Template:Infobox
| “ | Eat My Shorts! | „ |
| ~ ―Bart's catchphrase |
Bartholomew "Bart" J. Simpson, also known as El Barto and Bartman, born April 1, is the tritagonist of the Simpsons franchise. He is Homer and Marge Simpson's eldest child, their only son, and the older brother of Lisa and Maggie.
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Biography
Bart is a self-proclaimed underachiever who begins each show in detention as part of the opening sequence. His was born on April 1, 1983 (according to Uncensored Family Album) and was conceived on May 21, 1982. He is easily distracted (even, strangely enough, by algebraic equations). His penchant for shocking people began before he was born: Bart "mooned" Dr. Hibbert while he performed a sonogram on Marge, and moments after being born he set fire to Homer's tie. His blood type is the very rare Double O Negative (OO-) ; only he and Mr. Burns are known to have it.
Bart's interests include Krusty the Clown (he is "Krusty Buddy" number 16302), skateboarding, reading comic books (especially Radioactive Man), watching TV (especially The Krusty The Clown Show and The Itchy & Scratchy Show), terrorizing Lisa, playing video games, helping Lisa solve various problems (e.g. reuniting Krusty with his estranged father), and pulling off various pranks (such as mooning unsuspecting people and prank calling Moe Szyslak at his tavern). Bart also sprayed graffiti under the alias 'El Barto', and regularly frequents the Kwik-E-Mart (for bubblegum and Squishees) and The Android's Dungeon.
Bart hinted that his favorite movies are Jaws and the Star Wars trilogy. His best friend is Milhouse Van Houten.
Bart is a polyglot and can speak several languages with varying degrees of fluency. Though he has not demonstrated the ability since his trip to France as an exchange student, he speaks near-perfect French (as a result of drinking wine laced with antifreeze). He also learned Spanish in a matter of hours in preparation for the family's trip to Brazil. Upon learning that Brazilians speak Portuguese and not Spanish, Homer orders his son to forget what he learned, prompting Bart to strike himself over the head until he forgot the language. Bart also speaks Japanese (which he also learned in a couple of hours in prison along with Homer, and is also shown speaking Japanese, Cantonese and Latin. His advanced linguistic skills may be inherited from Homer, who also speaks advanced languages, including penguin. He was also shown to be a skilled drummer. He is a player in the Mighty Pigs Peewee Hockey League Team. He was also quite capable of firing advanced firearms with a frighteningly immense amount of accuracy, as evidenced when, while at Military School as a result of a prank involving bullhorns, he was given a RGB6 Grenade Launcher by the firing range instructor due to his belief that Bart would have most likely known how to operate handguns, and managed to destroy four out of five targets before one of his shots missed and ended up hitting Principal Skinner's car just as he was about to unlock it, to which Bart implied that he deliberately missed the fifth target and was actually aiming for Skinner's car that time. He later displayed a similar proficiency towards weapons when he managed to hijack a tank by stealing the keys, drive it over to the the park, and managed to shoot down a MLB satellite with with surprising accuracy all by himself, although at that point, he was also under the effects of an experimental drug that was supposed to supress Bart's Attention Deficit Disorder.
Bart can also drive vehicles with surprising skill for his age. He has his own driving license, given to him after saving Springfield from a fire, although he has been seen driving before with a fake license at times. He still possesses it, using it to great effect when he stole Principal Skinner's car to get to Jimbo's house.
He is the most misunderstood Simpson, constantly frustrated by the narrow-minded people of Springfield, who judge him merely by his thoughts and actions. Overall, he is a good boy with a few bad ideas (and one or two that are still being reviewed by the Springfield District Attorney) - Basically, Bart is no different from any ordinary 4th grader. When Bart is about to do something mischievous, he does an evil chuckle.
Bart is also a skilled chef. He cooked a three course meal for his parents and made a dessert.
When he was made Hall Monitor, he also had a great degree of skill in enforcing the law and rules. This trait was later exemplified when he, in a similar fashion to a bouncer, removed Homer Simpson from the premises of the La Maison Derrière after he continuously heckled Marge's ventriloquist performance.
