The Bob Next Door
Encyclopedia
"The Bob Next Door" is the twenty-second episode of The Simpsons' twenty-first season
The Simpsons (season 21)
The Simpsons twenty-first season aired on Fox from September 27, 2009 to May 23, 2010. It was the first of two seasons that the show was renewed for by Fox, and also the first season of the show to air entirely in high definition....

 and the 463rd episode overall on Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...

. In the episode, Bart becomes convinced that their new neighbor is Sideshow Bob in disguise, but Marge does not believe him and personally takes Bart to the Springfield Prison to prove it.

The episode was written by John Frink
John Frink
John Frink is an American television writer and producer. He has written several episodes of the American animated sitcom The Simpsons, many of which he co-wrote with his former writing partner Don Payne. Frink and Payne started their career in television writing for the short-lived sitcom Hope...

 and directed by Nancy Kruse
Nancy Kruse
Nancy Kruse is a former animation director on The Simpsons. She started working on the show during the first season as a background clean-up artist. After that she did background layout and character layout for several years on the show before becoming an assistant director...

. The episode also guest stars Kelsey Grammer
Kelsey Grammer
Allen Kelsey Grammer is an American actor and comedian. He is most widely known for his two-decade portrayal of psychiatrist Dr. Frasier Crane on the sitcoms Cheers and Frasier...

 as Sideshow Bob Terwilliger
Sideshow Bob
Robert Underdunk Terwilliger, better known as Sideshow Bob, is a recurring character in the animated television series The Simpsons. He is voiced by Kelsey Grammer and first appeared briefly in the episode "The Telltale Head". Bob is a self-proclaimed genius who is a graduate of Yale, a member of...

. The episode's plot is based on the film Face/Off
Face/Off
Face/Off is a 1997 action thriller film directed by John Woo, starring John Travolta and Nicolas Cage. The two both play an FBI agent and a terrorist, sworn enemies who assume the physical appearance of one another....

. "The Bob Next Door" received positive reviews from critics; most agreed that it was a funny return to Sideshow Bob
Sideshow Bob
Robert Underdunk Terwilliger, better known as Sideshow Bob, is a recurring character in the animated television series The Simpsons. He is voiced by Kelsey Grammer and first appeared briefly in the episode "The Telltale Head". Bob is a self-proclaimed genius who is a graduate of Yale, a member of...

 episodes and that it was an improvement over the previous Sideshow Bob episodes, "Funeral for a Fiend
Funeral for a Fiend
"Funeral for a Fiend" is the eighth episode of The Simpsons nineteenth season and first aired on November 25, 2007. It was written by Michael Price and was directed by Rob Oliver. It features Kelsey Grammer in his tenth appearance as Sideshow Bob, as well as David Hyde Pierce in his second...

" and "The Italian Bob
The Italian Bob
"The Italian Bob" is the eighth episode of The Simpsons seventeenth season. It features Kelsey Grammer in his ninth appearance as Sideshow Bob and is the first time the Simpsons visit Italy.-Plot:...

".

Plot

A financial crisis
Financial crisis
The term financial crisis is applied broadly to a variety of situations in which some financial institutions or assets suddenly lose a large part of their value. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many financial crises were associated with banking panics, and many recessions coincided with these...

 in Springfield causes, amongst other cost-cutting measures, the sale of many houses and the release of all low-level criminals from Springfield Penitentiary, including a seemingly mild-mannered man named Walt Warren. Walt purchases a house next door to the Simpson family, and he immediately charms the neighborhood. However, Bart
Bart Simpson
Bartholomew JoJo "Bart" Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons and part of the Simpson family. He is voiced by actress Nancy Cartwright and first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...

 is convinced that Walt is his archenemy, Sideshow Bob
Sideshow Bob
Robert Underdunk Terwilliger, better known as Sideshow Bob, is a recurring character in the animated television series The Simpsons. He is voiced by Kelsey Grammer and first appeared briefly in the episode "The Telltale Head". Bob is a self-proclaimed genius who is a graduate of Yale, a member of...

 in disguise, because, rather worryingly, they have the same voice
Kelsey Grammer
Allen Kelsey Grammer is an American actor and comedian. He is most widely known for his two-decade portrayal of psychiatrist Dr. Frasier Crane on the sitcoms Cheers and Frasier...

. He tries several times to find proof. Marge
Marge Simpson
Marjorie "Marge" Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons and part of the eponymous family. She is voiced by actress Julie Kavner and first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...

 convinces him otherwise by taking him to visit the penitentiary, where they see Bob locked in a padded cell
Padded cell
A padded cell is a cell in a mental hospital with cushions lining the walls. The padding is an attempt to prevent a patient from hurting him/herself by hitting his/her head on the hard surface of the walls...

