Simpson Tide

"Simpson Tide" is the nineteenth episode of "The Simpsons"' ninth season. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on March 29, 1998. After being fired from the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, Homer decides to join the United States Navy Reserve. The episode was the second and last to be written by Joshua Sternin and Jeffrey Ventimilia and was the final episode directed by Milton Gray.
It guest-starred Rod Steiger as Captain Tenille and Bob Denver as himself, with one-time "The Simpsons" writer Michael Carrington making an appearance as the Drill Sergeant. This was the last episode Al Jean and Mike Reiss executive produced together, although Jean became showrunner again in season 13.
Plot.
After Homer nearly causes the nuclear plant to go into meltdown by putting a doughnut into the reactor core to enlarge it, he is fired by Mr. Burns. While at home he sees a recruitment advertisement on television for the Naval Reserve and decides to enlist, with Moe, Barney, and Apu deciding to join him. Meanwhile, Bart purchases an earring, which an outraged Homer confiscates.
Homer and the others are placed on a nuclear submarine. While participating in a military exercise, Homer unintentionally has the captain fired out of a torpedo tube and pilots the submarine into Russian waters, which is seen by the United States government as an attempt to defect. This event creates a political schism between the USA and Russia, leading to the revelation that the Soviet Union in fact never truly dissolved, complete with the Berlin Wall rising from the ground, Soviet troops and tanks appearing on the streets and Vladimir Lenin rising from his tomb in Moscow.
Nuclear war is anticipated until the US Navy drops depth charges on Homer's sub, aiming either to destroy it or force it to surface. The consequent explosion causes a pinhole leak in the submarine's hull, but Homer uses Bart's earring to plug the leak and saves the submarine. The vessel surfaces and Homer is taken to be court-martialed, but because the officers on the review committee have done such awful things, Homer's punishment ends up being a mild dishonorable discharge and he immediately forgives Bart, as the earring saved his life.
Production.
"Simpson Tide" was one of two season nine episodes that was executive produced by Al Jean and Mike Reiss, who together were the showrunners for the third and fourth seasons. Although Jean would later return to run the show the following season, it was the last episode for which Reiss received an executive producer credit. Joshua Sternin and Jeffrey Ventimilia, the episode writers, were working on Jean and Reiss's show "The Critic" at the time, and pitched an episode where Homer joins the Naval Reserve. Although the episode is partly based on the film "Crimson Tide", the original episode pitch was made before the film was released. After the release of the film, the writers decided to start incorporating things from the movie in the script. In the original draft, Bart sneaked on board the submarine with Homer. They were trying to do it "for the comedy of it", but could not get the draft to work, so it was cut. It was difficult for them to figure out how to get the captain off of the sub and they eventually decided to have him shot out of the torpedo tube, which in the DVD commentary, Al Jean says that Steiger claimed that he really did get stuck in a torpedo tube once.
The Navy drill instructor, along with the announcer to "Exploitation Theater", was voiced by Michael Carrington, who had written the season four episode "Homer's Triple Bypass" and previously voiced Sideshow Raheem. Bob Denver voices himself in the episode and was directed by Mike Reiss. Rod Steiger guest stars as the captain and was directed by Al Jean.
Reception.
In its original broadcast, "Simpson Tide" finished 29th in ratings for the week of March 23–29, 1998, with a Nielsen rating of 9.2, equivalent to approximately 9.0 million viewing households. It was the second highest-rated show on the Fox network that week, following "The X-Files".
Michael Schiffer, one of the writers of the film "Crimson Tide", is said to have enjoyed this episode. Mike Reiss considers the sequence where Russia returns to being the Soviet Union to be "the nuttiest the show has ever been". The authors of the book "I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide", Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, called it "a fairly straightforward episode where the biggest laugh comes from Homer being able to talk to penguins and Bart trying to impress his classmates by doing The Bartman."