"Brother's Little Helper" is the second episode of the eleventh season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on October 3, 1999. In the episode, Bart floods the school gymnasium and the schoolyard, which prompts the school's principal Seymour Skinner to diagnose Bart with ADHD. Bart is prescribed a psychostimulant drug called Focusyn (a parody of Focalin (Ritalin)), and initially starts paying more attention to his studies. After a while however, Bart starts turning psychotic and is convinced that Major League Baseball is watching over the people of Springfield. The episode was directed by director Mark Kirkland and was the first episode staff writer George Meyer received a sole writing credit for since the season 5 episode "Bart's Inner Child". Meyer, who was facing some psychological difficulties while writing the episode, felt so dissatisfied with the episode's first draft that he turned it in with a pseudonym. The episode satirizes the perceived misdiagnosis of behavioral disorders in children, which was a controversial topic at the time the episode was written. The episode features former Major League Baseball player Mark McGwire as himself. Following its broadcast, the episode was positively received by critics. Plot Bart is behaving wildly: he teases and exasperates Principal Skinner, and floods the gymnasium. Skinner has Homer and Marge come to the school, and tells them Bart has attention deficit disorder (ADD). He will be expelled unless he takes "a radical, untested, potentially dangerous" new drug called Focusyn. Taking the drug, Bart becomes an eager and diligent student. His parents think they can safely go out for an intimate evening together, but when they come home Bart is in his room wrapped in aluminum foil, with a garbage can on his head, and numerous coat hangers dangling from the ceiling. He claims that Major League Baseball is spying on the town using a satellite. The doctors recommend that Bart be weaned off Focusyn, but he refuses, swallows several handfuls of the pills and runs away. Bart enters a U.S. Army base and manages to steal a tank. He cuts a swath of destruction through the town and eventually stops at the school. There, persuaded not to destroy the school or any other building, he points the tank's cannon into the sky and shoots down a Major League Baseball satellite; inside are detailed documents on everybody's