"Poppa's Got a Brand New Badge" is the twenty-second and final episode of the thirteenth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on May 22, 2002. In the episode, a massive heatwave causes the residents of Springfield to install large air conditioning devices in their homes. This leads the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant to overload, causing two town-wide blackouts to occur. The Springfield Police Department are unable to face the riots that follow, prompting Homer, dissatisfied with the police's incompetence, to start his own security company, called SpringShield.

"Poppa's Got a Brand New Badge" was directed by Pete Michels and written by Dana Gould, who also pitched the idea for the episode. It features American actor Joe Mantegna as recurring character Fat Tony, and includes references to Dragnet, High Noon and The Sopranos.

In its original broadcast, the episode was seen by approximately 5.3 million viewers, finishing in 53rd place in the ratings the week it aired. When meeting the other writers, Gould pitched an episode in which Homer becomes the owner of a security company, which then became "Poppa's Got a Brand New Badge." Although current showrunner Al Jean found it "very funny," the episode's first draft was heavily altered after the first table-read, a process in which the script is read out loud to the other writers.

During the blackout, Lenny and Carl accidentally crash their cars into a store, causing a riot to erupt. The sequence was conceived by Gould who, after the 1992 Los Angeles riots, was "somewhat obsessed" with civil unrest issues. In the DVD commentary for the episode, he said "I love the idea of, 'All you need is for the power to go out and slowly the fabric of society unravels."

In another scene in the episode, Homer shows his family an advertisement for his security company. In it, a monster is seen breaking into an elderly woman's house. When the woman screams, the screen freezes and Homer is composited to the screen, instructing the audience about SpringShield's telephone number. In order to composite Homer into the screen, director Michels made use of a greenscreen. "Poppa's Got a Brand New Badge" was later revealed to be the real season finale. Although new episodes of The Simpsons usually air on Sundays, "Poppa's Got a Brand New Badge" aired on Wednesday, May 22, 2002. On August 24, 2010, "Poppa's Got a Brand New Badge" was released as part of The Simpsons: The Complete Thirteenth Season DVD and Blu-ray set. Al Jean, Matt Selman, Carolyn Omine, Dana Gould, Joe Mantegna and Pete Michels participated in the audio commentary of the episode.

The episode title is a reference to the James Brown song "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag".

The monster of SpringShield commercial is a parody of The New Woody Woodpecker Show Badger character, including a quote "Hey buddy".

Reception

In its original American broadcast, "Poppa's Got a Brand New Badge" received a 5.0 rating, according to Nielsen Media Research, translating to approximately 5.3 million viewers. The episode finished in 53rd place in the ratings for the week of May 20–26, 2002. Together with the first half-hour of Celebrity Boxing, the shows averaged a 3.9 rating among adults between ages 18 and 49, pushing Fox to number two for the night, just behind NBC. Some listings do not name this show as the Season 13 finale because it aired outside of the series' regular Sunday 8PM EST timeslot; those listings name this episode as a "special airing" and list The Frying Game as the S13 finale instead.

Following its home video release, "Poppa's Got a Brand New Badge" received mixed reviews from critics. Writing for 411Mania, Ron Martin gave the episode a mixed review, calling it "passable." He wrote that "Poppa's Got a Brand New Badge" is "far from memorable as season finales should be." DVD Movie Guide's Colin Jacobson wrote "Like many S13 episodes, "Badge" feels more than a little derivative," describing the episode as a combination of the season 4 episode "Mr. Plow" and the season 5 episode "Homer the Vigilante". He continued by writing "That doesn’t mean the show lacks amusement, but it’s too rehashed to end the year with a real winner." Nate Boss of Project-Blu described it as "A random episode, without many laughs," however, he added that it "could have been worse."

Giving the episode a positive review, Jennifer Malkowski of DVD Verdict gave it a B+, billing "Homer's 'You know I've had a lot of jobs' list" as the episode's "highlight". Writing for Screen Jabber, Stuart O'Connor was favorable as well, describing it as a "first-rate ep[isode]". Screen Rant called it the best episode of the 13th season.

References

  • "Poppa's Got a Brand New Badge" at The Simpsons.com