Santa's Little Helper event; however, their plan fails and a drunk shark that's discovered at the event becomes the new mascot instead. Santa's Little Helper gladly returns to the Simpson family. Santa's Little Helper's initial appearance on "The Simpsons" was in the first episode of the series, "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire", which aired on Dec. 17, 1989. Since then, he has become a recurring character. "The Simpsons" creator Matt Groening told "TV Guide" in 2000 that "we [the staff] painted ourselves into a corner with our Christmas episode. Once we wrote the dog into the show, we were stuck with him."
Brother's Little Helper of IGN posted a "flashback review" of "Brother's Little Helper". Canning, calling the episode "funny" and "a standout episode in this later season", was particularly fond of the episode's opening. However, he was less impressed with the third act of the episode, calling it "lackluster". He felt that the part involving Mark McGwire was "a silly cop out" and that it wasn't as funny as what was leading up to it. He also stated that he was put off by the writers wanting to come across a message. "It's not that I necessarily disagreed with this sentiment", Canning wrote, "but