by only leaving in sounds of the characters' agony. Cultural references When Homer gets up early to make Mr. Burns breakfast, he wakes up Marge in bed. She says: "Homie, it's 4:30 in the morning. Little Rascals isn't on until 6", referencing The Little Rascals, a series of comedy short films from the 1930s. Smithers uses a Macintosh computer with the Mac OS operating system to search for his replacement. At the end of the episode, Burns is lying in bed in a body cast, chewing loudly and pausing his speech for Smithers to spoon-feed him, as in A Clockwork Orange when a bedridden Alex is spoonfed steak. The manner in which Burns becomes injured is also similar to Alex: they both take a potentially life-threatening fall. Reception In its original broadcast, "Homer the Smithers" finished 60th in the ratings for the week of February 19 to February 25, 1996, with a Nielsen rating of 8.8. The episode was the fifth-highest-rated show on the Fox network that week, following The X-Files, Beverly Hills, 90210, Melrose Place, and Married... with Children. Since airing, the episode has received mostly positive reviews from television critics. Dave Foster of DVD Times said that "Homer the Smithers" shows "just how dependent upon Smithers Mr. Burns is". He added that the staging and animation of the scene in which Homer tries to apologize to Burns "will remain engraved in your memory in the same way as some of the series finest dialogue can". DVD Movie Guides Colin Jacobson enjoyed the episode and commented that "any doubts about Smithers' sexuality will not last long when we see his vacation". Jacobson would have liked to see more scenes from Smithers' vacation, but he still thought the episode offered "nice exposition" for the character. He added: "It’s fun to see more about his pampering of Burns, and it’s amusing to watch Homer take over for him." Jennifer Malkowski of DVD Verdict considered the best part of the episode to be the scenes of Smithers on vacation. She concluded her review by giving the episode a grade of A−. The authors of the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, called it a "very good episode, and an unusually straightforward one for this surreal season". References External links The Simpsons (season 7) episodes 1996 American television episodes Television shows