dismayed at how little the seniors are allowed to do. Meanwhile, Homer gets 1,000 springs he intended to sell as Olympic mascots. He uses various get-rich-quick schemes to sell off the mascots, but fails miserably and gets abused due to Springfield's hatred of Bart's comedy routine and everyone including Marge being annoyed by the springs. Ultimately, he is forced to flush the springs down the toilet. At the time Lisa leads the seniors in "imagination time", but when she departs, Bart makes the seniors escape to get a taste of freedom. Bart takes the seniors on a trip on the town and on a boat ride, and Lisa is initially shocked to see these things happen, but nevertheless, she is quite impressed by what Bart does for the seniors. The seniors have fun until their boat crashes into Mr. Burns' schooner. The boat begins to sink and the seniors turn on Bart, but Grampa defends him, saying Bart gave them the best fun they have had in twenty years. However, the springs that Homer flushed down the toilet save them, causing the boat to bounce up at the surface long enough for the Coast Guard to rescue everyone. Bart finishes his community service time, but decides to help the seniors still enjoy themselves and spend more time with Grampa. Production "The Old Man and the 'C' Student" was directed by Mark Kirkland and was the first episode Julie Thacker wrote for The Simpsons. It was first broadcast on the Fox network in the United States on April 25, 1999. The episode's plot was based on a "disastrous" school program, in which students had to participate in community service in order to be allowed to advance to the next grade. Thacker, whose oldest daughter was a student at the school, was signed up to do community service at an old folks home in the town they lived in. It became the inspiration for the episode's A-story, while the B-story, which involved Homer selling springs, was conceived by Thacker's husband Mike Scully, an executive producer and the showrunner for the episode. In a scene in the episode, Lenny gets one of Homer's springs stuck in his eye. Lenny's eye injuries have since become a running gag, and "The Old Man and the 'C' Student" "started the trend", according to Thacker. The "clunky, Up With People-type" dance that the students perform for the