For the second part of this episode, see: Who Shot Mr. Burns? (Part Two).

"Who Shot Mr. Burns? (Part One)" is the first half of the only two-part episode of The Simpsons to date. It originally aired on May 21, 1995.^[1] It was written by Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein, and directed by Jeffrey Lynch.^[1] Tito Puente guest starred as himself.^[1] It features a cliffhanger ending that prompted months of public speculation.

This episode is the only one of the series to have a "to be continued..." ending. It is also the only episode to have aired in two back-to-back parts. The second part of the episode aired as the season premiere of season seven, on September 17, 1995.

In the months following the airing of part one, there was much widespread debate among fans of the series as to who actually shot Mr. Burns. FOX, the television network that ran the series, offered a contest to tie in with the mystery (sponsored by 1-800-COLLECT). It was one of the first contests to tie together elements of television and the Internet.

The show mimicked the similar controversy that had resulted when the character J.R. Ewing was shot on the series Dallas in the episode titled "A House Divided," known by most as "Who shot J.R.?".^[2]

Synopsis

Template:Spoiler When Principal Skinner walks into school one day and discovers a horrible stench, and a dead gerbil called Superdude in one of the classrooms, he orders Groundskeeper Willie to refresh the school, and give Superdude a proper burial. But as Willie digs the grave, he strikes oil, making Springfield Elementary the richest school in the state and putting it on the front page of the Springfield Shopper newspaper under the headline, "Awful School Is Awful Rich". The school makes a number of suggestions on what to do with the money; Groundskeeper Willie wants a crystal bucket for his slopwater and new filthy blankets, Lunchlady Doris wants new cafeteria staff (the current staff is complaining about mice in the kitchen), Otto Mann wants "those guitars that are like double guitars, you know?", Ralph Wiggum suggests chocolate microscopes and Lisa wants a jazz music program with Tito Puente as the teacher. But Burns finds out about the oil, and tries to persuade Skinner to give it to him. He refuses, so Mr. Burns establishes a slant drilling operation to take it. On the day when the switch for the oil pump is to be thrown (by the school's star student, Lisa Simpson) nothing happens. A mechanic announces the oil well has already been tapped; Mr. Burns has pumped the oil first.

The Simpson family gets involved when Burns' slant drilling derrick shoots oil into the air toward the Simpson home, which knocks out Bart Simpson, destroys his tree house and badly injures his dog, Santa's Little Helper. Then Lisa becomes severely disappointed when Skinner announces that since the school doesn't have the oil anymore, and that they would have to pay more money for the construction, operation and demolition of the school's oil derrick, he would have to cancel all unnecessary departments, which included the new music program and the school maintenance (this angers Groundskeeper Willie, because not only is he unable to have his bucket and blankets, he also loses his job as janitor). The slant drilling operation also wrecks the foundations of the Springfield Retirement Castle, making it collapse, which in turn causes Grampa to lose most of his possessions and move in with the family. Also, since the drill was set up next to Moe's Tavern, Moe has to close because of the oil fumes. Finally, Mr. Burns still can't remember Homer Simpson's name, despite his (Homer's) working at the plant for 10 years. Homer becomes enraged by this. He tries sending Burns a box of candy with his photo in it, showing Burns his name tag and graffiti-ing "I AM HOMER SIMPSON" on Mr. Burns' office wall.

At the episode's climax Burns unveils his most dastardly scheme of all to the town; the construction of a giant, movable disk that would permanently block out the sun in Springfield, thus ensuring the residents' constant use of electricity to earn massive profits for his nuclear power plant. When Burns' personal aide, Waylon Smithers, objects, Burns promptly fires him, citing a "shocking decrease in the quality and quantity of your toadying."

A city hall meeting is held to discuss Burns' recent actions (most of the attendees being heavily armed and stroking their guns), at which Burns appears in order to unveil his sun-blocking device, and states that nobody would be able to stop him. Everyone stares at him angrily, and Bart furiously tries to take him down but Burns opens his coat, revealing a gun in a shoulder-holster. As the town leaves, Carl, Otto and Marge discover some mysterious things; Smithers has left his jacket behind, Skinner has left his mother behind and Bart, Homer, Lisa and Grampa are nowhere to be found. Could they, in the light of the recent events, have gone after Burns? An ominous omen appears on the Simpson front lawn, where earlier, Marge had buried Grandpa's handgun when he moved in: the box it was buried in is dug up, and is lying empty. Marge leaves Maggie and Santa's Little Helper in the car and goes to look for them.

As Burns leaves the city hall, the camera shows him walking into an alley, obscuring him from view. The following exchange could be heard:

BURNS: Oh, it's you. What are you so happy about? (pause, then a gasp from Burns) I see. But I think you'd better drop it. I said... drop it! (grunts of a struggle) Get...your...hands...off! (gunshot)

Burns then wanders out, with a bleeding gunshot wound in his chest, and collapses onto the town's now-useless sundial, with his arms pointing to West and South. The townspeople (including the people who disappeared) find his body and wonder who shot him. Dr. Hibbert then remarks, "Well I can't solve this mystery. Can you?", pointing directly at the viewer. The view then rotates to show Dr. Hibbert actually pointing at Chief Wiggum, who replies that he'll give it a shot, since it's his job after all.^[3]

The plot of the episode continues in Part Two.

