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 Call of the Simpsons DVD review of the first season, David B. Grelck gave the episode a rating of 1.5/5, adding "the surrealism of Homer as bigfoot is a major misstep. This type of gag would be very different today, if done at all." Jon Bonné at MSNBC called the episode "a perfect example of the first season’s bizarre and fruitful balance between edgy humor and softly-drawn neuroses" and stated that "it was this combination that made Groening’s shorts for the Ullman show so compelling, and ultimately what made it possible for "The Simpsons" to break the molds of network television." Colin Jacobson at