Behavior
Bart is considerably motivated in disrupting the routine at Springfield Elementary, and his pranks are often elaborately complex, but can lead to bad situations. While his actions and speech frequently show considerable mental agility, street-smarts, and understanding. When Bart became a hall monitor for Springfield Elementary, his grades went up, showing that he only struggles because he does not pay any attention, not because he is dumb, in which while he is not as extremely intelligent as his sister Lisa, he is still more intelligent than his father Homer. Later, it is revealed that Bart suffers from Attention Deficit Disorder. He turns out to be musically gifted by becoming an excellent drummer. On the other hand, Bart often seems to have trouble understanding even the simplest concepts, such as the word "irony", what the equator is and that the logo on his globe ("Rand McNally") is not actually a country. It was also once implied that his mischievous behavior may have been a result of Marge accidentally ingesting a droplet of champagne while pregnant with him.
Labeled as an "underachiever" by authority figures, Bart rides an academic rollercoaster, his grades, running the Loop-the-Loop from "F" to "D-" and back again. But he can be ingenious when the chips are down—as long as his ingenuity is never applied to anything school-related. He even learned portions of the Talmud to help reunite his idol, Krusty the Clown, with Krusty's father, Rabbi Hyman Krustofski. Once, after an incident where Bart unleashed a surf wave across the school damaging property (and also saving Ned Flanders who was on fire at the time), he was given an experimental drug for Attention Deficit Disorder called Focusyn (although it took several times to convince him, once causing Homer to wig out when he attempted to eat Focusyn-laced Taffy to convince Bart that it wasn't laced), causing his intellectual potential to reach its maximum, to the extent that he was even capable of tutoring a Navajo boy. Unfortunately, the drug also shortly thereafter drove him paranoid as a side effect, where he started sensing that Major League Baseball is actually spying on them with a satellite, and ended up going beserk when the prospect of being taken off of Focusyn became apparent, sneaking into Fort Fragg and stealing keys to one of its tanks and arrived at Springfield Elementary causing a wake of destruction by driving in the process, and later used its cannon to blow away a MLB satellite, proving his suspicions correct.
Although he gets into endless trouble and is sometimes shallow and selfish, Bart also exhibits many qualities of high integrity. He has, on a few occasions, helped the love life of his school Principal and his teacher, despite the fact he often terrorizes them, and he often befriends outcasts like Milhouse. One great example of his quasi sense of honor is when Bart stands up for Ralph Wiggum at the cost of peer popularity. He was once sent to a juvenile detention center when he played a serious prank involving faux wedding gifts and a fake wedding. He also has legitimate guilt whenever he got either Krabappel or Principal Skinner fired, especially if it was not his intention to do so, like in the former case where he and his classmates plan on getting her laid back by spiking her drink (due to his experience with Homer whenever he's drunk) backfired when she ended up making things dangerous for herself and others and got herself fired, and the latter case where his dog ended up in the ventilation shafts and got trapped along with Willie when he intended to use Santa's Little Helper for show and tell.
Appearance
He has yellow/blond spiky hair (revealed to actually be naturally red, but it stays yellow when he's out in the sun), and has a round, fat belly. He wears a red short-sleeved shirt, blue short pants, and blue-white shoes. He would sometimes wear his "lucky" red baseball cap and carry around his skateboard or a slingshot.
Alter-Egos and Aliases
Bart sprays graffiti around Springfield using the name "El Barto", and his superhero alter-ego is Bartman. He called himself Cupcake Kid when Homer became Pieman. Bart is also known as "The Devil in Blue Shorts" by the organizers of the Teacher of the Year Awards, but he was believed to be an urban legend.
Relationships
Family
Homer
Due to Bart's mischievousness and Homer's often uncaring and incompetent behavior, the two have a turbulent relationship. Bart will often address Homer by his given name instead of "Dad", while Homer in turn often refers to him as "the boy". Whenever Homer finds out that Bart has said or done something stupid or bad, he yells "Why you little–?!" (often followed by throttling him) or simply "BART!". It is also implied once that, whenever he messes up, he almost expects people to strangle him and even goes as far as to strangle himself (presumably due to his experience with Homer), as when he accidentally let go of Ned Flanders best fishing rod when attempting to fish with Flanders, Bart instinctively starts clutching his own neck and imitating strangling before realizing and reacting with surprise that Ned Flanders isn't strangling him. Homer and Bart's relationship reaches a breaking point following Homer's pollution of Lake Springfield (causing Springfield to be sealed under a giant dome by the EPA), with Bart even going so far as saying that he wishes Flanders was his father. Nevertheless, the two really do love each other deep down.
Marge
Marge, who calls Bart her "special little guy", is much more caring, understanding and nurturing than Homer, but she also refers to Bart as "a handful" and is often embarrassed by his antics. However, because his mother is kinder towards Bart than Homer is, Bart holds a soft spot for his mother and often feels remorse when he upsets her.