, wearing a straitjacket
Straitjacket
A straitjacket is a garment shaped like a jacket with overlong sleeves and is typically used to restrain a person who may otherwise cause harm to themselves or others. Once the arms are inserted into the straitjacket's sleeves, they are then crossed across the chest...

 and writing "Bart Simpson Will Die!" on the walls. A reassured Bart decides to go to a baseball game with Walt; however, Bart's initial instincts prove right when "Walt" removes his small shoes to show enlarged feet neatly folded inside, revealing himself to be Sideshow Bob. Bob restrains Bart in the car and gags him with duct tape, planning to take him to Five Corners, a location where five states meet, to kill him.

Meanwhile, the real Walt Warren — still bearing Bob's hair and face — escapes prison and comes to the Simpsons' home. At first, everyone thinks Bob has escaped prison, but Walt's small feet reveal his true identity. Walt explains that he and Bob were cellmates and, prior to Walt's release, Bob drugged him and performed plastic surgery
Plastic surgery
Plastic surgery is a medical specialty concerned with the correction or restoration of form and function. Though cosmetic or aesthetic surgery is the best-known kind of plastic surgery, most plastic surgery is not cosmetic: plastic surgery includes many types of reconstructive surgery, hand...

 to switch their faces
Face transplant
A face transplant is a still-experimental procedure to replace all or part of a person's face. The world's first full face transplant was completed in Spain in 2010.-Beneficiaries of face transplant:...

. The anesthetic left Walt unable to talk properly, and his garbled speech led the guards to put him in the padded cell; he wrote "Bart Will Die!" to warn of the impending crime. Walt and the Simpsons immediately go after Bob, knowing that Bart's life is in danger. Meanwhile, a waitress at a roadside diner becomes infatuated with Bob-as-Walt until Bob's new face becomes loosened. Amidst a distraction outside the diner, Homer and a not-fooled Lisa
Lisa Simpson
Lisa Marie Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons. She is the middle child of the Simpson family. Voiced by Yeardley Smith, Lisa first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987. Cartoonist Matt Groening...

 travel to Mexico in search of Bart while Walt gets away and continues to Five Corners to save Bart.

At Five Corners, where Bart has his hands tied with duct tape, Bob explains that — by standing in one state, firing the gun in the second, having the bullet travel through a third state, hitting Bart in a fourth state and letting Bart collapse and die in the fifth state — the killing would take place in five separate states
Extraterritorial jurisdiction
Extraterritorial jurisdiction is the legal ability of a government to exercise authority beyond its normal boundaries.Any authority can, of course, claim ETJ over any external territory they wish...

 and thus no single action can be prosecuted. Bart stalls by repeatedly jumping into the same state as Bob until Walt arrives. Walt startles Bob, but Bob regains the upper hand. Just before Bob is able to pull the trigger on either Walt or Bart, Chief Wiggum and the Springfield Police Department arrive to arrest Bob, stating that Bart was never convinced that Bob was Walt at all, and called the Springfield Police Department, asking them to track Bob before leaving with him to the game. They manage to do so through Bob's hybrid car (as all hybrid cars are secretly being monitored by the government). However, Bob gets away by jumping into another state, stating that the Springfield police cannot arrest him in a different state because they lack jurisdiction there — but officers from the other four states (Texas, Minnesota, California and New Jersey) promptly arrive on the scene as well. Realizing he is trapped, Bob surrenders and is taken away by officers with a strong New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

 accent. His house on Evergreen Terrace is quickly bought by Ned Flanders
Ned Flanders
Nedward "Ned" Flanders, Jr. is a recurring fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons. He is voiced by Harry Shearer, and first appeared in the series premiere episode "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire". He is the next door neighbor to the Simpson family and is generally...

' cousin Ted, causing Homer great dismay as he now has to live next door to two Flanders families.

Production

The episode was written by John Frink
John Frink
John Frink is an American television writer and producer. He has written several episodes of the American animated sitcom The Simpsons, many of which he co-wrote with his former writing partner Don Payne. Frink and Payne started their career in television writing for the short-lived sitcom Hope...

, his second writing of the season after "Stealing First Base
Stealing First Base
"Stealing First Base" is the fifteenth episode of The Simpsons twenty-first season. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on March 21, 2010. In this episode, Bart falls in love with a girl named Nikki from a second fourth grade class, but when he kisses her, Nikki begins...

