Homer, Bart and Lisa do grocery shopping when Marge takes Maggie to the emergency room after the baby swallows an issue of Time Magazine. When Homer enters the check-out line, he has words with the bag boy, who, tired of feeling put-upon, calls for a strike. The strike cuts off the food supply, and soon after, residents throughout Springfield start to go hungry. Santa’s Little Helper senses food somewhere in the attic. Homer follows, and soon retrieves a lunchbox containing animal crackers manufactured in the 1960s. One of the crackers turns out to be made of gold. Homer realizes it was part of a contest sponsored by the cracker manufacturer all those years earlier.

Homer visits the manufacturer and demands his prize: trip to Africa. Executives balk at the idea of honoring the contest, which ended some thirty years earlier. But when Homer accidentally injures himself with a cracker box, they fear a lawsuit and have a change of heart. When Homer returns home, he announces the family is going to Africa.

When the Simpsons land, they are greeted by their guide, Kitenge. The group makes its way through an African city before ending up at a comfortable tree house in a wilderness area. The next morning, the family sets off in a safari vehicle for a journey to the Ngorongoro Wildlife Preserve, where they encounter a baby rhino, a giraffe, a cheetah and a herd of cocker spaniels. During the trip, Kitenge suddenly slams on the brakes and points to a sinister-looking black jeep. The Simpsons watch as poachers load a leopard onto their vehicle.

Later, the family views a fossil skeleton at an archaeological site and drink blood with Masai tribesmen. As the Simpsons dance with villagers, Homer accidentally plays a hippo’s posterior like a drum, enraging it. The angered beast chases Homer. Kitenge jumps onto its back and tells the Simpsons to run. Thinking quickly, Homer launches a large ceremonial shield into a nearby river. He and his family board the makeshift raft and drift into a dark and foreboding area.

Alone in the jungle and adrift, the family encounters fearsome-looking Bantus. Homer throws a spear at them, which clatters harmlessly off a Bantu’s knee. The raft then drifts over Victoria Falls, where it is gobbled up by a carnivorous plant. Homer tears through the flower, and he and his family make their way out into the jungle. There, chimpanzees lead the family to Joan Bushwell ’s Chimp Refuge. Bushwell takes them in.

Later, the poachers appear at the compound’s front gate and demand all the chimps. Bushwell refuses to turn them over, and soon after, Homer and Bart lob Molotov cocktails (made of coconuts) at the poachers, driving them back. As Lisa grapples with one of the poachers, the man’s jacket gets yanked open, exposing a T-shirt that reads “Greenpeace.” It turns out that the poachers are really animal rights activists, and that Bushwell is using chimps as slave labor in a diamond mind. Bushwell admits her solitary work caused her mind to snap. When Marge promises to find her help, Bushwell pleads not to be institutionalized and offers everyone handfuls of diamonds. Later, the Simpons fly back home with large piles of diamonds in their laps.