The season opener, “Who Shot Mr. Burns? Part Two” (S7, E1) gets us off to a great start. We’re told Mr. Burns was rushed to a hospital where he was pronounced dead. However, he’s then taken to a better hospital where his condition is upgraded to living. Chief Wiggum investigates several suspects. Guest star Tito Puente vowed revenge on Mr. Burns, but he didn’t intend to shoot him, just write a slanderous mambo titled “Señor Burns”. A great musical number. Principle Skinner has an alibi in the form of Superintendent Chalmers, however, he accidentally put on his mother’s make-up when Chalmers saw him, so he tells the chief that Chalmers is his alibi, but anything else he says is a lie. Wiggum hooks the bartender Moe up to a lie detector. Moe says he doesn’t deserve this shabby treatment, but the machine goes off, so he’s apparently lying about that. Great stuff.

Smithers is also a suspect and he remembers shooting an old man, but it turns out he shot Jasper instead. Wiggum questions why the second shooting wasn’t reported and they find out Jasper has a prosthetic leg. Jasper gets some good lines in this episode. “Who shot who in the what now?” and “This sidewalk’s for regular walking, not fancy walking.” Chief Wiggum’s Twin-Peaks-style dream in which Lisa is talking backwards and trying to give him a clue by holding up a burning playing card is great. When another officer says they should check out Burns’s suit, Wiggum asks if he had the same backwards-talking dream and the other officer simply replies, “I’ll drive.” When Wiggum asks the technician how long the DNA analysis will take, he says 8 weeks, but after getting his bribe, he changes his answer to 8 seconds. Most episodes of The Simpsons have at least one laugh-out-loud moment, but this has several. It’s certainly one of the best episodes this season.

I don’t remember this, but apparently, there was a contest to correctly guess who shot Burns with the winner getting to appear on The Simpsons in animated form. The contest wasn’t run well. The “winner” was someone who guessed wrong, didn’t watch The Simpsons, and wasn’t interested in appearing on the show. Before “Who Shot Mr. Burns? Part Two” aired, Fox aired a special called Springfield’s Most Wanted hosted by John Walsh of America’s Most Wanted. It featured clues and opinions of various celebrities. It really got you psyched up for the show. Many people were disappointed with the reveal of who shot Burns, including me, but the episode overall is so funny, the disappointing ending is forgivable. Impressively, my daughter who hadn’t watched this before, was able to correctly guess who did it!

It’s amusing that in “Bart Sells His Soul” (S7, E4), Bart says the soul is something adults make up to scare kids like the boogeyman or Michael Jackson. Bart apparently forgot that he was a fan of Michael Jackson in a previous season. Between then and this episode, Michael Jackson changed from being a famous, if eccentric celebrity, to being a cautionary tale. Bart convincing everyone in church the Iron Butterfly song “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” is a hymn called In the Garden of Eden was amusing, although from what I’ve heard, Iron Butterfly intended “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” to be a mangling of “In the Garden of Eden”, so he’s really staying true to the original intent of the song after all.

“Lisa the Vegetarian” (S7, E5) is funnier than I remember. It probably contains the best Troy McClure segment about how you should eat meat. He mentions previous educational films he’s appeared in such as 2 Minus 3 Equals Negative Fun! and Dynamite: The Silent Killer. He tells a small child to come check out the killing floor, which causes the child to gasp. Troy responds, “Don’t let the name fool you. It’s not really a floor, more of a grate to allow materials to sluice through.” Then he shows us the “food chain” which is just humans eating every other animal. Classic.

There’s a funny scene in which Mr. Burns tells Smithers he’ll give money to charity… when pigs fly! Just then Homer’s roast pig flies past Burns’ window. Smithers asks if he’ll give the money to charity now and Burns replies that he’d still rather not.

Lisa was previously presented as being a vegetarian in “Lisa’s Wedding” (S6, E19), but that episode took place in the future and The Simpsons usually didn’t do continuity in these early seasons. I think “Lisa the Vegetarian” may be one of the first episodes (other than the Sideshow Bob episodes) which has continuity with future episodes. Lisa actually remains a vegetarian going forward. This was done at the request of guest star Paul McCartney. Apparently, showrunner David Mirkin had recently become a vegetarian himself and some events in the episode are based on his personal experiences.

