Yokel Chords

"Yokel Chords"
The Simpsons episode
Guest stars (from left) Andy Dick, James Patterson, Meg Ryan (as Dr. Swanson), Stephen Sondheim, and Peter Bogdanovich (as a psychologist)
Episode no.	392
Directed by	Susie Dietter
Written by	Michael Price
Showrunner(s)	Al Jean
Production code	JABF09
Original air date	March 4, 2007
Couch gag	The couch is replaced by a vending machine filled with some secondary characters (Apu, Selma, Mr. Burns, Smithers, etc) and the Simpson family. Ralph Wiggum selects C5 and a Homer figurine falls. Ralph retrieves his Homer figurine and bites its head off before leaving.
Guest appearance(s)
Meg Ryan as Dr. Swanson Andy Dick as himself James Patterson as himself Stephen Sondheim as himself Peter Bogdanovich as psychiatrist
Season 18 episodes September 10, 2006 – May 20, 2007 "The Mook, the Chef, the Wife and Her Homer" "Jazzy and the Pussycats" "Please Homer, Don't Hammer 'Em" "Treehouse of Horror XVII" "G.I. (Annoyed Grunt)" "Moe'N'a Lisa" "Ice Cream of Margie (with the Light Blue Hair)" "The Haw-Hawed Couple" "Kill Gil, Volumes I & II" "The Wife Aquatic" "Revenge Is a Dish Best Served Three Times" "Little Big Girl" "Springfield Up" "Yokel Chords" "Rome-Old and Juli-Eh" "Homerazzi" "Marge Gamer" "The Boys of Bummer" "Crook and Ladder" "Stop! Or My Dog Will Shoot" "24 Minutes" "You Kent Always Say What You Want"
Seasons
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

Meg Ryan as Dr. Swanson
Andy Dick as himself
James Patterson as himself
Stephen Sondheim as himself
Peter Bogdanovich as psychiatrist

"Yokel Chords" is the fourteenth episode of the eighteenth season of The Simpsons. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on March 4, 2007. It was written by Michael Price, and directed by Susie Dietter. Guest starring Meg Ryan as Dr. Swanson, Peter Bogdanovich as a psychiatrist and Andy Dick, James Patterson and Stephen Sondheim as themselves. This also marked the return of director Susie Dietter who had taken a hiatus to work on Futurama and the film Open Season. This was her first episode in nearly nine years. It won the 2008 Annie Award for Music in an Animated Television Production.

Marge oversleeps, and not having made the children's lunch for the day, Homer makes the lunches instead. Lisa gets a drawing of a sandwich, Bart gets Grandpa's medication, and even these are mixed up. Bart decides to scare an alternative lunch out of his friends by making up a story about a cannibal cafeteria worker named Dark Stanley, who killed all the students in the cafeteria and put them in his kids' head soup after repeatedly being taunted for not graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At lunchtime, Bart pretends to be killed by Dark Stanley, leading all of the students to run screaming into the woods while he takes their lunches. Groundskeeper Willie is sent to fetch them all back, but he brings seven extra kids who are Cletus's children. Their names are Whitney, Jitney, Dubya, Incest, Crystal Meth, International Harvester, and Birthday.Principal Skinner tells Superintendent Chalmers that the kids have been refused education in fear that they will lower test averages and cost the school federal funding (after SES has already lost state, county, and local funding), which Lisa overhears. To appease Lisa, Skinner and Chalmers appoint her tutor of the children.