So then I give you this: a great episode of The Simpsons to kick off the summer. It’s “Bart of Darkness,” a.k.a. the one where they get a pool, a.k.a. the one where Bart breaks his leg, a.k.a. the one where Flanders is maybe a murderer. I will maybe do another one some time, most likely when I forget how long this took to complete.
Enjoy!
One: a single example of the many tragedies that befall Hans Moleman.
Two: “And here we have the world-famous Beatles, exactly as they looked performing on The Ed Sullivan Show.”
Three: vicarious punching.
Four: the remarkable ingenuity of Homer Simpson. He got the idea when he realized the refrigerator was cold.
Five: one of the two things Maggie gets to do.
Six: the disappointment of childhood.
Seven: hubris and nemesis.
Eight: People who observed Homer’s parenting style as children may actually employ this tactic today.
Nine: Children who observed Bart and Lisa’s method of persuasion also attempted to employ it back in the day. It was not successful in real life.
Ten: Simpsons puns are better than the puns you make, generally speaking.
Eleven: the other thing Maggie gets to do.
Twelve: The 90s had more Amish jokes than we have now. Why is that?
Thirteen: And this is how you close out a first act.
Fourteen: American healthcare, circa 1994.
Fifteen: Milhouse Van Houten, for once, gets to be the sucky friend.
Sixteen: the Esther Williams spectacular.
Seventeen: “Klassic Krusty.”
Eighteen: Homer learns a lesson in pool hygiene.
Twenty-one: It does not go unnoticed.
Twenty-two: a sliding scale for evil.
Twenty-three: “Soon I’ll be queen of summertime!”
Twenty-four: how I learned the word “ribald.”
Twenty-five: a selection from Bart’s isolation-born play that, in retrospect, may have influenced this.
Twenty-six: Schuman Farms.
Twenty-seven: Springfield Rescu-U-Fone, or how I learned what “regicide” meant.
Twenty-eight: the determination of Bartholomew J. Simpson.
Twenty-nine: Hitchcockian terror in Simpsons yellow.
Twenty-nine: Hitchcockian terror in Simpsons yellow.
Thirty: resolution of terror.
Thirty-one: probably the best line Maude Flanders ever got.
Thirty-two: a joke The Simpsons has only rarely revisited.
Thirty-three: Dan Castellaneta’s perfect pronunciation of the word “package.”
Thirty-two: a joke The Simpsons has only rarely revisited.
Thirty-three: Dan Castellaneta’s perfect pronunciation of the word “package.”
Thirty four: Martin brings it on himself, again.
The Simpsons, previously:
