So far in season one of the Simpsons we've been busy establishing the main characters. Granted, Bart's character was set from the days of the Ullman shorts as the good meaning but hell raising brat, but we're already seeing the early shades of these characters begin to vanish. Homer is still written as the family member most embarrassed by his maniacal family, but we're starting to see his dwindling intelligence fall faster and faster. And Maggie is... well... the baby.
But what about Marge and, more importantly with this episode, Lisa? The female sides of the family really haven't had any development since we kicked things off. Marge is still the doting housewife and Lisa is still just Girl Bart. Essentially a smarter troublemaker. So, how do we begin to change that? To see the fault lines in this character that would eventually open up the genius rabble rouser that we all know and (mostly) love? And how do we build the importance of both the mother and eldest daughter Simpson in one excellent episode? Let's find out with "Moaning Lisa", first aired on February 11th, 1990. The same day that Nelson Mandela was finally freed from his 27 year imprisonment in South Africa and James "Buster" Douglas knocked out Mike Tyson.
CHALKBOARD GAG: "I Will Not Instigate Revolution"
COUCH GAG: Family squeeze into the couch with Maggie popping out, only for Marge to catch her. Feels awful similar to the Bart popping out couch gag from "Bart The Genius"
We open our episode with Lisa staring sadly into the bathroom mirror (nice touch of the toothpaste saying "Glum" on the label as if to drive the point further) as Homer pounds the door wanting in. Lisa leaves, but Bart is quick to snipe him on much needed commode duties. Lisa's continued depression continues at the breakfast table while Homer has a hard time finding his car keys, while Bart continues to antagonize him. To add further issues, with two cupcakes left for the family, Lisa defeated, just gives up a chance at one to Homer and Bart.
We begin to see the source of Lisa's seemingly near suicidal level of depression as her hopes for any creative expressions are quickly stifled by her music class teacher Mr. Largo. She is also depressed by the routine of the lunchtime food fight, and is also too depressed to even compete in dodgeball, with her reasoning being that she's too sad to play dodgeball. Essentially Lisa's life of routine and stifled expressiveness has led to this depression.
But we can't just focus on Lisa's existential crisis for the whole episode as Homer and Bart are playing two player Punch-Out (I mean "Super Slugfest"), with the boy brutally besting his father at every turn. Seriously, down the the design, the music, and the Mario-esque ref, there's no denying where the inspiration came from. Homer gets defeated as he ends up distracted with the news that Lisa has gotten a notice from the school about Lisa's depression causing her to not participate in Dodgeball.
Homer, of course is no help in dealing with Lisa's issues, as he boils sadness down to just tears and not really any sense of ennui. When Lisa boils it down to wondering what is even the point of her existence, Homer just tries a pony ride on his knee because, he's really bad at this parenting thing. So, he just makes Bart vacuum the floor instead. This leads to more tension for Lisa as Bart tries to cause division by saying that Maggie loves him more than Lisa. They try to make Maggie choose...
And she makes the best decision.
We return to the boxing game B-plot as Homer is once again easily trounced (in what can easily be seen as a lot of reused animation). Homer blames his loss on Lisa's saxophone playing. He goes to deal with it, but realizing that she's still depressed, lets up on her and lets her keep playing. I do like this little moment as Homer, while still really not understanding the reasoning for his daughter being this emotionally shattered is at least trying to handle it much better than the "Homer horsey" incident. Lisa hears saxophone music playing in the background and wanders off into the night.
Where she meets a most unexpected muse.
Back at the Simpson residence, we get two dream sequences. The more important one of the two being Marge remembering her mother's advice of just smiling to deal with the issues of the world. Of course this is a more positive take on Marge's mother than later versions, but it still brings up a major point about Marge to this point and how she may have poor judgment in dealing with the weight of the world, choosing to ignore the world around you and not deal with fixing it. Of course the reason for Marge's smile isn't for herself, but simply "to show the world what a good mommy she has." In other words, some toxic levels of poisonous parenting.
Homer is dreaming about being trounced about by Bart for real in the boxing game.
QUOTE OF THE EPISODE:
"You know Marge, getting old is a terrible thing. I think the saddest day of my life was when I realized I could beat my Dad at most things, and Bart experienced that at the age of four." - Homer Simpson
While Marge is still poorly handling the situation, she tells Bart to be nicer to Lisa. His best solution to get her happy is a prank call to Moe's Tavern (the Jacques Strap prank). It doesn't prove to faze the wall of ennui however.
Back to the B-plot as Homer goes to Noiseland Video Arcade to try to practice his boxing skills. A few great titles in the arcade include "Robert Goulet Destroyer" and "Escape From Grandma's House". He finds a kid who's a master at the game, and much like Mickey to one Rocky Balboa, he trains Homer in the art of the game... at least until his mother shows up. But he feels he finally has enough skill to best Bart once and for all.
Back to Marge, who is still handling this whole situation surprisingly worse than Homer did. Instead of trying to actually fix this situation by caring about Lisa's interests or her problems, she tries to use the same "just smile" technique on Lisa, and continuing to spread that poisonous parenting skills her mother taught her. When Marge sees first hand how badly Lisa has it at school from awful cat calling from boys.
Including a proto-Ralph Wiggum,
We go back to Homer finally managing to get the upper hand at Bart at the boxing game. He's about to win, but Marge pulls the plug on him to tell the family that they should go to the Jazz Hole (A plus name), tonight. With Bart technically victorious, he retires undefeated. Wah-Wah indeed.
And we end the episode at the Jazz Hole with the family listening to Bleeding Gums Murphy performing Lisa's song. I sure hope she got some royalties for that.
"Moaning Lisa" is not a particularly funny episode, nor is it super quotable. Hell, that's why I think the whole Super Slugfest B-plot was added so we could get some levity in what is a really depressing little episode. But that depressing aspect is the episode's strength. I think we all have felt like Lisa at one point or another. Granted, maybe not at eight, but we've all pondered our existence or felt like our originality is stifled or considered unwanted by the masses. It's some heavy stuff that the episode deals as well as it can in 22 minutes. Sadly, I feel the message ends up being rushed. From Lisa's meeting with Bleeding Gums, to the resolution. And I blame a lot of that from the boxing B-plot, which, while memorable, could have easily been scrapped to put a harder focus on the saga of what is essentially a near suicidal child.
It's also an important episode for Marge as we see how a bad parental figure can corrupt how you handle your own family, in this case the poor lesson of smiling the world away instead of fighting for what you believe in. And in the end, while she really doesn't seem to learn enough, she still gets some important character depth nonetheless. So, while not exactly laugh-a-minute, this is still an important episode. It sets a lot of Lisa's character going forward without as much of the ennui, and starts to show Marge as slowly becoming the more responsible parent. In the end, it's still one of season one's finest works.
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FIRST APPEARANCES:
BLEEDING GUMS MURPHY
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NEXT TIME ON 'ROUND SPRINGFIELD:
THE CALL OF THE SIMPSONS