Bart the Genius/References

References/Trivia

Season 1 Episode References

←

001

002
"Bart the Genius"

003

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.

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.

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.

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.

Bart the Genius is the first proper Simpsons episode and the second Simpsons episode of the show.
This is also the first episode to have Bart's name somewhere in the title.

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.

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.