." It is also his third Sideshow Bob
Sideshow Bob
Robert Underdunk Terwilliger, better known as Sideshow Bob, is a recurring character in the animated television series The Simpsons. He is voiced by Kelsey Grammer and first appeared briefly in the episode "The Telltale Head". Bob is a self-proclaimed genius who is a graduate of Yale, a member of...

 writing credit after "The Great Louse Detective
The Great Louse Detective
"The Great Louse Detective" is the sixth episode of The Simpsons fourteenth season. It features Kelsey Grammer in his eighth appearance as Sideshow Bob...

" and "The Italian Bob
The Italian Bob
"The Italian Bob" is the eighth episode of The Simpsons seventeenth season. It features Kelsey Grammer in his ninth appearance as Sideshow Bob and is the first time the Simpsons visit Italy.-Plot:...

." The episode was directed by Nancy Kruse
Nancy Kruse
Nancy Kruse is a former animation director on The Simpsons. She started working on the show during the first season as a background clean-up artist. After that she did background layout and character layout for several years on the show before becoming an assistant director...

, her second director's credit for the season after "The Devil Wears Nada
The Devil Wears Nada
"The Devil Wears Nada" is the fifth episode of the twenty-first season of The Simpsons. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on November 15, 2009...

." It features the return of recurring guest voice Kelsey Grammer
Kelsey Grammer
Allen Kelsey Grammer is an American actor and comedian. He is most widely known for his two-decade portrayal of psychiatrist Dr. Frasier Crane on the sitcoms Cheers and Frasier...

 to voice recurring character Sideshow Bob
Sideshow Bob
Robert Underdunk Terwilliger, better known as Sideshow Bob, is a recurring character in the animated television series The Simpsons. He is voiced by Kelsey Grammer and first appeared briefly in the episode "The Telltale Head". Bob is a self-proclaimed genius who is a graduate of Yale, a member of...

, making it his 12th vocal appearance. According to executive producer Al Jean
Al Jean
Al Jean is an award-winning American screenwriter and producer, best known for his work on The Simpsons. He was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan and graduated from Harvard University in 1981. Jean began his writing career in the 1980s with fellow Harvard alum Mike Reiss...

, this episode was originally slated to air on January 14, 2010, along with "Once Upon a Time in Springfield
Once Upon a Time in Springfield
"Once Upon a Time in Springfield" is the tenth episode of The Simpsons twenty-first season. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on January 10, 2010. It was promoted as the 450th episode of the series, but is actually the 451st, and aired alongside The Simpsons 20th...

" and The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special – In 3-D! On Ice!.

Cultural references

The plot of "The Bob Next Door" is based on the movie Face/Off
Face/Off
Face/Off is a 1997 action thriller film directed by John Woo, starring John Travolta and Nicolas Cage. The two both play an FBI agent and a terrorist, sworn enemies who assume the physical appearance of one another....

. The opening couch gag also features Harold from the 1955 children's book Harold and the Purple Crayon
Harold and the Purple Crayon
Harold and the Purple Crayon is a 1955 children's book by Crockett Johnson. Johnson's most popular book, it led to a series of books, and inspired many adaptations.-Plot:...

. Bart tries to tempt Walt to sing "Three Little Maids from School Are We" from The Mikado
The Mikado
The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, their ninth of fourteen operatic collaborations...

, the same song was also used in an earlier episode, "Cape Feare
Cape Feare
"Cape Feare" is the second episode of the fifth season of American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on October 7, 1993, and has since been featured on DVD and VHS releases...

", which also featured Sideshow Bob. Later in the show, when Sideshow Bob reveals his true identity, he exclaims he is now "able to sing all the Gilbert & Sullivan [he] damn well please[s]," followed by him pulling a Japanese fan out of the glove box and singing the opening notes of "Behold! The Lord High Executioner," another number from The Mikado, to Bart's horror. Marge and Homer tell Bart that a lot of people have voices like Sideshow Bob's, such as "Frasier on Cheers
Cheers
Cheers is an American situation comedy television series that ran for 11 seasons from 1982 to 1993. It was produced by Charles/Burrows/Charles Productions, in association with Paramount Network Television for NBC, and was created by the team of James Burrows, Glen Charles, and Les Charles...

, Frasier on Frasier
Frasier
Frasier is an American sitcom that was broadcast on NBC for eleven seasons, from September 16, 1993, to May 13, 2004. The program was created and produced by David Angell, Peter Casey, and David Lee in association with Grammnet and Paramount Network Television.A spin-off of Cheers, Frasier stars...

