"Who Shot Mr. Burns?" is a two-part episode of the American animated television series The Simpsons. "Part One" is the twenty-fifth and final episode of the sixth season and originally aired on Fox in the United States on May 21, 1995, while "Part Two" is the season premiere of the seventh season and aired on Fox on September 17 the same year.
The episodes begin with Springfield Elementary School striking oil, but Mr. Burns steals it, bringing misery to many of Springfield's citizens. "Part One" has a cliffhanger ending where Mr. Burns is shot by an unidentified assailant. In "Part Two", Springfield's police try to find the culprit, with their main suspects being Waylon Smithers and Homer Simpson.
Both episodes were written by Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein; "Part One" was directed by Jeffrey Lynch and "Part Two" was directed by Wes Archer. Musician Tito Puente guest stars as himself in both parts. "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" was conceived by series creator Matt Groening, and the writing staff decided to turn it into a two-part mystery episode. Part One contains several clues about the identity of the culprit because the writers wanted the mystery to be solvable.
Plot Part One Groundskeeper Willie discovers oil under Springfield Elementary School while attempting to bury a dead gerbil. Principal Skinner and Superintendent Chalmers accept suggestions from students and staff on how to spend their newfound wealth, including hiring Tito Puente as a music teacher per Lisa's suggestion. Mr. Burns disguises himself as a student and tries to trick Skinner into selling him the drilling rights to secure an energy monopoly over Springfield. Skinner is not fooled by the ruse, and Mr. Burns vows revenge.
At the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, Homer is increasingly upset that Mr. Burns can never remember his name. Marge encourages Homer to send Mr. Burns a box of chocolates with a picture of the Simpson family underneath the candy. However, neither Mr. Burns nor Smithers are interested in the one candy covering Homer's face and discard the box. As a result, Mr. Burns writes a "thank you" card addressed only to Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie, further angering Homer.
Meanwhile, Mr. Burns forms a plan to take the school's oil, despite Smithers' disapproval. Mr. Burns establishes a slant drilling operation and beats the school to tapping the oil well, causing the school to lose their claim to the oil and their newfound wealth. Mr. Burns' drilling operation causes distress to many Springfield citizens: Willie and Puente are fired so the school can cut costs; the first burst of oil from Mr. Burns' rig destroys Bart's treehouse and injures Santa's Little Helper; Moe's Tavern is closed due to the harmful fumes from the drilling, enraging Moe and Barney; and the drilling destroys the Springfield Retirement Castle, forcing Grampa to move into his family's house.
Mr. Burns reveals to Smithers that he plans to construct a giant disc that will permanently block out the sun in Springfield, forcing the residents to continuously use the electricity from his plant. Smithers declares Mr. Burns has gone too far; Mr. Burns is shocked by Smithers' disapproval and fires him. Homer, driven to insanity, sneaks into Burns's office and spray paints "I AM HOMER SIMPSON" on the wall. Despite catching Homer in the act, Mr. Burns still fails to remember his name. In a rage, Homer lunges at him and is hauled away by security guards. Many of the citizens affected by Mr. Burns's schemes, including Homer and Smithers, swear vengeance.
A town meeting is held to discuss Mr. Burns' actions, where several citizens are armed with guns. Mr. Burns arrives, armed with his own gun after his encounter with Homer, and activates the sun-blocking device. Afterwards, he walks into a parking lot and struggles with an unseen and unheard figure. A gun fires and Mr. Burns stumbles and collapses onto the town's sundial, falling into unconsciousness. The townspeople find him and Marge mentions that almost everyone in Springfield had the motive and means to shoot Mr. Burns. Chief Wiggum agrees to start the investigation to find the culprit.
Part Two While Mr. Burns recovers from his gunshot wound in the Springfield General Hospital, the police search for his assailant. Smithers vaguely remembers shooting someone the night before in a drunken rage. Guilt-ridden, he goes to a confessional in a local church and confesses to the crime. The confessional is revealed to be a police sting, and Smithers is promptly arrested. While passing news reporters on his way to the police station, Smithers says something that Sideshow Mel recognizes from an episode of the fictional Comedy Central program, Pardon My Zinger, that aired at the same time as the shooting. Mel realizes Smithers must have watched it as well, giving him an alibi. Mel and Krusty head to the police station as Smithers' memory clears: it turns out he had actually shot Jasper in his wooden leg. Meanwhile, the townspeople pull down the sun-blocker, which crushes Shelbyville, to their delight.
With one of the prime suspects cleared, the police, aided by Lisa, eliminate other suspects, including Puente (who had no desire to kill Mr. Burns and instead composed a song expressing his hatred of Mr. Burns), Skinner (who had planned on killing Mr. Burns but had an awkward encounter with Chalmers in the bathroom at the time of the shooting), Willie (who claimed that he was physically incapable of operating a firearm due to excessively playing Space Invaders in 1977), and Moe (the police hook him up to a polygraph, which confirms he did not shoot Mr. Burns).
