Recap / Review: Santa's Little Helper Needs to Get in Shape in "The Simpsons" 800th Episode "Irrational Treasure"

This evening saw the debut of the 800th episode of The Simpsons on FOX-- the 14th episode of season 37, entitled "Irrational Treasure" (much like the episode itself, a parody of the National Treasure franchise)-- and below are my recap and thoughts on this installment of the long-running animated sitcom.

"Irrational Treasure" quite appropriately (being the 800th episode and all) begins with an extended flashback to the end of the very first episode of The Simpsons to air ("Simpsons Roasting On an Open Fire"), when the family came to adopt the greyhound ex-racing dog named Santa's Little Helper. Then we get a sort of alternate history of Santa's Little Helper getting fatter and fatter as we see the Simpson family progress through some familiar points in their own history, such as Homer (voiced, as always, by Dan Castellaneta) becoming a member of the Stonecutters and donning the "Pie Man" superhero persona. Through this montage we see how the family has been overfeeding the dog, and it ends with Marge (Julie Kavner) accidentally giving SLH access to a full ambrosia salad made with two dozen grapes.

As dog owners will most certainly be aware, grapes are highly toxic to dogs, so Marge rushes Santa's Little Helper to the animal hospital, where a doctor and his staff (guest stars Noah Wyle, Taylor Dearden, and Katherine LaNasa from the cast of HBO's The Pitt) scramble desperately to pump the dog's stomach free from grapes. His life saved, the doctors recommend that SLH lose some weight, which sends Marge to a new trainer named Adrienne Guestar (guest star Quinta Brunson from Abbott Elementary), who begins to send the dog through a rigorous training and diet regimen that gradually helps him trim down through another montage. In fact, SLH gets so good as his routine that he is entered in a local dog show and wins! So now it's time for the dog to head to a regional competition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but Marge doesn't want the rest of the family going because she believes them to be bad influences on SLH's health.

But Homer stows away for the 18-hour drive (from which state, I wonder?) in the trunk of Marge's car anyway, and after an obnoxious welcome by their hotel's concierge (another guest star and Philly native Kevin Bacon from Footloose), the couple settle into their Fresh Prince-themed room. It seems that Homer has a lot of plans for his visit to Philadelphia, but Marge wants no part of it so she leaves him at the hotel while she heads to the dog show. While she's gone, Homer is approached by a group of eccentric historians (led by Hank Azaria doing his best Nicolas Cage impression) who claim that Santa's Little Helper is the direct descendant of Benjamin Franklin's greyhound, and that his presence in Philly might be the key to unlocking Franklin's hidden treasure... hence the title of the episode.

Anyway, Homer believes these rogue historians to be completely nuts, so instead of bringing them to Marge he leads them on a wild goose chase around the city, eating as many of the local delicacies as he can along the way. But after Santa's Little Helper wins the competition, Marge and Adrienne bring the dog out on a celebratory walk and the two groups cross paths at the famous Rocky statue, which here sits adjacent to numerous other statues of characters from the Rocky franchise. It turns out that Adrienne is also a fervent hunter of Franklin's treasure, and after scaring off the other historians she uses SLH to access a secret underground room beneath Betty Ford's house. This is where the big, National Treasure-esque climax takes place, Santa's Little Helper proves that he is still loyal to Marge above any others, and Adrienne ultimately falls through a cavernous hole in the floor to an uncertain fate.

After Homer cleverly encourages SLH to use his eating trick to climb a rope dangling over the chasm, the family members head back to Springfield, unknowingly leaving a heaping mound of treasure behind, unlocked by the dog's paw and nose prints. The credits play over a series of parody movie posters paying homage to famous movies that were shot and took place in Philadelphia, such as The Sixth Sense and Creed. I enjoyed this episode, though its definitely pretty far out there story-wise. It has a lot of good laughs and anyone who has seen the National Treasure movies will get a kick out of the parody elements. Unfortunately for a milestone episode like this, the narrative is lacking in the presence of Bart (Nancy Cartwright), Lisa (Yeardley Smith), and Maggie, each of whom only have very small roles this week... not to mention so many of the other supporting Springfieldians. But that tends to be what we can expect from a Simpsons travelogue episode, and for what it is I thought "Irrational Treasure" was a sufficient amount of fun. Twist ending: M. Night Shyamalan is still alive!

New episodes of The Simpsons air Sunday evenings on FOX.