Oh... that was uneven. The flow of the plot (what was it really about?), the silly gags... not nuts about it. I would tend to take 5F22 (Bart the Mother) or 7F14 (Bart's Dog Gets an F) separately. On the plus side, I did rather enjoy Homer's scary story at the start, Bart's pranking the town with the carrier pigeon (though how did it know where to go?), and the poem on the tombstone. But then... pigeon lifting Bart off the ground, chicken wire putting itself away, Milhouse's eyes behind the fence... those were some small doses of annoyance.
DYN: ...the TV is falling off the wall in the opening again? (boo) ...Nelson seems to have no problem being in the choir with the geeks? ...the very end, with the ostrich coming back to life, has a certain Family-Guy-giant-chicken vibe?
Previous episode stuff (including a lot of pretty tangentially related ones) 5F22: Bart takes care of a bird (egg) in similar ways; Bart/SLH kill a bird... DABF05: Homer and ostrich standoff NABF01: Opening sequence flyby has similar Fox News helicopter to the one that started the episode last week DABF11: Sarcastic man's birds that won't leave him alone a bit like the crows here 5F13: Carrier pigeon message to Burns reminds me of the "rocket in my pocket" note MABF09: Sleeping Beauty ballet heard FABF04: Pigeon funeral like Snowball II's (or III's, or whatever) 3G02: When Skinner mentions Bart being "sad" at school, it reminded me of his "art" 7F23: Lisa figures there's a German word for being sorry for and hating someone at the same time; it's not Schadenfreude, but it has a similar feeling
Also... When Bart has the pigeon on a leash while getting it to fly again, it reminded me of a similar time when he and Milhouse had a little fly on a string. I think it's EABF16 (The Bart of War) and I can't be 100% sure... but a quick internet search seems to back me up.
And... a new name in the Also Starring list is Gregg Berger. Animation fans may recall him as the voice of Cornfed Pig on Duckman. I'm not sure what he was doing here, but one thought that comes to mind is dog noises, since Frank Welker hasn't been doing the show, and that sounds too real for Dan's usual impressions.
Oh, and I taped the movie's premiere, I'll get around to looking for cuts and stuff later. It's probably fairly predictable.