“The Canine Mutiny” (originally aired 04/13/1997)
In which Santos L. Halper destroys his credit history…
Bart Simpson represents an ever-present challenge for The Simpsons’ writers. He’s always walking a fine line between Dennis The Menace and The Bad Seed, and only through careful balancing does Bart come across as a mischievous, rebellious kid who occasionally lacks empathy but never lacks heart. When that balance isn’t achieved, Bart becomes a sociopathic, yellow demon spawn with neither awareness of nor interest in the havoc he creates around him.
In the final stretch of season eight, Bart leans toward the character’s darker, more vindictive side, which is a matter of how the episodes are sequenced. “The Canine Mutiny,” which features some of Bart’s unkindest moments, comes so closely on the heels of “My Sister, My Sitter” and “Grade School Confidential,” two more episodes in which Bart’s devil horns are at their longest. Bart fully redeems himself in the season eight finale, “The Secret War Of Lisa Simpson,” but “Mutiny” is the episode in which Bart first begins to show some genuine remorse for his actions.
The first two acts of “Mutiny” don’t foreshadow Bart’s pang of conscience at the episode’s end. In fact, the entire story is rooted in Bart’s selfishness: Marge does the morning mail call, sorting through the bills addressed to the grown-ups, then handing Homer the latest issue of Car Toons, and Lisa her German verb wheel from the Foreign Language Institute. There’s nothing for Bart, so Marge gives him the junk mail, unwittingly enabling his latest dastardly scheme. He fills out a pre-approved credit card offer, applying under Santa’s Little Helper’s name, and after six to eight weeks, Bart has a credit card in the name of Santos L. Halper.
Santa’s Little Helper is seen within the first seconds of the episode, when the mail arrives and the mediocre mutt runs straight into the door. As its title suggests, “Mutiny” is as much as Santa’s Little Helper episode as it is a Bart episode. And like most Santa’s Little Helper episodes, it’s about the family’s mistreatment of their transient greyhound. Matt Groening has talked about SLH much in the same way people talk about responding to pre-approved credit cards offers. It seems like a great idea at the time, but leaves you saddled with responsibilities you wish you’d never accepted. SLH was introduced in “Simpsons Roasting On An Open Fire”as the family Christmas present that salvages the Simpsons’ lean holiday when there’s no money to devote to gifts. Once the dog was written in, Groening says, the writers were stuck with them despite not having a ton of ideas about what to do with a family dog.
The show’s treatment of SLH reflects the writers’ indifference towards the family dog. SLH only recurs, and when he does, it’s usually to show Simpsons neglecting or ignoring him, or to show how taking care of him puts strain on the family by being essentially impossible to train. “Mutiny” features a rare instance of a Simpson celebrating SLH, even if it’s Bart, who is thrilled the dog facilitated his credit card fraud, then coughed up a quarter for good measure. The rest of the family is equally grateful for SLH, though indirectly; Bart uses Santos L. Halper’s credit card to buy everyone gifts from the Covet House shop-at-home catalog, including a study aid for Lisa and a musical skillet for Marge that plays the Kinks.