When a young boy was found to have fallen down the town well, the great and good of the entertainment industry got together to write and release a song, the profits of which would go to help aid rescue efforts. Well, sort of. As Krusty the Clown explained to Kent Brockman in a news interview, “Those limos out back ain't free!” But although this might seem a harsh, even insensitive thing to say, it did display an open sense of honesty about where the actual proceeds of the charity single were going, an honesty which in other ventures of this kind has been somewhat lacking.
Well Wishers --- “We're sending our love down the well” --- 1991
Music and lyrics by Sting and Herschel Krustofski
The single was a gathering of a who's-who of the cream of Springfield talent: Krusty and Sting were the main instigators, and they were joined by Reinier Wolfcastle, Sideshow Mel, Mayor “Diamond” Joe Quimby, The Capital City Goofball, Troy McClure (you may remember him from such charity singles as ...), Bleeding Gums Murphy and, er, Doctor Marvin Monroe. The record, “We're sending our love down the well”, shot to number one on the back of both its celebrity appeal and the hope that sales of the song would help free the young boy.
Unfortunately, it later turned out that the whole “boy down the well”story was a hoax, perpetrated by Springfield bad boy, Bart Simpson, and when this was revealed sales of the single plummeted. In something of a twist of poetic justice, Simpson ended up himself trapped down the well, when he went to retrieve evidence which would have implicated him in the scam, but by then, well, nobody really cared any more. You couldn't blame them really: the “Lincoln Squirrel”
had been assassinated!