Bart the Genius/References
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,Maggie and Vitti a signed book.Maggie Simpson 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.Simpson Safari
- "Scrabble" The Simpsons are playing it in the beginning.
- "Albert Einstein" Various references throughout the episode.
- "Carmen" The Simpsons go to see it.
- "Gabor Csupo" Look carefully on the poster and you will see the name Boris Csuposki a play on animator Gabor Csupo.
- "Plato" Appears on bookshelf.
- "Moby Dick" Appears on bookshelf.
- "Leonard DaVinci" A book called The Life of Leonardo appears on the bookshelf.
Trivia
General
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 Introductions Millhouse has black hair in this episode. This is the first episode where Bart uses his soon to be famous catch phrase "Eat My Shorts". Hard to See Stuff Martin 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" Bart's, but in reality 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 Simpson attends 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 likeness and word balloon is framed and labeled as a work of art entitled "The Principal" by Bart Simpson. Martin and his parents were at the opera.
