and a brief animated version was included as a deleted scene on the Season 8 DVD. During the end song, Homer can be seen dancing along but not singing; this was because the producers forgot to record Dan Castellaneta.

Many of the scenes were animated by Eric Stefani, a former member of No Doubt, who specialized in animation for musical numbers.

Casting

Julie Andrews (who portrayed the titular role in Mary Poppins) was originally slated to appear in the episode as Shary Bobbins, but in the end, the producers went with series regular Maggie Roswell after hearing Roswell's reading for the part.

Quentin Tarantino was also asked to guest star, but he did not want to deliver the lines required, believing them to be insulting. Instead, regular Dan Castellaneta did the voice. Tarantino now regularly wears a "bootleg Itchy & Scratchy T-shirt," which was made by a Simpsons/Tarantino fan, Lisa S. Amsell and given to him in 2001 at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood during a screening of Pulp Fiction.

Reception

In its original broadcast, "Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious" finished 38th in ratings for the week of February 3–9, 1997, with a Nielsen rating of 8.8, equivalent to approximately 8.5 million viewing households. It was the third-highest-rated show on the Fox network that week, following The X-files and King of the Hill.

Alf Clausen received an Emmy Award nomination for "Outstanding Music Direction" for this episode.

In 2014, The Simpsons writers picked "Reservoir Cats" from this episode as one of their nine favorite "Itchy & Stratchy" episodes of all time.