(originally aired November 9, 1997)
So here’s another episode with a somewhat interesting story and a lot of great gags and laughs throughout… but again, tainted by slightly early glimmers of Jerkass Homer. Is this going to be a consistent theme this season? When a local health fair illuminates the fact that Springfield’s kids are overweight, many of them are hooked into peewee football. Flanders acts as team coach, but when Homer’s incessant and overbearing heckling digs into him a bit too deep, he resigns and makes him the coach. Although the rough and ruthless Nelson is essentially carrying the team, Homer goes for nepotism and puts all his stock into Bart as the new quarterback, despite the boy’s objections.
I don’t know what it is about Homer, I guess the writers figured the farther they pushed him, the more ridiculous it would be, ergo more funny. But, as later seasons will show, it just makes him less attached to the “real” Homer we know and love and more into a caricature, dare I say, a “cartoon” of his former self. Sure, he holds a disdain toward Flanders and complains about him, but doing it in such an aggressive manner in public seems way too over the top. Then Flanders confronts him about it and he shirks away from it. Again, like last episode, not a good move when you make your protagonist unlikable. Homer has a lot of negative qualities, but any harm he inflicts on others was always unintentional. You should never not be on his side. There’s an inkling of interesting character stuff with Homer, though. In flashback, we see his father, disgruntled as ever, never supported him during his athletic days, and after being overbearing toward Bart, he decides to go the other way and encourage him too much. I think Homer as an overzealous team dad worked a lot better in “Lisa on Ice,” it seemed a lot less exaggerated than it’s played out here.
But then again, I have to say I’m still laughing a lot at these episodes regardless. While Roy Firestone was essentially a worthless cameo (ditto with the King of the Hill scene), I loved the stuff with Joe Namath, it’s a very brilliant self-aware celebrity appearance. Bart is at his lowest, and against all odds or logic, Joe Namath appears to help him, and is about to instill his greatest football wisdom… but then he leaves. There’s a lot of great Nelson stuff, like his end field dance and many great quotes (“I won’t give you a B but I’ll tear you a new A!”) The health fair at the beginning is a great first act set piece, there’s humor within the games themselves, and I even like the ending where Bart swaps with Nelson in the squad car. Like the last episode, everything works but Homer. I just know this complaint is going to grow larger and larger as we go on here, but I’m kind of startled how suddenly it came upon us. We’re just starting the ninth season here, did someone just turn a dial in his brain? I just watched every episode up to this point, did I forget about more telltale signs in the last few seasons? I don’t think so… But, again, this is a pretty funny episode.
Tidbits and Quotes
– I always crack up at Dr. Nick standing with a big grin on his face at the “What’s Your Sex?” booth. Also great is the old men at the hearing booth (“Nothing yeeeeeeett!”) When the tone gets unbearably loud, Jasper goes to raise his hand, but Abe shakes his head. A no-nonsense Rainier Wolfcastle doles out “FAT” stickers, and he goes through a lot of them (“I loved your last McBain movie, Mr. Wolfcastle!” “Quit stalling, fatty.”)
– I like Marge’s sheepishness over asking for a protective cup for Bart, and the store clerk’s childish behavior regarding it (“Cup? Could you spell that?” “C-U-P. I wanna C-U… oh my God!”) Once he’s all geared up, Bart instructs Milhouse to repeatedly kick him in the groin, which he does with great vigor.
– Another classic Ralph line (“Ralph, you’ll be on special team.” “I’m special!”)
– I like Lisa wanting to join the team on principle only, just to find there’s nothing she can really get uppity about. It’s handled well here, but her rampant activism would only absorb more and more of her character as the years went on. I remember later she’d whip out a bullhorn labeled “Li’l Agitator.” Once the characters get too self-conscious about themselves, things can go a bit too far.
– I love that both teams are the Wildcats. It sounds like the most common name for a kids team (“Who are we?” “The Wildcats!” “Who are we gonna beat?” “The Wildcats!”)
– Homer’s disdain toward Flanders usually works best when he’s seething to himself, like his comment when the coach of the winning team is hoisted up by the players (“Big deal. I’ve been carried out of Moe’s like that hundreds of times.”)
– Clever bit where Bart avoids the tires set up on the stairs by sliding down the banister. I’m sure he does that every morning and didn’t even notice Homer’s “obstacle course.”
