Bart's New Friend
4.28 million people watched the episode when it was first shown on television. Dennis Perkins from The A.V. Club said that the episode shows that there is "no end" for stories about the family's relationships. Jesse Schedeen from IGN said that the episode is a "perfectly decent new chapter of the show" but thought that the episode was not like the episodes from 1990 that Apatow had seen. Dan Castellaneta is the voice actor for Homer. He was nominated for an award at the 67th Primetime Emmy Awards for his voice acting of Homer in the episode.