Bart's Friend Falls in Love
Encyclopedia
"Bart's Friend Falls in Love" is the twenty-third episode of The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...

' third season
The Simpsons (season 3)
The Simpsons third season originally aired on the Fox network between September 19, 1991 and May 7, 1992. The show runners for the third production season were Al Jean and Mike Reiss who executive produced 22 episodes the season, while two other episodes were produced by James L. Brooks, Matt...

. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on May 7, 1992. In the episode, Bart
Bart Simpson
Bartholomew JoJo "Bart" Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons and part of the Simpson family. He is voiced by actress Nancy Cartwright and first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...

's best friend Milhouse falls in love with the new girl in school, Samantha Stankey. Milhouse and Samantha spend all their free time together, leaving Bart feeling jealous and excluded. In order to ruin their relationship, Bart tells Samantha's strict father about it. As a punishment, Samantha is sent to an all-girls Catholic school
Catholic school
Catholic schools are maintained parochial schools or education ministries of the Catholic Church. the Church operates the world's largest non-governmental school system...

, while Milhouse is left behind heartbroken. Meanwhile, Homer
Homer Simpson
Homer Jay Simpson is a fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons and the patriarch of the eponymous family. He is voiced by Dan Castellaneta and first appeared on television, along with the rest of his family, in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...

 orders a subliminal cassette tape to help him lose weight, but is accidentally sent one that helps him increase his vocabulary after the weight-loss tapes sell out.

The episode was written by Jay Kogen
Jay Kogen
-Early life:Jay Steven Kogen was born on May 3rd, 1963 in Brooklyn, New York. He is the son of Mad writer Arnie Kogen, and Sue Kogen . His paternal grandparents, Samuel Kogen and Pauline Gorin, were Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire , while his maternal grandparents, Harold Hirsch and Ida...

 and Wallace Wolodarsky
Wallace Wolodarsky
Wallace Wolodarsky is an American television writer and director. He wrote for The Simpsons during the first four seasons; all of his episodes were co-written with former writing partner Jay Kogen...

, and directed by Jim Reardon
Jim Reardon
Jim Reardon is an animation director and storyboard consultant, best known for his work on the animated TV series The Simpsons. He has directed over 30 episodes of the series, and was credited as a supervising director for seasons 9 through 15...

. American actress Kimmy Robertson
Kimmy Robertson
Kimmy Robertson is an American actress best known for her role as Lucy Moran in the TV series Twin Peaks. She was married to John Christian Walker from January 18, 2003 to September 27, 2004....

 guest starred in the episode as Samantha. The opening sequence of "Bart's Friend Falls in Love" is a parody of the film Raiders of the Lost Ark
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Raiders of the Lost Ark is a 1981 American action-adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg, produced by George Lucas, and starring Harrison Ford. It is the first film in the Indiana Jones franchise...

, while the closing sequence parodies the film Casablanca
Casablanca (film)
Casablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid, and featuring Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Dooley Wilson. Set during World War II, it focuses on a man torn between, in...

. Since airing, the episode has received mostly positive reviews from television critics. It acquired a Nielsen rating
Nielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...

 of 12.4 and was the fourth highest-rated show on the Fox network the week it aired.

Plot

While riding the bus to school, Milhouse shows Bart
Bart Simpson
Bartholomew JoJo "Bart" Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons and part of the Simpson family. He is voiced by actress Nancy Cartwright and first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...

 his new fortune-telling
Fortune-telling
Fortune-telling is the practice of predicting information about a person's life. The scope of fortune-telling is in principle identical with the practice of divination...

 toy, a Magic 8 ball
Magic 8-ball
The Magic 8 Ball is a toy used for fortune-telling or seeking advice, manufactured by Mattel.-Origin:While Magic 8-Ball did not exist in its current form until 1950, the functional component was invented by Albert C. Carter, who was inspired by a "spirit writing" device used by his mother, Mary, a...

. Bart asks the ball whether he and Milhouse will still be friends by the end of the day, and the ball predicts they will not. Both are puzzled by how this could happen. A new girl from Phoenix
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...