– The flashback is great, I love that Homer was into aerobics. Smithers is announcing the event (“Now, that’s the end of the girls floor exercise. Now, let’s bring on the men!”) Homer does pretty well to start, but Abe’s blatant disdain (I always crack up at his sudden, unprompted “You’re gonna blow it!”) screws him up (“That’s what I get for having faith in yah.”) Points also go to Lenny’s “Bull Shirt” shirt.
– Recalling that traumatic memory, Homer vows to be nicer to his son and meaner to his dad, going out to give the former a hug. Bart’s brain informs him it’s a trap and to run like hell. Homer gives chase (“Hug meee!”) Then the scene goes on longer for some reason with them running about the yard. That’s another thing that would carry on from this point, scenes running long. Do the joke and move on, don’t linger.
– I like Homer’s continued cuts (“Steven, I like your hustle. That’s why it was so hard to cut you. Congratulations, the rest of you made the team! …except you, you and you.”)
– Homer is very blatant about his sudden change of heart toward Bart (“Son, you can do anything you want. I have total faith in you.” “Since when?” “Since your mother yelled at me.”)
– I love that Joe Namath scene. Bart tries to recall Namath’s advice… but then remembers he never gave any. Also, he seems to clearly envision Namath’s partner, even though he never saw her.
– Great bit where Homer sarcastically calls up Mr. Burns (“This is Homer J. Simpson, the father of the big quitter! Well, I just wanted to tell you I’m a big quitter, too! And I quit!”) Then he realizes his winks don’t translate over the phone, screams and hangs up. It’s a hilarious performance, and is a total bonehead Homer move.
– This episode gave birth to Skittlebrau, a wonderful concoction Homer appears to have imagined. We see it actually exists in a later episode.
– Part of the episode comes full circle when Abe is at the championship game. Marge comments that he must be proud of his son, to which Abe replies, “You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” and promptly falls asleep.
Me Blog Write Good 
Remember, there’s nothing funny about vapor lock.
“This episode gave birth to Skittlebrau, a wonderful concoction Homer appears to have imagined. We see it actually exists in a later episode though.”
Who knew it only cost 33 cents a box?
Mike Scully!!!!!!
For some reason, the King of the Hill scene seems to evoke the wrath of a few fans, I’ve found. But since it’s only two seconds long and has no bearing on the plot, I got no gripe with it. Mike Judge’s disappointed delivery of “We drove 2,000 miles for this?” kills me every time.
It’s funny, but being that I am not a King of the Hill fan, I find it rather uninspiring. What was its purpose?
Perhaps another red herring for the location of Springfield?
Fantastic.
For some reason I remembered the ending with Homer cutting people to be a lot funnier than it actually was. Still good though.
You’re cut, too, Shushy!
I tried making Skittlebrau once with my friend… it wasn’t very good.
Speaking of boring… a football episode. UGH!
Now granted, the show has managed to make other episodes that revolve around sports (baseball and hockey) exciting. However, this is not one of them. I do like the beginning with everyone getting ready to play football, especially Marge’s cup bit. Then they actually start to play the game and it becomes meh. Homer IS a complete and utter jackass in this episode. If the team had been sucking, I could get behind his belittlement, but they aren’t, so it doesn’t work. I do like how Ned followed what he said he was going to do in “Hurricane Neddy” though and goes off on Homer for it.
I don’t know how you can praise the Joe Namath moment Mike, as they do exactly what you criticize the modern episodes for doing with their guest stars. He randomly shows up in Barts backyard (yeah, that’s not creepy at all), says his name, and then leaves. That was utterly pointless, especially since nothing came out of it. He should have just said, “Hi, I’m Joe Namath, I am hear to collect a paycheck, bye.”
The ending also doesn’t work because Wiggum knows exactly who Bart is, so he wouldn’t have been fooled. Also, Nelson’s dad yet again makes ANOTHER appearance. So much for the story they do in later years about him leaving and never coming back.
The point of Joe Namath in the episode is, as the Simpsons was created to do, to mock sitcoms where a guest star magically shows up to save the day. He’s not like Lady Gaga or Mike Scoscia or Andrew Rannells (or even the McCartneys from “Lisa the Vegetarian”) where they just show up, resolve the conflict, no irony. It’s a bait and switch where you think he’s going to help Bart become a good quarterback, only to have him immediately recalled because his car has been fixed. He shows up at the end again, only to give an important lesson… about vaporlock. Again, mocking how in other sitcoms they give an important lesson about something relevant to the episode. This episode had nothing to do with vaporlock besides that one line, which makes it even funnier – by this point you’ve probably forgotten about that.
I couldn’t have said it better myself. Spot on there. The scene is perfect for exactly that reason.
