"Children of a Lesser Clod" is the twentieth and penultimate episode of the twelfth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on May 13, 2001. In the episode, after spraining his knee during a basketball game, Homer begins taking care of the neighborhood kids to cure his boredom, prompting jealousy from Bart and Lisa, who feel that Homer is giving the kids the attention they never had.
The episode is written by current showrunner Al Jean, and directed by Mike Frank Polcino. The title is a parody of the play Children of a Lesser God and its film adaptation.
Plot
The family goes to the local YMCA to attend one-time-only free classes. Homer participates in a basketball class, but suffers a torn ACL after a dunk attempt ends with the backboard crashing down on his leg. After Homer gets surgery, he is told by Dr. Hibbert that he cannot go to work and must stay home, where he finds himself extremely bored. One evening, Ned asks Homer to watch Rod and Todd while he attends a Chris Rock concert (that he believes is a Christian rock concert). Rod and Todd enjoy having Homer take care of them, which gives Homer the idea to establish his own day care center.
Homer turns his house into the "Uncle Homer's Day Care Center". With Homer giving all his attention to other kids, Bart and Lisa feel neglected. The daycare center is wildly successful, and Homer earns a nomination for the "Good Guy Awards", but during a video tribute at the awards ceremony, Bart and Lisa splice in home movie footage of Homer at his worst (passed out drunk next to the tree on Christmas day, betting, and losing, Maggie to Moe in a poker game, and chasing Bart with a medieval flail while yelling, "I'll mace you good!"). The audience becomes outraged and Homer angrily strangles Bart on stage, unwittingly exposing his worst behavior in front of everyone in the audience, who become horrified and decide to prevent him from watching their kids. Homer escapes from the ceremony with all the kids in a van, until he crashes into a tree, and is caught by the police.
After three mistrials, Homer apologizes to Bart and Lisa for neglecting them and promises to care only for them (and Maggie) instead of the neighborhood kids. The episode ends with the family eating from the craft services table because the union workers never came to retrieve it.
Production
left|thumb|upright|[[Al Jean wrote the episode.|alt=Al Jean wrote the episode.]]
"Children of a Lesser Clod" was written by Al Jean and directed by Mike Frank Polcino. Jean initially had multiple different storylines including Homer getting hurt, before he eventually pitched them all into this episode. During production, the staff members looked for an actual NBA player to appear with a shotgun during the first act, but no player accepted the role. The third act was about Homer winning the Good Guy Award, for caring for the neighbourhood kids. However, this was all until his own children show him as an unfit father.
When Homer puts his daycare permit in the picture frame Bart and Lisa gave him was based on a real-life experience of former writer Dana Gould in which he gave his parents a newspaper article about him winning a Boston comedy competition and later found out that it was replaced by Larry Bird dunking butterfingers. The third act did not initially include a police car chase and it was placed in after the table read.
A scene where Homer's festering scab wound heals over Ralph's hand in a close-up was negatively received by fans.
Reception
Colin Jacobson of DVD Movie Guide gave this episode a mixed review, saying "When Bart and Lisa team up to pursue a goal, the result usually succeeds. And that’s true for “Clod” – at least to a moderate degree. Like most Season 12 episodes, the program doesn't become truly delightful, but it does more right than wrong, so it ends up as a decent success."