(originally aired March 18, 1990)
This episode really, really surprised me. Season 1 has showcased the Simpson family in a more serious light than later on, treating their personal problems like feeling socially ostracized, depression and economic woes in a pensive manner. But this episode is well beyond what we’ve seen: the last half of it, apart from the slightly exaggerated nature of Jacques’ character, is extremely dramatic, a picture of a happy marriage quietly falling apart. It’s incredibly jarring and extremely effective. This show’s been on the air for over twenty years, and we’ve had so many Homer-Marge marital trouble episodes, we know nothing is going to happen to them. The fact that I felt real tension and doubt from this episode is a testament to how good it is. It may not be the funniest, but it’s definitely one of the most powerful Simpsons episodes ever.

We start innocently enough: Homer has forgotten Marge’s birthday, and with a mindlessly insensitive act presents her with a gift of a bowling ball, one drilled for his fingers and with his name on it. As an act of passive-aggressive retaliation, Marge decides to use the ball for herself. At the bowling alley, she has a run-in with Jacques, a breathy-voiced womanizer with a wavering French accent, voiced by Albert Brooks. Like Bob, Brooks seems to have a lot of improv in this, and he commands each scene he’s in, which works for his commanding character, with a quivering Marge overcome by his sense of presence. As I said, Jacques provides the episode’s main outlet of comedy. The number of great lines are endless: “Throw, damn you!” “My mind says stop, but my heart, and my hips, cry proceed,” “Your laughter is like music to me, but if you laugh at what I say next, I will die,” and of course, his immortal description of brunch: “It’s not quite breakfast, it’s not quite lunch, but it comes with a slice of cantaloupe at the end. You don’t get completely what you would at breakfast, but you get a good meal!”

As great a performance as Brooks gives, one cannot ignore the fantastic jobs Dan Castellaneta and Julie Kavner bring to the table. Kavner plays against Jacques with a undertone of worry, but still excitement about this potential affair, while Castellaneta really makes you feel for her dumb oaf of a husband. There’s an unbelievable scene that feels like it’s from some kind of psychodrama. With bizarre, maudlin non-Simpsons music, we see a despondent Homer take off his overshirt in his bedroom. He looks over sniffling at a picture of him and his wife, then notices something in the drawer. It’s the bowling glove Jacques had bought for her. With a confused, wavering tone to his voice, Homer reads the sewed inscription, “‘For Marge’?” It’s fucking unreal. The building tension is so dramatic, so unlike the lighter, more humorous show we’re more accustomed to. A later scene is just as amazing, when Homer walks in the kitchen to find Marge making him a sandwich. He goes up to reach for her hand, pauses, then grabs his lunchbox instead. In a so-true-to-Homer moment, his flattery of his wife is represented in complimenting her peanut-butter-and-jelly making technique, and the fact that such a silly piece of dialogue is so heart-breaking is a testament to how strong these characters are. Backtracking a bit, there’s a fantastic sequence of a daydream Marge has of her and Jacques in a dream dance parlor. It’s all done in grey tones with some cool reds and blues, with scattered imagery of bowling balls and pins. There’s also a Jacques’s collection of trophies, which as he claims, are not for bowling, but love-making. It’s one of the most visually arresting sequences in the show’s history.

The ending is obvious, of course: rather than go to Jacques’s apartment, Marge surprises her husband at work, where Homer sweeps her off her feet, and makes a grand announcement to his co-workers (“I’m going to the back seat of my car, with the woman I love, and I won’t be back for ten minutes!”) Given how much has built up to this moment, it’s really an emotionally charged conclusion. It’s a truly earned happy ending, after one of the most devastatingly real and emotional episodes ever. It may not be very joke-heavy, but it’s definitely my favorite of the season thus far.

