“That one looks like a school bus going over a cliff in flames with kids inside screaming.” – Jimbo Jones Like any other organization or group of people, a school has a natural hierarchy. The adults are separate from the kids, obviously, but even within groups there are levels and layers. For the adults there are staff and faculty, for the students there are grades, gender, circles of friends and lots of other ways the students sort themselves out. One of the things that made Springfield Elementary so compelling and recognizable as a place, even though it’s fictional and inhabited…
Category: Permanent Record
Permanent Record: Mr. Largo
“Alright, class, from the top: one and two and three and. . .” – Mr. Largo American primary schools are filled with godawful bands. While a few students might genuinely like playing music and even have some skill, most of the members are kids that have no particular aptitude for music, aren’t overly fond of their instruments, and/or are only in the band because their parents made them join. In this context, “band” is just another class or after school activity, something most of the kids will go through the motions for, if only to keep the adults off their…
Permanent Record: Burns Manor
“There it is, kids, stately Burns Manor, heaven on earth.” – Homer Simpson Watching Season 1 episodes with the knowledge of what the show was going to become can often blur out just how well formed many of the show’s ideas were, even before the voices and the animation had developed. Burns, and the palatial estate on which he lives, illustrate that well. “There’s No Disgrace Like Home” is the first time we get to see Burns Manor, and while it would be revised and updated in Season 2 and later, the fundamental ideas of it are all right here.…
Permanent Record: Sherri & Terri
“We’re gonna make you sing, Bart Simpson.” – Sherri “Yeah, Bart Simpson, we’re gonna make you sing.” – Terri When “Homer’s Odyssey” was first broadcast, and The Simpsons was considered just this side of Satanic cults by much of mainstream culture, one of the best things about it was the way it mocked success. People who did well in Springfield didn’t always deserve it, and even the ones who did were often portrayed as insufferable jackasses. The most glaring example of that is easily Flanders, who is a genuinely nice guy but who is also grotesquely inhuman in the way…
Permanent Record: Dr. J. Loren Pryor
“Ah, finished already? Principal Skinner will be very interested to . . . oh. . . . You know, you misspelled ‘confession’.” – Dr. J. Loren Pryor Even at its earliest stages, The Simpsons was always careful not to pass up comedy opportunities. Whether it was minor characters, secondary locations, television shows, or anything else, the show made sure to populate the universe of Springfield with people, places and ideas that were just as delightfully twisted as the main family. A school psychologist evaluating troublemaking Bart could easily have been portrayed as a straight ahead public servant, a caring individual…