 In 2003 , to celebrate the show 's 300th episode , USA Today published a top 10 chosen by the webmaster of The Simpsons Archive , which had this episode in first place . The BBC website says , " This fine episode contains several of our favourite sequences ... A classic , and the series ' most marked expedition into the surreal - up to this point . " MSNBC , who listed the episode as their favorite , stated , " This is the episode that every self @-@ respecting Simpsons geek must be able to recite verbatim . " Michael Moran of The Times ranked the episode as the sixth best in the show 's history . 
