Difference between revisions of "Bart the Genius/References"

Revision as of 15:46, August 21, 2010

Cultural references

• In the opening scene, Maggie spells EMCSQU with her blocks, a reference to Albert Einstein's mass-energy equivalence equation. A picture of Einstein also appears on the wall of Dr. Pryor's office. At one point Homer erroneously refers to Einstein as the inventor of the light bulb.
• Dr. Pryor compares Bart's proposed work among ordinary children to Jane Goodall's study of chimpanzees. Goodall was pleased to be mentioned in the episode, sending the program a letter, and Vitti a signed book. Jane Goodall was later featured as a major guest star in the episode "Simpson Safari".
• The composer of the opera the family attends is named Boris Csuposki, a reference to animator Gabor Csupo. The opera attended by the family is Carmen, by Georges Bizet; the song Bart mocks is a famous aria called the Toreador Song.
• The Simpsons are playing Scrabble at the beginning of the episode.

Trivia

• There is a picture of Bart on the wall opposite one of Albert Einstein in Dr. Pryor's office.
• After Bart comes home green Homer washes him in Turpentine.
• Homer thinks it was Albert Einstein that invented the light bulb.
• Maggie spells out EMCSQU (or E=MC²) on her building blocks.
• Maggie falls once (As Lisa looks up id).
• This is the first (and so far, only) couch gag to visually continue into the TV scene.

Introductions

• Milhouse has black hair in this episode.
• This is the first episode where Bart uses his soon to be famous catch phrase "Eat My Shorts".
• A Radioactive Man comic book is seen, though the tile character's appearance is vastly different from his appearance is later episodes.

Hard to See Stuff

• When the Simpsons are playing Scrabble and Homer is complaining that he has not good letters, his slate of letters shows "O-X-I-D-I-Z-E", which is the highest word score one can achieve in Scrabble by using seven letters.
• Martin Prince is the train conductor when Bart is told to visualize his IQ problems.
• Principal Skinner devotes an entire file drawer to Bart Simpson.
• Homer makes a cheque of $75, to pay for Bart's defacing of school property, to "Dept. of Education".
• Martin's IQ is 216.
• Bart wears a pink shirt to his first day of class at the "Enriched Learning Center for Gifted Children".
• Books on the shelf in Bart's new advanced school classroom include Crime & Punishment, Babylonian Myths, Paradise Lost, Moby-Dick, Plato, Dante's Inferno, The Illiad, Plato, Design of Computers (remember this is 1990), Astrophysics, Wana by Emile Zona, Puskin, Shakespeare I-XV, Quantum Mechanics, and the Life of Leonardo.
• The Simpsons attend the opera "Carmen", advertised as "Tonight Only in Russian."
• On the opera poster, the conductor is identified as Boris Csuposki, a play on the name of producer and supervising animation director Gabor Csupo.
• After he is dubbed a genius, Bart's Principal Skinner graffiti is framed and labeled as a work of art entitled "The Principal" by Bart Simpson.
• Martin and his parents were at the opera. Mr. Prince is the man commenting on Homer and Bart's boorish behavior.
• Marcia Wallace's name is misspelled "Masha" in the credits.

Notes

• Bart the Genius is the first proper Simpsons episode and the second Simpsons episode of the show.

Connections to future episodes

• The Gifted School Teacher is seen dancing with Jacques in the music video Do the Bartman.
• Homer comments to Bart that for generations Simpson men have dreamed of outsmarting someone. Homer does just that, by outsmarting Cooder in Bart Carny.

Cultural References

• Scrabble: the family plays this.
• Albert Einstein: Maggie spells E=MC2 with blocks, a portrait appears in Pryor's office and Homer refers to him as inventing the lightbulb.
• Jane Goodall: Pryor refers to Bart's work as being like her and chimps.
• Carmen: the family goes to see this.
• Gabor Csupo: Boris Csupowski is a pun.
• Toreador Song: Bart sings a different version.

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