episode, along with his four other appearances, the best guest appearance in the show's history. In a DVD review of the first season David B. Grelck rated this episode a 4(of 5), placing it along with "Homer's Night Out" as his favorites of the season. Colin Jacobson at DVD Movie Guide said in a review that it was "another good but not great episode" and added that "Albert Brooks seriously enlivened 'Life [on the Fast Lane]'... Jacques becomes funny not so much due to the lines themselves; it's Brooks' readings that make them work." Another DVD review from The Digital Bits called it "one of the first season's best loved episodes". This episode won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming One Hour or Less) in 1990, defeating fellow Simpsons episode "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire", and becoming the first The Simpsons episode to win the award. In a 2000 Entertainment Weekly article, Matt Groening ranked this episode as his second favorite episode of all time, behind "Bart the Daredevil". Entertainment Weekly placed the episode twenty-first on their top 25 The Simpsons episode list, calling it "a showcase for the series' bedrock of character and heart." The Orlando Sentinels Gregory Hardy named it the fifteenth best episode of the show with a sports theme. The episode's reference to An Officer and a Gentleman was named the 23rd greatest film reference in the history of the show by Total Film's Nathan Ditum. Simpsons co-developer Sam Simon named it his favorite episode of all time in 2009. Legacy The March 15, 2004 edition of the Dear Abby column was pulled, as it had emerged that one of the letters was a fake. A newspaper editor noticed that the problem cited in the letter was identical to the plot of "Life on the Fast Lane". Kathie Kerr, a spokeswoman for the Universal Press Syndicate, said "it did sound too similar not to be a hoax". References External links 1990 American television episodes Emmy Award-winning episodes Television episodes about adultery Television episodes about birthdays Television shows written by John Swartzwelder Ten-pin bowling on television The Simpsons (season 1) episodes