Bart the Mother
Encyclopedia
"Bart the Mother" is the third episode of the 10th season of The Simpsons
, originally airing on September 27, 1998. The episode was written by David X. Cohen
and directed by Steven Dean Moore
. It was the last full-length episode Cohen wrote for The Simpsons before leaving to work on Futurama
. The original idea for the episode was intended to be a B story, but because it was too difficult to work into other episodes, it eventually became a primary plot. "Bart the Mother" contains the final appearance of the character Troy McClure
, and it is dedicated to his voice actor Phil Hartman
, who was killed by his wife on May 28, 1998, four months before the episode aired. In the episode, Bart Simpson
accidentally kills a mother bird with a BB gun
, and decides to hatch and take care of the two eggs he found in the bird's nest.
In its original American broadcast, "Bart the Mother" finished 58th in ratings for the week of September 21–27, 1998, with a Nielsen rating
of 7.4, translating to 7,355,600 households. Nancy Cartwright
, the voice actor who portrayed Bart, described the episode as one of her favorites. Several reviewers, who called the tenth season of The Simpsons one of the series' less humorous seasons, chose "Bart the Mother" as one of its better episodes. Bart's moral dilemma and soul searching moments near the end of the episode was praised by some as a refreshing turn of events for the series, and a number of reviewers also called "Bart the Mother" a memorable episode.
takes the family to the Family Fun Center, she notices Nelson
acting like a bully, especially when he knocks Milhouse
off the track and wins a BB gun
from prize tickets. Bart
and Nelson attempt to be friends, but Marge forbids Bart to hang out with Nelson. Bart goes to Nelson’s house anyway and starts using Nelson's new BB gun. When Nelson pressures Bart to shoot a bird in a nest, Bart accidentally kills the bird. Marge is furious that Bart killed an animal, but instead of punishing him, she refuses to have anything to do with his destructive ways. After Marge leaves Bart with Nelson, Bart discovers two eggs in a bird's nest. Since he does not want the babies to die like their mother, he decides to hatch the eggs, and secretly keeps the eggs warm in his treehouse. After Bart spends more time in his treehouse, Marge starts to suspect he is up to something. After Marge finds out what Bart has been doing, she tells him she is proud of him. With Marge's help, the eggs eventually hatch, but the Simpson family is shocked when instead of birds, a pair of lizards emerge from the eggs, who Bart names Chirpy Boy and Bart Jr.
Bart and Marge take the lizards to the Springfield
Birdwatching Society. Principal Skinner, a member of the society, explains that they are Bolivia
n tree lizards, a type of lizard that steals a bird’s eggs and leaves their own eggs
to be watched after by the mother bird. Skinner says the lizards must be killed by law, because they have killed many bird species. Bart escapes and runs away with the lizards, but before he can get away, Skinner catches up to him and they both struggle on top of the building. Suddenly, the lizards glide to the ground, where they start to eradicate pigeons in Springfield
. Since the town considered the pigeons to be a nuisance, they are delighted with the fact that the lizards have eaten all the pigeons. As a result, Bart is thanked and honored by Mayor Quimby with a loganberry
scented candle. Lisa
worries that the town will now become infested by lizards rather than the pigeons, but Skinner assures her that they will send in Chinese Needle Snakes, then snake-eating gorillas, and then "when wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death."
"Bart the Mother" was the last full-length episode David X. Cohen
wrote for The Simpsons. Shortly after the episode aired, Cohen teamed up with The Simpsons creator Matt Groening
to develop Futurama
, where he served as executive producer
and head writer
for the series' entire run. Cohen's idea for the episode started out as a B story for Homer. In the original concept, pigeons nest outside Homer's window at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. Mr. Burns exterminates the pigeons and Homer climbs out onto the ledge of the window, in the middle of a blizzard, to nest the eggs. Cohen said the idea "[did not] fit in anywhere," so he decided to pitch it as an A story instead, with Bart nesting the eggs instead of Homer. The Simpsons writer George Meyer
thought the idea of Bart shooting the bird and simply nesting the eggs was too straightforward, and he did not think it had "enough of a twist" to be a good episode. Cohen and Meyer eventually decided that the eggs should be lizard eggs. Cohen thought that the twist was what ultimately made the episode both "touching" and "interesting."
