Bart the Genius
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| The Simpsons episode | |
| "Bart the Genius" | |
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|---|---|
| Promotional artwork for "Bart the Genius". | |
| Episode no. | 2 |
| Prod. code | 7G02 |
| Orig. Airdate | January 14, 1990 |
| Show Runner(s) | James L. Brooks Matt Groening Sam Simon |
| Written by | Jon Vitti |
| Directed by | David Silverman |
| Chalkboard | "I will not waste chalk" |
| DVD commentary by | Matt Groening James L. Brooks David Silverman Jon Vitti |
| SNPP capsule | |
| Season 1 December 17, 1989 – May 13, 1990 |
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| List of all Simpsons episodes... | |
"Bart the Genius" is the second full length episode of The Simpsons.
Contents |
[edit] Synopsis
Faced with the prospect of flunking an intelligence test, Bart switches exams with brainy Martin Prince. When psychiatrist, Dr. pryor studies the results, he identifies Bart as a genius, to the delight of Homer & Marge, who enroll Bart in a new school.
On his first day at the Enriched Learning Center for Gifted Children, Bart feels out of place among other students with advanced academic skills. At home, however, he enjoys the newfound attention Homer shows him. Hoping to stimulate her son with a little culture, Marge buys the family opera tickets.
Ostracized by his genius classmates, Bart visits his old school, where he is rejected by his friends and labelled a "poindexter."When Bart's science project explodes and nearly destroys his new school, he confesses to Dr. Pryor that Martin Prince is the real genius. Bart returns home and tells Homer that he switched tests, and although it was a stupid thing to do, he is glad that they are now closer together. An irate Homer chases Bart through the house.
[edit] The family Scrabble game
- When the family is playing Scrabble, Homer has difficulty making a word with his letters, which spell out "oxidize". He decides to make the word "do". Homer does not know the meaning of oxidize, or that it is the highest possible score to be obtained from randomly having seven letters drawn in Scrabble.
- Bart introduces the word "Kwyjibo" in this episode, meaning, according to him, "Uh... a big, dumb, balding North American ape. With no chin." of which Marge added "And a short temper."
[edit] Trivia
- The episode marks the first appearance of:
- Martin Prince
- Edna Krabappel
- Rainier Wolfcastle
- Dr. J. Loren Pryor
- Richard
- First Time Bart Says "Eat My Shorts"
And various background students
- Maggie spells out EMCSQU (E=MC²)on her blocks at the beginning
- Books on the shelf in Bart's new advanced school classroom include Crime & Punishment, Babylonian Myths, Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, Plato, Dante's Inferno, The Illiad, Design of Computers, Astrophysics, Wana by Emile Zola, Puskin, Shakespeare I-XV, Quantum Mechanics, and the Life of Leonardo.
- The work of Sigmund Freud is mentioned when the class discusses paradoxes, as is the quote, "If you want peace, you must prepare for war," attributed to Roman military writer Flavius Vegetius Renatus.
- Albert Einstein is referenced repeatedly in this episode. There is a picture of Bart on the wall opposite one of Einstein in Dr. Pryor's office, under which Dr. Pryor says "It doesn't take a Bart Simpson to figure out that something's wrong." Later in the episode, Homer consoles Bart by saying, "I bet Einstein turned himself all sorts of colors before he invented the light bulb." Thomas Edison, famous to Americans as the inventor of the light bulb, would later become a fascination of Homer's in the episode "The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace".
- The Simpsons attend the opera "Carmen", advertised as "Tonight Only in Russian."
- On the opera poster, the conductor is identified as Boris Csuposki, a play on the name of producer and supervising animation director Gabor Csupo.
[edit] Series development
As the second episode produced on the show after the disastrous animation of "Some Enchanted Evening", the future of the series depended on how the animation turned out on this episode. The vast majority of the footage turned out to be of acceptable quality, with only a few sequences needing to be redone (these were overseen by Cullen Blaine, as David Silverman had moved on to other episodes). This is the first episode where Bart uses his soon to be famous catch phrase "eat my shorts".
[edit] External links