Lisa
Bart shares a sibling rivalry with his younger sister, Lisa, but does nothing about youngest sister Maggie (due to her infant state). While Bart has often hurt Lisa out of jealousy, and even fought her physically, they are very close - he cares for her as deeply as she does for him, and has always apologized for going too far. He also believes Lisa to be his superior when it comes to solving problems, and frequently goes to her for advice. He is often protective of her when she is threatened or insulted by others, though he frequently insults her himself. Both siblings formed a dynamic crime-solving duo during many of their encounters with w:c:villains:Sideshow Bob, Bart's nemesis. Bart is also 2 years and 38 days older than Lisa. At one time, he enters a series of robot battles with his robot: Chief Knock-a-Homer(which is Homer as the robot hoping to gain Bart's trust), and tries to cheer up Lisa when Snowball II dies.
Friends
Bart's best friend is Milhouse Van Houten. Though the two are close friends, Bart has put Milhouse into trouble several times, with more than one occasion causing physical harm to Milhouse due to Bart's lack of regard for Milhouse's safety. At one time, Bart was driving a forklift with Milhouse standing on the fork while the forklift was moving. When Marge stopped Bart from driving the forklift, Milhouse was sent flying and was knocked unconscious.
The relationship between Milhouse and Bart has been strained several times. When Milhouse fell in love with Samantha Stanky and spent less time with Bart, Bart split the two up by notifying Samantha's father, who placed Samantha in a Catholic School. This resulted in a fight between the two friends, though eventually Bart apologized. In one episode, he stated that he was a little attracted to Milhouse (he probably said this just to get Homer mad).
Some of Bart's other past/current friends include Bashir bin Laden, Nikki McKenna, Jessica Lovejoy, Donny, and Laura Powers.
Romance
While he believes in "cooties", Bart has had numerous relationships and crushes on a number of girls in town, despite that most of them had ended in breaking up. Nonetheless, he had shown affection for Terri, twin sister of Sherri, Laura Powers, a teenager whom Bart had a crush on, Greta Wolfcastle, the daughter of Rainier Wolfcastle, Jessica Lovejoy, the daughter of Reverend Lovejoy, an unnamed cousin of Sherri and Terri, who has a crush on him, Jenny, who Bart met at the Springfield Retirement Center, Darcy, a teenager from North Haverbrook, and Nikki McKenna, a rebellious new girl whose parents are strict high ranked civil servants. His first kiss was from a girl who is one of Lisa's friends named Becky at Lisa's Sleepover, but the two never had a relationship.
Non-canon appearances
Treehouse of Horror
In Treehouse of Horror VII, Bart learns that he has a twin brother named Hugo, of course this is non-canon.
Future
As with other characters, his future follows no defined and logical pattern and simply changes to suit the episode. At the age of 18, Bart is a senior (he didn't fail any years!) at Springfield High School. He styles his hair and wears an earring. He speaks three languages, apparently one being armpit noises, and one is hinted to be French. He pursues a relationship with a girl named Jenda who denies his proposal because he doesn't have a steady career plan. As a result, Bart pursues a career at the Kwik-E-Mart: Whether he kept the job is not mentioned. After saving Mr. Burns from a robbery, he is awarded a scholarship to Yale, which was meant to go to Lisa. He gives the scholarship back to her so she doesn't have to suffer a bleak future with Milhouse. At the age of 25, he is a building demolisher and vehicle crusher, and also attends law school. He is more kind in general, as opposed to his modern-day disposition. At age 32, he is taken to the hospital after eating too many fish logs. He seems to have lost his building demolishing company and works at a construction site. He got the "Mother" tattoo which Marge prevented him from getting, as well as a tattoo of Krusty the Clown on his chest. He receives a digestive tract transplant from Uter Zorker which saves his life. At age 40, he is a poor guitarist and alcoholic that dropped out of the DeVry Institute. He lives in a ratty beach house alongside Ralph, the only other member of Bart's band. He is addicted to a form of drug, likely marijuana. He helps Lisa, who is President, get out of debt with other countries. In return, Lisa legalizes the use of canabis. At age 50, Bart appears to have straightened up and graduated law school, as he is Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. At the age of 70, he lives at the Springfield Retirement Castle with Milhouse. At the age of 83, he finds true love, and dies one minute later (according to Professor Frink). Marge has also imagined Bart being a sleazy male stripper.