Producer Ron Hauge
came up with the idea of someone shooting a bird and feeling guilty about it. Hauge told the staff a few weeks before Cohen started writing the episode that when he was 13 or 14 years old, he accidentally killed a bird after he got a Wrist Rocket slingshot, and took a shot at a bird that he thought was "far, far away." Hauge said his friends were excited about it, but he was "dying inside." For the scene in which the bird is killed, Cohen received further inspiration from an episode of The Andy Griffith Show
entitled "Opie the Birdman." The writers were trying to figure out a way to have Bart kill the bird without actually wanting to kill it, and decided to give the gun a crooked sight that Bart would be unaware of, so that when Bart intentionally takes a shot at the right of the bird to avoid it, the bullet would hit the bird. After Bart kills the mother bird, he imagines himself before a bird court with a vulture
, an eagle
, and a toucan
as judges. This sequence was added to "liven up the visuals", because the writers thought the episode tended too heavily towards extreme realism and because most of the scenes in the episode were taking place in and around the Simpsons' house
. Then-show runner
Mike Scully
had done the same thing with an episode he wrote for season seven
called "Marge Be Not Proud
." In that episode, Bart gets caught shoplifting, and writer Bill Oakley
suggested the addition of a fantasy sequence to get away from the realism in the episode.
The Family Fun Center that the Simpson family visits is based on a real family fun center in Falmouth, Massachusetts
that Cohen went to as a child to play video games. The Bolivian Tree Lizard is a fake species, but Cohen based it on real animals, including the dinosaur
species Oviraptor
, which was originally thought to eat eggs. The species is also based on the cowbird
and the cuckoo
, which lay their eggs in other birds' nests, and Draco, a genus of gliding lizards. Cohen also received inspiration from the Cane Toad
that started "taking over" Australia in 1935.
"Bart the Mother" marked the last guest appearance of Phil Hartman
on The Simpsons as Troy McClure
. On May 28, 1998, four months before the episode aired, he was shot and killed by his wife Brynn. "Bart the Mother" was dedicated in his memory in response to this. Rather than replace Hartman with a new voice actor, the production staff retired McClure from the show, along with Hartman's other recurring character, Lionel Hutz
.
of 7.4, translating to 7,355,600 households. Nancy Cartwright
, the voice of Bart Simpson
, called it one of her favorite The Simpsons episodes, along with "Bart Sells His Soul
" and "Lisa's Substitute
". The Toronto Sun
s Bruce Kirkland wrote that "Bart the Mother" was one of the "classic episodes" of the series' tenth season. The authors of the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood wrote, "We particularly like the moral dilemma at the end, as underlined by Lisa, regarding the eventual culling of the lizards that will need to take place. A good romp, this one, with some nice laughs at Homer's expense." Colin Jacobson of DVD Movie Guide said, "The show generates decent heart as it shows Bart’s attempts to make up for his misbehavior. The show becomes reasonably enjoyable if not especially memorable." Jesse Hassenger of PopMatters
named the tenth season of The Simpsons the series' "first significant dip in quality, a step away from its golden era [...] with broader gags and more outlandish plots". However, Hassenger enjoyed "Bart the Mother", and wrote, "[The episode] explores the show’s sweet and dark sides simultaneously as Bart, remorseful after killing a bird, tries to care for orphaned eggs that turn out to hold ravenous lizards." DVD Town's James Plath described "Bart the Mother" as an episode that viewers would either love or hate, because of Bart's rare moments of soul searching, and he found the episode to be a memorable one.
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
, originally airing on September 27, 1998. The episode was written by David X. Cohen
David X. Cohen
David Samuel Cohen , primarily known as David X. Cohen, is an American television writer. He has written for The Simpsons and he is the head writer and executive producer of Futurama.-Early life:...
and directed by Steven Dean Moore
Steven Dean Moore
Steven Dean Moore is an animation director who has directed 35 episodes of The Simpsons, in addition to several episodes of the long running Nicktoon programme Rugrats...
. It was the last full-length episode Cohen wrote for The Simpsons before leaving to work on Futurama
Futurama
Futurama is an American animated science fiction sitcom created by Matt Groening and developed by Groening and David X. Cohen for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series follows the adventures of a late 20th-century New York City pizza delivery boy, Philip J...
. The original idea for the episode was intended to be a B story, but because it was too difficult to work into other episodes, it eventually became a primary plot. "Bart the Mother" contains the final appearance of the character Troy McClure
Troy McClure
Troy McClure is a fictional character in the American animated sitcom The Simpsons. He was voiced by Phil Hartman and first appears in the second season episode "Homer vs. Lisa and the 8th Commandment". McClure is a washed-up actor, usually shown doing low-level work, such as hosting infomercials...
