1x05 - Bart the General

Here's the first episode of The Simpsons that I think of as a true parody. While rewatching it, I was actually surprised by how little of the episode is devoted to the war on Nelson - it's really just that third act. There's lots of setup to the war, and it gets overshadowed in my memory due to the fact that the war itself is so over the top. Some of that setup is good and gives us new character interactions, while other scenes are just rehashes of bits that have been done before.

In this episode, we finally got a little more interaction between Bart and Lisa. So far, the two have only been in a handful of scenes together, and they mostly consist of Bart annoying Lisa. Granted, Bart is still a huge pain in the ass, but there is a little more depth to the relationship in this episode. Most obviously, Bart puts himself in physical danger to protect Lisa. That's a little unexpected given how antagonistic Bart has been towards Lisa throughout the entire series. But then again, we've seen that Bart isn't adverse to causing trouble at school and actually does care what his family thinks about him (baseball with Homer in Bart the Genius). For me, it's not too much of a stretch, and it's another necessary piece of Bart that makes him more than the slacker class clown. I also really love how Lisa sticks up for herself in the episode. She takes Bart's sass and is able to give it back to him just as easily; she seems incredibly confident in herself (remember this for the next episode...). That one scene on the bus gives you the sense that Bart and Lisa are actually friends; they might not always want to, but they are capable of spending time together and enjoying each others company.

Homer's advice in this episode was also very descriptive of his character. In two separate occasions, Homer essentially tells Bart that you need to take whatever steps you can to succeed. Whether that's sucking up to the teacher by making cupcakes or going after the "family jewels", Homer wants Bart to use whatever he can to get a leg up. This is, once again, somewhat unorthodox advice for the hero of a television show to be giving, and I think it it meant to be taken as a joke to some degree. But at the same time it is realistic and practical. I have no trouble believing that Homer actually does this in his day to day life.

Lastly, we have the war parody. It's not the best of the series, but for the first attempt at a genre parody, I think they do a pretty good job (in fact, I think the show does a good job with just about every genre parody). The preparation montage was a little bit long, but that's my only real complaint. I love the resolution to the war with creepy Herman (more on him in a second...) writing the treaty, and then Marge breaking the mood by being a mom.

Springfield characters:

Nelson - This is the scariest and most intimidating Nelson will ever be in the show. I think once more bullies get introduced, the writers can spread around the nastiness a little bit more.

Grandpa - Grandpa's introduction to the show as an angry old coot is amazing. His angry letter to generic "advertizes" is hands down the funniest segment of the series so far. Especially with the callback to the family jewels. As the show goes on, Grandpa becomes half angry/half senile. He is relatively sane this episode, and while I love him here, I'm also looking forward to senile Grandpa

Jasper - It would be hard for me to define what role Jasper fills in the show. He's basically Grandpa's Milhouse. There needs to be a couple familiar faces in the nursing home, so Jasper ends up filling that slot most of the time. I guess he's often very grumpy. It's funny how he's introduced as a bully because that definitely does not continue.

Herman - For me, Herman represents everything that is weird and off-putting about the first couple seasons of the show. He's way to intense and way too creepy to be introduced this early. He appears a couple of times in the first few seasons and then disappears entirely. It's hard for me to articulate what's so off about him, but, to me, he feels the least Sprinfieldian of all the character in the show - he feels very out of place. I think the writers felt this too and quickly got rid of him.


Other things I liked:

Bart has a couple more daydreams in class. They did this earlier in the season with Bart's terrifying math problem. I think the animators were flexing the muscles. These sequences must have been somewhat impressive for the time.

The death from above happy birthday balloons always make me laugh

Skinner remains blissfully unaware and lame. "No, no, no, he'll get you after school, son" and "There's learning afoot" are both great lines

The show breaks the fourth wall for the first time with Bart's PSA at the end of the episode. They do this several times over the course of the show (most memorably to "warn" the viewers about upcoming Halloween episodes)


This was the most unique episode so far. It had a fairly basic plot, but was fun to watch, and had some good lines. If Herman wasn't in it, I would probably rate it higher

5.5/10

edit - I forgot about "You made me bleed my own blood!" This is the first quote of the series that I overuse in real life.