Bart vs. Thanksgiving
"Bart vs. Thanksgiving" is the seventh episode of The Simpsons
The episode was written by George Meyer and directed by David Silverman. Voice actor Greg Berg guest starred as Rory, one of the homeless people at the soup kitchen. The episode features cultural references to Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and the poets Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and Edgar Allan Poe.
Since airing, the episode has received mostly positive reviews from television critics. It acquired a Nielsen rating of 11.9, and was the third highest-rated show on the Fox network the week it aired.
Plot
Lisa makes an elaborate decorative centerpiece for the Thanksgiving dinner table. While Homer is picking up Grampa from the retirement home, Patty and Selma arrive bearing Swedish meatballs and insinuate Marge's turkey is dry, much to Marge's consternation. The sisters' mother Jaqueline Bouvier arrives complaining of laryngitis and tells Marge she never does anything right.Once they are assembled, the Simpsons sit down to Thanksgiving dinner. When Lisa places the centerpiece on the table, she fights with Bart about where it should go since there is no room left for the turkey. In the ensuing scuffle, Bart throws the centerpiece into the fireplace and it burns to ashes. Devastated, Lisa runs to her room crying. Bart is sternly scolded, sent to his room and told he won't be allowed to eat dinner until he issues a sincere apology to Lisa. Bart stubbornly refuses and insists the incident is Lisa's fault, not his.
After Homer expels Santa's Little Helper from the house for stealing a turkey drumstick, Bart and the dog run away from home. Bart tries to steal a pie cooling on a window sill at Mr. Burns's mansion, but Burns's hounds chase him away.
While wandering the streets, Bart uses Homer's ID to sell his blood and visits a breadline that is serving Thanksgiving dinner to homeless people. Kent Brockman interviews Bart for a human interest story at the soup kitchen. The family sees the report on television and call the police, hoping they can help find Bart and bring him home. When the police fail to locate Bart, Homer and Marge regret saying stern things that drove him away.
Bart returns home feeling remorseful after seeing the meager lives of the homeless men at the breadline. Before he enters the house, he imagines his family scapegoating him for all their problems if he apologizes for ruining Thanksgiving. Realizing this scenario is all in his mind, he climbs onto the roof of the house to ponder his choices. When he hears Lisa crying because she misses him, Bart invites her to join him on the roof. He finally realizes what he did was wrong and apologizes to her. Bart and Lisa rejoin the family to enjoy a meal of Thanksgiving leftovers.
Production
The episode was written by George Meyer and directed by David Silverman. It was the first script Meyer wrote on the show, and he thought he made "quite a few mistakes, but it turned out really well overall." The staff decided to do a Thanksgiving episode after they realized an episode would air on Thursday, November 22, 1990. The Simpsons had previously aired at 8:00 p.m. EST on Sunday night but Fox switched its timeslot to the same time on Thursdays at the beginning of the second season. The idea of Bart going up on the roof was suggested by Meyer who used to go up on the roof himself when he had fights with his family.Voice actor Greg Berg guest starred as Rory, one of the homeless people at the soup kitchen. Marge's mother, Jackie Bouvier, voiced by Julie Kavner, makes her first physical appearance on The Simpsons in the episode, though she was first referenced in a flashback in the season one episode "Moaning Lisa". Bill and Marty, voiced by Dan Castellaneta and Harry Shearer respectively, also make their first visual appearances, although they were heard on the radio in previous episodes, including "Bart Gets an "F"". They are two radio show hosts and DJs on Springfield's own radio station KBBL. Homer listens to their radio show when he drives to pick up Grampa at the retirement home for the Thanksgiving dinner.
Cultural references
At the beginning of the episode, Homer and Bart watch Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, an annual United States parade that includes floating helium balloons modeled after famous fictional characters. When Homer and Bart talk about the balloons modeled after Bullwinkle and Underdog, The Simpsons is self-referenced as Homer tells Bart that if the parade "turned every flash-in-pan cartoon character into a balloon, it would be a farce", after which a giant balloon of Bart can be seen on the television in the background. Not coincidentally, 1990 was the year Bart was turned into a balloon for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. While watching the Thanksgiving football game, Homer says he is cheering for the Dallas Cowboys. Two of the fictional Dallas Cowboys players are named Jay Kogen and Wallace Wolodarsky after two writers on The Simpsons.The song that plays on the radio during the break in the Thanksgiving football game is "Get Dancing" by Disco-Tex and the Sex-O-Lettes. The game is played at the Pontiac Silverdome, then home to the Detroit Lions, who also play on Thanksgiving. Lisa says the following about her centerpiece: "It's a tribute to the trailblazing women who made our country great. See, there's Georgia O'Keeffe, Susan B. Anthony, and this is Marjory Stoneman Douglas. I'm sure you haven't heard of her, but she worked her whole life to preserve the Florida Everglades." The poem Lisa is seen writing in her room after her centerpiece is destroyed is a reference to Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl". Lisa also keeps a book of Ginsberg's work on a bookshelf next to Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road, and a collection of poems by Edgar Allan Poe. Feeling hungry, Bart decides to steal food from the old, rich Mr. Burns, who lives on the corner of Croesus and Mammon, two mythological figures of greed. A member of Burns' security staff reads the novel Les Misérables.
Reception
In its original broadcast, "Bart vs. Thanksgiving" finished thirty-seventh in the ratings for the week of November 19–25, 1990, with a Nielsen rating of 11.9, equivalent to approximately eleven million viewing households. It was the third highest-rated show on Fox that week, following Married... with Children and In Living Color.Since airing, the episode has received mostly positive reviews from television critics. The authors of the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, wrote: "Marge's mother Jackie is particularly nightmarish in her first real appearance. The final sequence on the rooftop with Lisa and Bart is lovely, and Homer's comment to Marge is a magical wrap-up to a good episode." DVD Movie Guide's Colin Jacobson said the episode "maintained a nicely irreverent tone most of the time – irreverent enough to make it amusing, at least," and added: "The interaction of the Simpson and Bouvier families at dinner was terrific, and Bart's experiences on skid row made their point while they still managed to be pointed and clever. 'Bart vs. Thanksgiving' was another winner."
Bryce Wilson of Cinema Blend said "Bart vs. Thanksgiving" and "Lisa's Substitute", another season two episode, were the first episodes that "asked to truly care about the characters, and they work beautifully". Both Dawn Taylor of The DVD Journal and Jacobson thought the most memorable line of the episode was Jackie's line to Marge: "I have laryngitis and it hurts to talk, so I'll just say one thing – you never do anything right."