, Samantha Stanky, starts at Springfield Elementary School the same day, and Milhouse instantly falls in love with her. To Bart's dismay and anger, Milhouse and Samantha start a relationship and, rather than playing with Bart after school in his treehouse, Milhouse brings Samantha with him and spends the entire time hugging and kissing her. They ignore Bart, leaving nothing for him to do but leave.

Meanwhile, Lisa
Lisa Simpson
Lisa Marie Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons. She is the middle child of the Simpson family. Voiced by Yeardley Smith, Lisa first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987. Cartoonist Matt Groening...

 worries that Homer
Homer Simpson
Homer Jay Simpson is a fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons and the patriarch of the eponymous family. He is voiced by Dan Castellaneta and first appeared on television, along with the rest of his family, in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...

's obesity will lead to an early death. On Lisa's suggestion, Marge
Marge Simpson
Marjorie "Marge" Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons and part of the eponymous family. She is voiced by actress Julie Kavner and first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...

 orders a subliminal weight loss
Weight loss
Weight loss, in the context of medicine, health or physical fitness, is a reduction of the total body mass, due to a mean loss of fluid, body fat or adipose tissue and/or lean mass, namely bone mineral deposits, muscle, tendon and other connective tissue...

 tape for Homer. However, the company is out of weight loss tapes and sends Homer a "Vocabulary Builder" tape instead, unbeknownst to Marge and the family. Homer puts on the headphones in bed and falls asleep. When he wakes up, he is suddenly articulate, but ends up eating more food than ever. Once he realizes the tape has not helped him lose weight, Homer gets rid of it and his vocabulary quickly returns to normal.

Milhouse and Samantha spend all their free time together. Jealous and feeling excluded, Bart reveals their relationship to Samantha's father. Before Samantha can explain, Mr. Stanky rushes to Bart's treehouse and sends her to Saint Sebastian's school for Wicked Girls, an all-girls convent school
Catholic school
Catholic schools are maintained parochial schools or education ministries of the Catholic Church. the Church operates the world's largest non-governmental school system...

 run by French-Canadian nuns. Bart and Milhouse start fighting after Bart reveals that he snitched to Samantha's father. After calming down, the two boys visit Samantha at the convent school, and Bart apologizes to her. Samantha says she loves Saint Sebastian's, but she still has feelings for Milhouse and gives him a goodbye kiss, despite knowing it is violating the school rules.

Production and allusions

The episode was written by Jay Kogen
Jay Kogen
-Early life:Jay Steven Kogen was born on May 3rd, 1963 in Brooklyn, New York. He is the son of Mad writer Arnie Kogen, and Sue Kogen . His paternal grandparents, Samuel Kogen and Pauline Gorin, were Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire , while his maternal grandparents, Harold Hirsch and Ida...

 and Wallace Wolodarsky
Wallace Wolodarsky
Wallace Wolodarsky is an American television writer and director. He wrote for The Simpsons during the first four seasons; all of his episodes were co-written with former writing partner Jay Kogen...

, and directed by Jim Reardon
Jim Reardon
Jim Reardon is an animation director and storyboard consultant, best known for his work on the animated TV series The Simpsons. He has directed over 30 episodes of the series, and was credited as a supervising director for seasons 9 through 15...

. American actress Kimmy Robertson
Kimmy Robertson
Kimmy Robertson is an American actress best known for her role as Lucy Moran in the TV series Twin Peaks. She was married to John Christian Walker from January 18, 2003 to September 27, 2004....

 guest starred in the episode as Samantha. She recorded all of her lines separately, instead of acting them out with the cast of the show in the recording studio as it is usually done. Robertson said of the role: "I had no idea how popular I was going to be after I did that. All my friends think I'm the bee's knees now. I've made it." The physical appearance of Samantha is based on Wolodarsky's niece, who is also named Samantha.

The episode's opening sequence parodies that of the Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...

 film Raiders of the Lost Ark
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Raiders of the Lost Ark is a 1981 American action-adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg, produced by George Lucas, and starring Harrison Ford. It is the first film in the Indiana Jones franchise...

