Duffless

While having breakfast with her family, Lisa shows them her project for Springfield Elementary School's upcoming science fair, a gigantic steroid-enhanced tomato she hopes will solve world hunger. At school, three days before the fair, Lisa leaves her tomato in Bart's care for a moment and he hurls it at Principal Skinner's butt. When Lisa returns, she is furious that Bart destroyed her project. She asks Marge for help, who suggests she run a hamster through a maze. Inspired, Lisa decides to run a series of tests on a hamster and Bart to determine who is smarter. After two easy tests, the hamster leads two to zero. Bart discovers Lisa's plans to humiliate him at the science fair and pre-empts her project with a project of his own, "Can hamsters fly planes?", showing her hamster in the cockpit of a miniature plane. Despite Lisa's objection concerning the lack of scientific merit, everyone is distracted by how cute the hamster is, and a proud Skinner hands Bart the first place ribbon.

Meanwhile, Homer sneaks out early at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant and accompanies Barney on a tour of the Duff brewery. Afterward, Homer refuses to let a drunk Barney drive home and forces him to hand over his keys. On their way out of the parking lot, their car is pulled over by police Chief Wiggum, along with Eddie and Lou. After administering a field sobriety test on Homer, which he passes, the policemen tell Homer he is free to go. However, as revenge for not being allowed to drive, Barney tells the policemen to give Homer a breathalyzer, which detects that Homer has recently had alcohol. Homer is arrested, loses his license, and is ordered by a judge to attend traffic school and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. However, during one meeting, Homer mentions that he ate dirt from the football stadium to fight his urge to drink, which causes a furious Reverend Lovejoy to expel him from the group. In bed, Marge gives Homer a magazine quiz about his drinking. Hearing Homer's answers, Marge asks him to give up beer for a month, and he reluctantly agrees. During the month that Homer spends without beer, he loses weight and saves over $100. After being sober for a month (despite many temptations), Homer goes back to Moe's, despite Marge's declaration that she would like to spend time with him in that moment. Homer orders a beer at Moe's, but thinks about what Marge said to him and leaves without drinking the beer after a steady, appraising look at Barney and the other barflies. Homer and Marge ride a bike into the sunset, singing "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head".

Bart's go-go ray idea was "stolen" from the opening credits of Jonny Quest.^[3] Mike Reiss said they did not want to show the hamster getting shocked but had to for plot purposes.^[4] The first line Richard Nixon says, during the Duff commercial, was taken verbatim from the Kennedy–Nixon Debate during the 1960 Presidential Campaign.^[5] Adolf Hitler's head, among other things, can be seen going by in bottles of Duff when the quality control man is not paying attention.^[5] The Troy McClure driver's education film title Alice's Adventures Through the Windshield Glass was pitched by Frank Mula.^[6]

The episode contains the first appearance of Sarah Wiggum.^[7] The episode also contains a two-second snippet of footage from "Bart the Daredevil": a close-up of Homer making a disappointed face and saying "D'oh!" when he gets arrested.^[8]