recognized as an artist. Homer channels his rage to continue his work and befriends other pop art artists, like Jasper Johns. All the while, his easily-achieved fame makes Marge jealous, due to her lack of success at becoming a successful artist despite years of effort. Homer later gets a notice from Astrid Weller that his work will be in the "Art in America" show, but his new masterpieces are rejected by Springfield's residents and his new "friends" for being repetitive of his first piece. Down on his luck and starved for inspiration, Lisa recommends Homer visit the Springfield Art Museum. But none of the art Homer sees serves to inspire him; he feels inadequate when he sees what other artists have done, and it only worsens the situation when he takes a nap and has a nightmare of various paintings attacking him. He goes back home, discouraged, but is soon given another suggestion by Lisa. She tells him about the artist Christo, causing Homer to try doing something similarly groundbreaking. He and Bart flood Springfield by opening all the fire hydrants (having covered the sewer drains with the city's doormats, including their own) and putting snorkels in the animals of the zoo (so that they do not drown). Surprisingly, Astrid Weller and even the whole town of Springfield is impressed with Homer's work, and enjoy the newly made "Grand Canals of Springfield" along with the swimming zoo animals. As Marge and Homer kiss each other on the roof of their house, Jasper Johns comes on a boat and steals the painting Marge was working on. Production "Mom and Pop Art" was written by current showrunner Al Jean and directed by Steven Dean Moore. It was first broadcast on the Fox network in the United States on April 11, 1999. It was the first episode Jean wrote after returning to The Simpsons writing staff. For three years, Jean had worked with Mike Reiss on the fantasy sitcom Teen Angel, a job that he despised. "Every other day [that I worked on Teen Angel] I said 'I wish I was back at The Simpsons'''," Jean said in the DVD commentary for the episode. The idea for the episode came from a segment of the television news magazine 60 Minutes. The segment was about found artists, who, Jean said, "take basically garbage and assemble it[...] and turn it into artwork that would sell