Behind the Laughter
Creation
Matt Groening first conceived the Simpson family in the lobby of James L. Brooks' office. He had been called in to pitch a series of animated shorts, and had intended to present his Life in Hell series. When he realized that animating Life in Hell would force him to rescind publication rights for his life's work, Groening decided to go in another direction. He hurriedly sketched out his version of a dysfunctional family, and named the characters after various members of his own family, substituting "Bart" for his own name, as he decided it would have been too obvious for him to have named the character Matt. Bart then made his debut with the rest of the Simpsons clan on 19 April 1987 in the Tracey Ullman short, Good Night. The name "Bart" is an anagram of the word "brat". Groening conceived Bart as an extreme version of the typical misbehaving child character, merging all of the negative traits of characters such as Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn into one person. Groening's older brother Mark provided most of the inspiration for Bart. Groening has also said that he found the premise of Dennis the Menace disappointing and was inspired to create a character who was actually a menace.
Voice & Catchphrases
Nancy Cartwright originally auditioned for the role of Lisa, but soon thought that her voice would be better suited voicing Bart. Matt Groening let her try out for the part, and upon hearing her read, gave her the job on the spot. Bart's catchphrase "Eat My Shorts" was an ad-lib by Cartwright in one of the original table readings, harking back to an incident when she was at college. His other catchphrases included "¡Ay, caramba!" and "Don't have a cow man!" - the former being his first words after seeing Homer and Marge 'enjoying themselves' in bed - but these dropped out of use as the series progressed (as mentioned in Summer of 4 Ft. 2, when Bart complains that Lisa stole his line). Whenever he introduces himself, he often says, "I'm Bart Simpson, who the hell are you?"
Reception
In 1998, Time magazine selected Bart as 46th of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century — the only fictional character to make the list. He had previously appeared on the cover the December 31, 1990 edition. Both Bart and Lisa ranked #11 in TV Guide's "Top 50 Greatest Cartoon Characters of All Time".
During the show's early years, Bart was rebellious and frequently escaped without punishment, which led some parents' groups and conservative spokespeople to believe he provided a poor role model for children. This prompted George H. W. Bush to rally, "We're going to keep trying to strengthen the American family. To make them more like the Waltons and less like the Simpsons.", to which Bart replied with "Hey, we're just like the Waltons. We're praying for an end to the Depression, too."
Bart's catchphrases, "¡Ay, caramba!", "Don't have a cow, man!" and "Eat my shorts!" were featured on t-shirts in the early days of the show's run. The latter two phrases were rarely actually spoken on the show itself until after they became popular through merchandise, and the use of many of these catchphrases has declined in recent seasons. The use of catchphrase-based humor was mocked in the episode Bart Gets Famous in which Bart gets famous on the Krusty show for saying the line "I didn't do it."
In his book Planet Simpson, Chris Turner describes Bart as a nihilist. Bart's character traits of rebelliousness and disrespect for authority have been likened to that of America's founding fathers, rendering him an updated version of American icons Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, rolled into one. Bart is the most depicted Simpsons character on various memorabilia such as toys, books, comics, T-shirts, car decals, and even graffiti art. Bart, and other Simpsons characters, appeared in numerous commercials for Nestlé's Butterfinger candy bars from 1990–2001, with the slogan "Nobody better lay a finger on my Butterfinger!". This association was parodied in an episode when he discovered that he was in a TV commercial when he was a baby; Bart says that he doesn't remember being in a commercial, then holds up a Butterfinger and eats it. Bart briefly appears in the entrance video used by World Wrestling Entertainment Superstar Shawn Michaels Bart has appeared in several other shows. He is featured in the South Park episode "Cartoon Wars Part II". He is not referred to by name, nor do any of the characters react to him as if he were a well known personality, but the character specifically mentions the events of The Telltale Head when Cartman asks him to name the "most badass thing" he has done.
Heroic Acts
Season One
- Saved Krusty the Clown from jail (Which he found out it was Sideshow Bob who framed Krusty for armed robbery at the Kwik-E-Mart). He proved Krusty's innocence by hitting Bob's huge feet with a mallet.
Trivia
- Bart is left-handed, much like the show's creator, Matt Groening.
- He is also mischievous, rebellious, and "potentially dangerous".
- The name Bart is an anagram for the word "brat".
- At the The Simpsons Movie, when he puts a black bra on his head, he resembles Mickey Mouse.