Lisa's Sax
"Lisa's Sax" is the third episode of the ninth season of The Simpsons, which explains how Lisa Simpson got her saxophone.
Plot
Homer and Marge play the piano and sing a song on their past days. Shortly after, we hear a clap from an unseen audience. While Homer and Bart watch a TV movie called The Krusty the Clown Story: Booze, Drugs, Guns, Lies, Blackmail and Laughter, their laughs get interrupted by the noise played on Lisa's saxophone from her bedroom. Homer asks her to stop to which Lisa responds that she has to have an hour of practice everyday. Bart enters Lisa's bedroom and tries to grab the saxophone from her. Because of the struggle with Bart, he inadvertently tosses Lisa's saxophone out the window. It lands in the middle of the street and is driven over by a car, a truck, jumped on by Nelson Muntz and hit by a man on a tricycle.
In a period of mourning, Lisa reveals she cannot remember ever not having that saxophone, so Homer recounts the instrument's origins. He says that in 1992, after Bart's very first day at school, he felt very depressed by a threat from Jimbo Jones, Groundskeeper Willie, and others. Then Homer and Marge, again, play the piano and sing how things went better after that. But Lisa comments that it has been a good story but complains that it has nothing to do with the origins of the saxophone. Then Marge tells the right story. It starts with Bart having experiences at school, and how his initial enthusiasm was crushed by an uncaring teacher, who offended him because of his failure to recite the alphabet, eventually turning Bart into the troublemaker he is today. He drew a violent sketch of his feelings and Marge became worried that something was truly wrong with him. It was during discussions of Bart's future that the school psychologist realized the young Lisa completed a complicated puzzle of Taj Mahal and said her age was 3 years and three-eights. The psychologist told Homer and Marge that they needed to nurture her gifted spirit. They tried to send Lisa to a private school, to which 75% of its students immediately got promoted to Grade One. However, the tuition fee cost $6000. Realizing that it could have improved her intelligence, they had no choice but to try something else.
A terrible heat wave hit Springfield and Homer felt hot while watching television. Marge said that they saved $200. Homer insisted on spending the money on an air conditioner as their stopgap solution (Snowball 1 fanning some ice) was getting cranky. Marge asked him to nurture her gifted abilities and thus, he was not helping Lisa one bit. Back at school, while his will-be-friend Milhouse drank soy milk, Bart made a funny gesture, making Milhouse spit the milk and finding him funny. He embarrassed Principal Skinner in front of the whole kindergarten, also making them all laugh. Meanwhile, Homer sacrificed his air conditioner to Lisa's first saxophone, which both valued $200 each. The music store manager asked Homer for an inscription on the saxophone, which Homer accepted. He said that the inscription will be "Remember that your father Homer loves---". But he dropped the sax prompting him to say "D'oh!". The whole thing he said including the "D'oh!" is included on the now crushed saxophone. Homer complains that the house has no air conditioner for many years, but decides to buy another saxophone for Lisa, again. This one says "May your new saxophone bring you many years of D'oh!". Following the purchase of the new saxophone, another heat wave hits Springfield.
Trivia
- In addition to revealing Bart's reasons for being a troublemaker and underachiever, this episode is also notable for fueling suspicions of Milhouse's sexuality, after a school psychologist identifies the young Milhouse as having "flamboyantly homosexual tendencies." The episode is also notable for a rare glimpse at Snowball I.
- This is the last episode in which Doris Grau has a speaking role as Lunchlady Doris (although this episode aired nearly two years after her death). It would also mark the final time the character would speak until Season 18's "The Mook, the Chef, the Wife and Her Homer" (voiced by Tress MacNeille).
- This was the first of very few episodes Al Jean ever wrote without Mike Reiss.
- There is a goof involving the air conditioner scene, where Rod and Todd are 9 and 10 during the flashback, the same age they are currently. Bart and Lisa's ages are also goofed as well, since the episode aired in 1997. This would make Lisa age 1 and Bart age 3 because it flashed back to 1990 when 1992 would actually have fit their ages.
- The origin of the catchphrase 'Eat my shorts' is from when Principal Skinner tells Bart to apologize for his impressions.
- This is also the last mention of Snowball I until Season 15.
- This is the only episode that shows the music store King Toot's across the street from Moe's. All others show it next to Moe's, such as in "Lisa's Pony."
- In the flashbacks Homer had two hairs on his head, but he didn't get two hairs until he found out Marge was pregnant with Maggie.
- Al Jean, Mike Reiss, Mike Scully, James L. Brooks, Matt Groening all executive produced this episode (and Simpson Tide).
Cultural references
- While telling Bart and Lisa about 1990, Homer says "the Tracey Ullman was entertaining America with...crudely-drawn filler material". This is a reference to The Simpsons' debut as "bumpers" airing before and after the show's commercials.
- Bart's blackboard punishment "I no longer want my MTV" is a reference to the old MTV slogan "I Want My MTV" (and a jab at the channel's declining quality due to lack of music videos and an uptick in non-music related shows, like The Real World).
- The song "Those Were the Days" parodies the opening credits of the classic television show All in the Family.
- In the flashback, Dr. Hibbert fashioned his hair and attire like Mr. T in The A-Team.
- The song Lisa plays on her new saxophone near the end of the episode, is "Baker Street" by Gerry Rafferty.
- A flashback to 1990 shows Homer watching Twin Peaks as Dale Cooper remarks, "That's some damn fine coffee you got here in Twin Peaks... and damn good cherry pie." The Giant is then shown waltzing with a white horse, under a tree with a traffic light hanging from a branch. Homer says: "Brilliant! I have absolutely no idea what's going on."
- When Lisa's saxophone gets run over, one of the people who runs over it is a man on a tricycle, who promptly falls over. This is a reference to a character played by Arte Johnson, an old man in a raincoat on a tricycle, which is a running gag from the NBC variety show Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In.
- When little Bart skips along the grass, he bears a resemblance to Charlie Brown sketches.
- In King Toot's music store, when Homer buys Lisa her first saxophone there is a guitar in the background that is similar to Eddie Van Halen's "Frankenstein" guitar.
- When Marge, Homer and Lisa visit a preschool recommended by a school psychologist, a child can be seen in the left hand corner of the screen, that appears to be painting Rene Magritte's famous painting "The Son of Man".
