Much Apu About Nothing
After learning that Apu will be deported if the measure passes, Homer helps him prepare for a United States citizenship test so that he can become a legal citizen.
After Homer leaves home to purchase beer (ignoring official advice to remain indoors), he comes face-to-face with the bear after failing to get into his car by climbing across the power line, whereupon the police tranquilize the animal.
Despite this being an unprecedented sight in Springfield, Homer leads a march of angry citizens to city hall, where they demand Mayor Quimby do something to protect them from bears.
After Quimby deploys a bear patrol, which involves the use of high tech vehicles, including B2 Spirit aircraft, Homer is angry to learn his taxes have increased by $5 to maintain it.
Apu fears that if Proposition 24 passes, he will be forced to leave the United States, since his visa originally issued for his computer science studies expired many years before.
Homer agrees to tutor Apu, but is unable to teach him accurate facts regarding U.S. history or political science needed to pass the exam.
[4] The show runner of The Simpsons at the time, Bill Oakley, commented that the news reports often create an anti-bear hysteria, and that is one of the inspirations for the episode.
"[4] Apu studying computer science is based on Cohen's own academic background, where he met and became friends with Indian people in the department.
[4] Apu attends the Springfield Heights Institute of Technology, with the acronym SHIT; Matt Groening and Cohen were happy that the joke was not censored.
DVD Movie Guide's Colin Jacobson commented positively on the episode, and said that "if any show's taken a more unusual path to a story about xenophobia, I've not seen it."
Foster commented that the episode deals with a political issue which is too complex to cover in twenty minutes, leading to a rushed ending.
Club praised the scene in which Apu, an undocumented migrant, is shown to have a vastly superior knowledge of American history than Homer, who was born in the country.
[12] The authors of the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, wrote: "One of the most outspoken, and certainly angriest of episodes succeeds as a savage satire on the scapegoating of immigrants.
[11] The episode has become study material for sociology courses at University of California Berkeley, where it is used to "examine issues of the production and reception of cultural objects, in this case, a satirical cartoon show".
Scott Anthony of the Harvard Business Review describes this scene as a "classic example" of the informal fallacy of assuming that correlation implies causation.
