"Burns Verkaufen der Kraftwerk" () is the eleventh episode of the third season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It first aired on Fox in the United States on December 5, 1991. It features several German elements, including a reference to John F. Kennedy's "ich bin ein Berliner" speech. Originally, the writers decided to have Burns sell the plant to the Japanese, but they decided that it would have been too clichéd; the plot, however, remained the same with the Germans. In this episode, the producers decided to start stressing the relationship between Smithers and Burns. Originally, there was a two-minute scene involving the two, but the writers cut it down considerably. After Homer gets fired, Bart feeds his cat a mixture of 88% ash and 12% carrots. The gag came from a real-life experience when Vitti tried to feed his cat a mixture of carrots and ash; however, the cat simply ate and regurgitated it.
"The Land of Chocolate"
In the original script, the "Land of Chocolate" sequence was absent, though the dialogue that sets it up was present. (Homer complains to his new German bosses about the candy machines not working, to which one of them replies: "We understand, Homer. After all, we are from the land of chocolate!") Executive producer Sam Simon was the one who suggested that they actually do a sequence in which Homer's mind wanders off into an imaginary land made of chocolate.
A road sign in the sequence was originally supposed to read "Hershey Highway", a double entendre due to the phrase being a euphemism for anal sex and a reference to the chocolate manufacturer Hershey's. Because censors objected to this joke, the writers replaced it with a sign reading "Fudge Town". Composed by Alf Clausen, the song was later included in the 1999 compilation album Go Simpsonic with The Simpsons. "The Land of Chocolate" was also featured as a level in The Simpsons Game, which was released in 2007.
Reception
In its original airing on Fox, the episode acquired a 12.6 Nielsen rating and was viewed in approximately 11.60 million homes. It finished 38th in the ratings for the week of December 2–8, 1991. It finished second in its timeslot behind The Cosby Show, which came in at 11th with a 16.8 rating.
Since airing, "Burns Verkaufen der Kraftwerk" has received generally positive reviews from critics. The authors of the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, Gary Russell and Gareth Roberts, praised the episode, most notably "Homer in the land of chocolate and Smithers counselling Mr. Burns with the aid of his sock-puppet friend, Mr. Snappy the Alligator". Writing for the Star Tribune, Neal Justin rated the episode as one of his ten favorites, commenting that the scene where "Homer dreams about prancing across a literal 'land of chocolate' [was] perhaps the most outrageous moment in Simpsons history".
In a list of Homer's best gluttony moments, Herald Sun<nowiki>'</nowiki>s Mikey Cahill ranked "The Land of Chocolate" as number one. The sequence was also named one of the twenty best moments in the history of the show by Daily Record<nowiki>'</nowiki>s Brian McIver. In 2012, Johnny Dee of The Guardian listed the episode as one of his five favorites in the history of The Simpsons, noting that it was the "Land of Chocolate" segment that "makes this episode such a classic". Jon Greenberg of ESPN said the episode is one of his favorites, calling it "hardly an average episode". He commented that "the sarcastic heart of the story comes at the end, when Mr. Burns realizes that wealth and time do not buy him happiness because no one, not even the scourge of Sector 7G [Homer], is scared of a powerless despot."
The episode was study material for a sociology course at University of California Berkeley, where it was used to "examine issues of the production and reception of cultural objects, in this case, a satirical cartoon show", and to figure out what it was "trying to tell audiences about aspects primarily of American society, and, to a lesser extent, about other societies."