"Them, Robot" is the seventeenth episode of the
twenty-third season of the American animated television series ''
The Simpsons''. It originally aired on the
Fox network in the United States on March 18, 2012.
Plot
After
Mr. Burns
Charles Montgomery Plantagenet Schicklgruber "Monty" Burns, usually referred to as Mr. Burns, Monty, or C. Montgomery Burns, is a recurring character and the main antagonist of the animated television series ''The Simpsons'', voiced initially by ...
' lawyer tells him that drug tests for the plant workers are costing him money,
Smithers proposes to replace the employees with robots in order to cut costs. Mr. Burns fires all of his employees, but Smithers insists that Burns retain one human worker to perform maintenance and to serve as a possible scapegoat.
Homer becomes the lucky employee, after bursting into Burns' office to thank him for years of service and to criticize him for being cruel to his fellow man. With everyone else at the plant out of work (including Smithers), the town suffers from a 99% unemployment rate.
Homer tries to socialize with the robots, only to be electrically shocked by one who does not understand his "Working hard or hardly working?" joke. Homer steals Mr. Burns' robot manual to change the robot workers' personalities and give them human emotions, and to program them to play
baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding ...
with him and
Bart. During the baseball game, one robot hits the ball out of bounds. Homer runs backwards into the street to catch it, not noticing that there is a
truck approaching. A robot saves his life by walking in front of the truck, then several more robots walk onto the road in front of oncoming cars and trucks. At the robot funeral, Homer tries to propose a toast. But one robot states that the
Three Laws of Robotics demands that robots must protect humans; because alcohol is bad for human health, the robot takes away Homer's beer. Annoyed by this, Homer borrows
Flanders' drill and gives them "robot lobotomies", but this reprograms the robots to "eliminate all impediments to the plant" by killing Homer.
Homer runs to Mr. Burns' mansion for help, but Mr. Burns makes things worse by releasing his
hounds on the robots. One robot easily flings one of the hounds a great distance. The other hounds retreat in fear. When Mr. Burns insults them, the slighted hounds become angry and join the robots. They chase Burns and Homer, who hide inside Mr. Burns'