Production

The idea for the episode came from Matt Groening, who had wanted to do an episode in which Mr. Burns was shot, which could be used as a publicity stunt.^[4] The writers had then decided to make the episode a two parter with a solveable mystery that could be used in a contest.^[5] It was important for them to design a mystery that had clues, needed freeze frame technology and was structured around one character who seemed the obvious culprit, but in the end the actual shooter was a surprise.

Hidden clues

A number of subtle clues, and a few red herrings, were planted in Part one for viewers who wanted to unravel the mystery.^[4]

• Maggie was the first to show on the picture in the candy box
• Almost every clock is set at three or nine o'clock. The point of the clocks was to teach the viewer to view the sundial at the end upside down.^[4]
• Many of the suspects have the letters S and W or M in their initials and the intention was that several "obvious" suspects could be eliminated by the letters. Several characters already had names with those initials, but some were made up specifically for this episode.^[4]
  • Principal Skinner's full name is revealed to be "W. Seymour Skinner" on a diploma in his office.^[4]
  • Mr. Burns calls Santa's Little Helper the "Simpson Mutt".^[4]
  • Moe's liquour license reveals that his full name is Moe Syzlak.^[4]
  • Grandpa's gun was a Smith & Wesson.^[6]
• Just before entering Mr. Burns's office to spray paint his name, Homer briefly stands in front of a sign painted on the road that says "IN ONLY" but his head blocks all of the letters but "NO" and a small arrow can be seen pointing at Homer.^[7]
• A television in Moe's Tavern shows that Pardon My Zinger airs weekdays at 3 PM on Comedy Central.^[4] It is later revealed that Burns is shot at 3 PM and just after the meeting ends, Smithers is seen heading in the opposite direction that Burns heads.^[4]
• In the scene at the town hall, several citizens are seen stroking guns: Skinner has a silencer, Moe has a shotgun, Barney has a sawed off shotgun and Smithers has a normal gun.^[4]
• As Mr. Burns collapses on the sundial, it is seen that the gun he was previously carrying has gone missing. This was inserted as an intentional freeze frame clue.^[4]
• When Mr. Burns collapses on the sundial, he points at W and S, although from his viewpoint, the W looks like an M.^[4]

Cultural references

• When Mr. Burns refers to his package at the beginning of the episode, he states that it 'absolutely, positively' has to arrive in Pasadena, California the following day - a reference to an early Fedex commercial featuring fast-talker John Moschitta.
• When Mr. Burns says, "I have a monopoly to maintain: I own the electric company and the water works, plus the hotel on Baltic Avenue," it is an obvious reference to the popular board game of the same name. Principal Skinner's claim that "that hotel is a dump" refers to the fact that Baltic Avenue is the second cheapest piece of property on the Monopoly game board.
• the scene where Principal Skinner looks down through the floors of the school damaged by the oil is a parody of a scene in Aliens (film)
• The musical score that ends the Part 1 of the episode (when the credit rolls) is a parody of John Williams' Drummers' Salute, which is part of the musical score he wrote for Oliver Stone's movie JFK.
• Mystery Science Theater 3000 was playing at Moe's.
• In the first part, Mr. Burns sings "hello lamp-post, what you knowin', I'm come to watch your power flowin'", which echo the lyrics of Simon & Garfunkel's song "The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)".
• The title and the idea of these two episodes are also taken from the series Dallas. Dallas had the two-parter "Who shot J.R." episode, the first of which ended a season, and the second opened the next season.

Contest

Viewers were invited to participate in a contest to guess who shot Mr. Burns. The winner would be animated on an episode of the show. No one, however, was ever animated on the show. This was because, as the DVD audio commentary for the episodes reveals, no one officially guessed the right answer. Due to contest regulations, a winner had to be selected out of a random sample of entries. Since the winner did not have the right answer, the commentary reports that the individual was paid a cash prize in lieu of being animated.

The writers had trolled the internet trying to see if anyone had correctly guessed who the culprit was, and found that only one man on a college account on Alt.tv.simpsons had followed the clues and correctly guessed the culprit. David Mirkin was going to send him a prize but was legally barred from contacting him in any way. Mirkin decided to instead contact him after the contest had ended, but by that time the account was dead and Mirkin has been unable to find him.^[5]

Reception

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 superb end to the season - and what's more, it's a genuine whodunnit. There's no cheating - all the clues are there."^[2]

The episode currently holds a score of 8.6/10 at the Internet Movie Database,^[8] and a score of 9.4/10 at TV.com.^[9]

References

External links

• "Who Shot Mr. Burns? (Part One)" at The Simpsons.com
• "Who Shot Mr. Burns? episode capsule". The Simpsons Archive.
• "Who Shot Mr. Burns? (Part One)" at the Internet Movie Database
• "Who Shot Mr. Burns? (Part One)" at TV.com