Tibdits and Quote
– I love Homer’s desperate search through the mall to find Marge a gift (“Too salty!” to the Jerky Hut, “Too exciting!” to Girdles ‘N’ Such Fancy Lingerie).
– The Singing Sirloin must do some good business. Four singers per table? That’s got to be some big payroll.
– Marge’s run-in with the bowling alley employee is great, with her indignation of being asked her shoe size and his continued pointing at policy signs (“Can’t bowl without a lane!”)
– Jacques’s character is comprised of so many things: the great design with his constantly squinted eyes, like he’s always looking out for women to seduce, the great voice by Mr. Brooks as I’ve mentioned, the way he’s animated, always moving in towards Marge, overpowering her of sorts, and the great music cue associated with him, like you’re seconds away from being completely seduced.
– Homer taking care of the kids in Marge’s absence gives the episode some needed laughs (“Does the time always drag like this?”) Also, Lisa’s descriptions of the eight stages kids go through during their parents’ marital squabbles, borrowed from a strip of Matt Groening’s Life in Hell.
– First appearance of Helen Lovejoy, who, for some reason, introduces herself as “the gossipy wife of the minister.” She’s animated with very quick movements, almost like a hummingbird flitting from place to place to nose into people’s business, a tic that wouldn’t carry on past this episode. Jacques has a great line when she leaves (“You have a lovely friend there. Let’s hope something runs over her.”)
– Jacques preparing for Marge’s arrival in his bathroom is a great scene, a man truly in love with himself. His parting line, “You’re really going to strike out tonight!” ends up being oh so true.

(originally aired February 25, 1990)
Over this season, we can see a lot of early hints of what this series would eventually become, in content, tone and scope. In this episode, we get a better impression of the actual town of Springfield. This is the first episode that really looks outside the Simpson family and features a few of the fellow Springfieldians we’ve met so far, and some we have just been introduced to. In this context, the episode starts out with a perfect representation of the town of Springfield as we will come to know it: a ravenous angry mob that chases Homer and Bart through town. The good people of Springfield are an impulsive lot, who can turn from calm to raging to relief with moderately little provocation.

The mob in question is in response to the decapitation of the statue of town founder Jebediah Springfield, and our dear old Bart is responsible. The story is interestingly told as a flashback, leaving the viewer in the dark like the townspeople, and creating more of a sense of drama. The impetus of Bart’s misdeed is pretty simple: his attempt to impress some older bullies, Jimbo, Dolph and Kearney, in their first appearance. It’s pretty interesting hearing how parents and various morality groups in the early 90s perceived Bart as a bad influence, but his behavior in the first season barely even registers as devious. He’s mischievous at best, but he takes a neutral stance at his new friends’s shoplifting and defacement of property. Bart seeks his father’s advice, where Homer instills another classic misguided moral: “Being popular is the most important thing in the world.” Homer’s questionable advice sends Bart off to commit the deed: cutting through a bronze statue with an ordinary hacksaw. Don’t ask me how, it’s a cartoon, for God’s sake.

Bart and the bullies’s day about town gives Springfield a sense of scale, but the reactions of the townspeople after the statue defacement is really what gives Springfield character. We get a better sense of Moe’s bar, Abe’s retirement home, the Kwik-E-Mart and Apu, and the first look at the Krusty the Klown show (and a mute, off-model Sideshow Bob), all of whom are out for the blood of the hoodlum responsible for the heinous act. Even the bullies are offended, much to Bart’s shock. In keeping with the title’s namesake, Bart’s conscious and guilt is given voice by Jebediah’s head, Telltale Heart-style, eventually leading to his admission to his family, leading to the wraparound back to the beginning. Homer acknowledges he is partially to blame for his advice, and Bart is forgiven by the townspeople and returns the head to the neck from whence it came.

I glossed over most of the beginning, with the Simpsons attending Sunday mass; it’s not so important story-wise, but it sets up the role of religion in the Simpsons universe. The people of Springfield are mostly God-fearing and devout, albeit some with more reluctance than others. Everything is mocked on the show, religion included, but there is always a sense of positivity to the spirituality, like with Marge believing church to be good for the family. A character like Reverend Lovejoy (another first appearance) would be the subject of mockery and defilement on another show, but is treated as a real person, with a few quirks as we’d see down the road. There’s a lot of funny stuff in the beginning, with Homer listening to a football broadcast on a walkman during church and Bart’s ever-insistent questions to his Sunday school teacher. There’s a lot to love in this episode, a town-wide story with great character stuff, good jokes and an emotional core: a fore-bearer of things to come.