Aside from the Jerkass Homer in the “FLAANDERS” scene, I like this one quite a bit. The jokes work very well from the opening set piece to the end, Joe Namath is pretty funny, and I absolutely love the crutch of the plot with Homer’s nepotism toward Bart because his father never trusted him. Also it’s just such a fun episode (even though I don’t give two shits about football), and I love the idea of Nelson being a really skilled quarterback. The ending is also hilarious with Bart getting arrested, and I can also credit this episode with Bull Shirt in arguably the best scene of the show in the glorious flashback. Also remember how serious vaporlock is. One of my favorites of Season 9.
Tragic compared to “Lisa on Ice”, but I appreciate an actual pretense for a pro athlete happening to be at the Simpson house rather than just a straightforward boring cameo, The car trouble reason seems flimsy but it was pretty funny how he looked like he was about to give Bart some straightforward advice, but right before he did the car problem was sorted and he left.
I’m more or less indifferent to this episode, honestly. There were some funny bits here and there (“I’m special!”, Homer calling Burns, etc.), but there’s not a whole lot that I really remember. There’s also a few irritating moments, such as the long sequence of Homer chasing Bart. That went on way longer than it needed to. Yeah, I don’t have a lot to say, because this episode just kind of exists to me.
I saw this one earlier, and while it is pretty funny in parts (the Namath scenes, Hank Hill, “I’m special!”), all I could focus on was Homer’s behavior. The part where he harasses Flanders at the game was a little too much. He hates Flanders, but not to the point where he’d throw stuff at him in public.
Talk about a dumb and lazy title. I guess “Bart Starr” is a football player? Dumb.
Honestly “good, but Jerkass Homer” is how I feel about the entirety of seasons 9 through 13, which is as late as I watch (And at that point I’m skipping a lot of them). It’s funny how the worst thing about it is that he tends to do things that don’t even benefit him, things that only make sense if he’s totally oblivious. It’s not even sensible selfishness like one might see out of Burns. I think what happened is they read that letter from Professor Lawrence Pierce and decided to make that their goal.
But yeah, just a glimmer at this point. It really does sneak up on you gradually. I actually remember how I used to get anxious waiting for the syndication packages to get newer episodes, because they felt better and better or at least fresher, and then realizing after a certain point.. I didn’t want to see the newer ones in that timeslot. It wouldn’t be so bad if we didn’t know there was a superior alternative version of the character. You can have a show about a huge asshole, just… write it properly.
You pointed out scenes that go on for too long, and that definitely became a problem, but I think a bigger problem is how often a scene would just end abruptly either without a joke, or without giving the joke time to breathe. This is also around the time I started catching a lot of beta dialogue lines revealed by the closed captioning, so I get the impression they were just editing stuff to the last second and trying to make it funny without knowing how.
It was amusing seeing Namath because I literally only know him from a previous Simpsons episode.
Lisa actually getting criticized for her tendencies is such an unusual thing in the show, but they did keep doing it every so often up to the point I stopped watching. The GMOs one was pretty good for that one scene at least.
I have to be perfectly honest here… the more I think about this episode, the more I dislike it.
And not just because Jerkass Homer dominates it, with more than one scene where I actually want to punch his lights out – but because of several other things, too.
Firstly, how exactly does Ned get the coach’s role in the first place? We see him convincing Rod and Todd to take up football because it’ll “keep [them] away from temptations like rock music and girls”, but… does he make himself the coach when the team is being formed, or are there auditions? Or is it just that he’s coach so us viewers can have a great deal of “pleasure” watching Jerkass Homer giving him a hard time?
Secondly, Bart becoming the quarterback is entirely Jerkass Homer’s doing. And when this happens, Bart makes it clear enough – and right in front of his teammates, too – that he doesn’t want to be the QB, and that he feels Nelson should retain this position. So it really rubs me the wrong way when Nelson and co turn on Bart as viciously as they do after a bad game. They know he doesn’t want to be the QB, don’t they? They know he feels that Nelson is a great QB and is the heart of the team, don’t they? AND IT’S JERKASS HOMER’S FAULT THAT BART IS THE QB, NOT BART’S!!! They ought to be directing their anger at him, not at Bart – and they would be absolutely right to.
Thirdly, young Homer doing aerobics has never been one of my favorite flashbacks, truth be told. Yes, Abe was a pretty rotten father – but him actually making his son blow it, that just leaves a sour taste for me. Give me “Quit your daydreaming, melonhead!” any day.