(1981). Bart, in the role of Indiana Jones
Indiana Jones
Colonel Henry Walton "Indiana" Jones, Jr., Ph.D. is a fictional character and the protagonist of the Indiana Jones franchise. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg created the character in homage to the action heroes of 1930s film serials...

, steals a penny jar (instead of a Fertility Idol) from Homer before heading to school on the bus. Homer stands in for the boulder and the Hovitos tribe and angrily runs after Bart, while Maggie
Maggie Simpson
Margaret "Maggie" Simpson is a fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons. She first appeared on television in the Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987. Maggie was created and designed by cartoonist Matt Groening while he was waiting in the lobby of James...

 fires suction darts (instead of arrows) at Bart. Bart is able to narrowly pass through the closing garage door and escape. As Bart steps onto the bus, Homer is seen the distance shouting after him. John Williams
John Williams
John Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career spanning almost six decades, he has composed some of the most recognizable film scores in the history of motion pictures, including the Star Wars saga, Jaws, Superman, the Indiana Jones films, E.T...

's theme song from Raiders of the Lost Ark, "Raiders March", plays throughout the sequence. The producers had to contact Spielberg in order to clear the rights for the song so that they could use it in the episode. Paul Wee was the layout artist for the sequence. Marge's voice actor, Julie Kavner
Julie Kavner
Julie Deborah Kavner is an American film and television actress, comedian and voice artist. Noted for her role as Marge Simpson on the animated television series The Simpsons, she also voices other characters for the show, including Jacqueline Bouvier, and Patty and Selma Bouvier.Born in Los...

, praised it for focusing on the animation and not having any dialog in it.

The episode's closing sequence in which Bart and Milhouse visit Samantha at Saint Sebastian's is a reference to the film Casablanca
Casablanca (film)
Casablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid, and featuring Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Dooley Wilson. Set during World War II, it focuses on a man torn between, in...

. One nun leads a group of children and sings "Dominique
Dominique
"Dominique" is a popular song in French by Sœur Sourire , of Belgium, also known as The Singing Nun. It is about Saint Dominic, a Spanish-born priest and founder of the Dominican Order, of which she was a member . The English version of the song was written by Noël Regney...

", a song by The Singing Nun
The Singing Nun
Jeanine Deckers , known in English as The Singing Nun, was a Belgian nun, and a member of the Dominican Fichermont Convent in Belgium. She became internationally famous in 1963 as Sœur Sourire when she scored a hit with the song "Dominique"...

. Cast member Maggie Roswell
Maggie Roswell
Maggie Roswell is an American film and television actress and voice artist from Los Angeles, California. She is well known for her voice work on the Fox network's animated television series The Simpsons, in which she has played recurring characters such as Maude Flanders, Helen Lovejoy, Miss...

 provided the voice of the nun, but did she not know the actual French lyrics to the song so she made up her own. The writers had difficulties coming up with an idea for the end of the episode. Executive producer James L. Brooks
James L. Brooks
James Lawrence Brooks is an American director, producer and screenwriter. Growing up in North Bergen, New Jersey, Brooks endured a fractured family life and passed the time by reading and writing. After dropping out of New York University, he got a job as an usher at CBS, going on to write for the...

 pitched the idea of Samantha getting shipped off to a Catholic school with "fun nuns" that are like The Singing Nun. Other references in the episode include a scene in which Lisa reads a magazine with the headline "The Year 2525 - were Zager & Evans Right?", referring to musicians Zager and Evans
Zager and Evans
Zager & Evans were a Lincoln, Nebraska rock-pop duo of the late 1960s and early 1970s named after its two members, Denny Zager and Rick Evans, who met at Nebraska Wesleyan University. Fellow Nebraska artists Dave Trupp and Mark Dalton backed up the duo on drums and bass respectively...

 and their song "In the Year 2525
In the Year 2525
"In the Year 2525 " is a hit song from 1969 by American pop-rock duo Zager and Evans. It reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for six weeks commencing July 12, 1969. The song was written by Rick Evans in 1964 and originally released on a small regional record label in 1968...

". In reference to the play Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...

