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
Politics in The Simpsons to "hundreds of radical right-wing messages inserted into every show by creator Matt Groening". More recently, however, conservative bloggers and commentators have enthusiastically promoted cultural memes from the series, such as Groundskeeper Willie's derisive term for the French, "cheese-eating surrender monkeys". Political topics addressed on "The Simpsons" include homophobia and gay marriage (in the episodes "Homer's Phobia" and "There's Something About Marrying"), immigration and border control (“Much Apu About Nothing,” “Midnight Rx”, “Coming to Homerica”), drug and alcohol abuse ("Brother's Little Helper", "Weekend at Burnsie's", "Smoke on the Daughter", "Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment", "Duffless", "E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)", and "Days of