Santa's Little Helper reason he stopped performing as Santa's Little Helper was because "The producers thought... 'Hmmm, Dan barks pretty good, and we are already paying him and he seems to like doing the dog thing... why do we need to pay Welker who comes in here, spends less than an hour, eats all the doughnuts, refuses to come to rehearsals... let's just give the damn dog to Dan!'" Santa's Little Helper has become a well-known dog because of his appearances in the series. A writer for "The Grand Rapids Press" wrote in 2002 that "we all know who Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa
The Simpsons (season 17) the season 5.5/10 and commented "As a long time fan of the early Simpsons that involved great episodes with hilarious, tightly developed plots, it is hard to stomach what the show has become." Spotlight Report gave the season 3.0/5 criticizing that it wasn't as funny as previous seasons. "The Seemingly Neverending Story" won an Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program, the first "Simpsons" episode to win since season 14's "Three Gays of the Condo" and the ninth time in the history of the show. Kelsey Grammer received the Emmy for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance for "The Italian Bob". The show ranked 56th