causing him to scream so much his voice changed from puberty. Back in the present, the Simpsons decide to investigate. They go to the old quarry, where they meet Chief Wiggum, who comes with them. Marge uses Burly paper towels to drain the water from the quarry. Finding nothing left of the corpse but a skeleton, they take its skull with them and travel through the pipe to emerge through a hatch in Mr. Burns's office. They confront him about the body, but he insists he did not murder anyone. He tells them that the dead man is Waylon Smithers' father, Waylon Smithers Sr. He shows an old surveillance tape, filmed during the imminent meltdown, in which Smithers' father sacrificed himself by going into an unstable reactor core in order to prevent the meltdown and succumbed to the radiation. Burns then kept the truth from Smithers, who then enters the room, having heard the entire story. Burns apologizes to him, saying he wanted to spare him from knowing the truth about his father's real death. However, Smithers admits that he is glad that his father died as a real hero rather than from a tribe of savage Amazons, which Burns told him earlier in Smithers's life. Declaring the case of the haunted quarry solved, Homer stores the skull in his "Memories" box, despite Marge's insistence to give it to Smithers. Just then, Moe arrives, having found some clues to the case. Despite Homer and Marge telling him the case has been solved, upon seeing Moe despondent, they decide to humor him by letting him show them his clues, which continues through the credits. Production "The Blunder Years" was written by Ian Maxtone-Graham and directed by Steven Dean Moore. It was first broadcast on Fox in the United States on December 9, 2001. Although the episode was written by Maxtone-Graham, the original idea for the episode, which involved Homer finding Smithers' father's corpse, was conceived by writer and current show runner Al Jean. At that point, the episode was titled "Smithers' Father's Apparent Murder" until the writers incorporated flashbacks to Homer's childhood that resembled the story of the film Stand By Me, based on the novella The Body by Stephen King. At this point, the writers changed the episode title to "The Blunder Years". Homer's first flashback shows a clip of him falling down Springfield Gorge on a skateboard, a scene