The Longest Daycare

[8/10] This short isn’t really funny exactly, but it’s very cute and charming, which counts just as much. There’s some more expressive and ambitious animation than in the average *Simpsons* episode, and it’s fun to see Maggie once again the star of these bits as she often was in the Tracy Ullman shorts that spawned *The Simpsons*. The music is well done (and Pixar-esque), and the twist with the butterfly is very clever. I also like how the return to the Ayn Rand School for Tots returns to one of Groening’s original hobby horses with *The Simpsons*, namely kids having to deal with a stratified and unhelpful system. There aren't’ a ton of laughs in all of this, but turning Maggie into a silent film star still makes this one of the show’s great artistic achievements in its post-classic years.