What Remedy Is Bart Simpson?

It’s time for the quiz, Mom!

   

Here are a couple of things I forgot to mention;

Forgot to mention?  You haven’t said anything yet!

I think I may have mentioned Conan O’Brien’s show is switching formats.

 

Right, and I think I may have mentioned that, no one cares!

Conan will be cut to a half-hour show in January.

That is a real demotion!

Apparently his house band (formerly The Max Weinberg 7) will no longer be part of the show.  I don’t know why Coney is doing this to me!

Why is he doing it to himself?  This is such a humiliation, he ought to quit!

He gave a very classy speech on his last hour-long show in tribute to them.  Then he played the guitar with them and sang “40 Days”.

“40 Days” again?  Is that the only song he knows?

So a month ago in the car we were talking about record producer and song-writer, Thom Bell…

 

(who apparently is Jamacian).

Really?  No way!  You’re kidding!

We were talking about him because “Easy Come, Easy Go” by the Spinners came on.

   The Spinners

 

I am finding it hard to believe that a Jamaican is responsible for the classy soul sounds of The Delfonics and The Spinners!

Mom, I’m trying to say something here.

Oh!  Well that’s different.  Never mind! 

Turns out in January, “La-La Means I Love You” by the Delfonics turns 50 years old.

Wow!  Can we play that?

Yes!

This video is a real find!  There’s not too much footage of soul singers from back in the day–basically, no one was filming them!  I guess the rationale was, “Hey, they’re black, right?  Who’s gonna watch them but other black people?!”  Grr!!!!!

   The Delfonics

 

 Mom, it’s so sad.

“La-la Means I Love You”?  It wasn’t that sad….

 No, mom!  Once again you’re missing the point!  As you can see above, that is a picture of Spongebob Squarepants…

So it is.  Are you going to somehow make this tie in?

…a lovable sea sponge–Spongia, to you– created by a man who was also a former marine biologist named Stephen Hillenburg (see below) who has, unfortunately, died from something called ALS.

If only he had known about Lathyrus sativus.

For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, Spongebob is a very popular cartoon.

Spongbob was in one of our “famous person” quizzes!  

Stephen is the man responsible for bringing Spongebob to life.  Without him there would be no Spongebob! 

Gasp!

Can you imagine?  He wrote and produced it as well.  After the first movie, he left but still continued as producer.  By the time of the second movie, he returned to the show and continued to work until his death.  I think it’s amazing that despite his illness, he soldiered on.

So sad…

Spongebob is a very clever show and apparently it’s going to continue without him.  I heard there’s a third movie in the works for 2020 and the show is currently in it’s 12th season.  Also, I can’t remember if I mentioned that Spongebob will be 20 years old next year.

So put that on your calendar so when the time comes you can say, “Guess what turned 20?”

Oh, and this is really interesting.  Apparently Stephen worked on some episodes of “the Rugrats” before “Spongebob”.

We learn so much here… not!

One more thing, this is how Nickelodeon paid tribute to Stephen Hillenburg:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCr25I3hLXY

 I guess I should mention that former U.S. president, George H.W. Bush, died.

Well, if you have to….

We don’t normally talk about politics here at the ezine…

We don’t?

…but without him, we never would’ve had Dana Carvey’s hilarious impressions of him on Saturday Night Live or that episode of “The Simpsons” you didn’t think was funny. 

It wasn’t.  But speaking of “The Simpsons”… guess who’s in The Quiz this month?  Bart Simpson!  

Make that 29.  

What?  

“The Simpsons”–turned 29–this month.  

If there are no further “announcements”….

 

 

 

 One of my clients who thinks that maybe her whole family is a replica of “The Simpsons”, has requested that I do “What Remedy Is Bart Simpson”!