Tidbits and Quotes
– I built the good Reverend up in my last paragraph, now I tear him down. Before his more respectful debut in the episode proper, I love how the beginning of the show shows him as part of the mob, torch in hand, with no qualms about hunting down and killing a young boy.
– The show’s first meta-joke: Bart claiming his story will take “about 23 minutes and 5 seconds.”
– I love the family’s Sunday best outfits, especially Lisa and Maggie’s bonnets and Marge’s pillbox hat high atop her hair. What era are we in?
– The sportscaster’s proclamation, “This could be the most remarkable comeback since Lazarus rose from the dead!” followed by Homer’s “Laza-who?” right as they pull in front of the church makes it doubly blasphemous.
– The Sunday school teacher’s exasperation at Bart’s questions is great, followed by a fantastic skewering line (“All these questions… Is a little blind faith too much to ask?”)
– Always loved this exchange between Jimbo and a hesitant Bart (“But sneaking into movies is practically stealing, man.” “It is stealing.” “Well, okay. I just wanted to make sure we aren’t deluding ourselves.)
– Dolph refers to their shoplifting as a “five-finger discount,” while they all have four fingers. Huh.
– I love the Candy Most Dandy shop owner, and I really don’t know why. He has such a sophisticated voice and is so irritated by the bullies, and seemingly by life in general, but meanwhile he owns a jolly-looking candy store. He may be my favorite Simpsons character with eight seconds of screen time.
– The bullies’s about-face in their sudden disapproval of the statue’s beheading seems kind of silly, but I love their response when Bart asks why they previously thought it would be a cool idea (“That was just cloud talk!”)
– The news report about the history of Jebediah Springfield is fantastic (“Jebediah Obadiah Zachariah Jedediah Springfield came west in 1838, along the way, he met a ferocious bear. Jebediah discards his axe and wrestles the bear and killed him with his bare hands.  That’s B-A-R-E hands. Though recently uncovered evidence that the bear, in fact, probably killed him.”) I love that glossing over of evidence that discredits his great accomplishment, as it’s an excellent illustration of how we tend to romanticize figures of the past, embellish their achievements, or just flat-out lie about them, not exactly for what they did, but what they stood for (see also: “Lisa the Iconoclast.”)

(originally aired February 18, 1990)
Thus far we’ve seen season 1 maintain a pretty consistent tone of low-key, more emotionally-driven episodes, an animated sitcom that tweaks conventions but remains true to the characters. The show would evolve into much more than that, and this episode feels like the forebearer to the more crazier, out-there episodes. It’s such an odd man out in that respect, a wacky, jokey episode in the midst of these major character-driven stories we’ve had, but sadly, I think it’s the weakest of the bunch so far.

The beginning of the episode is fantastic, however; envious of Flanders’s newly purchased RV, Homer takes his family to get one of their own at Bob’s RV Round-Up, where they are hawked to by the eponymous Bob, voiced by Albert Brooks. Brooks has done many guest voices on the show, classic characters like affable super villain Hank Scorpio and bowling Lothario Jacques (more on him later). All of Brooks’s Simpsons characters seem to have some level of smarm, and Bob definitely has a lot of it, a sweet-talking shyster with a big hat and big ears who can talk anybody into a sale, whether they like it or not. Brooks obviously is doing a lot of ad-libbing here, and you can tell he was just having a lot of fun with the character. Every line of his is great: his claims of the ultimate RV having four deep fryers (one for each part of the chicken), buttering Homer up asking if he’s of Roman descent (“You’re like a God, sort of,”) and admonishing Homer’s wish to talk his potential purchase with his family (“If you have to talk it over with those humans over there, there’s something wrong with all of us.”) It’s such a fresh, flowing performance that you really feel disappointed when the family leaves the RV park and the episode has to continue onward.

