Oh no! Bette Midler!youtu.be Oh no! Bette Midler! S04E22 "Krusty Gets Kancelled" "Krusty Gets Kancelled" is the 22nd and final episode of The Simpsons' fourth season. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on May 13, 1993. In the episode, a new show featuring a puppet named Gabbo premieres in Springfield and competes with Krusty the Clown's show. Krusty's show is soon cancelled, and Bart Simpson decides to help Krusty get back on the air by staging a comeback special. John Swartzwelder wrote the episode and David Silverman served as director. Following the success of "Homer at the Bat", the writers wanted to try a similar guest star-heavy episode, except with celebrities instead of baseball players. The episode proved quite difficult, as many of the actors asked to guest star declined at the last minute and the comeback special portion was nearly scrapped. Johnny Carson, Hugh Hefner, Bette Midler, Luke Perry, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers (Flea, Anthony Kiedis, Arik Marshall and Chad Smith) all guest star as themselves and appear on Krusty's special. Elizabeth Taylor and Barry White, both of whom guest-starred in previous episodes this season, make cameo appearances. Bette Midler's condition for guest starring was that the show promoted her anti-littering campaign.[6] Elizabeth Taylor guest starred as herself and also recorded a part as Maggie in "Lisa's First Word" on the same day.[4] Luke Perry was one of the first guest stars to agree to their parts. Frank Sinatra's 1973 rendition of the song "Send in the Clowns" from Ol' Blue Eyes Is Back is parodied in the episode, and Krusty sings the altered lyrics: "Send in those soulful and doleful, schmaltz-by-the-bowlful clowns" in a musical number of his comeback special. Gabbo's name comes from the 1929 film The Great Gabbo. He was originally designed to be more square, but the second design was made to be "a demented Howdy Doody". His voice was based on Jerry Lewis. The sequence with Gabbo's song contains several references to the 1940 film Pinocchio. Krusty mentions that he beat Joey Bishop. Bishop was an entertainer who had his own show, The Joey Bishop Show, which ran opposite of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Bette Midler's serenading Krusty is a reference to the way Bette sang to Johnny Carson on the penultimate episode of Carson's show. The scene in which Krusty instructs the Red Hot Chili Peppers to change the lyrics to the song "Give It Away" is a reference to Ed Sullivan instructing The Doors to change the lyrics to the song "Light My Fire". The poses of the Red Hot Chili Peppers in the scene are based on the movie The Doors. Flea, the bassist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, is mistakenly seen playing a guitar during the performance of "Give It Away". Several scenes in Krusty's special are based on Elvis Presley's '68 Comeback Special. The musical piece that Hugh Hefner plays on the wine glasses is from Peter and the Wolf and was composed by Sergei Prokofiev. In 2006, Bette Midler, Hugh Hefner, Johnny Carson, Luke Perry, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers were listed at number four on IGN's list of the best Simpsons guest stars. They all also appeared on AOL's list of their favorite 25 Simpsons guest stars. In 2007, Vanity Fair named "Krusty Gets Kancelled" as the ninth-best episode of The Simpsons. John Orvet felt, "This is Krusty's best episode—better than the reunion with his father, or the Bar Mitzvah episode, which won an Emmy much later on. The incorporation of guest stars as themselves is top-notch, and we get to see the really dark side of Krusty's flailing showbiz career. Hollywood, television, celebrities, and fans are all beautifully skewered here." Brien Murphy of the Abilene Reporter-News classed "Krusty Gets Kancelled" as one of his three favorite episodes of The Simpsons, along with "Behind the Laughter" and "The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase". Though Jim Schembri of The Age put the episode among his top 10 episodes of the series, he also noted "Unfortunately, this signaled the beginning of the show's obsession with star cameos." ck with his own gruesome ventriloquist doll, which falls apart on his lap on air" as the highlight of the episode. Mike Clark of USA Today also highlighted "Kamp Krusty" and "Krusty Gets Kancelled" as better episodes of the season, along with "A Streetcar Named Marge" and "Lisa the Beauty Queen". Jen Chaney of The Washington Post described episodes "A Streetcar Named Marge", "Mr. Plow", "Marge vs. the Monorail", and "Krusty Gets Kancelled" as "gems" of The Simpsons' fourth season. Spence Kettlewell of The Toronto Star described season 4 episodes "Krusty Gets Kancelled", "Kamp Krusty", "Mr. Plow", and "I Love Lisa" as "some of the best episodes" of the series."The result is a boring hodgepodge of scenes with Bette Midler, Johnny Carson, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and more where we're supposed to laugh simply because famous people are interacting with Krusty." 1pp2p30eccmcv3443