So, in order to explain Bart to our non-English speaking friends, who won’t be able to understand the video, Bart is every parent’s worst nightmare!  He’s hyper-active, has trouble paying attention, is not doing well in school and doesn’t really care.  He has a penchant for getting into trouble (“Now Marge, you’re going to hear a lot of crazy talk about Bart working in a Burlesque House….”), he carries a sling-shot in his back pocket, the show always starts with Bart’s punishment for misbehaving in school,

 

he’s very bored in church unless he’s played a trick on Reverend Lovejoy (like switching the hymn to a rock ‘n’ roll song) and in the episode we’re about to see, called “Bart Gets An F”, we begin with Bart giving a book report on a book he never read!  He’s told he better pass  tomorrow’s test on Colonial America, or else he’ll be in real trouble! 

After school, Bart spends hours at the video arcade playing action video games, then goes home, drinks a can of soda while watching violent cartoons on TV, eats dinner, then he and his father, Homer Simpson, spend hours watching a stupid movie about a giant ape running amok.  Finally, at bed time, Bart starts studying.  Two seconds later, he’s asleep. 

The next day, knowing he hasn’t studied, Bart fakes an attack of appendicitis in the classroom and gets sent to the nurse’s office.  Ultimately, he gets sent home.  He’s fooled everybody but his sister, Lisa.  Bart tells her not to worry as he calls his best friend Milhouse on the phone and says, “What were the answers on today’s test?”  What he doesn’t know is that Milhouse got all the answers wrong!  Therefore, you guessed it, Bart fails the test, with his teacher adding, “This is the worst test score since Milhouse failed the test yesterday!”

The school psychiatrist is called in, as well as Bart’s parents.  “An under-achiever and, yet, proud of it,” the psychiatrist observes.  After making note of Bart’s poor attention span, Homer zones-out and doesn’t hear a thing that’s being said.  Finally the psychiatrist says, “I think Bart should repeat the 4th grade.”  This upsets Bart so much, he begs for a make-up exam.

He tries to get the smart kid in the class, Martin Prince, to help him pass.  He says, “Martin, if you help me pass this test, I’ll keep the other kids from laughing at you.”  To prove that the other kids do, in fact, laugh at him, Bart pushes Martin down to the ground, and all the kids laugh.

And so it begins: Martin tries to show Bart how to study.  First he sees that Bart’s room is a mess and helps him clean it up.  Bart explains to Martin that cool kids sit in the back of the bus, not in the front, the way he does—same with church and school, and they do fun stuff like throw unsuspecting boys into the girls’ bathroom! 

However, the plan back-fires when Martin becomes so exhilarated over learning everything that Bart taught him, he says the heck with studying and runs off with the boys who used to laugh at him!  Bart is once again on his own.  He does the only thing he can do, he prays for some natural disaster to close the school!

The next day, it snows.

Bart studies real hard, he slaps himself in the face to try to stay awake, but it’s no use!  He gets a 59 on the test.  The teacher says, “It’s another F, Bart, see you in the 4th grade again!”  Bart cries.  He says, “Now I know how George Washington felt when he surrendered to the French in 1754!”  His teacher is brought up short.  “What?” she says.  “That’s good enough for an extra point!”  She changes Bart’s grade to a 60–(a D-minus).  Bart is ecstatic!  He runs home singing, “I passed!  I passed!  I got a D-minus!!!”

So, OK, gang, that’s it!  Write down the elements of the case; for instance, Bart’s messy room means he’s “untidy”–that’s the rubric for “messy”.  OK?  So make a list of the elements of the case, then find rubrics for them, then repertorize, and write to me at [email protected] and tell me what remedy is Bart Simpson!   P.S.  This video has been edited to comply with Youtube’s strict requirements for copyright protection; so, it doesn’t exactly match my narrative above, but, we’re lucky to have any video at all!  To see the answer, click below:  

Revisiting: What Remedy Is Bart Simpson?

 

See ya next year!

___________________

Elaine Lewis, D.Hom., C.Hom.

Elaine takes online cases and animal cases too!

Write to her at [email protected]

Visit her website:  https://ElaineLewis.hpathy.com