,
and Lt. Cmdr. Tom Dodge in Down Periscope
Down Periscope
Down Periscope is a 1996 comedy film starring Kelsey Grammer as the captain of a rust-bucket Navy submarine, the USS Stingray, who is fighting for his career....

." All of these characters were played by Sideshow Bob's voice, Kelsey Grammer. When Sideshow Bob
Sideshow Bob
Robert Underdunk Terwilliger, better known as Sideshow Bob, is a recurring character in the animated television series The Simpsons. He is voiced by Kelsey Grammer and first appeared briefly in the episode "The Telltale Head". Bob is a self-proclaimed genius who is a graduate of Yale, a member of...

 steps on the rake it is a call back to the famous scene from "Cape Feare
Cape Feare
"Cape Feare" is the second episode of the fifth season of American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on October 7, 1993, and has since been featured on DVD and VHS releases...

" in which he steps on multiple rakes. Bob mentions a spoiler
Spoiler (media)
Spoiler is slang for any element of any summary or description of any piece of fiction that reveals any plot element which will give away the outcome of a dramatic episode within the work of fiction, or the conclusion of the entire work. It can also be used to refer to any piece of information...

 moment in the Harry Potter
Harry Potter
Harry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by the British author J. K. Rowling. The books chronicle the adventures of the adolescent wizard Harry Potter and his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...

 series, which annoys Bart, as he has not reached that book yet, even though, as Bob says, the book was four years old at the time of this episode's broadcast.

Reception

In its original American broadcast, "The Bob Next Door" was viewed by an estimated 6.258 million households and a 2.9 rating/9% share in the 18-49 demographic, rising 9% from "Moe Letter Blues
Moe Letter Blues
"Moe Letter Blues" is the twenty-first episode of The Simpsons twenty-first season. It aired on the Fox network in the United States on May 9, 2010. In this episode, Homer, Reverend Lovejoy, and Apu Nahasapeemapetilon receive a letter from Moe stating that he will steal one of their wives...

". It came second in its time slot after the season finale
Season finale
A season finale is the final episode of a season of a television program...

 of Survivor: Heroes v. Villains and became the second highest rated show on "Animation Domination" after Family Guy
Family Guy
Family Guy is an American animated television series created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series centers on the Griffins, a dysfunctional family consisting of parents Peter and Lois; their children Meg, Chris, and Stewie; and their anthropomorphic pet dog Brian...

, according to the Nielsen Media Research
Nielsen Media Research
Nielsen Media Research is an American firm that measures media audiences, including television, radio, theatre films and newspapers...

.

The episode received positive reviews. Robert Canning of IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...

 gave the episode a 8.5, stating that it was "Great" and "Overall, this was a great return to form for an appearance from Sideshow Bob. The vengeful character has been let down by recent episodes, but "The Bob Next Door" has reminded us what makes Bob so much fun." TV Fanatic gave the episode a 4.0/5, stating that they loved all the plot twists, but hated the fact that there were no jokes, and remarked that "the episode just didn't have the same humor as say, 'Cape Feare
Cape Feare
"Cape Feare" is the second episode of the fifth season of American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on October 7, 1993, and has since been featured on DVD and VHS releases...

'."
John Teti of A.V. Club gave the episode a B+, which tied it for the best grade of "Animation Domination" after American Dad. He stated that "The showdown at Five Corners played out just like 'Cape Feare,' complete with rake gag, which is not a bad thing. If The Simpsons intends to self-plagiarize (and it obviously does), that's a good episode to copy."

Sharon Knolle of TV Squad said "I'd say overall this ep ranks with some of the better Sideshow Bob eps, if not the very best. Certainly, it beats the heck out of 'The Italian Bob
The Italian Bob
"The Italian Bob" is the eighth episode of The Simpsons seventeenth season. It features Kelsey Grammer in his ninth appearance as Sideshow Bob and is the first time the Simpsons visit Italy.-Plot:...

' and 'Funeral for a Fiend
Funeral for a Fiend
"Funeral for a Fiend" is the eighth episode of The Simpsons nineteenth season and first aired on November 25, 2007. It was written by Michael Price and was directed by Rob Oliver. It features Kelsey Grammer in his tenth appearance as Sideshow Bob, as well as David Hyde Pierce in his second...

.'". Robert Canning of IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...

 in a review of the season named it the best episode of the season tied with "The Squirt and the Whale
The Squirt and the Whale
"The Squirt and the Whale" is the nineteenth episode of The Simpsons twenty-first season, which premiered on the Fox network on April 25, 2010 as the 460th episode for the series overall. In the episode, the Simpson family attempt to save a beached whale that washed up onshore, only for it to...

".

External links

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