Brother from the Same Planet
"Brother from the Same Planet" is the fourteenth episode of the fourth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons.
In the episode, Bart, furious with Homer for taking too long to pick him up from soccer practice on a rainy day, turns to the Bigger Brothers Agency, which pairs up fatherless boys with adult male role models (a parody of the Big Brothers of America).
Meanwhile, Lisa becomes addicted to the Corey hotline, a phone service where television fans can listen to the voice of a teen idol.
"Brother from the Same Planet" received favorable reception in books and in the media; a contemporary review in Entertainment Weekly said it "may be the best Simpsons show ever"[3] and it was named one of the five best episodes of the series by the writers of King of the Hill.
Furious with Homer, Bart goes to the Bigger Brothers Agency, a mentor program which pairs up fatherless boys with positive male role models.
She soon finds out why — Lisa has been making lengthy calls to the Corey hotline, a premium rate phone service where fans can listen to the voice of a teen heartthrob.
The fight rages across Springfield and ends when Homer lands on a fire hydrant, severely injuring his back.
Bart suggests Tom become Pepi's big brother; they happily agree and walk into the sunset holding hands.
[7] The sequence originally had a longer version of the Tuesday Night Live band playing into the commercial break, but it was cut because Vitti, who was a writer on Saturday Night Live during the 1985–86 season along with fellow Simpsons writers George Meyer and John Swartzwelder, did not want to come off as being bitter.
[7] The writers were looking for an ending, and executive producer Sam Simon suggested they watch The Quiet Man.
He also watches an NFL Films production about Bart Starr, the quarterback on the Green Bay Packers who led the team to victory in the first two Super Bowls.
The scene where Homer accuses Bart of seeing his big brother is a reference to Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Skinner's disturbing monologue about his mother watching him is a parody of Norman Bates' similar dialogue from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960).
[13] In their section on the episode in the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood comment: "We love Homer sitting at home trying to remember to pick up Bart—he's watching a TV show about a football star called Bart, with pictures of Bart on all sides, and even Maggie seems to be calling her brother's name.
"[2] Writing in the compilation work The Psychology of The Simpsons, Robert M. Arkin and Philip J. Mazzocco reference a scene from the episode where Homer "argues with his own brain about a desired course of action" to illustrate self-discrepancy theory, the idea that "humans will go to great lengths to attain and preserve self-esteem".
[17] Reviewing season four in Entertainment Weekly, Ken Tucker called the episode "a masterpiece of tiny, throwaway details that accumulate into a worldview.
