Bart Star

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"Bart Star"
The Simpsons episode
Bart quits the football team.
Episode no.	184
Prod. code	5F03
Orig. airdate	November 9, 1997
Show runner(s)	Mike Scully
Written by	Donick Cary
Directed by	Dominic Polcino
Couch gag	Everyone sits on the couch and is crushed into a cuboid block by a compactor.[1]
Guest star(s)	Joe Namath as himself Roy Firestone as himself Mike Judge as Hank Hill
DVD commentary	Mike Scully George Meyer Donick Cary Nancy Cartwright Dan Castellaneta Dominic Polcino
Season 9 September 21, 1997 – May 17, 1998 "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson" "The Principal and the Pauper" "Lisa's Sax" "Treehouse of Horror VIII" "The Cartridge Family" "Bart Star" "The Two Mrs. Nahasapeemapetilons" "Lisa the Skeptic" "Realty Bites" "Miracle on Evergreen Terrace" "All Singing, All Dancing" "Bart Carny" "The Joy of Sect" "Das Bus" "The Last Temptation of Krust" "Dumbbell Indemnity" "Lisa the Simpson" "This Little Wiggy" "Simpson Tide" "The Trouble with Trillions" "Girly Edition" "Trash of the Titans" "King of the Hill" "Lost Our Lisa" "Natural Born Kissers" List of all The Simpsons episodes
Seasons 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7 · 8 · 9 · 10 · 11 · 12 13 · 14 · 15 · 16 · 17 · 18 · 19 · 20 · 21

"Bart Star" is the sixth episode of the ninth season of the animated television series The Simpsons, which originally aired November 9, 1997.^[2] The title of this episode is a play on Bart Starr. Written by Donick Cary and directed by Dominic Polcino, the episode guest starred Joe Namath, Roy Firestone, and Mike Judge.^[2]

The episode sees Homer becoming the coach of a pee-wee football team, where he favors Bart over the other players until Bart quits, causing a grudge between the two.

[edit] Plot

Lisa as she decides to join the football team.

Following a Health convention held in Springfield, the children of Springfield are deemed to be overweight. To help them stay in shape, the parents enroll their children in pee-wee football. The coach, Ned Flanders, helps keep the team undefeated, but quits and gives the job to Homer after Homer heckles him from the stands.

Homer initially acts tough towards Bart, but when he is reminded of how his father was hard on him as a child, he decides to be nicer to Bart (and meaner to Grandpa). The next day, he decides to cut many players from the team, and replaces quarterback Nelson with Bart, causing an uproar from the team. Bart is unable to play the position well, and causes the team to lose a game; the rest of the team threatens to beat Bart up unless he quits. While training at night Bart meets Joe Namath, who promises to help him, but soon after Joe's wife fixes the car that had broken due to vapor lock Joe leaves without helping Bart.

Bart decides to pretend he is injured to get out of quarterbacking, but Homer claims that without Bart the team must forfeit. This causes Bart to become angry and quit the team. Nelson is made quarterback again and the team wins, but Homer has nobody to celebrate with and becomes lonely. Afterwards, Homer finds Bart and persuades him to rejoin the team. The next day, during the championship game, the score is tied when Chief Wiggum comes to arrest Nelson. Bart decides to pretend he is Nelson, assuming the charges are minor (they are actually burglary and arson). The team finally wins the championship, and unsuccessfully tries to carry Homer off the field. Joe Namath reappears to give his final thoughts on the episode and on vapor lock, the third most common cause of engine stalling.

The credits show Homer cutting all the people that worked on the episode (except for Joe Namath), including the woman who shushes in the Gracie Films logo.^[2][3]

[edit] Production

The episode was written by Donick Cary, who obtained inspiration from an experience in high school he had with a football coach who had a son on the team.^[4] Similarly, show runner Mike Scully had been on a soccer team whose coach would give his son special treatment.^[5]

George Meyer obtained inspiration for the scene toward the beginning of the episode where Rainier Wolfcastle is taunting the kids from an experience he had with Arnold Schwarzenegger. He was following Schwarzenegger during a hike, and overheard him taunting his children.^[6] Schwarzenegger's influence was seen in the same scene, as he was appointed to be the chairman of the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, on which he served from 1990 to 1993.^[7]

The final scene took a long time to write. The writing staff found it difficult to come up with a resolution that would end on positive terms for Bart and Homer, and was originally different when it was read at the writing table.^[5]

The instrumental music used in Homer's flashback (where he's in High School, performing a gymnastic floor routine) is Music Box Dancer by Frank Mills.

[edit] Casting

The cast of King of the Hill make a cameo appearance. As well as the Hill family, Dale, Bill and Boomhauer appear, sitting at the top of the bleachers. Hank says sarcastically "We drove 2,000 miles for this."

Joe Namath, Roy Firestone, and Mike Judge guest starred in the episode. Scully jokingly claims that Judge was paid $1,000,000 to appear in the episode, where he voiced the cameo of Hank Hill.^[5]. The appearance was actually a cross-promotion for Judge's animated show King of the Hill which followed The Simpsons on Fox's Sunday schedule in 1997. Other King of the Hill characters (Hank's niece Luanne, Hank's wife Peggy, Hank's son Bobby, and Hank's friends, Dale Gribble, Bill Dauterive, and Boomhauer) were present in the scene, although none of them spoke.^[8] The King of the Hill characters were animated in the style of their show rather than in "The Simpsons" mode (with yellow skin, bug eyes, and overbite). Jay Sherman from The Critic appeared in the season six episode "A Star is Burns" in a similar fashion. Marv Albert was originally going to play Firestone's part as a sports radio host, but was dropped following sexual assault charges that were made against him around the time the episode was in pre-production.^[5] Albert would later appear, however, in the season 20 episode "The Burns and The Bees".

[edit] Reception

The authors of the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, thought well of the episode, saying, "A fun episode, where you root for Bart and, unusually, Nelson - all the way through. Homer is just too stupid for words, but that's excusable because we finally see Ned Flanders lose it, big time!"^[1]

The director of the episode, Dominic Polcino, greatly enjoyed the episode, and claims that it is his favorite episode that he directed.^[9]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: "Bart Star"

The Simpsons portal

• "Bart Star" at The Simpsons.com
• "Bart Star" episode capsule at The Simpsons Archive
• "Bart Star" at TV.com
• "Bart Star" at the Internet Movie Database