Wiggum finds an eyelash on Mr. Burns' suit that matches Simpson DNA. At the same time, Mr. Burns wakes up from his coma, exclaiming "Homer Simpson!"; the police assume Burns was remembering who shot him. They raid the Simpson home and find a gun under the seat of their car, covered with Homer's fingerprints and loaded with bullets matching the one fired at Burns; subsequently, they arrest Homer for attempted murder. While at Krusty Burger, Wiggum inadvertently crashes the wagon after leaning out the window to collect his order, and Homer escapes. Smithers offers a $50,000 reward for Homer's capture.
At the hospital, it is revealed that "Homer Simpson" is the only thing Burns can say. Lisa returns to the scene of the crime to investigate. At the same time, Homer arrives at the hospital to confront Mr. Burns. A police bulletin reports Homer's location and an angry mob of citizens rush to the hospital. The citizens enter Mr. Burns' room and discover Homer shaking Mr. Burns. Mr. Burns regains his ability to speak normally, but he instantly forgets Homer's name; Homer becomes enraged, grabs Chief Wiggum's pistol and threatens to kill Mr. Burns unless Mr. Burns retracts his accusation that Homer shot him. Mr. Burns calms Homer down and confirms Homer did not shoot him. He reveals the true assailant upon seeing her in the crowd of citizens: Maggie Simpson.
After leaving the town meeting, Mr. Burns came across Maggie eating a lollipop in the Simpsons' car. He decided to try stealing the candy from the baby, but struggled against Maggie. As Burns took the lollipop, his gun slipped from its holster into Maggie's hands and discharged. The gun fell beneath the car seat, where Homer would unknowingly leave his fingerprints on it while reaching under the seat for an ice cream cone he dropped. Mr. Burns demands for Maggie to be arrested, but Chief Wiggum refuses and says no jury in the world would convict a baby for a crime, except for "maybe Texas". Marge also adds the shooting must have been an accident, considering Maggie is an infant. However, immediately following Marge's statement, Maggie's eyes shift, implying that she shot Mr. Burns intentionally.
Production
The idea for the episode came from The Simpsons creator Matt Groening, who had wanted to do an episode in which Mr. Burns was shot, which could be used as a publicity stunt. The writers decided to write the episode in two parts with a mystery that could be used in a contest. It was important for them to design a mystery that had clues, took advantage of freeze frame technology and was structured around one character who seemed to be the obvious culprit. While deciding who the culprit was, Oakley and Weinstein had pitched for Barney Gumble because he was a character that could go to jail and it could change the dynamic of the show. Mirkin suggested Maggie Simpson because he felt it was funnier and wanted the culprit to be a Simpsons family member.
The producers worked hard to keep the ending of the episode a secret. While it was in production, David Silverman was the only animator who knew who the culprit was. Wes Archer was initially unaware of the solution, but directed the episode up until its conclusion. When it was time to animate the ending of the show, Silverman and Archer waited until the end of the summer of 1995 to work on it; realizing that they needed help with the layouts, they started giving various animators small parts to work on without telling them who the culprit was. The table read for the episode also ended before the third act. The writers had wanted the clues that were animated to be just right, so there were many animation retakes. Oakley and Weinstein were initially unsure about having Maggie as the culprit, and it was decided that the episode would end with Maggie shifting her eyes and making it look like it was not a complete accident.
Tito Puente and his Latin jazz ensemble appear in the episode and sing the song "Señor Burns". Oakley and Weinstein were unfamiliar with Puente, but wrote him into the episode due to Groening being a fan of his. They figured he would sing the song, but after discovering that Puente was not a singer, but a drummer, the lyrics were instead sung by one of Puente's band members. His band played their version of The Simpsons Theme over the end credits.
Hidden clues
A number of subtle clues, as well as a few red herrings, were planted in "Part One" for viewers to solve the mystery: Almost every clock is set at three or nine o'clock. The point of the clocks was to teach the viewer to view the sundial at the end upside down. Mr. Burns looks from his balcony and talks about stealing candy from a baby. The box of chocolates Homer sends Burns is lined with a Simpsons family photo, and as Burns and Smithers gorge on the candy, Maggie is the first Simpson the audience sees. Maggie is briefly seen holding a green lollipop in the car before Burns is shot. He previously spoke about, and was ultimately prevented from, stealing candy from a baby in the episode. When Mr. Burns collapses on the sundial, he points at W and S, although from his viewpoint, the W looks like an M. Many of the suspects have the letters S and either W or M in their initials, and the intention was that several "obvious" suspects could be eliminated by the letters. Several characters already had names with those initials, but some were made up specifically for this episode. Principal Skinner's full name is revealed to be "W. Seymour Skinner" on a diploma in his office. Smithers's full name is "Waylon Smithers". Mr. Burns calls Santa's Little Helper the "Simpson Mutt". Moe's liquor license reveals his full name to be Moe Szyslak. Melvin Van Horne is known to everyone by his stage name "Sideshow Mel". Grampa's gun is a Smith & Wesson. Just before entering Mr. Burns' office to spray paint his name, Homer passes in front of the words "ONLY IN" on the pavement (upside down from the viewer's perspective), and very briefly blocks all of the letters except "NO" and a small arrow pointing at him.