Original air date: 3/19/2006
Production code: HABF-07
Marge babysits for Rod and Todd that goes against Ned's strict parenting, while Bart gets kidnapped by a chimp who turns out to be Mr. Teeny's mom.
Tropes:
- Added Alliterative Appeal: The chimp Tutu played "Tum-Tum" in Teen Tarzan's Eco-Adventures.
- Bait-and-Switch:
- When Bart offers a sad Tutu his ice cream, she smiles, walks over to him and grabs...Bart.
- After Marge gives Tutu a touching speech to convince her to give Bart back, Tutu holds Bart out to her, making it look like she got through to her...only for Tutu to leap over Marge and escape her cage with Bart over her shoulder.
- Big "NO!": Nelson yells one when Lisa tells him Funny Town doesn't really exist, as he wanted to go live at Cuckoo Corners.
- Call-Back: Maude's death from "Alone Again, Natura-Diddily" is referenced yet again, and is even seen in a post-credits scene watching her son Rod from Heaven and being proud of him for being brave.
- Calling the Old Man Out: Rod and Todd call out Ned for his overprotective behavior and for banning Marge from seeing them, because she made them genuinely happy and let them take risks.
- Celebrity Paradox: Susan Sarandon plays herself as the voice of a computer called a feMac. She had previously played a ballet teacher in Season 6's "Homer vs. Patty and Selma".
- Cheaters Never Prosper: Homer tries to win by shooting all the leading ducks during the race. It results in his duck both going into a watermill and being abducted by real ducks. The one he threw back into the race was a real duck and Flanders won instead. Despite this, Flanders gives them the computer anyway, leading to the main plot.
- El Spanish "-o": Bumblebee Man airs a show about "fighting corruption in Oaxaca". However, he says "corrupción luchadora en Oaxaca", which means "the corruption that fights in Oaxaca", instead of the intended sentence, "lucha contra la corrupción en Oaxaca", which means "the fight against corruption in Oaxaca".
- Empty Nest: The subplot revolves around a mother chimpanzee taking a maternal love for Bart.
- Epic Fail: Homer's attempts to rescue Bart from Tutu end with him swallowing a tranquilizer dart and knocking himself out.
- Gotta Get Your Head Together: Homer's sarcastic rant about how maybe he can't stop talking sarcastically about escalates to holding his head and staring at nothing at "I have serious MENTAL PROBLEMS!"
- Helicopter Parents: Because he lost Maude, Ned is paranoid that his sons will get hurt. After Rod chips his tooth during an indoor rock-climbing accident, Ned saws the seesaw, bubble-wraps a tree, and blows up the playhouse.
- I'm Standing Right Here: While consoling Homer over losing the rubber duck race, Marge admits that Bart's performance at a soccer game was terrible, unaware that he was right behind her.
- Incredibly Lame Fun: Rod and Todd have a "sitting still contest." Marge and Maggie aren't impressed.
- Jerkass: Reverend Lovejoy uses the church fundraiser to build a bigger steeple to compensate for his own insecurities, then when Bart's at risk offers Marge a memorial plaque for the steeple with Bart's name on it.
- Literary Allusion Title: The title is a reference to Heather Has Two Mommies.
- Mirror Scare: Lisa at the "See What You'd Look Like in Hell" mirror, flees when she sees herself aging rapidly. Subverted when Burns looks through it and sees himself as a king instead. Smithers then hands him a candy apple, which is shown as his head on a stick in the mirror as Burns takes a bit out of it.
- Mistaken for Gay: Bart tells Rod that being "gay" means "you used to be afraid of something, but now you're not."Rod: I'm gay, Daddy! I'm gay! Mrs. Simpson made me gay!
- Non Sequitur, *Thud*: While going through the mill, Homer keeps saying to himself "Protect the duck!". After getting bonked on the head enough, he mumbles "Produck the tect".
- Noodle Incident: Homer hopes that monkeys don't have feelings, or else "his experiments could be called cruel." Exactly what experiments was Homer doing?
- Not So Above It All: Lisa jousts with Bart on bicycle and has a ton of fun with it, ending with her trashing a bunch of stuff and having a medieval helmet and stuffed deer head land on her and wanting to do it again.
- Parental Substitute: Marge ends up being one for Rod and Todd during the episode, who say that spending time with her was the most fun they've had since Maude died.
- Replacement Goldfish: Bart becomes one for Tutu. Because her son, Mr. Teeny, was taken away from her, she takes Bart in and treats him like her child.
- Sarcasm Mode: Homer's Sarcastic Confession to Marge and being quietly called by Lisa on how this isn't sustainable escalates into how not only does he sarcastically consider the idea he should be more concerned about Bart's safety than (escalating the sarcastic histrionics) "covering [his] own butt", but maaybe he can't stop talking like this.Homer: (still speaking sarcastically) HEEEELP me, Lisa! I have serious MENTAL problems!...
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: Homer's attempts to cheat the duck race don't work, and Flanders wins instead.
- Shout-Out: The watermill that Homer and his rubber duck go through has similarities to the titular building from "The Old Mill".
- Silent Snarker: Maggie makes some magnificently bored faces while Marge babysits Rod and Todd. During their sitting still contest (hands folded!), she glances at Marge and does the "shoot me" gesture.
- Skewed Priorities: Lisa is more bothered by Homer's bad grammar than the fact that Bart's been "apenapped/kidnapped".
- Special Guest: Dave Thomas returns, this time voicing Bob Hope's caricature in the credits scene.
- Sure, Let's Go with That: Lisa, after Homer asks her if the Gremlins from the Gremlins movies will be at the animal retirement home.
- Waxing Lyrical:Ned: (upon finding an empty Band-Aid wrapper) Call me Ned Zeppelin, but is one of my boys abrased and contused?note
