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Joe Mantegna and Jackie Mason are the featured guest voices in two indispensable episodes, presented here complete and uncut, from the third season of
The Simpsons. This video also contains an original
Simpsons short from
The Tracey Ullman Show. "Bart the Murderer" introduces Mantegna's signature
Simpsons character, gangster Fat Tony, who gives Bart a job at the Legitimate Businessman's Social Club. Bart's job description ("mixing drinks, picking horses, cutting cigars") worries Marge, and Homer's worst fears are realized when Bart--a.k.a. "the Dinky Don"--is put on trial as "the head of a murderous criminal syndicate." Rewind alert: "Blood on the Blackboard," the inevitable TV movie based on "the Bart Simpson story," starring "
Doogie Howser's Neil Patrick Harris" as Bart. Jackie Mason was born to play Rabbi Krustofsky in the surprisingly poignant "Like Father, Like Clown," which echoes
Field of Dreams and
The Jazz Singer with its story of father-son reconciliation. Over dinner at the Simpsons, Krusty reveals that he is Jewish ("A Jewish entertainer?" a skeptical Homer responds. "Get outta here!") and estranged from his father, a rabbi who disowned him for becoming a clown ("A jazz singer, this I could forgive," his father states). Bart and Lisa are determined to reunite them, but the rabbi is unyielding. "I have no son," he thunders. "Great," Bart complains. "We come all this way and it's the wrong guy." "I didn't mean that literally," the rabbi amends.
The Best of the Simpsons, volumes 10, 11, and 12, are also available in a boxed set.
--Donald Liebenson