In the episode, McCartney says that if you play “Maybe I’m Amazed” backwards, you’ll get a recipe for lentil soup. A modified version of the song plays during the closing credits which do actually give you the recipe if you play it backwards! In the backwards part, McCartney also says, “Oh, and by the way, I’m alive” in reference to the Paul is Dead conspiracy theory. The end of the episode, in which Lisa and Homer reconcile contains the great line from Homer, “I used to believe in stuff when I was a kid.” One of the greatest lines we’ve gotten from the show.

“Treehouse of Horror VI” (S7, E6) is the first Treehouse of Horror that I found disappointing. The only segment of note is “Homer³” which uses a lot of cutting-edge-for-the-time computer graphics to present Homer and Bart in 3D. It made me nostalgic to watch this again, but the only bit I found funny this time around was when Reverend Lovejoy tells Homer to walk towards the light, then you hear Homer get electrocuted. Other than that, I didn’t find this episode particularly funny.

The Simpsons contains a lot of fat-shaming, but “King-Size Homer” (S7, E7) in which Homer gains weight to qualify for working from home, really takes the cake. I found this one nearly unwatchable. It is interesting to watch an episode from a time when working from home was a novelty. I think this may be the first episode of The Simpsons to mention computers as well, but overall, I’d recommend skipping it. At one point, Mr. Burns, encouraging his workers to exercise, says he wants to see more Teddy Roosevelts and less Franklin Roosevelts. Teddy was known for being physically fit while FDR is known for being wheelchair-bound. I thought this joke was done in poor taste. Since I’m apparently keeping track of The Simpson‘s politics, I’ll also note here that FDR was a democrat and Teddy was a republican.

Sideshow Bob’s Last Gleaming (S7, E9) is the most disappointing Sideshow Bob episode so far. In it, Bob steals a bomb to make Springfield give up television. It has some laughs, but it’s not as good as previous Bob appearances. On the political front, a soldier remarks that he’d rather follow orders from then-president Bill Clinton than Bob, so the The Simpsons is still slamming democrats. Also, Krusty does a poor Eisenhower impersonation, having the former president say, “Let’s get bizzay!”

“The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular” (S7, E10) is another clip show, but it’s different from previous clip shows because it features old Tracey Ullman shorts and deleted scenes, so they’re clips most people wouldn’t have seen before. It’s an okay episode, but not great. At the time, I thought the arbitrary 138th episodes celebration was for The Simpsons becoming the longest-running prime time animated show beating The Flintstones‘ record (and they do mention The Flintstones in this episode). However, looking it up now, it appears The Flintstones had 166 episodes, so The Simpsons hadn’t beaten their record at this point. I guess celebrating 138 episodes was just random.

The episode claims that when Maggie is being scanned at the grocery store in the opening credits, the register says NRA4EVR, one of many radical right-wing messages found in The Simpsons. As I recall, The Simpsons had been labeled the most liberal show on television by some news magazine or other and this was their way to make fun of that. However, the register doesn’t actually say NRA4EVR. If you pause it during an episode, it says $847.63 instead. (This is the estimated monthly cost of raising a baby in 1989.)

We finally get a new Christmas episode with “Marge Be Not Proud” (S7, E11) in which Bart gets caught shoplifting a video game. If you pause it at the right moment, there’s some funny video game titles like Caper Toss, A Streetcar Named Death, etc. Lisa declares this the “worst Christmas ever” when she’s not allowed to open a Christmas present early. The Comic Book Guy is best known for declaring things the worst ever, but I think this is the first time this phrase has been used in the show.

When Marge gets Bart a video game, he’s disappointed that it’s a putting challenge rather than the fighting game he wanted. Marge got it at the recommendation of the store clerk. This is reminds me of the time my mom wanted a music player and I told her to get an iPod, but the clerk talked her into getting a Zune. Clerks sometimes talk you into getting the option that doesn’t sell as well so they can get rid of it.

At the time it originally aired, I considered “Two Bad Neighbors” (S7, E13) to be the funniest episode of The Simpsons up to that time, and it’s still really funny. Former president George H. W. Bush moves into the Simpson’s neighborhood and Bart infuriates him by doing his best Dennis the Menace impersonation. If you’re from a younger generation and aren’t as familiar with the elder Bush, many of the jokes will probably go over your head, but it will still be pretty funny. This is also the episode in which Disco Stu makes his first appearance and says his famous line: “Disco Stu doesn’t advertise.”

