Original air date: 5/13/2007
Production code: JABF-12
Santa's Little Helper becomes a police dog while Bart gets a pet snake.
Tropes:
- Artistic License – Biology: Strangles has a pair of Cute Little Fangs sticking out of his mouth. Pythons do not possess fangs since they are not venomous. He's also shown blinking a few times, something which real-life snakes can't do since they don't have eyelids. He's also green, a color large pythons don't come in (they are brown or yellow).
- Black Comedy: Strangles devoured Martin's rabbit. It hopped around in his stomach before being dissolved.
- Berserk Button: Hurting Bart proves to be one for Strangles. Homer's routine strangling of Bart prompts the snake to strangle him MUCH worse in return.
- Cheaters Never Prosper: The man who won the cornucopia contest by stuffing his horn with a piece of styrofoam.
- Continuity Nod: Homer wears a sports bra because, according to Marge, he has trouble getting upstairs without it. In "Yokel Chords" Marge spent the money she was saving for him to get a breast reduction on a therapy appointment for Bart.
- Dungeon Bypass:
- Averted and defied for Homer, who tried to do this to get out of the corn maze, but apparently it had been lined with an electric fence to ensure people got out properly.
- Played straight later on when Santa's Little Helper found Stephen Hawking while looking for Homer, who declared the maze too difficult for him and used a helicopter in his chair to fly out.
- Epic Fail: Somehow, while trying to head back to the car, Homer ended up getting the family trapped in the corn maze.
- Loyal Animal Companion: Strangles' dialogue shows how loyal he became towards Bart.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Santa's Little Helper feels bad after he bites Bart.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Strangles accidentally knocks down a set of chemicals that when mixed together create a toxic cloud that almost kills Bart when he stays in the school looking for Strangles.
- Off on a Technicality: Snake is allowed to go free because the paperwork was filled in by Santa’s Little Helper, making it look atrocious and illegible.
- Papa Wolf: Homer strangling Bart prompts Strangles (who is a rather large python) to strangle him MUCH worse in Bart's defence.
- Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: The episode's title is a reference to Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot.
- Sentenced Without Trial: The family goes to a harvest fest and witnesses a cornucopia contest. Marge accidentally exposes that one contestant has stuffed his with styrofoam and is dragged away. Marge states she can testify at the trial then a farmer pops up and tells her there won't be one.
- Serious Business: Apparently, the farmers sees cheating in a cornucopia contest as a crime that amounts to death.
- Snakes Are Sinister: Averted. Despite his rather menacing appearance, Bart's pet snake Strangles is completely loyal to him. When Homer strangles Bart, Strangles strangles him, and when Bart is in danger thanks to mix chemicals in the school, he comes to rescue him. The worst thing he does is eat Martin's pet rabbit, which he did with Bart's approval and it was pretty hurt when Bart chose Santa's Little Helper over him.
- Stealing the Credit: Chief Wiggum takes credit when Bart is rescued from the toxic cloud.
- Vigilante Execution: Implied to be done to the guy who won a cornucopia contest by stuffing his horn with styrofoam.Marge: I can testify at the trial!
Random Farmer: Ain't gon' be no trial.
