"24 Minutes" is the twenty-first episode of The Simpsons' eighteenth season and was broadcast on May 20, 2007 as part of the one hour season finale, alongside the episode "You Kent Always Say What You Want". It was originally promoted as being the 400th episode,[1] but was broadcast as the 399th. It was written by Ian Maxtone-Graham. Guest stars include Kiefer Sutherland and Mary Lynn Rajskub as their characters from 24, Jack Bauer and Chloe O'Brian. It won the 2008 Annie Award.[2]
Plot
Principal Skinner opens a CTU – Counter Truancy Unit – at Springfield Elementary School with Lisa heading up the operation over Milhouse, Martin and Database. When the bullies Jimbo, Dolph and Kearney play truant, Milhouse is assigned on a mission to spy on them.
A container of expired and highly pungent yogurt at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant is found to belong to Homer, who is ordered to dispose of it by Mr. Burns. Homer tries to return the yogurt to Apu, but Apu refuses to take it due to its unbearable stench and, desperate to get rid of it, takes Homer to the yogurt section and offers him whatever he wants there. The yogurt, left unattended, falls into the hands of the bullies. Outside, Homer unwittingly breaks Milhouse's cover, causing the bullies to throw them both in a trash container and send it rolling down an avenue.
Meanwhile, Marge realizes that she has forgotten about the bake sale, and only has a half hour to make a raisin sponge cake. In order to save time, Marge drastically increases the oven temperature to 1,200 degrees, quickly burning the cake and making it rock-solid. Marge desperately attempts to cover it up with pink and white frosting before rushing to the bake sale.
At Jimbo's house, the three bullies make a powerful stink bomb from the expired yogurt along with other ingredients including six weeks' bottled farts, and plan on detonating it at the bake sale. After Milhouse's failed attempt to track the bullies, Lisa suggests that Bart help them, which he does after negotiating immunity from punishment for all his past and future pranks (and making Skinner teach him a new swear word). During his investigation, Bart's phone call is accidentally crossed with a call from Jack Bauer of 24, who is busy in a gun battle, and turns it into a prank call against him ("Ahmed Adoudi"). Bart finds out about the stink bomb and informs Lisa about it and, upon returning to the school, also discovers that Martin is a double-agent working for the bullies. Just before Bart can tell Lisa about Martin's double-dealing, Martin knocks him out from behind and takes him to the ventilation room, where the bullies tie Bart up. When Willie finds the bullies in the room, he tries to get them out, but they get the better of him and tie him up too. The bullies then return Martin's ant farm, which they had apparently stolen and used to blackmail him into working for them, but Martin is devastated when he learns that the bullies have converted one of his ants to their side. Later, he hangs himself by his shirt on a clothing hook (he does not kill himself).
At the bake sale, the bullies start the three-minute timer for the bomb. Bart, tied up in the ventilation room along with Willie, uses his tongue to contact Lisa by his mobile phone and sends her a picture of the stink bomb, telling her to have Principal Skinner dump the hot dog water to short circuit the ventilation fan. Skinner, who is desperate to stop the bomb and does not care that doing so will drown Bart, starts filling up the room with the water. Bart and Willie float up dangerously close to the spinning sharp blades of the fan on the wall. Running out of air, Bart attempts to swim down with the chair tied to his back to the room's only window, which happens to face the room in which the bake sale is being held allowing Bart to get the people's notice. Chief Clancy Wiggum irresponsibly shoots at the window, but he (rather fortunately) cannot break it because the glass is bulletproof. Marge then steps up and throws her burnt cake like a discus through the window, breaking the windows and allowing Bart, Willie, the bomb, and all the water to flood into the room. Lisa then defuses the bomb with one second left to spare, saving the bake sale from the stench. However after that, Jack Bauer and all of his CTU field agents break into the bake sale, destroying it. Bauer starts to arrest Bart for his "annoying prank call," saying that he hopes he made the correct decision by leaving his mission temporarily to bring Bart to justice. A nuclear bomb then goes off in the distance, but everyone sighs with relief after Bauer reassures them that the nuclear bomb went off in Shelbyville.
Production
An original idea saw Edgar Stiles from 24 appearing in the episode and being killed, but the concept was dropped.[3]
Reception
Robert Canning on IGN named "24 Minutes" the best episode of the season, citing "this smart, funny, spot-on parody of 24 was so good that it came very close to redeeming the entire season."[4]
9.8 million people watched this episode in the United States.
References
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