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"The Parent Rap"
The Simpsons episode
	Promotional artwork featuring the first appearance of recurring character Judge Constance Harm.
Episode no.	271
Prod. code	CABF22
Orig. airdate	November 11, 2001
Show runner(s)	Mike Scully
Written by	George Meyer; Mike Scully
Directed by	Mark Kirkland
Chalkboard	"Nobody reads these anymore."
Couch gag	The Simpsons are in the simplistically-drawn sailboat painting located behind the couch. They jump out of the painting by going in the “water”. The living room is drenched from the splash and Homer uses his finger to clean his ear out.
Guest star(s)	Jane Kaczmarek as Judge Constance Harm, Jess Harnell as the Charlton Heston soundbite on the radio
Season 13
	November 6, 2001 – May 22, 2002
	"Treehouse of Horror XII"; "The Parent Rap"; "Homer the Moe"; "A Hunka Hunka Burns in Love"; "The Blunder Years"; "She of Little Faith"; "Brawl in the Family"; "Sweets and Sour Marge"; "Jaws Wired Shut"; "Half-Decent Proposal"; "The Bart Wants What It Wants"; "The Lastest Gun in the West"; "The Old Man and the Key"; "Tales from the Public Domain"; "Blame It on Lisa"; "Weekend at Burnsie's"; "Gump Roast"; "I Am Furious Yellow"; "The Sweetest Apu"; "Little Girl in the Big Ten"; "The Frying Game"; "Papa's Got a Brand New Badge";
	List of all The Simpsons episodes
Seasons
	1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7 · 8 · 9 · 10 · 11 · 12; 13 · 14 · 15 · 16 · 17 · 18 · 19 · 20 · 21

"The Parent Rap" is the second episode and official premiere of The Simpsons' thirteenth season. The episode was originally planned to air on November 4, 2001, but was pushed back a week due to the World Series going to 7 games, as the playoffs started late due to the rescheduling of a week's worth of regular season games postponed by the September 11 attacks. This episode introduced Judge Constance Harm, voiced by Jane Kaczmarek.

[edit] Plot

En route to school, after Bart and Milhouse apparently miss the morning school bus, Homer hears KBBL's announcement of the "Prize Posse" radio contest. The prize is $40 to the first person spotted by the KBBL van, the "Wampum Wagon", with a "KBBL Party Penguin" hanging from their car antenna. Immediately after hearing the announcement, Milhouse fortuitously spots the KBBL van cross traffic perpendicularly. Homer, having such a "KBBL Party Penguin" on his car as required, immediately stops the car and forces Bart and Milhouse to get out, presumably left to their own devices to get to school. After walking around they spot and then get into Chief Wiggum's police car. After being threatened by a canine sitting in the back seat, they unintentionally put the car into neutral. After crashing the vehicle, Chief Wiggum presumes they have stolen his car in a joyride. They are then taken into police custody.

After a trial, Milhouse is declared innocent by Judge Snyder. Bart's hearing proceeds and as Judge Snyder prepares to let Bart off the hook, he abruptly leaves for a vacation. Without recess, a new judge, Constance Harm, played by Jane Kaczmarek, a Judge Judy parody, enters to preside over Bart's hearing. In lieu of sending Bart to juvenile detention, she opts for a creative sentence. She orders that Bart and Homer be tethered together because of Homer's incompetence of taking care of Bart and abandoning Bart and Milhouse in the first place.

Surprisingly, Homer and Bart develop a bond as they are tethered, showing up at school, work, and even at Moe's. When Bart can no longer stand being tethered, he gets into a fight with Homer. Marge cannot handle it, and she cuts the tether to stop the fighting. Unfortunately, Judge Harm comes in (through fiber optics) to warn Marge that she violated her order after she cut it. She punishes Homer and Marge by declaring them both to be bad parents, and puts them in wooden stocks. Chief Wiggum says the judge wants them to stand on a sidewalk so drivers can spank the parents. Later on, they go to Ned Flanders' table saw to remove their stocks. Homer frees Marge with Flanders' table saw after trying all of Ned's other tools. As Ned says he does not want to be an accessory to the defiance of a court order, Homer gets free as the candle Ned was using burns through the stocks. They go to Harm's houseboat and put up a "Big Meanie" banner. As they are about to leave, Judge Harm's pet seal Poncho alerts Harm of their presence. Homer throws a cinder block (intended to hit Harm) through her boat, which sinks.

After the houseboat incident, Judge Harm angrily tells Homer and Marge about her ruined quilt,"My grandmother crocheted that quilt!" to which homer replies "So it cost you nothing!" She declares that enough is enough, and attempts to lay down a hard punishment on them until Bart asks to be punished instead of his parents. Harm is just about to punish Bart when Judge Snyder returns from his vacation. Lisa moves for a motion that "boys will be boys", and Judge Snyder grants the motion, dismissing the case. The family returns back to normal, and Marge makes the family promise not to break the law for a year (after which Homer immediately hits Hans Moleman with his car).

[edit] Audio vs. Closed Captioning^[1]

On the radio, the sound bite was of Charlton Heston yelling, "You damn dirty ape!" On the close captions, the line was, "Drop the gun, Johnny!"
When Bart and Homer spent time eating sandwiches on top of the cooling towers at the nuclear plant, Homer asks Bart, "Is that our house?" and Bart says, "Our house doesn't have a steeple". In the closed captions, the lines are "Is that Lenny's house?" and "Lenny's house doesn't have a steeple".
When Homer and Bart hug each other while tethered, Homer says, "That's my boy!" In the closed captions, the line is "I'm...so...proud...of...you!"
When Moe kicks Bart out of the bar, Moe tells Homer, "The heat's been on ever since those Bush Girls have been in here." The closed captioning says, "The heat's been on ever since that bad tricycle wreck."
When Homer tells Bart to pee in a bottle, Marge admonishes, "Don't use the bottle. That's what hobos do!" In the closed captioning, the line is "Don't use the bottle. That's what animals do!" (this line was also used in the promos for this episode).
During the wrestling match, the announcer says, "Dr. Bonebreak just married Rumbelina and they're already whaling on each other!" In the closed captions, the line was "Dr. Bonebreak just married Rumbelina five seconds ago and they're already going at it!"