To me, one of the defining aspects of the show aging is its shift in tone. The animation, while always consciously rough and a little ugly, becomes cleaner; the pace of individual jokes becomes more casual; the plotting and sense of incident becomes faster. I like to think that the show had to get a certain level of introspection out of its way – that it needed time to figure out who Bart and Lisa and Homer and Marge were and what their world was like before it could deliver pure, unadulterated action with confidence (think of how many really early episodes have the characters going for long walks or drives to think something over). I also think it’s why there’s often cases where we’re surprised by an episode coming earlier or later than we expected; there are early episodes where it felt like they were suddenly hit with inspiration and powered something out, and later episodes where they decided to slow down and get introspective again. Which makes this episode particularly interesting, because despite having the rapid-fire energy of something like “Home Sweet Home-diddly-dum-doodly”, it has the riff-heavy plotting of something like “Homer At The Bat”. The result is something energetic and yet languid; the two main plots are less plots and more riffs on two themes (‘Bart and his friends on a road trip’ and ‘Homer and Lisa playing together at work’), with a few running gags to break things up and a shift into an actual plot in the third act to function as a conclusion. The result is The Simpsons as a hangout comedy, where it feels like A Day In The Life, but with much stranger, more interesting incidents than most people have.
The episode is set over Spring Break, and despite the fact it involves a ten year old boy driving across state lines using a fake ID he stole from his aunt’s workplace, it really does feel like what school holidays felt like growing up (we don’t have Spring Break in Australia, or rather we do, but it’s just called, like, Term 2 holidays – there are two or three two-week holidays a year and a six or eight week holiday for Christmas). I enjoy that Nelson has the flexibility to act as antagonist or sidekick depending on the episode, because it always feels natural – aside from a few permanent friend groups, kids really do cycle through different combinations of relationships depending on the day. I also get a huge kick out of their whole adventure being kicked off by Milhouse uncritically reading an old and long out-of-date book; I remember reading all sorts of nonsense as a kid that, looking back, was in cheap paperbacks with less credibility than Wikipedia. Meanwhile, Homer and Lisa’s story is deliberately smaller-scale than most of their stories but all the sweeter for it. It reduces the stakes for Homer to simply have to keep her puppy love a secret and do so without incident, but I really like that about it; sometimes it’s nice not to have something stupid happen for no reason.
The other reason I like it is because, amazingly, all the different stories come together in a really elegant way in the final act. Bart is in trouble, so he calls Lisa for help, who relies on her stronger relationship with Homer to get him home. I especially love Marge’s position in all of this; not only was she pushed to the background, the fact that she has is made into a running gag, and her not finding out about the shenanigans of the week are the main stakes. Something I’ve been puzzling over lately is how The Simpsons doesn’t really actually have a premise. Futurama has a clear high concept – a guy gets frozen in the year 2000, wakes up in the year 3000, and becomes an intergalactic delivery boy; it doesn’t always stick to every part of that premise (especially Fry being a 20th century man, seeing how comfortable he gets in the future) but pretty much every episode is a riff on the show being in the future. Rick & Morty has a clear high concept (Rick has an interdimensional portal gun), a clear sense of plotting (Dan Harmon’s story circle) and a clear sensibility (horrified nihilism). The Venture Brothers has a strict sense of theme (the present has failed the expectations of the past) and a clear sense of style (everything is a riff on some bit of pop culture). The Simpsons is much, much more flexible than any of these things. You’re not necessarily going to see a story about the interactions between the five family members, you’re not necessarily going to see the same kind of plot every episode, you’re not necessarily going to something cynical or optimistic or indifferent or pushing the same viewpoint over and over.
And yet, there is a sensibility and style that holds this whole thing together. Something I notice often is how fiction will often turn me into a character from it – that is to say, the assumptions the story carries about human behaviour and its aims as a work of fiction imprints itself onto me, or to put it more simply, I look at myself the way the story looks at its characters. And something I’ve noticed in the three straight years I’ve spent writing about this show is that I have to draw on everything I know and can do. Sometimes I write about what America is and what Americans do, sometimes I write about my relationship with my little sister, sometimes I write about the show’s animation, and sometimes I write about the genre of romantic comedies. This is a show that uses its whole brain – everything it knows, feels, has seen or heard – to accomplish the task of being funny for twenty-odd minutes, and it rewards viewers who do the same thing watching it. This is what makes it an enduring classic, and this is what gives it the ability to wander about without any real plot or specific motivation in “Bart On The Road”.
Chalkboard Gag: N/A
Couch Gag: The family are planted on the couch like bowling pins.
This episode was written by Richard Appel and directed by Swinton O Scott III. It was inspired by Appel loving “Take Your Child To Work” days as a kid because he never had to do any work and Appel always wanting a driver’s licence as a kid. The road trip idea was something that excited all the writers. The car Bart drives was based on a 1993 Oldsmobile.
One of the little details that made me realise I was watching something special was when Bart is randomly pouring milk into a box of cereal without the story specifically drawing attention to it until the punchline of all the cereal falling out to time with Bart’s horror. That’s how casually the show can pound out funny details now. Bart handing out alibis is my favourite character beat this episode. “Bart, Nelson hit me!” / “He sure did.” This is my mother’s parenting style in three words.
Bart and his friends watch Naked Lunch. Nelson also drags everyone to see Andy Williams. The hitchhiker the boys pick up is a reference to the hitchhiker in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Principal Skinner books a ticket with AmeriWestica, a parody of American West Airlines.
Iconic Moments: 5. “Purple is a fruit.” | Bart describing Branson, Missouri as “Vegas, if it were run by Ned Flanders.” | “I can think of at least two things wrong with that title.” | “That’s it! BACK to Winnipeg!” | “Can we stop for ice cream?” is popular for shitposts.
Biggest Laugh:
