The Boys of Bummer

"The Boys of Bummer" is the eighteenth episode of "The Simpsons"' eighteenth season. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on April 29, 2007. It was written by Michael Price and was the first episode to be directed by Rob Oliver.
Plot.
The Simpsons are at a Little League Baseball game and Bart catches a fly ball, pushing the Springfield Isotopes into the championships. The next day, Marge is shopping at a department store, but Homer is tired and cannot find a place to sit - so he lies down on a mattress and falls asleep. When he wakes up, everybody is staring at him; he instantly exclaims his love for the mattress and manages to sell five. The store manager hires him as a mattress salesman.
Springfield is playing Shelbyville in the championship and leading 5–2 in the bottom of the ninth with two outs, but Shelbyville has the bases loaded. When their batter hits a pop up towards Bart, he drops the ball and repeatedly fails to pick it up - letting all four runners score and thus giving Shelbyville the 6–5 victory. The crowd quickly boo at Bart, who flees the stadium. Chief Wiggum offers him a ride to safety, but drives him back inside the stadium to let people throw food at him; Bart is humiliated and once again becomes the town's outcast.
At Homer's new job, the Lovejoys approach him with a sex problem, so Homer sells them a new mattress. The Lovejoys buy it, but bring it to the Simpsons house the next day with their problem unresolved. As Homer writes them a refund check, they begin making out on his and Marge's mattress, and trade their new mattress for it. That night, when Homer and Marge are unsuccessfully trying to have sex, Homer admits he traded their mattress.
Homer and Marge sneak in to the Lovejoys' home to steal back their mattress, but have sex on it until the Lovejoys return and catch them. Reverend Lovejoy solves the problem Solomon-style by cutting the mattress in half diagonally and gives one half to Homer and Marge. On the way Homer convinces Marge to drive behind a billboard where they try to have sex as they did on their honeymoon with the same bum watching them.
Bart's humiliation goes on as Bill and Marty tell everyone on the radio, and Jimbo, Dolph and Kearney sing a song about it called Bart Stinks, while the townspeople continue to mock and boo Bart. Lisa tries to cheer him up by taking him to see an old baseball star (Joe La Boot) who dropped a fly ball in the 1943 World Series but still grew up to be rich and famous, but after La Boot learns who Bart is, he makes everybody in the building boo him, making him feel worse about himself. The next morning Lisa awakes to find soneone has spray-painted "I HATE BART SIMPSON" all over the town, she assumes the culprit is someone who hates Bart the most, only for her and the rest of the family to find Bart, driven insane to the point of self-loathing due to the constant harassment, spray painting "I HATE BART SIMPSON" on a water tower. At the town's insistence, he jumps in a suicide attempt. Realizing he went too far, a horrified and repentant La Boot tries to catch him, but trips over and misses, causing Bart to hit the ground hard.
Bart ultimately survives and is revived shortly afterwards by Dr. Hibbert at the hospital, only for the townspeople to arrive and chant "Bart sucks!" over and over. Marge, having finally had enough of Bart being treated so horribly, and realizing the town won't stop until Bart's dead, steps outside and angrily lambasts them for their extreme vindictive behavior, stating that not only would Bart be haunted by their actions for the rest of his life, but that all of Springfield has effectively more than lived up to their title of "meanest city in America". Feeling guilty, the townspeople apologize for hurting Bart and agree to restage the game to fix his self-esteem. After 78 tries (some flying into orbit, some stolen by Homer, one where Moe ran naked on the field), Bart finally catches the ball, winning the game.
60 years later, a 70-year-old Milhouse nearly lets it slip to a 70-year-old Bart that the game was faked to make up for Bart's lack of talent, but then takes it back when Bart starts crying, prompting Bart to say that he rules and Milhouse drools while the ghosts of Homer and Marge watch.
Production.
The episode was written by Michael Price. It was his sixth episode. The episode features several cultural references. The "Bart Stinks" song that Jimbo, Dolph, and Kearney sing is a parody of "Love Stinks" by The J. Geils Band, and when Bart notices this he rips down his J. Geils Band posters off his room wall in disappointment. Bart spinning in a circle while his clothes fly off after having been hit by the ball is a reference to Charlie Brown in "Peanuts".
Reception.
"The Boys of Bummer" originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on April 29, 2007. Since then, it has received generally mixed reviews from critics.
Adam Finley of TV Squad commented that "In general, I liked this episode. At least, it had a lot more laugh-out-loud moments for me than last week's episode. I don't think the town has turned on Bart so savagely since that time he cut the head off the Jebediah Springfield statue. I thought the absurdity of everyone getting upset over children's sport made it even funnier." He concluded that "I thought perhaps the scene where Bart paints 'I Hate Bart Simpson' all over town might have had more of an emotional weight to it, giving the episode that nice funny/emotional balance that is the stuff of all the best "Simpsons" episodes, but clearly this episode was meant to be played mostly for laughs."
IGN's Robert Canning was more critical, criticizing the episode for losing heart when "the residents of Springfield are all incredibly cruel to Bart for his error." He added that the plot of the episode sounds "like a typical "Simpsons" storyline, and one the show is usually capable of pulling off with humor and heart, but the episode simply failed to find the funny in Bart's situation." Canning further wrote that the subplot with Homer was "one of the dullest 'B' storylines "The Simpsons" have ever had," and "the flash-forward to 60 years in the future only made the episode worse." He concluded: "This entire episode was poorly executed – it lacked all warmth, heart and humor."