Homer ends up with an RV he can afford: a really shitty one. It isn’t long before he accidentally drives the camper off a cliff and the family must fend for themselves in the woods. Homer and Bart go out into the woods to look for help, but end up victim to various misfortunes: they lose their clothes in a waterfall, Homer is attacked by various animals, and finally ends up being mistaken for Bigfoot. Video footage of the mud-covered Homer causes a media frenzy. A lot of this material feels very silly, but not in a good way. There’s no sharpness to it, a lot of the gags feel like they’re out of bad Saturday morning cartoons. After the shrewdness of the first act with Bob, this feels very rote and childish. There are a few good jokes here and there (broadcast news of the “Bigfoot” sighting interrupted the live Presidential address), but it all just felt very empty. Even the ending with the great scientific minds debating whether Homer was man or beast felt a bit dumb. Even after doing full medical tests and examinations on his body, they can’t tell that he’s clearly a human being?

This show would certainly feature set pieces and plots much much more ridiculous than this one, but the most successful ones featured some kind of meaning to the madness, or at the very least a great set-up. Not only is it superior humor-wise, but the first act feels so disjointed from the rest. Homer’s rampant jealousy of Flanders at this point in the series was enough for him to go out camping? It feels so alien of Homer to do, even with this early version of him. So all and all, great first appearance by Albert Brooks, the lone savior of this episode.

Tidbits and Quotes
– As I said, every Bob line is great. Right off the bat when he spots the Simpson family as clueless rubes and remarks, “Thank you, God.” Also great is the scene when Homer’s credit check results in a loud siren going off (“Is that a good siren? Am I approved?” “You ever known a siren to be good? No, Mr. Simpson, it’s not. It’s a bad siren. That’s the computer in case I went blind telling me sell the vehicle to this fella and you’re out of business! That’s what the siren says.”)
– There’s also a couple of mini-subplots. Marge and Lisa bide their time by sweeping with make-shift wooden brooms, for some reason. A troupe of bears hold themselves in reverence of baby Maggie, which is cute, but doesn’t make much sense. I dunno, it never sat well with me.
– Bart asking Homer if they were going to hang themselves with the noose-like animal trap he set up seemed unusually dark. I laughed all the same, though.
– I’m a bit confused by the timeline of this episode: an entire crowd of Bigfoot spotters, vendors and gawkers sprouts up in the forest over how much time? A day or two? And in all that time, Homer and Bart are still lost, and the former hasn’t bothered to find a stream to wash the mud off himself? I know Homer’s a slob, but come on.
– Reporters flocking Marge with questions about her Bigfoot husband, resulting in the tabloid headlines is a good bit. Another subtle racy bit when a reporter asking Marge if marital relations with her husband to be “brutish,” Marge briefly smiles, then asks if the interview will be on TV.

(originally aired February 11, 1990)
I feel like Lisa Simpson is one of the more under-appreciated characters in all of television. Within the show she certainly is, stuck as the misunderstood middle child of the Simpson clan. Amidst her dopey father, trouble-making brother, and her mother desperately holding the family together, Lisa’s incredible creative and intellectual gifts are mostly gone unnoticed. But outside the show, she is also the target of scorn. While later years have dabbled in making her a smug intellectual or political mouthpiece, Lisa was never really a fan favorite against the more popular Bart or Homer. But she plays a very important role in the series: she’s earnest, she works hard, but in the end, she can never quite catch a break. In many ways, she’s the most human character out of anyone on the show, and the episodes focused on her always tend to be the most emotional and down-to-earth, and this very first one is no exception.

The set-up is that Lisa feels sad. Though it’s not so much a sadness as a general malaise about her station in life; undermined for her creative outbursts at school and generally unacknowledged at home, she has basically ostracized herself from a world she believes holds no happiness for her. It’s an emotional arc that I can’t think of any other show tackling, and it never holds back. You really feel for Lisa and her unfortunate state of mind because we’ve all felt this sense of unhappiness sometime in our lives. While they are not the most attentive at times, her parents express concern. Homer, while not having the slightest idea of her daughter’s problems, does his best to hear her out and cheer her up, but to no avail. It’s a really sweet moment between the two, with Lisa acknowledging her father’s best intentions.

