Who Shot Mr. Burns?

Groundskeeper Willie discovers oil under Springfield Elementary School. Principal Skinner and Superintendent Chalmers accept suggestions from students and staff on how to spend their newfound wealth, including Lisa's suggestion of hiring Tito Puente as a music teacher. Mr. Burns disguises himself as Jimbo Jones and unsuccessfully tries to trick Skinner into selling him the drilling rights to secure an energy monopoly over Springfield.

At the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, Homer is upset that his boss, Burns, can never remember his name. He takes a suggestion from Marge and sends Burns a box of chocolates with a family picture underneath the candy; however, Burns and Smithers are not interested in the one candy covering Homer's face and discard the box. As a result, Burns writes a "thank you" card only to Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie, further angering Homer.

Meanwhile, Burns plots to take the school's oil, to which Smithers voices his disapproval. Burns establishes a slant drilling operation and beats the school to tapping the oil well. Burns's drilling operation causes distress to many Springfield citizens as Willie and Puente are laid off; Moe's Tavern is closed due to the harmful fumes from the drilling, enraging Moe and Barney; the drilling destroys the Springfield Retirement Castle, forcing Grampa to move in with the Simpsons; and Bart's treehouse is destroyed by a burst of oil from the rig, which also injures Santa's Little Helper.

Burns reveals to Smithers his grandest scheme: the construction of a giant disc that will permanently block out the sun in Springfield, forcing the residents to continuously use the electricity from his power plant. When Smithers says he has gone too far, Burns fires him. Homer, driven to insanity by Burns not knowing his name, sneaks into his office and spraypaints "I am Homer Simpson". Burns catches him in the act, but still fails to remember him. In a rage, Homer attacks him and is hauled away by security. All the citizens affected by Burns's schemes, including Homer and even Smithers, swear vengeance.

A town meeting is held to discuss Burns's actions. Burns arrives, armed with a gun after his encounter with Homer, and activates the sun-blocking device. He walks into an alley and struggles with someone until a gun fires. Burns stumbles into the open, wounded, and collapses on the town's sundial. The townspeople find him and Marge tells all of them that since he has angered so many people recently, anyone could have been the shooter. Chief Wiggum sheepishly agrees to start the investigation to find the culprit, leaving the episode on a cliffhanger.

With Burns in the hospital, the Springfield police search for his assailant. Smithers vaguely remembers shooting someone the night before in a drunken rage. Guilt-ridden, Smithers heads for a local church, and is promptly arrested when the confessional turns out to be a police sting. While passing the media on his way to the police station, Smithers makes a witty remark 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. As Smithers's 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 (whose revenge took the form of a "slanderous mambo"), Skinner (who was found by Chalmers to be applying what he thought was camouflage make-up at the time of the shooting), Willie (who cannot fire a gun due to arthritis in his index fingers), and Moe (who is cleared via polygraph test). After a surreal dream about Lisa, Wiggum finds an eyelash on Mr. Burns's suit which matches Simpson DNA. At the same time, Burns wakes up from his coma, exclaiming "Homer Simpson!" The police raid the Simpson home and find a gun under the seat of their car, covered with Homer's fingerprints and loaded with bullets that match the one fired into Mr. Burns. Homer is accused of attempted murder and arrested. On the way to jail the paddywagon overturns at the Krusty Burger drive-thru due to Wiggum unbalancing the weight as he leans out the window to collect his order, and Homer escapes.

At the hospital, it is revealed "Homer Simpson" is the only thing Burns can say, suggesting his "accusation" may not have actually been one. Hoping to clear Homer's name, Lisa returns to the scene of the crime to investigate and discovers the identity of Burns's true assailant. At the same time, Homer arrives at the hospital to confront his boss. After a police bulletin reports Homer's location, the police, Lisa, and many other citizens of Springfield race to the hospital. Upon entering Burns's room, everyone finds an enraged Homer vigorously shaking Burns. This returns Burns's ability to speak normally, and he quickly asks who the person shaking him is. Apoplectic with fury at Burns again not remembering who he is, Homer aims Wiggum's gun at Burns's face, demanding he recant his accusations. Burns laughs at the idea and confirms Homer did not shoot him. He then reveals the true assailant: Maggie.