, and it is dedicated to his voice actor Phil Hartman
Phil Hartman
Philip Edward "Phil" Hartman was a Canadian-American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and graphic artist. Born in Brantford, Ontario, Hartman and his family moved to the United States when he was 10...
, who was killed by his wife on May 28, 1998, four months before the episode aired. In the episode, Bart Simpson
Bart Simpson
Bartholomew JoJo "Bart" Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons and part of the Simpson family. He is voiced by actress Nancy Cartwright and first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...
accidentally kills a mother bird with a BB gun
BB gun
BB guns are a type of air gun designed to shoot projectiles named BBs after the birdshot pellet of approximately the same size. These projectiles are usually spherical but can also be pointed; those are usually used for bird hunting. Modern day BB guns usually have a smoothbore barrel, with a bore...
, and decides to hatch and take care of the two eggs he found in the bird's nest.
In its original American broadcast, "Bart the Mother" finished 58th in ratings for the week of September 21–27, 1998, with a Nielsen rating
Nielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
of 7.4, translating to 7,355,600 households. Nancy Cartwright
Nancy Cartwright
Nancy Campbell Cartwright is an American film and television actress, comedian and voice artist. She is best known for her long-running role as Bart Simpson on the animated television series The Simpsons...
, the voice actor who portrayed Bart, described the episode as one of her favorites. Several reviewers, who called the tenth season of The Simpsons one of the series' less humorous seasons, chose "Bart the Mother" as one of its better episodes. Bart's moral dilemma and soul searching moments near the end of the episode was praised by some as a refreshing turn of events for the series, and a number of reviewers also called "Bart the Mother" a memorable episode.
Plot
When MargeMarge Simpson
Marjorie "Marge" Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons and part of the eponymous family. She is voiced by actress Julie Kavner and first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...
takes the family to the Family Fun Center, she notices Nelson
Nelson Muntz
Nelson Mandela Muntz is a fictional character and bully from the animated TV series The Simpsons. He is voiced by Nancy Cartwright. Nelson was introduced in Season 1's "Bart the General" as a bully but later turned into a friend of Bart Simpson, who is best identified by his signature laugh .-Role...
acting like a bully, especially when he knocks Milhouse
Milhouse Van Houten
Milhouse Mussolini Van Houten is a fictional character featured in the animated television series The Simpsons, voiced by Pamela Hayden. He is Bart Simpson's best friend in Mrs. Krabappel's fourth grade class at Springfield Elementary School....
off the track and wins a BB gun
BB gun
BB guns are a type of air gun designed to shoot projectiles named BBs after the birdshot pellet of approximately the same size. These projectiles are usually spherical but can also be pointed; those are usually used for bird hunting. Modern day BB guns usually have a smoothbore barrel, with a bore...
from prize tickets. Bart
Bart Simpson
Bartholomew JoJo "Bart" Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons and part of the Simpson family. He is voiced by actress Nancy Cartwright and first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...
and Nelson attempt to be friends, but Marge forbids Bart to hang out with Nelson. Bart goes to Nelson’s house anyway and starts using Nelson's new BB gun. When Nelson pressures Bart to shoot a bird in a nest, Bart accidentally kills the bird. Marge is furious that Bart killed an animal, but instead of punishing him, she refuses to have anything to do with his destructive ways. After Marge leaves Bart with Nelson, Bart discovers two eggs in a bird's nest. Since he does not want the babies to die like their mother, he decides to hatch the eggs, and secretly keeps the eggs warm in his treehouse. After Bart spends more time in his treehouse, Marge starts to suspect he is up to something. After Marge finds out what Bart has been doing, she tells him she is proud of him. With Marge's help, the eggs eventually hatch, but the Simpson family is shocked when instead of birds, a pair of lizards emerge from the eggs, who Bart names Chirpy Boy and Bart Jr.
Bart and Marge take the lizards to the Springfield
Springfield (The Simpsons)
Springfield is the fictional town in which the American animated sitcom The Simpsons is set. A mid-sized town in an undetermined state of the United States, Springfield acts as a complete universe in which characters can explore the issues faced by modern society. The geography of the town and its...
