Episode 5F13
Written by Dan Greaney
Directed by Neil Affieck
Also starring: Pamela Hayden, Tress MacNeille
Special guest voices: Marcia Wallace (as Ms Krabappel), Phil Hartman (as Troy McClure)

Premise: Bart becomes friends with Ralph Wiggum, much against his better judgement, until he remembers that Ralph's father not only has files on Homer, but has guns in the house.

Features: Mr Burns, Smithers, Kent Brockman, Chief Wiggum, Skinner, Milhouse, Martin, Nelson, Jimbo, Dolph, Kearney, Sherri and Terri, Lewis, Richard, Wendell, Ralph, the Flanderses, Krusty, Quimby.

Couch: Bart uses a spray can to graffiti the family on to the couch.

Trivia:

• The boys visit the toy store called J. R. R. Toykin's.
• The penitentiary looks remarkably like Alcatraz (but then, they probably all do) and the Springfield Knowledgeum is introduced as 'Where science is explained with brightly coloured balls.'
• Homer watches Ken Wohi playing Inspector Clouseau in Return of the Pink Panther Returns.
• He also records a new answerphone message which is just him humming Van McCoy's 1975 hit The Hustle.

Hi, I'm Troy McClure, you may remember me from: such automated information kiosks as Welcome to Springfield Airport and Where's Nordstrom?

Note for Brits: Nordstrom is a huge chain store of stores; our closest equivalent would be an up-market Marks and Spencer.

Look out for: Ralph explaining that the leprechaun tells him to commit arson. Just when you think he's mad, guess what happens at the end! Outrageously kinky moment of the episode belongs to Waylon Smithers who, after his beloved employer has said 'Smithers! There's a rocket in my pocket!', answers plaintively, 'You're telling me, sir!'

Notes: Marvellous fun as Bart comes to realise there's more to Ralph, or at least his daddy, than he realised. That said, by the time they've seen off Jimbo and the gang at the penitentiary, the two are becoming friends, which is even better. Ralph is, of course, always the star of any episode he's in, this being no exception, his fear of his own night-light being just sublime.