In this episode, Flanders seeks forgiveness after punching Homer in the eye while a new substitute teacher likes everyone except Lisa.
Tina Fey guest starred as Ms. Cantwell, and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins appeared as himself.
The couch segment of this episode's intro was animated by Bill Plympton in a film noir style.
After a morning jog, Ned comes home to find Homer and his parents smoking "medicinal" marijuana and watching TV.
Meanwhile, Lisa learns that Ms. Hoover has taken leave due to a bout of severe depression, and the class gets another teacher, Mrs. Cantwell.
[4] Director Matthew Schofield was able is sit in on the scoring session with music editor Chris Ledesma for the episode.
Club gave the episode a C, saying that although the stories were "not bad," the script was filled out with "an unforgivable number of hacky jokes.
[9] Rob H. Dawson of TV Equals praised the "long, absurd riff on sports announcers" and wished that its silly tone could have been present throughout the episode.