And finally, the ending. Sorry, but for me it’s stupid and makes no sense. Chief Wiggum may be incompetent, but surely he knows who Bart and Nelson are, and what they look and sound like? And while Nelson is obviously a troubled individual who has broken the law more often than not, somehow I can not see him committing crimes as serious as burglary and arson. Also, Marge is cheering at the team’s win – has she not seen Wiggum handcuff her son and load him into the police car, and shouldn’t she be concerned for Bart as a result? (While Homer allows Bart to pretend to be Nelson in this situation, I strongly doubt Marge would allow it in any situation…)
The cameo by Hank Hill and co I don’t dislike, and can’t really. Yes, it is worthless – but at least it’s over and done with in a few seconds. And I can’t really dislike the Joe Namath scenes, either – they do mock those sitcom scenes where celebrities appear out of nowhere to save the day, and where important lessons are given about things relevant to the episode we’ve just watched. Plus Namath does get screwed with like Tom Jones, Ernest Borgnine, and indeed Darryl Strawberry and co (and unlike Alec Baldwin, Kim Basinger and Britney down the line). Just a shame that this is an episode I do dislike in general, and increasingly so the more I think about it – and that I do prefer to see Namath being mocked by Abe for his sideburns in the “Mother Simpson” flashback. (And I can’t help but note that one of the Simpsons Archive reviewers wondered why the producers went with Namath and not a then-current QB like Favre, Elway or Aikman…)
And what makes it even more of a shame that this is an episode I dislike in general, and increasingly so, is the fact that the first few minutes of it are pretty good. Aside from Homer being in mild Jerkass mode (“You doctors have been telling us to drink eight glasses of gravy a day!”), everything at the health fair works, Rainier Wolfcastle being the highlight (“Quit stalling, fatty”, “We can wait”, and “Come to papa”). And the whole cup business at the sports store is the best bit of the episode, the clerk expertly getting Marge to say “C-U-P, I wanna C-U…” and Milhouse repeatedly kicking Bart in the groin while Bart yawns and smiles. Then one sees that Ned is the team’s coach for whatever reason, Jerkass Homer is well and truly unleashed, and everything goes downhill for me despite Namath’s best efforts…
Here’s how I would have done things: Homer gets the coach’s role as soon as the team is set up, in a way that doesn’t involve him being in full-blown Jerkass mode (he does land the town crier role in “Lisa the Iconoclast” by being a jerk to some extent, and likewise the role of Poochie in “The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show”, but in both cases he’s nowhere near being in full-blown Jerkass mode and it is fun to watch). He then makes Bart the QB not out of blatant nepotism or outright Jerkassery, but simply because at this point he’s out of his depth and doesn’t have much of a clue about how to coach a football team. Bart stinks as QB, the team loses badly, Nelson and co turn on him and Homer… and Homer immediately realizes he has messed up. He tries Bart out in other positions, until he finds that Bart works best as a tackle. Soon, both find their feet, and the team starts winning – but Nelson and co still give Homer and Bart a hard time, simply because they’re father and son. What more must the two do to earn Nelson and co’s full respect? And the eventual ending would not only be genuinely heart-warming, but plausible too – not Bart pretending to be Nelson and being hauled to jail by Wiggum.
I suppose, though, that the episode would then have to be called something other than “Bart Star” – there wouldn’t be so much stuff about Bart being a QB, so the pun wouldn’t work so well. And if Namath appeared, he’d be that bit more out of place, too.
After all of that, I suppose I have to mention the episode’s writer, as well as Mike Scully. I totally accept, and respect, that Donick Cary was inspired by his own experience of a kids’ football coach who had a son on the team (albeit this was in high school rather than elementary). And I accept and respect too that Scully was himself on a sports team whose coach gave his son special treatment (albeit this was a soccer team rather than a football one). Unfortunately – and again with respect – I have to consider this episode Cary’s worst, because of its domination by Jerkass Homer and because of the other problems I’ve mentioned above. His best episode, by some distance, was his first, “In Marge We Trust”. (He also wrote “The Last Temptation of Krust” and “D’oh-in’ in the Wind”, two more episodes that had good ideas and good moments but still left things to be desired – although at least they didn’t have moments that leave you turning completely against Homer.)
So there we are. “Bart Star” is an episode I dislike, and increasingly so. I will watch the good bits from it, but in all likelihood I will never watch these as readily as I will watch any bit from “Homer at the Bat” or “Lisa on Ice”. And I will avoid just about everything else.
Absolutely no disrespect intended towards anyone who does like this episode, of course.