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 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