"D'oh!" "Okay." "Next question." "Yes." "Will there be another Simpsons movie?" "♪ The Simpsons 25x22 ♪ The Yellow Badge of Cowardge Original Air Date on May 18, 2014 Our Lord, Buddha, says," ""The secret of existence is to pass beyond fear."" "My brother is about to meet fear... and as usual... he won't pass." "Wake up, Lis!" "It's the last day of school!" "Wake up, Maggs!" "It's the last day of school!" "Last day of school!" "Last day of school!" "Found my summer hobby!" "Banging pots together!" "Don't worry, Marge." "As a favor to you," "I'm enrolling that precious little jerk in this fresh air summer camp." "That's a prison road crew." "I did that last summer." "I'm not allowed back." "Good-bye forever, multiplication!" "Uh... needs more numerators." "Ah, "July 4th..."" "What the...?" "No fireworks?" "!" "Can't this stupid city entertain me one night a year?" "!" "The city's broke." "The fire department has to raise money by delivering pizza." "My baby!" "Back ribs!" "Marge, when you're broke, that's when you got to keep up appearances." "The Fourth of July is the one day a year when our city puts on her high heels and tube top and leans into America's car window." "God bless her." "The last day of school." "Field Day." "When you learn to balance an egg on a spoon and run with your leg tied to someone who wouldn't talk to you all year." "Hey!" "Are you coming to the after-school pool party?" "Not now." "Aw... no fair!" "He actually has three legs." "You lay off my son Tripod!" "He won fair and square, just like my twins Wheel and Barrow." "Now, take you brother to the face painting." "But don't make yourselves up to look all freaky." "One, two, three, toss." "The eggs are supposed to be tossed between students, not at the principal." "Once more and hurl!" "Aah!" "We will do this until we get it right." "Look, do you want this to be your last school memory?" "Pull harder!" "What is wrong with you people?" "!" "Hey." "I have thumbs, too." "I like the Play-Doh that comes out the back." "See you next June, Macaroni." "And now the climactic Race around the School." "Previous winners include" "Sideshow Mel," "Señora Bumblebee Man and Olympian Edwin Moses." "I'll bet your biggest hurdle was leaving your beloved hometown." "All hurdles are the same size." "Man... who is this loser?" "I've got a secret, Bart." "That's good." "Want to know what it is?" "No." "My secret is" "I've been training for this race and no one suspects." "Check it out:" "I'm wearing a dummy tummy." "I'm gonna win and it'll change my life!" "Wow!" "Breaking that tape cured your asthma." "Marvelous!" "Ha-ha-ha!" "Six on Bart Simpson." "Two on us to win." "$20 on Milhouse." "Milhouse?" "!" "That's a thousand-to-one odds." "Perhaps I should take my action to Willie." "I ain't makin' book no more." "I lost the deed to my shack!" "You are late with the rent, Willie." "I'll have it by Friday, Mr. U." "I swear." "We can handle your action." "Betting is now closed." "And now, the 79th running of the Race around the School." "Gun in the school!" "What the...?" "Just, just go." "And they're off!" "We've got a pack of fifth-graders on the rail," "Simp-son holding down the center while Database and Cosine are still testing the wind speed." "As the runners go into the first turn," "Lewis is in the lead!" "Followed by Lovejoy's daughter," "Fat Tony's nephew," "Brockman's little girl and Jailbird's kid!" "The Frank Sinatra kid... well, he's doing it his way!" "Rounding out the pack are all the kids that we never see." "What's this?" "Milhouse takes the lead?" "The same boy who sprained his shoulder doing the Pledge of Allegiance?" "Uh-oh!" "If Milhouse wins this race, we're out a fortune." "Don't worry." "The race takes a turn through the trees where no one can see." "When Milhouse gets there, you know what to do." "Oh, yeah." "Totally." "I mean, it's so obvious." "Just punch him!" "Exactly." "Right in the nnn..." "fff... dee...?" "There is no wrong answer!" "And Milhouse, the boy nobody loves, is widening his lead!" "And what does he have to jump over?" "Nothing, that's what." "I'm out of here." "Good job, Edwin." "I'm doing it!" "I'm doing it!" "And when I win, I'm changing my name." "To something cool like Winnie!" "Did you come to give me a cup of water?" "The best day of my life just turned into every other day of my life." "Bart faced a terrible choice-- take a beating with his friend or slither off like a coward." "And like he did with every multiple choice question he ever saw, Bart chose "B."" "The winner is Bart Simpson!" "Bart won a blue