Lisa the Simpson
"Lisa the Simpson"
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Episode Information
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"Lisa the Simpson" is the seventeenth episode of The Simpsons' ninth season.
Synposis
Major Plot
Lisa tries to solve a brain teaser, and she fails as Martin, Milhouse, and even Bart and Nelson can solve it. She does not remember the code combination for her school locker, also forgets to do an agriculture project, and does a last minute job of an "eraser pig", and loses her saxophone technique. These things point to evidence that Lisa fears she is losing her gift of intelligence. When she tells about this to Grampa, he tells her that all the members of the Simpson family—including himself, Homer, and Bart—started smart at first, but later became dumber, as part of the Simpson genes. Eventually, Lisa becomes dumb like the rest of the family, but she rejects her new-found idiocy.
She appears on Smartline and demands that the citizens of Springfield treasure their brains. As she does this, Homer brings all the Simpson family relatives to come to the house as an indication that the whole family is not a bunch of idiots. When all the Simpsons visit, Homer goes and asks all the men what their jobs are. These include shooting birds at the airport, running an unsuccessful shrimp company, dressing up like a millionaire and going to parties, begging celebrities for money, and jumping in front of cars and suing the drivers. Lisa is even sadder, and Homer sends all of them away. But then Marge says that Homer should ask the women. He finds one in a white lab coat, reads her name tag, and asks her career, "Dr.... Simpson." "I'm the chief of complicated surgeries at the invasive care unit." Lisa finds out that all the women have great careers and that the defective gene is on the Y chromosome, so only males are affected. She regains her confidence in being smart, and solves the brain teaser that she could not solve before (which was simply numbers laterally inverted). At which point she exclaims "woohoo!!", before correcting herself. Proving that she is still a Simpson.
Sub Plot
Meanwhile, Jasper visits the Kwik-E-Mart and empties all the ice cream in a walk-in cooler so he can freeze himself in that cooler and survive to see the future. Apu sees a money-making opportunity and advertising the frozen Jasper as "Frostilicus" renames the Kwik-E-Mart the Freak-E-Mart, which becomes a tourist trap. The Freak-E-Mart lasts briefly until the freezer fails, and Jasper thaws and emerges alive and well. Fearing he will lose his customers, Apu makes the Kwik-E-Mart into the Nude-E-Mart, a combination of a convenience store and a strip club.
Production
This is the Final episode with Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein as show-runners. An Easter egg on the Season 9 DVD for this episode includes a farewell message from Bill and Josh.
Cultural references
- When Lisa is figuring out the puzzle, one of the clues she rules out is that it's not one of Prince's names, a reference to the period between 1993 and 2000 that Prince changed his name to a symbol and was known as "The Artist Formerly Known As Prince" (or simply "The Artist").
- Lisa's story is similar to the book, Flowers For Algernon, where a man writes in a journal about his slide into mental retardation (the season 12 episode "HOMR" would follow a similar plot that Flowers For Algernon does).
- Jasper's subplot calls to mind the Frozen Dead Guy Days festival, held annually in Nederland, Colorado. The events of this festival are in homage to Grandpa Bredo, a cryogenically-frozen corpse who, since 1989, has remained in stasis inside a Tuff Shed and inspired two documentaries. It is unknown whether this festival inspired the scenario.
- In the show "When Buildings Collapse", the last building to fall is the Fall of the House of Usher|House of Usher]], a reference to an Edgar Allan Poe book of the same name. The building which exploded resembles the infamous arial bombing of the abbey on Monte Cassino, Italy, by the United States during WWII.
- Lisa recommends some books to TV viewers: To Kill a Mockingbird], by Harper Lee; Harriet the Spy, by Louise Fitzhugh; and Yertle the Turtle, by Dr. Seuss ("possibly the best book ever written on the subject of turtle stacking", according to Lisa, and to which Police Chief Clancy Wiggum heartily agrees).
- Lisa creates a small pig from a rubber eraser and push-pins, which was featured in a Life in Hell comic strip.
