What to Expect When Bart's Expecting

"What to Expect When Bart's Expecting"
The Simpsons episode
Episode no.	Season 25
Directed by	Matthew Nastuk
Written by	John Frink
Original air date	April 27, 2014 (2014-04-27)
Episode features
Chalkboard gag	April showers do not bring Matt Lauers.
Couch gag	The Simpsons travel inside Homer's body. It was directed by Michal Socha.

"What to Expect When Bart's Expecting" is the nineteenth episode of the 25th season of the American animated sitcom The Simpsons, and the 549th episode of the series. The episode was written by John Frink and aired on April 27, 2014, on Fox.

Plot

As Barney Gumble walks into Moe's, he notices that it is closed for a meeting. A tear falls from Barney's face as he attempts to look in the window of Moe's. Moe is holds a meeting to discuss how the turnout for the bar has been low. When Moe holds a superhero themed bar crawl, Homer and his buddies join in the festivities leaving Homer passed out in front of his home in the morning before Bart and Lisa leave on the school bus. Meanwhile, Bart feels smothered by his art teacher, who encourages nothing but the best from her students. However, Bart wants to get rid of his teacher. When Bart visits a voodoo specialist, he receives some materials to cast a spell on his art teacher, yet his teacher still shows up to class the next day surprising Bart. Even though the spell was meant for a stomachache, Bart receives some startling news that his teacher is pregnant.

Ralph announces that Bart got the art teacher pregnant. The student body, including Lisa, is in disbelief. After Principal Skinner grills Bart, Homer picks his son up complaining how embarrassing it is to find out Bart's bad news during his arraignment. When a couple approaches Bart about his baby-making skills, Bart utilizes his voodoo spell etiquette to give a couple a baby. The spell works, and the couple returns to ask Bart if he could cast the same spell for their couple friends in the same position. Bart demands $5, or no return of their driver license. Homer takes Bart to Moe's to discuss Bart's problems before Fat Tony's cronies come into the bar to kidnap Homer and Bart. Moe aims a gun at the cronies because he doesn't want them to take his paying customers, but Homer reveals that he doesn't have any cash on him. Moe allows for Homer and Bart to be kidnapped.

Homer initially thinks that Fat Tony orders the kidnapping, so that Bart can work his baby magic for Fat Tony, but it turns out that Fat Tony wants Bart's skills to work on his horses. Not only does Fat Tony want his horses to breed, but he would prefer a male horse. Homer sees this as an opportunity to show Bart how babies are made. Nonetheless, the stallion turns out to like playing "It's Raining Men" than making babies with the female horse. The horse then mates with Sudsley Brewright and the pregnancy test comes back positive.

Reception

Critical reception

Dennis Perkins of The A.V. Club gave the episode a B-, saying "A serviceably funny episode with some good lines and an appearance from a reliable guest star, “What To Expect When Bart’s Expecting” nonetheless reiterates that current Simpsons episodes have a ceiling for what they can accomplish—and that it’s lower than it used to be." Teresa Lopez of TV Fanatic gave the episode two and a half stars out of four, saying "Once the central conflict is exposed, the writers seek to include some point to all this madness. Bart blames Homer for his bad behavior because he isn't a good role model, referencing his most recent exploits at the Superhero pub crawl (one of the few moments of true hilarity in this episode). Bart has a point, but it's one that has been made many times (and in better ways) in the past. Here, it just seemed useless."

Ratings

The episode received a 1.6 rating and was watched by a total of 3.45 million people, making it the second most watched show on Animation Domination that night, beating Bob's Burgers and American Dad! but losing to Family Guy with 4.02 million.