Moe'N'a Lisa

The Simpson family go to see Grampa perform at the Senior Olympics. After they leave, Moe calls Homer to remind him about a fishing trip to celebrate his birthday. When the family returns, Homer realizes he forgot Moe's birthday when he sees Moe sitting outside on their front steps. That night, Moe writes an angry letter to the family, and the dramatic writing inspires Lisa to choose Moe for her "interesting person" report at school.

At Moe's residence, a run-down hotel, Lisa finds his notes on the wall and arranges them to form a poem. She submits this to American Poetry Perspectives, and the poem is approved, with author Tom Wolfe inviting Moe and the Simpson family to Vermont to attend a literary conference. After Moe sees another poet ridiculed and exiled for admitting he had help with writing, he falsely claims that he wrote and titled his poem all by himself, devastating Lisa.

Moe is featured on a writing panel. Lisa attends and encourages him to share his inspirations, although he insists that he does not have any. However, without Lisa's help, Moe struggles to write a poem in time for a dinner in his honor; when he sees Lisa enter, he improvises a poem about her, thanking her for helping him write poetry. Lisa forgives Moe and they walk out of the dining hall together.

Meanwhile, the publisher of American Poetry Perspectives, J. Jonah Jameson, watches the panel on television and turns it off in disgust. He then demands photos of Spider-Man, but after being reminded that he works at a poetry journal, demands poems about Spider-Man.

The writers of the episode first started with the idea of Moe as Charles Bukowski and then teamed him with Lisa. The episode guest stars authors Tom Wolfe, who says The Simpsons "is the only show of any sort that I watch on television"; Jonathan Franzen and Michael Chabon, who recorded their lines together; and Gore Vidal, who admitted that he was not a regular watcher of the show. In one version of the script, Wolfe, Chabon and Franzen were all killed by a giant boulder. Although the guest stars recorded lines for this part of the episode, the scene was cut from the final version.[3] The Wordloaf conference is based on the real life Bread Loaf Writers' Conference in Vermont.

Dan Iverson of IGN rates it a 7.3, saying that this episode made up for the previous one.[1] He praises all the guest voices in their appearances, though mainly Tom Wolfe's.[1]

• "Moe'N'a Lisa" at IMDb

Wikiquote has quotations related to "Moe'N'a Lisa".