Lisa eventually finds some sort of refuge in a mysterious wandering jazz man named Bleeding Gums Murphy, resulting in an impromptu jam session late at night on the downtown bridge (I believe the same one Homer nearly jumped off of three episodes ago.) Murphy is a pretty infamous Simpsons character, though he’s only really been in two episodes (and the opening every week.) He’s helpful to Lisa, but also can be a little backhanded. (“You know, you play pretty well for someone with no real problems!”) Lisa earned recognition from a kindred spirit, and an outlet for her frustrations, but it is by no means a solution to her problem. There’s a happy ending here, but nothing permanent like out of a typical sitcom.

I guess the side plot should be mentioned, featuring Homer’s efforts to beat Bart at a boxing video game. I guess since the main story was so serious, this runner served as a comedic outlet and break from the drama. It’s got a lot of great funny bits in it, continuing with the season 1 tradition of Homer trying to impress his son and prove himself a man, but also features some early Homer overreaction, like his crazy dream sequence, and his equally crazy breakdown after Marge unplugs the television right before he finally bests his son. Seeing a grown man cry over a video game is probably the first truly pathetic act we’ve seen from Homer, but certainly not the last.

Marge, meanwhile, thinks back to her mother’s advice to her as a child, to bury your emotions and remain smiling to fit into the group. Her advice seems very true to her character, especially when you figure how much she puts up with from her family in the years to come. The scene where she vests Lisa with this advice is so great, it’s such poor advice, but Marge means it with such honesty, believing this will make her daughter happy. The end result of witnessing Lisa about to be take advantage of and undermined because of Marge’s words prompts her to completely backtrack, telling Lisa to just be herself and her family would be there to support her no matter what. It’s a wonderful turn, and a sweet ending.

Tidbits and Quotes
– In the opening titles every week, we’ve seen Mr. Largo throw Lisa out of class for her jazzy outbursts during class, but here, we finally see him in the show itself, where he’s basically what we expected. His very name gives it away, ‘largo’ being a musical term for a slow and broad tempo, completely uncreative and unambitious. When Lisa describes her music as reflecting those hardworking Americans who go unnoticed and unappreciated, Largo responds, “Well, that’s all fine and good, but none of those unpleasant people are going to be at the recital next week.”
– The boxing game “Super Slugfest” is a great Simpsons-esque parody of video games, with its old-school graphics and Punch-Out style meshed with over-the-top graphic violence, like a final blow decapitation, and the winner dancing on the loser’s grave in the ring, complete with triumphant low-bit music.
– Lisa, an eight-year-old girl, walks out late at night and receives advice from an elderly stranger. All of this should point to this being super sketchy, but it doesn’t really feel that way at all. Well… maybe a little, but Murphy seems sincere enough. Mostly.
– We get the first appearance of a Simpsons staple: someone waking up, sitting up in bed screaming. Also a really big, long Homer scream. And funny.
– “You know Marge, getting old is a terrible thing. I think the saddest day of my life was when I realized I could beat my Dad at most things, and Bart experienced that at the age of four.”
– I’ve always loved Murphy’s explanation of his name, in that he never goes to the dentist (“I suppose I should go to one, but I’ve got enough pain in my life as it is.”)
– One last bit, I love how Lisa plays a baritone saxophone, one that’s almost as big as she is. It’s a perfect visual metaphor on how she’s a big fish in a small pond, a girl who hold greater aspirations than others around her. It’s also just a funny gag when you see her really playing and struggling to physically keep up with her emotional music.

(originally aired February 4, 1990)
This episode is a writer-director dream team: David Silverman in his third outing, and the prolific and mysterious John Swartzwelder in his very first episode, the man who’s written more Simpsons episodes than any other writer, many of them topping fans (myself included) lists of greatest episodes ever. And this episode’s a great one, full of really down-to-earth material, relatable emotions and experiences, combined with bizarre dream sequences and an over-the-top finale. It’s probably my favorite one so far, as it’s such a real story, but still manages to integrate so many funny and weird elements into it, but that’s really the genius of Mr. Swartzwelder, as we’ll see in many episodes to come.