Birdwatching Society. Principal Skinner, a member of the society, explains that they are Bolivia
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
n tree lizards, a type of lizard that steals a bird’s eggs and leaves their own eggs
Brood parasite
Brood parasites are organisms that use the strategy of brood parasitism, a kind of kleptoparasitism found among birds, fish or insects, involving the manipulation and use of host individuals either of the same or different species to raise the young of the brood-parasite...
to be watched after by the mother bird. Skinner says the lizards must be killed by law, because they have killed many bird species. Bart escapes and runs away with the lizards, but before he can get away, Skinner catches up to him and they both struggle on top of the building. Suddenly, the lizards glide to the ground, where they start to eradicate pigeons in Springfield
Springfield (The Simpsons)
Springfield is the fictional town in which the American animated sitcom The Simpsons is set. A mid-sized town in an undetermined state of the United States, Springfield acts as a complete universe in which characters can explore the issues faced by modern society. The geography of the town and its...
. Since the town considered the pigeons to be a nuisance, they are delighted with the fact that the lizards have eaten all the pigeons. As a result, Bart is thanked and honored by Mayor Quimby with a loganberry
Loganberry
The loganberry is an hexaploid hybrid produced from crossing an octaploid blackberry and a diploid red raspberry. The plant and the fruit resemble the blackberry more than the raspberry, but the fruit colour is a dark red, rather than black...
scented candle. Lisa
Lisa Simpson
Lisa Marie Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons. She is the middle child of the Simpson family. Voiced by Yeardley Smith, Lisa first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987. Cartoonist Matt Groening...
worries that the town will now become infested by lizards rather than the pigeons, but Skinner assures her that they will send in Chinese Needle Snakes, then snake-eating gorillas, and then "when wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death."
Production
David X. Cohen
David Samuel Cohen , primarily known as David X. Cohen, is an American television writer. He has written for The Simpsons and he is the head writer and executive producer of Futurama.-Early life:...
wrote for The Simpsons. Shortly after the episode aired, Cohen teamed up with The Simpsons creator Matt Groening
Matt Groening
Matthew Abram "Matt" Groening is an American cartoonist, screenwriter, and producer. He is the creator of the comic strip Life in Hell as well as two successful television series, The Simpsons and Futurama....
to develop Futurama
Futurama
Futurama is an American animated science fiction sitcom created by Matt Groening and developed by Groening and David X. Cohen for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series follows the adventures of a late 20th-century New York City pizza delivery boy, Philip J...
, where he served as executive producer
Executive producer
An executive producer is a producer who is not involved in any technical aspects of the film making or music process, but who is still responsible for the overall production...
and head writer
Head writer
A head writer is a person who oversees the team of writers on a television or radio series. The title is common in the soap opera genre, as well as with sketch comedies and talk shows that feature monologues and comedy skits, but in prime time series this function is generally performed by an...
for the series' entire run. Cohen's idea for the episode started out as a B story for Homer. In the original concept, pigeons nest outside Homer's window at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. Mr. Burns exterminates the pigeons and Homer climbs out onto the ledge of the window, in the middle of a blizzard, to nest the eggs. Cohen said the idea "[did not] fit in anywhere," so he decided to pitch it as an A story instead, with Bart nesting the eggs instead of Homer. The Simpsons writer George Meyer
George Meyer
George A. Meyer is an American producer and writer. Raised in Tucson, Arizona in a Roman Catholic family, Meyer attended Harvard University. There, after becoming president of the Harvard Lampoon, he graduated in 1978 with a degree in biochemistry. Abandoning plans to attend medical school, Meyer...
thought the idea of Bart shooting the bird and simply nesting the eggs was too straightforward, and he did not think it had "enough of a twist" to be a good episode. Cohen and Meyer eventually decided that the eggs should be lizard eggs. Cohen thought that the twist was what ultimately made the episode both "touching" and "interesting."