ribbon." "But was it worth it?" "Lisa!" "Bath time!" "Mom!" "I'm narrating!" "The water's gonna get cold!" "Fine." "As the pin on the back of the blue ribbon made its way through Bart's shirt and into its housing, the seeds of his comeuppance flew out of the woods." "Son!" "What happened to you in the dark place behind the school?" "Something good?" "I'm afraid I don't remember." "Whew." "Well, it looks like Milhouse has traumatic amnesia." "He may never remember what happened to him." "The most important thing is, the race results are now official." "Now I've got to look at some severe cases of ice cream headache." "Help me, Bart!" "Help me, Bart!" "Help me, Bart!" "Why am I having nightmares?" "I'm no coward." "A chicken feather?" "Why would you hand this to me?" "Oh, you must've figured out" "I chickened out during the race." "Well, who are you to judge me?" "I suck?" "You suck!" "While Bart was being outwitted by a baby, something was coming to a boil in our pop's brainpan." "Marge, if this stupid, one-reactor town won't put on a fireworks show, I will." "I've mapped it out." "Hmm?" "Maybe we should just light sparklers in the backyard." "Eh, I've had my problems with sparklers." "Fun!" "Fun!" "Fun!" "Fun!" "Fun!" "Fun!" "Fun!" "Fun!" "But Fourth of July fireworks were a different story." "They meant more to my dad than my Mom could ever know." "It was the one night of every year that he couldn't hear his parents argue." "He figured it was because they loved the fireworks just as much as he did." "I want to take a class!" "Why can't you be happy ironing my shirts?" "!" "I need space!" "Then close your eyes and go to Hawaii!" "With his mom gone, Homer needed a hero, and no one was a bigger hero than the magical little man behind the controls." "Are you God?" "No, no." "But I shoot rockets into his a-face." "Here's-a my card." "Don't forget to treasure it." "Hmm." "Now let's see." "Which pants have that card?" "Board shorts, interested shorts." "Here we are." "Kaboom." "Giuseppe, I want you to come out of retirement for the greatest fireworks show of your career." "Why do you come here and remind me of a time in my life when I made a-tons of money doing a-what I love?" "If the Expendables movies have taught us anything, it's that people do their best work after they're old and forgotten." "Well, I am younger than Sylvester Stallone." "I will do it!" "Hey, buddy." "Bart, my truest friend." "I brought you a cake." "Read it." "That's an odd message." "But who am I to argue with icing?" "Will you watch Cassidy the Crocodile with me?" "Um, that's kind of a baby show." "It's all I can handle now." "Henrietta Kitten?" "Will you marry me?" "Meow, meow, maybe." "Why would a kitten marry a crocodile?" "Wouldn't it eat her?" "Suspension of disbelief." "Friends help friends in trouble." "No!" "Turn it off!" "It's too intense for me!" "Some guys just can't handle crocodiles." "Is it over yet?" "And if you're dissatisfied for any reason," "I will refund your money in the form of acorns." "Hey, this gunpowder, it has a-crystal meth in it." "Crystal meth?" "Then what the heck did I sell to them Colombian drug lords?" "Brandine!" "We're feuding with the Escobars again!" "Does that mean I ain't talking to Maria?" "Duh!" "Yes." "Homer, we will get the fireworks someplace else." "The pig's been eating the C-4 blocks again!" "We've invited a new athlete to join our do-gooding dream team." "Please welcome fleet-footed phenom, Bart Simpson." "Hey, everyone." "I sure got a lot of attention for winning this year's Race around the School." "Completely deserved!" "Yeah, yeah." "Thank you, Mel." "But I am not here to talk about myself." "Milhouse, would you join me at the podium?" "What's going on?" "Seriously, what-what's transpiring?" "I've got to set things straight." "During that same race, my friend Milhouse was in the lead, when something horrible happened!" "Bart knew the worst thing to do was pile lie upon lie." "And that's exactly what he did." "Rather than try to figure out what happened," "Milhouse had the courage to move on." "To me, that's a hero." "Nicely done." "Now we will give out free rubber bracelets." "Do not wear them to bed." "They smell like truck tires." "They're disgusting." "Crotch or forehead?" "Uh, forehead for once." "Wha...?" "Bart Simpson!" "You ran away when I was getting beat up!" "Bart's a coward!" "He lied to us!" "Stop the tattoo!" "Uh, I could make it a bag of groceries." "All right, make sure there's some French bread sticking out." "Ow." "Ow." "Ow." "Ow!" "Look how he runs now!" "So Bart was revealed