Bart's Girlfriend

During a church sermon, Bart falls in love with Reverend Lovejoy's daughter, Jessica. When he approaches her to praise her sermon, she ignores him. Bart attends Sunday school the next week to convince Jessica that he is a saint, but she still ignores him. Frustrated, Bart plays a prank on Groundskeeper Willie and is punished with detention. Jessica expresses sympathy for Bart and invites him to her house for dinner.

During dinner with the Lovejoys, Bart's crude manner and foul language cause Reverend Lovejoy to forbid him from ever seeing Jessica again. She and Bart secretly date, bonding over their shared love of mischief while vandalizing the town. When Bart realizes that Jessica is more badly behaved than he is, he tries to reform her at the next church service. Undeterred, Jessica empties the money from the collection plate into her purse and abruptly leaves after forcing the empty plate into Bart's lap. The congregation mistakenly believes that Bart took the money when Helen Lovejoy calls their attention to the empty plate.

Homer assumes Bart is guilty, but Marge believes he is innocent. Reluctant to implicate Jessica, Bart visits her the next day and admits he does not like her after she refuses to confess. Upon learning the truth, Lisa is determined not to allow her brother to be blamed for something he did not do. After unsuccessfully attempting to convince Jessica to confess, Lisa tells the congregation that Jessica is the guilty party. The townspeople search Jessica's room and find the money hidden under her bed. After Reverend Lovejoy expresses shock at her actions, Jessica reminds him of her past incidents, which he willingly ignores. Jessica is punished by being forced to scrub the church steps, and Bart receives an apology from the congregation.

Later, Bart approaches Jessica at church and tells her what lesson he has learned. Jessica replies she has learned that she can make men do whatever she wants. Bart agrees to finish scrubbing the steps for her as she leaves with her new boyfriend, but he vows to do a poor job to get even with her.

"Bart's Girlfriend" was written by Jonathan Collier and directed by Susie Dietter.[2] David Mirkin, who was show runner at the time, originally had the idea of Bart having a girlfriend that was more evil than he was.[3] Mirkin gave the idea to Collier to write it with the help of the show's executive producer James L. Brooks. Collier said later that he thought it was a case of Brooks coming up with good ideas and him "giggling obsequiously".[4] The idea for the ending of the episode was to have none of the characters learn anything from the experience.[3]

Meryl Streep guest starred in the episode as Jessica Lovejoy.

Matt Groening, the creator of The Simpsons, felt that Jessica Lovejoy was hard to draw in his own style but at the same time make her attractive.[5] Julie Kavner, who provides the voice of Marge Simpson on the show, was particularly impressed by the eyes.[6] Jessica was made the Reverend's daughter to give the impression that she was good at first and then to show that she was rebelling against the righteousness of her family.[4] In the scene where Bart talks to Jessica outside her house, her baton playing was in the script but the exact choreography was not. Dietter liked its incorporation because it gave Jessica something else, other than Bart, to pay attention to. This was also done in the final scene when Jessica scrubs the church steps and plays with the scrub brush.[7]

Academy Award-winning actress Meryl Streep was called in to do the voice of Jessica.[6] Nancy Cartwright, who provides the voice of Bart Simpson on the show, was a huge fan of Streep and she assumed that Streep would record her lines individually, but all of their recordings were done together.[8] Streep showed up alone with no entourage at the Village Recorder in West Los Angeles at 2:30 p.m., where she recorded her parts with Cartwright.[8] Streep was continually doing many different versions of her lines.[8] Mirkin felt she was easy to work with because she was versatile and keen to do a lot of different things, and as Mirkin expressed it, "easily evil".[3] Cartwright said in an interview with The Pantagraph that she really wanted Streep's autograph, but was afraid to ask for it.[9] After the recording session, Streep tapped Cartwright on the shoulder, and said her kids were big The Simpsons fans and that she would be in "big trouble" if she did not get Cartwright's autograph.[9]

When Homer is musing over Bart's first date, he begins to sing "Sunrise, Sunset" from Fiddler on the Roof, before moving on to "Cat's in the Cradle", and then "Yes, We Have No Bananas". The joke was very expensive for the writers to put in because they had to pay thousands of dollars for the rights to use the songs on the show.[4]

"Bart's Girlfriend" originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on November 6, 1994.[1] The episode was selected for release in a 2001 video collection of selected episodes titled: The Simpsons – Love, Springfield Style.[10] Other episodes included in the collection set were "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Marge", "The Two Mrs. Nahasapeemapetilons", and "I'm with Cupid".[10] The episode was included in The Simpsons season 6 DVD set, which was released on August 16, 2005, as The Simpsons – The Complete Sixth Season.[11]

In the beginning of the episode, the parents chase the children in a cornfield to eventually round them up for church, which parodies a similar scene from the 1968 film Planet of the Apes, where the humans are rounded up by apes.[3] As Bart sits in church playing with his Troll Doll, he sings a parodied version of Soul Man (popularised by Sam & Dave). After Bart is accused of stealing from the church collection plate, he is forced to wear a straitjacket in church, which is a reference to Hannibal Lecter's straitjacket in The Silence of the Lambs.[1] "Misirlou", the theme song of the 1994 film Pulp Fiction, plays during Bart and Jessica's date.[2] Bart calls Jessica "smart, beautiful and a liar..." and then claims she is "...so much better than that Sarah, plain and tall". The scene then cuts to a shot of a plain and tall girl named Sarah that overhears Bart and begins to cry.[7] The Lovejoy family has a replica of Leonardo da Vinci's painting The Last Supper hanging on the wall in their dining room.[1] The sign on the Springfield Church marquee reads: "Evil Women in History: From Jezebel to Janet Reno".[1]

Wikiquote has quotations related to "Bart's Girlfriend".

• "Bart's Girlfriend episode capsule". The Simpsons Archive.
• "Bart's Girlfriend" at IMDb