Original air date: 5/4/2003
Production code: EABF-14
After getting branded a coward by Homer during a treehouse fire, Santa's Little Helper becomes a commercial celebrity, and the owner who abandoned Santa's Little Helper on the Christmas Episode "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire" returns to retrieve his meal ticket.
Tropes:
- Adolf Hitlarious: A Rin Tin Tin episode features the titular dog attacking Adolf Hitler.
- Anachronism Stew: The Rin Tin Tin episode shows him fighting in World War II and biting Adolf Hitler on the butt. Rin Tin Tin was a real animal actor who appeared in 27 films, but died in 1932, well before the start of World War II.
- Bait-and-Switch: When Homer looks for some new lumber to rebuild Bart's treehouse, he and Bart pass by the lumberyard. When Bart asks Homer why he did that, Homer tells him that only losers buy lumber, and he's going to get free wood from nature's lumberyard as he pulls into a forest, implying he's going to chop down trees to make wood. In the next scene, it's revealed that he and Bart are stealing railroad ties from a train track.
- Batman Gambit: The family's plan for getting Santa's Little Helper back from his former owner and the Duff Beer company relies on publicly staging a setup for a heroic canine rescue, knowing that he'll be too scared to go through with it and won't be attractive as a mascot anymore because of it.
- Big Damn Heroes: Marge's attempt to rescue Homer is negated when the rope ladder burns away, while Snowball II plays the trope straight.
- Blasphemous Boast: Homer promises to build Bart a new treehouse "so grand, it'll be an affront to God Himself."Bart: Can it have a rope ladder you can pull up after you?Homer: Only if it's an affront to God.
- Call-Back: The man who abandoned Santa's Little Helper way back in the first episode returns here to reclaim him after the pooch becomes famous.
- Continuity Nod: Homer has a list ranking all of his family members. Ranked dead last? His Vegas wife.
- Continuity Snarl: Officially, Snowball II is female, but she's constantly referred to with masculine pronouns in the episode.
- Dirty Coward: How Homer views Santa's Little Helper after abandoning him in the treehouse fire.
- Holding Out for a Hero: All the townspeople are too busy shaming Santa's Little Helper for not saving Homer to actually bother going in themselves.
- Hope Spot: After getting left for dead in the fire, Homer sees Santa's Little Helper come back in, thinking he's come to save him. Instead, Santa's Little Helper only came back to pull out the roast chicken from the fire to eat and once again abandoned Homer.
- Hypocritical Humor: Immediately after Moe says he doesn't want Santa's Little Helper in his bar for being "unsanitary", he praises Snowball II for sitting in a plate of food.
- I Can Change My Beloved: The Duff executives agree to make Duff McShark the new company mascot because they believe men will want to be him and women will think they can change him.
- I Have No Son!: Or rather I Have No Dog. Homer pays dearly for saying that. As in losing the money Santa's Little Helper got as a celebrity. It's never shown if the original owner got Homer's money or if Duff simply kept it.
- In-Universe Nickname: When the family sees Bart's second treehouse on fire, Marge makes sure everyone is together:Marge: Family head count — Pointy (Lisa), Pointy (Maggie), Spiky (Bart), Stylish (herself)...
(Marge, feeling no other head, gasps)
Marge: Where's Baldy (Homer)? - Jerkass: After being saved by Snowball II, Homer starts abusing Santa's Little Helper horribly and is more than willing to have him be taken by his original owner. He does regret it. At the end of the episode, though, he starts criticizing Snowball II for not doing anything after she saved him, only for Marge to point out she woke Homer up when he stopped breathing. Then Homer blames the cat again for eating the last can of tuna...which Homer had eaten.Homer: Everyone's against me.
- Jerkass Realization: Once Santa's Little Helper is taken away and Bart breaks down in tears, Homer finally realizes how awful he's been.
- Kick the Dog: Literally. Homer abuses Santa's Little Helper and lets him get taken away by his old owner.
- A Lesson Learned Too Well: In order to teach SLH how to be brave, Bart and Lisa show him a tape of Rin Tin Tin attacking Adolf Hitler. SLH ends up attacking a mailman with a Hitler-like mustache.
- Lovable Coward: Santa's Little Helper.Homer: He may have been a dirty, stinking coward, but show me a Simpson that isn't!
- My God, What Have I Done?: Homer is wracked with remorse after he breaks Bart's heart by giving Santa's Little Helper back to his original owner.
- Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: Despite mentioning Frank Lloyd Wright's name, Homer has actually never heard of him.
- Pun-Based Title: The title of the episode is a combination of "Old Yeller" (a fictional dog) and "yellow belly" (slang for "coward").
- Shout-Out:
- Santa's Little Helper watches an episode of Rin Tin Tin on TV.
- When about to be attacked by a great white shark, Homer asks himself "How did that beautiful naked lady in Jaws make it out alive?!"
- Take That!:
- Kent Brockman assumes that Homer, being a cat person, must really love the musical Cats. Homer replies, "God no, it sucks".
- Luigi offers to feed Snowball a lasagna, "just like-a the cat in the funny papers who's-a not so funny."
- When Lisa questions why Suds McDuff has human girlfriends in a Duff Beer commercials, Marge replies that "people do strange things all the time in ads, like eat Arby's".
- Threatening Shark: While pretending he's drowning in the ocean so that Duffman can "save" him and become the mascot of Duff beer again, a shark attacks Homer. However, it misses him and ends up biting down on the Duff-brand keg of beer, getting drunk and prompting Duff Beer to proclaim the shark as their new mascot, dubbed Duff McShark.
- Undying Loyalty: Bart is the only one who sticks by Santa's Little Helper's side when Homer keeps shaming and abusing him.
- Ungrateful Bastard: Homer briefly becomes attached to Snowball II after she saves his life but has fully lost interest in her again by the end of the episode, even though we learn that she saved his life a second time in the interim.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: When Homer and Bart witness a train spinning and flying in the air - and landing on its wheels - Homer has this line of dialogue:Homer: Nothing beats flying across the country on a train.
(Bart looks at Homer as he smiles) - What the Hell, Hero?: Bart is none too pleased with how his father treats Santa's Little Helper after calling him a coward. To be fair, he left Homer to die to save himself, only coming back to grab the turkey to eat.
