Much Apu About Nothing as Fat Tony. The title of the episode is a parody of William Shakespeare's play "Much Ado About Nothing". Since airing, the episode has received mostly positive reviews from television critics. It acquired a Nielsen rating of 8.2, and was the fourth highest-rated show on the Fox network the week it aired. On an ordinary day, a brown bear strolls onto the streets of Springfield, frightening the town. The bear is eventually subdued by the police. Homer convinces Springfield that something needs to be done to protect them from bears, and the town takes their complaint to Mayor Quimby, who
Much Ado About Nothing the album is also a quotation from the play. The 2014 YouTube web series Nothing Much to Do is a modern retelling of the play, set in New Zealand. In 2015, Billie Joe Armstrong wrote the music for a rock opera adaptation of the play, "These Paper Bullets", which was written by Rolin Jones. In 2017, a YA adaptation was released by author Mckelle George called "Speak Easy, Speak Love", where the events of the play take place in the 1920s, focused around a failing speakeasy. In 2018, author Molly Booth released a summer YA novel adaptation called "Nothing Happened",