The dog ate my homework Helper, the family dog, eating his homework. "I didn't know dogs actually did that", he says, and finds his teacher equally incredulous since he had used that excuse before. In a later episode, when the dog goes to work for the police, Bart must eat his own homework for the excuse to work. When Mrs. Krabappel begins dating Ned Flanders, the Simpsons' neighbor, at the end of the 2011 season, she sees Santa's Little Helper in the Simpsons' yard and asks if he is the dog who has eaten Bart's homework so many times. Bart's attempts to demonstrate this and
The Simpsons show. The celebration ended on January 10, 2010 (almost 20 years after "Bart the Genius" aired on January 14, 1990), with "The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special – In 3-D! On Ice!", a documentary special by documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock that examines the "cultural phenomenon of "The Simpsons"". As of the twenty-first season (2009–2010), "The Simpsons" became the longest-running American scripted primetime television series, having surpassed "Gunsmoke". On April 29, 2018, "The Simpsons" also surpassed "Gunsmoke"s 635-episode count with the episode "Forgive and Regret." "The Simpsons" has won dozens of awards since it debuted as a series, including 31 Primetime Emmy