2–8, 1991. It finished second in its timeslot behind The Cosby Show, which came in at 11th with a 16.8 rating. The Simpsons was the highest rated show on Fox that week. Since airing, "Burns Verkaufen der Kraftwerk" has received generally positive reviews from critics. The authors of the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, praised the episode, most notably "Homer in the land of chocolate and Smithers counselling Mr. Burns with the aid of his sock-puppet friend, Mr. Snappy the Alligator". Writing for the Star Tribune, Neal Justin rated the episode as one of his ten favorites, commenting that the scene where "Homer dreams about prancing across a literal 'land of chocolate' [was] perhaps the most outrageous moment in Simpsons history". In a list of Homer's best gluttony moments, Herald Sun's Mikey Cahill ranked "The Land of Chocolate" as number one. The sequence was also named one of the twenty best moments in the history of the show by Daily Record's Brian McIver. In 2012, Johnny Dee of The Guardian listed the episode as one of his five favorites in the history of The Simpsons, noting that it was the "Land of Chocolate" segment that "makes this episode such a classic". Jon Greenberg of ESPN said the episode is one of his favorites, calling it "hardly an average episode". He commented that "the sarcastic heart of the story comes at the end, when Mr. Burns realizes that wealth and time do not buy him happiness because no one, not even the scourge of Sector 7G [Homer], is scared of a powerless despot." The episode was study material for a sociology course at University of California Berkeley, where it was used to "examine issues of the production and reception of cultural objects, in this case, a satirical cartoon show", and to figure out what it was "trying to tell audiences about aspects primarily of American society, and, to a lesser extent, about other societies." References External links The Simpsons (season 3) episodes 1991 American television episodes Television episodes about termination of employment Cultural depictions of German people