Homer and Marge decide to name a legal guardian for their children should (Heaven forbid) the day come that Homer and Marge die or are unable to care for the kids, but when Homer's brother, Herb, goes broke (for reasons unknown) and everyone else in town refuses, Bart and Lisa pick a young, yuppie couple that Marge and Homer fear will replace them while they're still alive.
Tropes:
- 555: A babysitter has 555-1231 as her phone number.
- Education Mama: Selma and Patty have both been "tiger-mothering" Selma's adopted daughter Ling big-time. She's now proficient in flute, gymnastics and painting, but even Homer and Marge are horrified by the treatment it's taking to get her there.Ling: Help me.
- Even Nerds Have Standards: As the family play "Emissaries to Byzantium."Bart: Why do we have to play this stupid game Lisa likes?Lisa: I don't like this game. Nobody likes this game.
- Hand Wave: Since Homer and Marge have an obvious choice of guardian in Herb Powell, Homer's highly successful half-brother who adores the kids, we find out that he somehow went bankrupt since we last saw him.
- Happily Adopted: The yuppie couple were better parents than Homer and Marge.
- I'm a Humanitarian: After having seventeen children, Cletus and Brandine have vowed that any other living thing attempting to insert him or herself onto the premises goes in the cooking pot. This apparently includes the mailman.
- Literal-Minded: Homer has a bucket list. Rather than a list of things to do before he dies, however, it's a list of buckets of food and cholesterol medicine.
- Not Allowed to Grow Up: Like Apu's children, Selma's daughter is now a toddler while Bart, Lisa and Maggie are still the same ages.
- Riches to Rags: When the Simpsons tried to contact Homer's illegitimate half-brother Herb, they learned he went broke again for reasons unknown.
- Stage Mom: Patty and Selma are very pushy towards the latter's adopted daughter and that's the reason Homer and Marge give up on the idea of wanting them as guardians for Bart, Lisa and Maggie.
- Tempting Fate: When Homer, Marge, Lenny and Carl are trying to rescue Santa's Little Helper from a twister, Lenny comments that they're safe inside their van. The twister then rips the van's body apart.
- Terrible Interviewees Montage: Homer and Marge's first attempts to find potential guardians for the kids include Selma and Patty (who horrify them with their extreme Education Mama treatment of Ling), Kirk and Luann (whose marriage remains alarmingly and publicly unstable), and Cletus and Brandine (who have seventeen kids and don't want any more).
- Trivially Obvious: When Homer and Marge take the kids on a drive out of town to look for potential guardians for them, Homer gives the kids name tags with descriptions of them. While Lisa's indicates that she's The Smart Guy and Maggie The Quiet One, Bart's simply says "The Boy."
- Where the Hell Is Springfield?: Based on a conversation where Homer and Marge discuss their kids' future, it's not in Connecticut.
- Who Will Take The Kids?: The basis of the main plot.
