After being insulted at a
Comedy Central-style roast and having his father die before he can tell him whether or not he was ever funny, Krusty decides to, once again, leave show business. Meanwhile, the recent death of Krutsy's father leads Lisa to fear that Homer's destructive antics may cost him his life.
Guest Stars:
Sarah Silverman as herself, Jackie Mason as Rabbi Krustofsky, and
Jeffrey Ross as himself
The episode has the following tropes
- Art Shift: The Couch Gag by Don Hertzfeldt shows the Simpsons thousands of years into the future, having evolved into shapeless blobs.
- Big Eater: Homer of course. However its Played for Drama for Lisa as she is concerned for her father's health, along with his general near death prone nature. Homer on the other hand really doesn't care and uses the argument that he could die any number of ways at any time to justify being as reckless and gluttonous as he wants.
- The Cameo: Sideshow Bob shows up at the funeral reception. Even finally meeting his replacement Sideshow Mel.
- Celebrity Paradox:
- Sarah Silverman appears as herself in this episode, having previously played Nikki McKenna in "Stealing First Base" and "Moonshine River".
- David Hyde Pierce also plays himself, having previously played Sideshow Bob's brother Cecil.
- Rodney Dangerfield is one of the celebrities in Jewish Heaven. He played Larry Burns in Season 8's "Burns, Baby Burns".
- Cool and Unusual Punishment: Homer catches Bart making fun of his weight. Instead of strangling him, Homer smothers Bart against his belly.
- Drowning My Sorrows: Krusty reaches this point after Bart shows him his old sketches.
- Extremely Protective Child: After attending Rabbi Krustovsky's funeral, Lisa realizes how easily she could lose her own unhealthy, danger-prone father and develops an obsession with protecting him which cumulates in her placing a helmet on his head and wrapping him in bubble wrap when he's just hanging around in the backyard. It pays off.
- It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: In-universe. While binge watching all of the shows he has made on multiple televisions, Krusty finds he's been telling the exact same jokes over and over for decades.
- Mind Screw: The Couch Gag.
- Pet the Dog: Bob attends Krustofski's funeral and offers his condolences to Krusty.
- Parting-Words Regret: Rabbi Krustofsky's last words to Krusty were "I always thought you were just eh..." Krusty takes this really hard.
- The Roast: The episode begins with a roast for Krusty, which he takes too personally.
- Safety Worst: Inverted and averted, it's the kid worrying about the parent and going to such extremes to protect him which winds up paying off.
- Self-Deprecation: The episode likely makes fun of the fact the show's been on for so long that most of their audience likely have the same "eh" attitude towards it nowadays. Even the Couch Gag for the episode can be seen as a metaphor of the show running for a literal eternity, eventually losing the little bits of originality it had.
- Spoofs "R" Us: When Krusty has a Near-Death Experience and goes to Jewish Heaven, he sees people walk past a store called Oys "R" Us.
- Tonight, Someone Dies: The episode was touted as such during the promos. Though it turned out it wasn't a major character, which disappointed a lot of fans. Krusty was declared to have died early on, but this is a fake out, as the guy saying this is reading Krusty's pulse the wrong way, and continues to say he's dead after the revelation that he's still alive.