After leaving the town meeting, Burns came across Maggie eating a lollipop in the Simpsons' car. He decided to try stealing candy from a baby, but Maggie would not let go of the lollipop, resulting in a struggle. As he finally yanked it away, his gun slipped from its holster into Maggie's hands and fired at Burns. The gun and lollipop both fell beneath the car seat; Homer would later unknowingly leave fingerprints on the gun while feeling around under the seat for an ice cream cone he accidentally dropped. Lisa guesses that with his last strength Burns pointed to the "S" and "W" on the sundial (with the "W" appearing as an "M" from his perspective) to identify his assailant. Burns corrects her, saying that with his last strength he swallowed his gold fillings to prevent the paramedics from stealing them, the positions of his arms being purely coincidental.

Burns demands for Maggie to be arrested, but he is dismissed by Wiggum, who says no jury would convict a baby for a crime. Marge also adds the shooting must have been an accident, considering Maggie, being an infant, is very unlikely to know how to operate a gun. In the final shot, Maggie is shown with shifty eyes as she sucks her pacifier in a way that sounds like gunshots, implying that she shot her father's boss intentionally.

One of the most important clues shows Mr. Burns's arms pointing towards W and S on the sundial.[6]

A number of subtle clues, and a few red herrings, were planted in Part One for viewers who wanted to unravel the mystery.[6]

• 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.[6]
• Mr. Burns looks from his balcony and talks about stealing candy from a baby.[7]
• 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.[13]
• When Mr. Burns collapses on the sundial, he points at W and S, although from his viewpoint, the W looks like an M.[6]
• 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.[6]
  • Principal Skinner's full name is revealed to be "W. Seymour Skinner" on a diploma in his office.[6]
  • Smithers's full name is "Waylon Smithers."
  • Mr. Burns calls Santa's Little Helper the "Simpson Mutt".[6]
  • Moe's liquor license reveals that his full name is Moe Szyslak.[6]
  • Melvin Van Horne is known to everyone by his stage name "Sideshow Mel".
  • Grampa's gun is a Smith & Wesson.[14]
• Just before entering Mr. Burns's 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.[15]
• A television in Moe's Tavern shows that "Pardon My Zinger" is broadcast on weekdays at 3 p.m. on Comedy Central.[6] It is later revealed that Burns is shot at 3 p.m. Smithers reveals at the meeting that he never misses the show, and afterward is seen heading in the opposite direction that Burns heads.[6]
• During the scene at the town hall, several citizens are seen stroking guns: Smithers and an unidentified woman have revolvers, Moe has a shotgun, Skinner has a semi-automatic pistol with a suppressor attached, and Barney has a derringer. Snake arrives with a revolver.[6]
• Also during the town hall scene, Mr. Burns smugly asks the townspeople “Who here has the guts to stop me?”, followed by a panning shot of the townspeople glaring at Mr. Burns before each looking away in reluctance. During this shot, Maggie, at the bottom of the screen in Marge's arms, was the only one to continue glaring.
• As Mr. Burns collapses on the sundial, it is seen that the holster under his arm is empty. This was inserted as an intentional freeze frame clue to show that he had been shot with his own gun.[6]

Due to the amount of interest in the ending of this episode, David Mirkin wrote several "terrible endings" and, with just Harry Shearer, recorded several alternate endings.[7] His original intention was to fool the production staff and also leak the endings to various media outlets, but much to his surprise he was unsuccessful.[7] Several endings were animated that showed various characters shooting Mr. Burns.[9] Several of the alternate endings aired during the clip show "The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular". Various clips showed Barney, Tito, Moe, Apu, and even Santa's Little Helper as the gunmen. There was also a full-length conclusion that aired in which Smithers shot Burns and explained his doing so at Burns's bedside after Homer's wild chase, and fell on "W" and S" on the compass, Waylon's initials; Burns then decides to give Smithers a 5 percent pay cut for attempting to kill him.[16]