Producer Ron Hauge
Ron Hauge
Ron Hauge is an American television writer and executive producer. In his earlier career Hauge was a contributor to National Lampoon. After this he wrote for Seinfeld, In Living Color, The Ren & Stimpy Show, and a short lived reincarnation of The Carol Burnett Show...
came up with the idea of someone shooting a bird and feeling guilty about it. Hauge told the staff a few weeks before Cohen started writing the episode that when he was 13 or 14 years old, he accidentally killed a bird after he got a Wrist Rocket slingshot, and took a shot at a bird that he thought was "far, far away." Hauge said his friends were excited about it, but he was "dying inside." For the scene in which the bird is killed, Cohen received further inspiration from an episode of The Andy Griffith Show
The Andy Griffith Show
The Andy Griffith Show is an American sitcom first televised by CBS between October 3, 1960, and April 1, 1968. Andy Griffith portrays a widowed sheriff in the fictional small community of Mayberry, North Carolina...
entitled "Opie the Birdman." The writers were trying to figure out a way to have Bart kill the bird without actually wanting to kill it, and decided to give the gun a crooked sight that Bart would be unaware of, so that when Bart intentionally takes a shot at the right of the bird to avoid it, the bullet would hit the bird. After Bart kills the mother bird, he imagines himself before a bird court with a vulture
Vulture
Vulture is the name given to two groups of convergently evolved scavenging birds, the New World Vultures including the well-known Californian and Andean Condors, and the Old World Vultures including the birds which are seen scavenging on carcasses of dead animals on African plains...
, an eagle
Eagle
Eagles are members of the bird family Accipitridae, and belong to several genera which are not necessarily closely related to each other. Most of the more than 60 species occur in Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, just two species can be found in the United States and Canada, nine more in...
, and a toucan
Toucan
Toucans are members of the family Ramphastidae of near passerine birds from the Neotropics. The family is most closely related to the American barbets. They are brightly marked and have large, often colorful bills. The family includes five genera and about forty different species...
as judges. This sequence was added to "liven up the visuals", because the writers thought the episode tended too heavily towards extreme realism and because most of the scenes in the episode were taking place in and around the Simpsons' house
742 Evergreen Terrace
742 Evergreen Terrace is the fictional street address in Springfield of the Simpson family home in the animated television series, The Simpsons and in the feature film The Simpsons Movie. In the series the house is currently owned by Homer Simpson...
. Then-show runner
Show runner
Showrunner is a term of art originating in the United States and Canadian television industry referring to the person who is responsible for the day-to-day operation of a television seriesalthough such persons generally are credited as an executive producer...
Mike Scully
Mike Scully
Mike Scully is an American television writer and producer. He is known for his work as executive producer and showrunner of the animated sitcom The Simpsons from 1997 to 2001. Scully grew up in West Springfield, Massachusetts and long had an interest in writing. He was an underachiever at school...
had done the same thing with an episode he wrote for season seven
The Simpsons (season 7)
The Simpsons seventh season originally aired on the Fox network between September 17, 1995 and May 19, 1996. The show runners for the seventh production season were Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein who would executive produce 21 episodes this season. David Mirkin executive produced the remaining...
called "Marge Be Not Proud
Marge Be Not Proud
"Marge Be Not Proud" is the eleventh episode of The Simpsons seventh season. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on December 17, 1995. In the episode, Marge refuses to buy Bart the new video game Bonestorm, so he steals it from a local discount store...
." In that episode, Bart gets caught shoplifting, and writer Bill Oakley
Bill Oakley
Bill Oakley is an American television writer and producer, known for his work on the animated comedy series The Simpsons. Oakley and Josh Weinstein became best friends and writing partners at high school; Oakley then attended Harvard University and was Vice President of the Harvard Lampoon...
suggested the addition of a fantasy sequence to get away from the realism in the episode.
Falmouth, Massachusetts
Falmouth is a town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States; Barnstable County is coextensive with Cape Cod. The population was 31,531 at the 2010 census....
that Cohen went to as a child to play video games. The Bolivian Tree Lizard is a fake species, but Cohen based it on real animals, including the dinosaur
Dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...
species Oviraptor
Oviraptor
Oviraptor is a genus of small Mongolian theropod dinosaur, first discovered by the paleontologist Roy Chapman Andrews, and first described by Henry Fairfield Osborn, in 1924...
, which was originally thought to eat eggs. The species is also based on the cowbird
Cowbird
Cowbirds are birds belonging to the genus Molothrus in the family Icteridae. They are brood parasitic New World birds which are unrelated to the Old World cuckoos, one of which, the Common Cuckoo, is the best-known brood parasitic bird....
and the cuckoo
Cuckoo
The cuckoos are a family, Cuculidae, of near passerine birds. The order Cuculiformes, in addition to the cuckoos, also includes the turacos . Some zoologists and taxonomists have also included the unique Hoatzin in the Cuculiformes, but its taxonomy remains in dispute...
, which lay their eggs in other birds' nests, and Draco, a genus of gliding lizards. Cohen also received inspiration from the Cane Toad
Cane Toad
The Cane Toad , also known as the Giant Neotropical Toad or Marine Toad, is a large, terrestrial true toad which is native to Central and South America, but has been introduced to various islands throughout Oceania and the Caribbean...
that started "taking over" Australia in 1935.
"Bart the Mother" marked the last guest appearance of Phil Hartman
Phil Hartman
Philip Edward "Phil" Hartman was a Canadian-American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and graphic artist. Born in Brantford, Ontario, Hartman and his family moved to the United States when he was 10...
on The Simpsons as Troy McClure
Troy McClure
Troy McClure is a fictional character in the American animated sitcom The Simpsons. He was voiced by Phil Hartman and first appears in the second season episode "Homer vs. Lisa and the 8th Commandment". McClure is a washed-up actor, usually shown doing low-level work, such as hosting infomercials...
. On May 28, 1998, four months before the episode aired, he was shot and killed by his wife Brynn. "Bart the Mother" was dedicated in his memory in response to this. Rather than replace Hartman with a new voice actor, the production staff retired McClure from the show, along with Hartman's other recurring character, Lionel Hutz
Lionel Hutz
Lionel Hutz is a recurring character from the animated television series The Simpsons. He was voiced by Phil Hartman, and his first appearance was in the season two episode "Bart Gets Hit by a Car". Due to the death of Hartman, his final speaking role was in the episode "Realty Bites"...
.
Reception
In its original American broadcast, "Bart the Mother" finished 58th in the ratings for the week of September 21–27, 1998, with a Nielsen ratingNielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
of 7.4, translating to 7,355,600 households. Nancy Cartwright
Nancy Cartwright
Nancy Campbell Cartwright is an American film and television actress, comedian and voice artist. She is best known for her long-running role as Bart Simpson on the animated television series The Simpsons...
, the voice of Bart Simpson
Bart Simpson
Bartholomew JoJo "Bart" Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons and part of the Simpson family. He is voiced by actress Nancy Cartwright and first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...
, called it one of her favorite The Simpsons episodes, along with "Bart Sells His Soul
Bart Sells His Soul
"Bart Sells His Soul" is the fourth episode of The Simpsons seventh season. It first aired in the United States on the Fox network, on October 8, 1995. In the episode, Bart pranks churchgoers by replacing the music to a hymn with a psychedelic rock song, so Reverend Lovejoy forces him and Milhouse...
" and "Lisa's Substitute
Lisa's Substitute
"Lisa's Substitute" is the nineteenth episode of The Simpsons second season. It originally aired on Fox in the United States on April 25, 1991. In the episode, Lisa's teacher Miss Hoover takes medical leave due to what she thinks is Lyme disease, so substitute teacher Mr. Bergstrom takes over the...
". The Toronto Sun
Toronto Sun
The Toronto Sun is an English-language daily tabloid newspaper published in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is known for its daily Sunshine Girl feature and for what it sees as a populist conservative editorial stance.-History:...
s Bruce Kirkland wrote that "Bart the Mother" was one of the "classic episodes" of the series' tenth season. The authors of the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood wrote, "We particularly like the moral dilemma at the end, as underlined by Lisa, regarding the eventual culling of the lizards that will need to take place. A good romp, this one, with some nice laughs at Homer's expense." Colin Jacobson of DVD Movie Guide said, "The show generates decent heart as it shows Bart’s attempts to make up for his misbehavior. The show becomes reasonably enjoyable if not especially memorable." Jesse Hassenger of PopMatters
PopMatters
PopMatters is an international webzine of cultural criticism that covers many aspects of popular culture. PopMatters publishes reviews, interviews, and detailed essays on most cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, films, books, video games, comics, sports, theater,...
named the tenth season of The Simpsons the series' "first significant dip in quality, a step away from its golden era [...] with broader gags and more outlandish plots". However, Hassenger enjoyed "Bart the Mother", and wrote, "[The episode] explores the show’s sweet and dark sides simultaneously as Bart, remorseful after killing a bird, tries to care for orphaned eggs that turn out to hold ravenous lizards." DVD Town's James Plath described "Bart the Mother" as an episode that viewers would either love or hate, because of Bart's rare moments of soul searching, and he found the episode to be a memorable one.
External links
- "Bart the Mother" at The Simpsons.com