Bart the Genius

Bart the Genius was the second episode of Season 1, which originally aired on January 14, 1990. It was written by Jon Vitti. It was also the first ever episode to use the signature title sequence, as well as the first regular episode.

Bart swaps IQ tests with Martin, and ends up the butt of everyone's jokes at a school for gifted kids.



Info

 * Episode: 2
 * Season: 1
 * Production code: 7G02
 * Original airdate: January 14, 1990
 * Couch gag: The family all squeeze onto the couch, and Bart pops out. He is seen falling in front of the TV as the opening
 * credits end.
 * Special guests: None

Plot
Faced with the prospect of flunking an intelligence test, Bart switches exams with brainy Martin Prince. When school psychologist Dr. J. Loren Pryor studies the results, he identifies Bart as a genius, to the delight of Homer and Marge, who enroll Bart in a new school.

On his first day at the Enriched Learning Center for Gifted Children, Bart feels out of place among other students with advanced academic skills. At home, however, he enjoys the newfound attention Homer shows him. Hoping to stimulate her son with a little culture, Marge buys the family opera tickets.

Ostracized by his genius classmates, Bart visits his old school, where he is rejected by his friends and labeled a "poindexter." When Bart's science project explodes and nearly destroys his new school, he confesses to Dr. Pryor that Martin Prince is the real genius. Bart returns home and tells Homer that he switched tests, and although it was a stupid thing to do, he is glad that they are now closer together. An angry Homer chases Bart through the house.

Production
The concept for the episode developed from writer Jon Vitti coming up with a long list of bad things Bart could do and imagining the potential consequences. The only idea that developed into an interesting episode concept was Bart cheating on an IQ test. This idea was based on an incident from Vitti's childhood when a number of his classmates did not take an intelligence test seriously and suffered poor academic treatment because of it. Because Bart was already obviously unintelligent, Vitti reversed the problem for his episode. Vitti used all his memories of elementary school behavior to produce a draft script of 71 pages, substantially above the required length of about 45 pages. It was Vitti's first script for a 30-minute television program. Bart's use of the phrase "Eat my shorts" was intended to reflect his adoption of catchphrases he had heard on TV; the creative team had told Vitti that he should not come up with original taglines for the character. The scene where the family plays Scrabble was inspired by the 1985 cartoon The Big Snit.

Director David Silverman had difficulty devising a legible Scrabble board for the opening scene that would convey the idea that the Simpsons were only able to devise very simple words. The design of Bart's visualization of the math problem was partially inspired by the art of Saul Steinberg. The increasing appearance of numbers in that sequence derived from Silverman's use of a similar tactic when he had to develop a set design for the play The Adding Machine. Each successive scene in the sequence was shorter than the one before it by exactly one frame. The scene where Bart writes his confession was done as one long take to balance the shorter scenes elsewhere in the episode. It was animated in the United States by Dan Haskett. There were a few problems with the finished animation for the episode. The banana in the opening scene was colored incorrectly, as the Korean animators were unfamiliar with the fruit, and the final bathtub scene was particularly problematic, including issues with lip sync. The version in the broadcast episode was the best of several attempts.

The episode was the first to feature the series' full title sequence, including the chalkboard gag and couch gag. Matt Groening developed the lengthy sequence in order to cut down on the animation necessary for each episode, but devised the two gags as compensation for the repeated material each week. Groening, who had not paid much attention to television since his own childhood, was unaware that title sequences of such length were uncommon by that time. As the finished episodes became longer, the production team were reluctant to cut the stories in order to allow for the long title sequence, so shorter versions of it were developed. The episode also introduced the characters Martin Prince and his parents, Richard, Bart's teacher Edna Krabappel and Dr. J Loren Pryor.