Bart the Genius

] This idea was based on an incident from Vitti's childhood when a number of his classmates did not take an intelligence test seriously and suffered poor academic treatment because of it. Because Bart was already obviously unintelligent, Vitti reversed the problem for his episode.Jankiewicz, Pat. "Jon Vitti." "Comic Scene" #17, February 1991.] Vitti used all his memories of elementary school behavior to produce a draft script of 71 pages, substantially above the required length of about 45 pages. It was Vitti's first script for a 30-minute television program. Bart's use of the phrase "Eat my shorts" was intended to reflect his adoption of catchphrases he had heard on TV; the creative team had told Vitti that he should not come up with original taglines for the character. The scene where the family plays Scrabble was inspired by the 1985 cartoon "The Big Snit".]

Cultural references

In the opening scene, Maggie spells EMCSQU with her blocks, a reference to Albert Einstein's mass-energy equivalence equation. A picture of Einstein also appears on the wall of Dr. Pryor's office.cite book|last=Richmond |first=Ray|coauthors=Antonia Coffman|title= |year=1997 |publisher=Harper Collins Publishers|id=ISBN 0-00-638898-1|pages=p. 18] At one point Homer erroneously refers to Einstein as the inventor of the light bulb. Dr. Pryor compares Bart's proposed work among ordinary children to Jane Goodall's study of chimpanzees. Goodall was pleased to be mentioned in the episode, sending the program a letter, and Vitti a signed book. The conductor of the opera the family attends is named Boris Csupowski, a reference to animator Gabor Csupo. The opera attended by the family is Carmen, by Georges Bizet; the song Bart mocks is a famous aria called the Toreador Song.

Reception and legacy

In a 1991 interview, Jon Vitti described "Bart the Genius" as his favorite among the episodes he had written to that point. James L. Brooks mentioned the episode among his favorites, saying that "we did things with animation when that happened that just opened doors for us." [Braun, Kyle. [http://www.ugo.com/ugo/html/article/?id=17581&sectionId=2 The Simpsons Movie Interviews] . Ugo.com. Retrieved on August 5, 2007.] The show received mail from viewers complaining that the throwing away of a comic book was an incident of censorship. In a DVD review of the first season David B. Grelck gave the episode a rating of 2.5/5, noting "it's easy to see with this episode why Bart became the figurehead for a few years of class clowns." [cite web|url=http://www.wdbgproductions.com/cinerama/reviews/simpsonsseason1.htm|title=The Complete First Season|accessdate=2007-05-07|date=2001-09-25|author=Grelck, David B.|publisher=WDBGProductions] Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, the authors of the book "I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide", strongly praised the episode calling it "superbly written and directed, often a literal child's-eye view of education, the first "Simpsons" episode proper is a classic." They went on to say, "these twenty minutes cemented Bart's position as a cultural icon and a hero to all underachievers, and managed a good few kicks at hothouse schools along the way. Especially worthy of note is the sequence where Bart visualises his maths problem, the viewing of which should be a required part of teacher training."

In its original American broadcast, "Bart the Genius" finished 47th place in the weekly ratings for the week of January 8–January 14, 1990 with a Nielsen rating of 12.7. It was the second highest rated show on the Fox Network that week. [cite news|title=ABC's 'Roseanne' takes first place in Nielsen ratings|date=January 19, 1990|accessdate=2008-06-26|page=5D|publisher=St. Petersburg Times|author=Buck, Jerry]

The invented word "Kwyjibo" inspired the creator of the Melissa worm.

References

External links

* [http://www.thesimpsons.com/episode_guide/0102.htm "Bart the Genius"] at The Simpsons.com
*Snpp capsule|7G02
*imdb episode|id=0756593|episode=Bart the Genius
* [http://www.tv.com/the-simpsons/bart-the-genius/episode/1287/summary.html "Bart the Genius"] at TV.com