Moaning Lisa

"I'm too sad."

- Lisa Simpson

"Moaning Lisa" is the sixth episode of season 1. It originally aired on February 11, 1990. The episode was written by Al Jean and Mike Reiss and directed by Wes Archer. It features the first appearance of Bleeding Gums Murphy.

Plot
The episode starts with a sad Lisa staring at herself in the mirror in the bathroom while Homer pounds on the door waiting for his turn. Later in the kitchen before work, Homer searches for his keys, while Bart and Lisa eat breakfast before school. Lisa finds the keys still in the front door. Marge only has two cupcakes for Homer, Bart and Lisa; Lisa defers the cupcakes to Homer and Bart. She's clearly depressed. During band practice at school, the band plays terrible while Lisa jams away expertly with her saxophone much to the dislike of the band teacher Mr. Largo. At lunch during a food fight, Lisa does nothing but sit and look sad. During gym class while playing dodgeball, Lisa doesn’t move and gets pummeled by dodgeballs, all while looking sad. After school in the living room, Bart and Homer play a boxing video game called Super Slugfest. Homer suffers his 49th loss at the hands of Bart while Marge walks in and shows Homer a note from school about Lisa.

The note's a progress report from Principal Skinner informing Homer and Marge Lisa was too sad to play dodgeball at school. Homer attempts to discover the cause of Lisa’s sadness, and Lisa tells Homer she wonders if the world will be any different if she didn’t exist. When Homer clearly can't come up with a good quick answer, Marge tells Lisa to take a hot bath, and Homer tells Bart to vacuum the floor. When Lisa's done with her bath, she walks into the living room where Bart's still vacuuming and isn't happy about it. Maggie sits by herself on the couch watching Bart and Lisa. In an effort to see who Maggie likes more, both Bart and Lisa coax her to each other. Instead, Maggie chooses the TV. Later, Homer and Bart are playing Super Slugfest again where Bart easily wins again, and Homer blames the loss on Lisa’s loud saxophone playing. Homer goes up to Lisa’s room to yell at her. Lisa agrees to just practice on playing the notes without blowing into the saxophone. After Homer leaves the room, Lisa hears a saxophone playing off in the distance outside her window and leaves the house to find the source. Lisa walks through the town at night and discovers a man playing a saxophone alone on a bridge overpass. Back at the Simpson house, everyone's asleep and Marge dreams about her childhood.

In the dream, Marge is a sad little girl, and, before going out to play her mother tells her to make sure she smiles. Homer also has a dream he's trapped inside the boxing video game with Bart. Bart K.O.’s Homer, and he wakes up screaming from his nightmare. Marge expresses her concern with Lisa’s sadness to Homer. Meanwhile Lisa's jamming with the man who introduces himself as Bleeding Gums Murphy. Lisa and Bleeding Gums play the blues together, and he tells Lisa he plays at a club called the Jazz Hole when a worried Marge, after realizing Lisa's gone, shows up to bring her home.

Homer watches a news report in the living room when he discovers Barney's Bowlarama burned down. He runs in the kitchen to tell Marge the bad news, but Marge is fretting over Lisa. Bart enters the kitchen, and Marge tells him to find Lisa,act nice to her, and cheer her up. Bart finds Lisa and, in an effort to cheer her up, he plays a prank phone call on Moe, Lisa isn't amused. Cut to Homer walking into the local video arcade. Homer seeks advice on Super Slugfest from Howie at the arcade. After some time, Homer feels he learned enough tricks to defeat Bart. Meanwhile, Marge takes Lisa to band practice, and, on the way Marge tells Lisa to smile and keep her true feelings inside so she can fit in with the other kids. Marge drops off Lisa in front of the school and observes Lisa fake smiling and interacting with the other kids. Marge sees she reduced Lisa to a child without opinion or complaint.

Mr. Largo comes out of the school to gather the children in for practice and tells Lisa he hopes he doesn’t hear any more creativity from her again today. This makes Marge realize the error of her ways, and she quickly does a tire squealing u-turn, snatches Lisa and drives away. In the car, Marge apologizes and tells Lisa it's okay to be sad and she should always be herself no matter what. Lisa's now once again happy. Back at the house, Bart and Homer are playing Super Slugfest again, and this time Homer puts Bart on the ropes and dominates the fight. Marge walks in to make an announcement, but Homer's too busy winning to listen. Much to Homer’s dismay, Marge pulls the plug on the video game to gain his attention. Bart announces he retired from the world of video game boxing undefeated. Marge tells the family Lisa has a fun idea for everyone. Cut to the club, The Jazz Hole, where the family listens to Bleeding Gums play a blues song written by Lisa.