Season 1 Episode 5: Bart the General

Original Airdate: February 4, 1990

Shortened Intro: No chalkboard/couch gag

Now we're cookin'. This is definitely one of the strongest episodes of the season, certainly the funniest episode thus far, with a number of good lines and visual gags, and a nice consistent quick pace. Homer, Marge, and Lisa are also abruptly in their normal roles for the first time, and it's a breath of fresh air, as the interactions between the characters work so much better this way. Lisa is brainy, Marge is warm and sensitive, and Homer gives a lot of bad parenting ("Don't tattle. Always make fun of those different from you. Never say anything, unless you're sure everyone feels exactly the way you do."). So all seems right here. And Grandpa gets his first significant role, albeit with a slightly different voice.

The plot concerns Bart's run-ins with schoolyard bully Nelson Muntz (his first appearance) and the subsequent war Bart and the other kids enact on Nelson in revenge. With the help of Grandpa and the bizarre one-armed military shop owner Herman (who only ever shows up once every few seasons), a kid army is trained and they successfully overpower Nelson with water balloons. A peace treaty is signed between Bart and Nelson, and everyone enjoys a nice batch of muffins!

A very simple plot, but that works towards the episodes advantage. The problem with the Christmas special and especially "Homer's Odyssey" were that they bit off more then they could chew and tried to hit comedic and serious notes with inconsistent success. The two best episodes so far have been Bart-themed because he developed into his own character the fastest, and his episodes have a smoother progression than Homer's. His misbehavior and wisecracks made the show by this point, and it was quite some time before Homer developed enough to steal the show from Bart's grasp.

Visually, this episode is a rather large step up from the previous ones. This episode marks the first use of fantasy sequences, one of Bart imagining getting eaten by a giant Nelson, and a pretty funny one taking place at Bart's funeral after Nelson beats him to death. Scenes inside the characters heads would later become some of the funniest and visually clever gags on the show. Later, when Bart is beaten up by Nelson for real and thrown into a trash can and rolled down a hill, it's cleverly done from Bart's point of view from inside as the scenery dizzily twirls in front of him. But the kid army training scene is the best, with a lot of cool visual nods to the training scenes in "Full Metal Jacket". This marks the first of many detailed Kubrick references, many shots transplanted straight from the movie. And it's interesting to note that "Full Metal Jacket" was only 3 years old by the making of this episode! And I believe the shot of Bart wearing sunglasses and chewing on a stalk is a "Cool Hand Luke" reference, but I could be wrong about that. There are also probably references to war films I haven't seen, as I'm not very well-versed in that genre.

But I think what's especially good about this episode is how it manages to comment on war and its iconography through a petty elementary schoolyard fight. The pettiness of large scale conflict is minimized to a large scale water balloon fight, and Grandpa and Herman don't have any messages to send to the children about any kind of honor in war, they just revel in its pointless violence. Grandpa sums it up best: "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!" This episode is a good send-up of war films, and a solid episode, only overshadowed by the hundreds of better episodes in the future. But it deserves appreciation as an early indication of the greatness the show would reach.

Tidbits: Nelson's famous "ha-ha" catchphrase had not been invented yet and he has two short bully companions who are never given names and I don't think ever show up in any other episodes, the Springfield Retirement Home is shown for the first time, Jasper (with a different voice) makes his first appearance, and for some reason the ending credits are played over a shot of the Simpson's house at night.