, Milhouse says that Samantha and his relationship started like Romeo and Juliet, but ended in tragedy, unaware that the play also ends in tragedy. Milhouse's original line in the scene was "It feel like somebody gave my heart a wedgie
Wedgie
A wedgie occurs when a person's underwear or other garments are wedged between the buttocks. While a wedgie can be created naturally, the term is usually associated with a prank or as a form of bullying...

." Milhouse has a poster in his room featuring an X-wing
X-wing
X-wings are fictional starfighters from the original Star Wars trilogy and the expanded universe. They are depicted as the primary interceptor and dogfighter of the Rebel Alliance and the New Republic...

 from the Star Wars
Star Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...

franchise.

Reception

In its original American broadcast, "Bart's Friend Falls in Love" finished 35th in the ratings for the week of May 4–10, 1992, with a Nielsen rating
Nielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...

 of 12.4, equivalent to approximately 11.4 million viewing households. It was the fourth highest-rated show on the Fox network that week, following Beverly Hills, 90210
Beverly Hills, 90210
Beverly Hills, 90210 is an American drama series that originally aired from October 4, 1990 to May 17, 2000 on Fox and was produced by Spelling Television in the United States, and subsequently on various networks around the world. It is the first series in the Beverly Hills, 90210 franchise...

, In Living Color
In Living Color
In Living Color is an American sketch comedy television series, which originally ran on the Fox Network from April 15, 1990 to May 19, 1994. Brothers Keenen and Damon Wayans created, wrote, and starred in the program. The show was produced by Ivory Way Productions in association with 20th Century...

, and Married... with Children
Married... with Children
Married... with Children is an American surrealistic sitcom that aired for 11 seasons that featured a dysfunctional family living in Chicago, Illinois. The show, notable for being the first prime time television series to air on Fox, ran from April 5, 1987, to June 9, 1997. The series was created...

. Since airing, the episode has received mostly positive reviews from television critics. The authors of the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, said the episode was "a fitting end to a season that had seen The Simpsons consolidate its success and become even more daring and intelligent." DVD Movie Guide's Colin Jacobson said that "from the ingenious and hilarious Raiders of the Lost Ark parody at the show’s start, 'Bart's Friend Falls in Love' is a keeper. It actually develops the characters and gets into pre-teen emotions but never becomes sappy. The 'B'-plot in which Lisa tries to get Homer to lose weight provides terrific laughs as well."

Nate Meyers of Digitally Obsessed gave the episode a 4.5 out of 5 rating and commented that "It's tough to view Milhouse in a romantic relationship, especially since the most recent seasons have made a point of hinting at Milhouse being gay. Still, the love triangle makes for some interesting drama and the script's observations about childhood infatuations are right on point." Bill Gibron of DVD Verdict, however, thought the plot seemed drawn out and "only Homer's eating disorder and subliminal tape attempts at weight loss have lasting appeal. Since the tape turns out to be a vocabulary builder, hearing Homer expound in flowery language is a real, rare treat." The Santa Fe New Mexican
The Santa Fe New Mexican
-External links:* - available to the public...

's Jeff Acker also preferred the subplot over the main plot.

The episode's Raiders of the Lost Ark parody was named the greatest film reference in the history of the show by Nathan Ditum of Total Film
Total Film
Total Film is a British film magazine published 13 times a year by Future Publishing. The magazine was launched in 1997 and offers film, DVD and Blu-ray news, reviews and features...

. Empire
Empire (magazine)
Empire is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media. From the first issue in July 1989, the magazine was edited by Barry McIlheney and published by Emap. Bauer purchased Emap Consumer Media in early 2008...

's Colin Kennedy also named it the best film parody in the show, calling it the series' "most famous opening sequence." He noted Homer played "both his roles – half-naked native; big fat boulder – with consummate aplomb." The Canadian television series The Hour, hosted by George Stroumboulopoulos
George Stroumboulopoulos
George Mark Paul Stroumboulopoulos is a Canadian television and radio personality, best known as the host of CBC Television's George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight and being a VJ for Canadian music television channel MuchMusic...

, ranked the Raiders of the Lost Ark parody as the greatest in the "Top Five Male Underwear Moments of All Time". The list referred to scenes in film and television portraying men in underwear, and Homer wore underwear in the relevant scene.

External links

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