The Bushes had a long-running feud with The Simpsons. Barbara Bush called The Simpsons “the dumbest thing she had ever seen” in People magazine. During his 1992 reelection campaign, George Bush made a speech in which he called for American families to be more like the Waltons and less like the Simpsons. The creators of The Simpsons characterize this episode as a personal attack on Bush rather than a political attack.

While this episode does poke fun at a couple Republican presidents (Gerald Ford also makes an appearance), there’s a shot of a newspaper declaring Bill Clinton public enemy number one, and Grandpa Simpson says he was spanked by Democrat Grover Cleveland (on two non-consecutive occasions), so it gets in a couple digs at Democrats as well.

More president references come up in “Lisa the Iconoclast” (S7, E16) in which it’s revealed the founder of Springfield was a pirate who once attacked George Washington. Lisa also jokes that she got a case of “Chester A Arthritis” meaning she was obsessed with studying the past president. In “Homer the Smithers” (S7, E17) someone mentions that Mr. Burns’ mother had an affair with President Taft. “The Day the Violence Died” (S7, E18) featuring the first Itchy cartoon in which the psychotic mouse decapitates Teddy Roosevelt for no reason.

“The Day the Violence Died” (S7, E18) also features a hilarious parody of the old Schoolhouse Rocks! short “I’m Just a Bill” titled “I’m an Amendment To Be”. One of the funniest parodies The Simpsons has ever done. “Planet of the Apes: The Musical” from “A Fish Called Selma” (S7, E19) is also quite excellent.

“Much Apu About Nothing” (S7, E23) is the immigration episode, but despite the controversial topic, it’s full of laughs. It starts with a lovable bear frightening Flanders. (Chief Wiggum charges the bear with “one count of being a bear” and Barney with “accessory to being a bear”!) The citizens of Springfield call for the Mayor to do something. He creates a Bear Patrol, which causes taxes to rise. The townspeople protest this, and the Mayor blames their high taxes on illegal immigrants. Moe has some great lines in this one. “Immigrants! I knew it was them! Even when it was the bears, I knew it was them!” and “Immigrants! They didn’t even bother to learn themselves the language!”

I was surprised to see Apu’s future wife Manjula in this episode. She appears in a flashback as a young girl betrothed to Apu, so it fits with her future appearance. I think this is also the first time Helen Lovejoy screams “Won’t someone please think of the children!”

“Homerpalooza” (S7, E24) was a treat. It starts with Otto receiving a reward for being a safe bus driver, but this turns out to be a dream he’s having while sleeping behind the wheel! Otto crashes the bus and Homer becomes a car pool dad. Bart and Lisa are embarrassed by his old-fashioned taste in music. I loved when Homer said “I used to rock and roll all night and party everyday. Then it was every other day. Now I’m lucky if I can find half an hour a week in which to get funky.”

He then determines to “get out of this rut and get back in the groove” and he takes his kids to a concert featuring bands that were famous at the time like Smashing Pumpkins and Cypress Hill. (Including Peter Frampton seems a bit off since he would quality as one of the dinosaur bands Bart and Lisa make fun of Homer for liking, but oh well.) Watching this nearly thirty years later, I have to admit Grandpa Simpson was right when he said, “I used to be with it, but then they changed what ‘it’ was. Now what I’m with isn’t ‘it’, and what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary to me. It’ll happen to you!” A warning that applies to all of us.

When Bart asks if Homer wears boxers or briefs, Homer first looks, then replies, “No.” Hilarious. I also loved the conversation between two teenagers in the audience. One asks if the first is being sarcastic, and he replies, “I don’t even know anymore.” My friends and I quoted this one a lot. The discussion the family has at the end of the episode about what makes you cool and how you know you’re cool is also great. It’s fun that a lot of the jokes in the episode actually came from the real life experience of one of the show writers going to Lollapalooza. Also, the band No Doubt was added into the background by an animator on the show who was also a member of No Doubt! In this episode, Cypress Hill plays with the London Symphony Orchestra, which they later actually did in real life!

While all episodes of The Simpsons have funny moments, the episodes I laughed at most this season were “Who Shot Mr. Burns?”, “Lisa the Vegetarian”, “Two Bad Neighbors”, “Much Apu About Nothing”, and “Homerpalooza”. I’ve also got to give honorable mentions to “I’m an Amendment To Be” from “The Day the Violence Died” and “Planet of the Apes: The Musical” from “A Fish Called Selma”.