Finding out that anyone that found the golden cracker would win a trip to Africa, Homer shows it to the company's owners, who refuse to honor the prize.
Although "Simpson Safari" was written by John Swartzwelder, the idea for the episode was pitched by a former staff writer Larry Doyle.
But when Homer is hit in the eye by a sharp corner of the box, the company gives the Simpsons their Africa trip in order to avoid a lawsuit.
When the family is in Africa, their tour guide Kitenge takes them to experience such sights as the Masai Mara, Ngorongoro Crater, Olduvai Gorge, and meet with a group of Maasai tribesmen.
After surviving the plunge over Victoria Falls, the family eventually reach Mount Kilimanjaro and stumbles upon a nearby chimpanzee sanctuary maintained by the scientist Dr. Joan Bushwell (a parody of Jane Goodall).
The poachers are revealed to be Greenpeace activists, who prove that Dr. Bushwell is a chimp slave master, exploiting their labor at a nearby diamond mine.
Examples of these include the cover of the Animal Cracker box and Homer and Dr. Joan Bushwell's discussion about the smell of feces in the doctor's hut.
When writing the episode, the writers deliberately included factual errors to annoy viewers who wanted the series to seem realistic.
In order to make it sound accurate, Hank Azaria, who portrays Kitenge in the episode, was taught to sing the song phonetically by a professor in Swahili in the University of California, Los Angeles.
[4] In its original American broadcast on April 1, 2001, "Simpson Safari" received a 7.5 rating, according to Nielsen Media Research, translating to approximately 7.7 million viewers.
[5] Later that year, the episode was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in the category of Outstanding Music Composition for a Series (Dramatic Underscore).
Mike Scully, Ian Maxtone-Graham, Matt Selman, Tim Long, Yeardley Smith, Mark Kirkland and Michael Marcantel participated in the audio commentary for the episode.
In his review of The Simpsons: The Complete Twelfth Season, Colin Jacobson of DVD Movie Guide described the episode as "lousy".
[9] While he admitted that he found a couple of scenes funny, he argued that the episode over relied on broad gags and "never threatens to become inspired or amusing".
[11] DVD Talk's Jason Bailey wrote that "Simpson Safari" makes use of one of his favorite story elements that he called a "wandering storyline".