Bart is banned by detective Don Brodka from a Try-N-Save store after attempting to steal a game called Bonestorm. Despite his best efforts to keep this secret from everyone, he admits his crime after being confronted a second time by Don Brodka, breaking Marge.

Guest starring Lawrence Tierney as the Try-N-Save store detective and former US marine, Don Brodka. According to the commentary, dealing with Tierney was a nightmare. Tierney was also banned from Hollywood, which apparently stated how unreasonably rough he was – even more than the original voice for Popeye in the early 30s. I read up on some of his issues and lot of his barbaric behavior was associated with alcohol abuse, potentially what led up to his death at around 83 years old.

This episode is a retelling of an actual incident that happened to the writer (Mike Scully) when he got busted for shoplifting out of peer pressure in the late 1960s. Had I gone into writing for cartoons I’d do a retelling of this only this time

Prior to the Simpsons, there was a Tracy Ullman short titled Shoplifting where Bart tried to steal a bunch of candy bars. This was back when the Simpsons characters were in the “show and see what happens” phase.

The games seen in the Try-N-Save look like Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) games.

Bart is convinced to swiping Bonestorm by Mario, Luigi, Donkey Kong, and Sonic.

Try-N-Save’s name sounds similar to the defunct budget grocery store chain Shop ‘n Save, one of multiple local chains in the St. Louis area – Dierbergs and especially Schnucks ate up the competition, and I’m not exactly sure what replaced the Shop ‘n Save in Festus, which was the only one I can think of. However unlike Shop ‘n Save, Try-N-Save appears to be more of a supercenter similar to Target or Walmart.

One of the main reasons why Don Brodka is more of an outcast in the Simpsons universe is due to his personality, much like Frank Grimes. Doesn’t mean they’re bad characters; they’re just more unique.

This one’s somewhat of a fusion of Itchy and Scratchy the Movie and Marge in Chains (both from Season 4) given Bart getting punished and a Simpson caught shoplifting – although in Marge’s case she didn’t actually shoplift, just forgot to pay for something.

Brodka doesn’t seem like he’s in good health. He’s got quite a lot of weight on him especially seen to the image on the right (hell even more than Homer who clocks in typically around 260-300 pounds) probably from unhealthy eating – getting around to his age of presumably 50-65 from what I heard you will gain weight much easier than if you were 25-49; unfortunately that’s just part of getting older. Also given his tobacco usage I’d be surprised if he wasn’t having heart issues.

A lot of people think Brodka’s exceedingly cruel, but he’s just doing his job and following orders. Less we not forget that Brodka probably didn’t know about Nelson and Jimbo; he was probably distracted by something else since those two are much more tougher to get a hold of.

Exactly how did Bart get allowed to go back into Try-N-Save? I want to say that he went to a different one, but the episode doesn’t say that. Maybe he decided to work off the damages with the manager and not Brodka? Some people say that Bart had a talk with the managers or even Don Brodka himself and said he just needed to take a photo and might’ve also tipped off Nelson and Jimbo. Who knows.

“It’s the company’s fault for making you want it so much” could easy be a catchphrase for beers. Just saying.