We begin this episode as Bart, in his efforts to defend his sister’s honor on the school yard, inadvertently ruffles the feathers of big bully Nelson Muntz. While he plays a rotating role between ally and menace nowadays, Nelson is a real threat here at the start, with a great gruff performance by Nancy Cartwright. Stuck with a scheduled showdown after school, Bart passes the time by panicking through two fantastic dream sequences. The first is visually ridiculous, of Bart facing down a gigantic Nelson, who is completely unaffected by any knifes or gunfire Bart fires at him. The sequence is so well thought out, dream-Bart getting increasingly more manic to mirror his fear while Nelson slowly lumbers (and laughs) along, not even fazed by the attacks. The second scene is verbally ridiculous, Bart imagining his funeral, and those paying respect. Each one is hilarious in their own right; Skinner concluding that “homework really was a waste of your time,” Otto marveling at the fantastic job in reconstructing Bart’s face, and an amazing display, both in the animation and Dan Castellaneta’s performance, in Homer’s way waaay over-compensatory mourning of his son, after he’d previously expressed his delight of getting off work. Nelson is last, who simply socks Bart’s body in the gut. Not many shows can make punching a corpse funny like this show can.

Bart seeks advice for his bully problem: Marge urges Bart go to the principal on the matter, but Homer intervenes, stressing he would be breaking the code of the schoolyard (“Don’t tattle, always make fun of those different from you.  Never say anything, unless you’re sure everyone feels exactly the same way you do.”) Such a wonderful commentary on conformist parenting. After this advice gets him nowhere, Bart goes to his grandfather for help. In our introductory scene for Abe Simpson, we see him writing a letter to an anonymous advertising agency expressing his disgust at the depiction of old people in the media. This one scene completely encapsulates Abe’s character: nostalgic, forever crotchety, and full of piss and vinegar. He points Bart in the direction of a friend of his: the one-armed nutjob owner of a military antique shop, Herman. He helps them devise the perfect attack plan to take down Nelson.

A seemingly simple story with Bart dealing with a school bully turns into one of the series’s first forays into pop culture parody. The third act pays tribute to a number of war films, like Patton and Full Metal Jacket. There are even more specific allusions to other famous wars, and even the friggin’ Nuremberg trials when Nelson’s cronies claim they were “just following orders.” The show ends with a treaty being written up, putting Bart and Nelson at a truce, with such great clauses as “Nelson recognizes Bart’s right to exist” and “Although Nelson shall have no official power, he shall remain a figurehead of menace in the neighborhood.” All this and the final end tag, a PBS-mocking segment with Bart attesting that there are no good wars, with the exceptions of the American Revolution, World War II, and the Star Wars trilogy, and that you can learn more at your local library. I appreciate this season for what it is, but this is the first episode I can truly gush about.

Tidbits and Quotes
– We get to know Lisa’s character a bit more here at the beginning. She’s a smart girl, but knows how to have fun, particularly at her brother’s expense. Their back-and-forth on the bus is a fantastic scene, further illustrating their personalities and relationship.
– Nelson’s two little crony characters are so odd to me. They are crucial to the story here, but I really don’t think they’ve ever been seen since, as they were pretty much replaced by the other bully characters. Poor guys. They didn’t even have names.
– “You made me bleed my own blood!” Such a great line, and great delivery too.
– There’s some great drawings of Bart’s mangled contorting face when he’s getting punched by Nelson.
– Abe’s letter is so great, it deserves to be quoted: “Dear Advertisers, I am disgusted with the way old people are depicted on television. We are not all vibrant, fun-loving sex maniacs. Many of us are bitter, resentful individuals who remember the good old days when entertainment was bland and inoffensive. The following is a list of words I never want to hear on television again. Number one: Bra. Number two: Horny. Number three: Family Jewels.”
– An amazing subtle animated bit: Bart arriving at the treehouse beaten, coughs up his hat (for the second time in the show), then just hangs it up on the wall and begins talking to the others. It just flows and isn’t addressed at all, it’s just there, and I love it for that reason.
– Another great Abe line: “I thought I was too old. I thought my time had passed. I thought I’d never hear the screams of pain, or see the look of terror in a man’s eyes. Thank heaven for children!”