Bart the Daredevil
In the episode, Bart decides he wants to become a daredevil after watching famous stunt performer Lance Murdock at a monster truck rally.
After seeing the commercial while watching wrestling, the Simpsons attend a monster truck rally featuring Truckasaurus, a giant robotic dinosaur that crushes their car when they accidentally drive into the arena.
Though Murdock succeeds in performing the stunt, he ends up badly injured and hospitalized when taking a bow, though it inspires Bart to be a daredevil.
It appears Homer will make it safely across, but he loses momentum, and plunges onto several jagged rocks during his fall until he hits the bottom of the gorge.
He tells him, “You think you've got guts, try raising my kids!” The episode was written by Jay Kogen and Wallace Wolodarsky and directed by Wes Archer.
The character Lance Murdock was based on Evel Knievel, an American motorcycle daredevil and entertainer famous in the United States and elsewhere between the late 1960s and early 1980s.
"[5] In the short, amongst other things, Mr. Burns would be making planes for the war effort at his aircraft plant, Bart's spiky hair would be replaced by a pointy Jughead cap and Moe Szyslak would be a dog.
[6][7] Simpsons character designer Phil Ortiz adapted the short as a four-page comic book and handed out copies at Wizard World Philadelphia on June 2, 2016.
The scene, which also features added more graphic animation of Homer hitting the jagged rocks at the bottom of the gorge, is followed by his recovery from the fall where he becomes addicted to painkillers.
In "Bart's Birthday", Conan O'Brien presents an alternate version of the gorge scene that apparently would have ended the series, in which Homer is killed when the falling skateboard impales him in the head.
According to him, the scene was rewritten as the result of Rupert Murdoch getting a large bill for the Bart balloon at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
[9] The song Otto is heard humming while driving the school bus is "Shoot You In The Back" from the album Ace of Spades by the British rock band Motörhead.
[20] To promote The Simpsons Sing the Blues, the music video for the album's lead single, "Do the Bartman", premiered shortly after this episode's first broadcast.
Kleinman concluded by noting that the episode helps The Simpsons stand apart from other animated and live action sitcoms by focusing more on the relationships between the characters than "just a humorous weekly plotline".
