#springfield gorge

[theknucklehead]

Something I never really noticed before when watching The Simpsons Movie:

When Homer and Bart ride the motorcycle over the Springfield Gorge, you can see a truck crashed into the tree.

That is undoubtedly the same ambulance that crashed taking Homer away in the season 2 episode "Bart the Daredevil".

[bythebigcoolingtower]

Bart the Daredevil [S2 E8] (dir. Wes Archer)

Great angle on the gorge from the top of the hill that Bart sets his descent, in fact it’s used several times throughout the episode. Nice to see Otto turned up, sat alone on the right. Though it’s not shown, I’d have to assume either the gorge ends or there’s a bridge just out of shot, because how else did they get to non railed side?

[theoddkepple]

Steamed Hams but o h y e g o d s

[athoughtfulsimpsonsblog]

Oh no

0208 Bart the Daredevil

[alexssimpsonsblog-blog]

Bart the Daredevil

“Bart the Daredevil” is a classic episode which features one of the best scenes in any Simpsons episode ever. Bart and Homer want to go to the monster truck rally, so the family go after Lisa’s saxophone recital. There, the family car is destroyed by “Truckasaurus”, but more importantly, they see the daredevil Lance Murdoch defy death. This leaves a big impression on Bart, who starts doing stunts on his skateboard. Notwithstanding a couple of visits to the hospital, Bart decides to jump Springfield gorge. He promises to Homer that he won’t, but goes to the gorge anyway, ready to make the jump.

And then, THAT scene. Homer decides the only way to teach Bart a lesson is to jump the gorge himself, “because that way you’ll see what it’s like to witness a family member stupidly risking his life for no good reason”. The logic here actually makes perfect sense when you think about it, but at the same time it’s ludicrous to the extreme. Nevertheless, this maverick parenting technique actually works: Bart begs Homer not to do it, and promises, this time sincerely, that he won’t do any more jumps. But as the sentimental ending plays out, Homer starts to roll away on the skateboard, and ends up jumping the gorge anyway. “I’m gonna make it…I’m gonna make it! I’m king of the world!” he says, before tumbling into the gorge in a painfully funny slapstick sequence. Cut to a helicopter lifting him out of the gorge, and the paramedics putting him an ambulance, which promptly crashes into a tree, with Homer rolling out the back and falling down the gorge a second time. The whole scene is perfectly constructed, and Homer’s grunts of pain as he bounces down the cliff face are glorious. It’s simply genius, and it never gets old.

With that scene as the climax, the rest of the episode could have been rubbish and it still wouldn’t have mattered. But in fact, the rest of the episode is very good, a solid foundation for the side-splitting finale. Lance Murdoch tumbling into the shark (and lion) infested pool after successfully jumping it foreshadows Homer’s slapstick accident at the end, and indeed, right before the end credits we get a shot of Homer next to Murdoch in hospital, both of them covered head to toe in bandages, with Homer quipping, “You think you’ve got guts, try raising my kids.” There are also some good lines during Lisa’s recital, such as Homer to a tearful Flanders during Tod’s violin solo, “Come on Flanders, he’s not that bad”.

In addition, “Bart the Daredevil” takes a well-deserved swipe at the moral hysteria which surrounded the show in its early years, and the criticism among conservative parents that Bart was a bad role model for kids. Dr Hibbert (in his debut appearance) takes Bart into a ward filled entirely with children who’d hurt themselves imitating stunts from television. The absurdity of the premise, and by extension the absurdity of attacks on television’s effect on children, is highlighted by a boy who broke his leg “trying to fly like Superman”, and by Hibbert’s reference to “the horrors of our Three Stooges ward”. The scene is capped off by Hibbert’s remark that such tragedies are a small price to pay for “countless hours of top-notch entertainment”.

“Bart the Daredevil” is a virtually flawless piece of television, building to a climactic scene which is a comedic masterpiece, and which makes this one of the greatest episodes of them all.

[rachdennis]

"The script had read for me to jump the gorge, but I'd be up all night paying people to kiss..."

Bart Simpson