as a coward." "And now it seemed like the whole world was against him." "Have you ever considered a reverse-equity mortgage?" "That's what put me in this dump!" "Grampa, everyone's calling me a coward." "Well, join the club." "Anyone who makes it to old age has got to be part-coward." "Come on, you were in World War II." "Do you know how I survived D-Day?" "Don't worry-- just a day at the beach." "I'll be back around 1946!" "But don't people hate cowards?" "Sure do." "But we outlive the brave." "Leaving us cowards to make time with the heroes' widows." "After Korea, I was drowning in boobies." "Wow, that sounds pretty sweet." "Well, there is a price." "Do you wake up sweating in the middle of the night?" "Yes." "So do I." "But I get back to sleep by counting the men I let down." "There's Jerry, Izzy, Brooklyn, the O'Donnell boys, the lost ship PT-108, the Poor Buggers of Meatloaf Ridge, the Andrew sisters..." "I understand." "You have standards." "This is an angry sleepover." "I'm only doing it 'cause it was on the books." "LISA While Bart was in hell," "Homer was happily surrounded by fire and brimstone." "Okay, let's make some fireworks." "Now drive slowly and a-carefully to my workshop." "It's in-a the Cobblestone a-District." "Oh, thank God-- a rickety bridge." "Don't worry." "We'll be safe in the Gas a-Lamp a-District." "Can I pitch something?" "Go ahead." "Boom!" "Biddy bom-bom boom!" "Biddy bom bow!" "Ba-dip-boo!" "Boom!" "Boom!" "That's-a nice." "♪ Sometimes when we touch ♪" "♪ The honesty's too much... ♪" "Wrong holiday, Charlie Brown." "Yoink." "Ha-haw!" "We're on it, ma'am!" "Okay, coarse gunpowder, get the ball in there, don't forget the wadding, tamp, tamp, tamp, fine gunpowder in the pan, firing stance, take careful aim and..." "Uh, yeah, not enough tamping, Chief." "Coarse gunpowder, ball, wadding, tamp, tamp, tamp, tamp, tamp, tamp, fine gunpowder in the pan." "Come on..." "Aw, my boy's having a bad night." "We should get this show on the road." "No, the time is not yet right." "When they look at their watches and mutter," ""Hey, when are these a-jerks going to a-start?"" "That's when they're ready to be enchanted." "Come on, let's go!" "I can't stand to see my family unhappy on America's holiest day." "Actually, July 2 is when congress declared independence, the date that-a should be celebrated." "Hey, Super Mario." "Don't you tell me about America!" "Idiot!" "I'm-a right!" "No, you're a-wrong!" ""July 2"-- I am quoting John Adams!" "Who the hell is that?" "Oh, dear." "The term "target audience"" "is taking on a sinister connotation." "Milhouse, this is my chance to make things right." "What are you up to now?" "Get on that bus!" "I'll explain during the explosions!" "Don't a-panic!" "We'll be okay as long as the sequence doesn't a-start." "Hit Bart's dad in the butt!" "Roger that." "Did you factor in the wind?" "No." "♪ Sometimes when we touch. ♪" "♪ The honesty's too much... ♪" "Don't worry, boys!" "I'll be with you all the way to Berlin." "So, who is our hero?" "I hope it's Carl." "Nah, no such luck." "I was just Tweeting a picture of what I thought was my last meal." "Hot dog and French fries!" "Milhouse is our unlikely savior!" "Quit explaining everything, let him talk." "Well, it wasn't me." "It was Bart who..." "Saw everything you did." "Milhouse is the hero." "Take it from me, the boy who's lied throughout." "Milhouse!" "Milhouse!" "Oh, I get it now." "Thanks, Bart." "So Milhouse got the redemption he deserved, and so, in a way, did Bart." "Coward!" "Coward!" "Coward!" "Which meant that, at long last, my brother could get a good night's sleep." "Oh, enough doom and gloom!" "Look, Maggie, I undid my deed." "So I'm just gonna take your feather and say good night." "Oh, where are these coming from?" "Oh, I see." "That's all you wanted." "How's that, kiddo?" "Encoded by NIT158 BYE Simpsons Fans" "♪ Sometimes when we touch ♪" "♪ The honesty, she's-a too much ♪" "♪ And I have to close my eyes and hide ♪" "♪ I wanna hold you till I die... ♪" "One more year, tops." "I live-a longer than you." "I take a senior spin class." "Always I'm increasing the tension." "Then, burn on you 'cause you'll be holding onto a dead guy." "♪ I wanna hold you ♪" "♪ A-till the fear in me subsides... ♪" "Believe me, if you're holding onto a 300-pound dead guy, fear is not gonna be your problem." "Congratulations, you have ruined a beautiful song." "It's a song?" "I thought we were just riffing." "I apologize to Dan Hill and all of our viewers." "I don't!" "Shh!" "Usher, will you stop that person who's shushing?"