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"Lisa the Iconoclast" is the sixteenth episode of The Simpsons' seventh season. It originally aired on Fox in the United States on February 18, 1996. In the episode, Springfield's bicentennial approaches, and Lisa writes an essay on town founder Jebediah Springfield. While doing research, she finds a confession revealing that Springfield was a murderous pirate named Hans Sprungfeld who never cared about the people of Springfield. Lisa and Homer decide to get the message out, but instead anger the town council.

The episode was written by Jonathan Collier and directed by Mike B. Anderson. The story was inspired by the real events of when President Zachary Taylor was exhumed. Donald Sutherland guest starred as the voice Hollis Hurlbut, a part that was written specifically for him. The episode includes several references to Colonial America, including Gilbert Stuart's unfinished 1796 painting of George Washington. The episode features two newly-coined words: embiggen and cromulent which was intended to sound like a real word but play on the fact that it and "embiggens" are completely fabricated. Embiggen, coined by Dan Greaney, has seen use in several scientific publications, while cromulent, coined by David S. Cohen, appeared in the Webster’s New Millennium Dictionary of English.

Plot

As Springfield celebrates its bicentennial, Lisa's class at Springfield Elementary School are assigned essays. Lisa goes to the historical society to research about Jebediah Springfield, the founder of Springfield. While trying to play Jebediah Springfield's fife, she makes the shocking discovery that the town's founder was actually a villainous pirate and enemy of George Washington who kept his dark past hidden. He had written his confession on the back side of a portrait of Washington and hidden it in his fife. Meanwhile, upon Lisa's suggestion, Homer is elected the town crier after he demonstrated that he was a better town crier than Ned Flanders.

Lisa conducts further research about Jebediah Springfield, and finds out that he was actually a pirate named Hans Sprungfeld who, having lost his tongue, had replaced it with a prosthetic silver tongue. Lisa's revelations do not go over well with the town, resulting in an "F" on a report about Springfield while Ms. Hoover calls her a "PC Thug." She also receives a ban from the Historical Society. Lisa tries to convince the town her claims are true, but the only person who believes her is Homer. However, she convinces the municipal government to disinter Mr. Springfield's body to search for evidence of a legendary silver tongue. Despite Lisa's suspicions, when they open the coffin, the skeleton possesses no silver tongue. Because Lisa has defamed Jebediah as a pirate, Mayor Quimby strips Homer of the role of town crier and reassigns it to Flanders.

That night, Lisa has a dream wherein the ghosts of Jebediah Springfield and George Washington appear. After seeing the incomplete portrait of George Washington in her classroom, Lisa soon figures out that the piece of paper upon which the confession is written is the bottom half of the portrait. She confronts town historian, Hollis Hurlbut, with this piece of evidence. Hurlbut confesses that he stole the tongue while the dust cleared seconds after the coffin was opened and hid it in a cowboy maquette in the museum. He explained that he had done so to protect his career and the myth of Jebediah Springfield. After realizing the mistake of celebrating a pirate, the two decide to go public with their discovery. Just as Lisa is about to expose the "real Jebediah" to the parading townspeople, she realizes that Jebediah Springfield's good image means too much to the town, and decides to keep the truth a secret. At the parade Homer takes the tri-cornered hat and bell from Flanders and replaces him, marching through the parade with Lisa on piggyback.

Production

The episode was written by Jonathan Collier and directed by Mike B. Anderson. The story was inspired by the real events of when President Zachary Taylor was exhumed. In the late 1980s, a woman theorized that Taylor was murdered by poison and was able to convince Taylor's closest living relative and the Coroner of Jefferson County, Kentucky, to order an exhumation. On June 17, 1991, Taylor's remains were exhumed and transported to the Office of the Kentucky Chief Medical Examiner. The remains were then returned to the cemetery and received appropriate honors at reinterment. Then-show runner Bill Oakley said "Lisa the Iconoclast" is "essentially the same" story but with Lisa in the role as the woman. At the end of the episode there is an ode to Jebediah Springfield playing over the credits. The music and lyrics for this piece of music were all written by Jeff Martin.

Donald Sutherland voiced Hollis Hurlbut in this episode. The script was specifically written with him in mind playing that part. Sutherland wanted to do the voice recordings like one would do a film and start in the middle of the script, so that he could get to know the character, but that idea was abandoned. In the episode, Lisa joked she was getting over her "Chester A. Arthuritis", a play on the word "arthritis", and Chester A. Arthur. Sutherland ad-libbed the line "you had arthritis?", and the producers liked it so much that they kept it.

The episode opens with what appears as an old documentary on Jebediah Springfield, starring Troy McClure as Springfield. The writers tried to make this documentary seem as lousy and low-budget as possible. One of these tricks was to have post-production adding scratches to the animation. The animaters added production errors that would come in a low-budget film. For example, a man in the crowd looks at the camera, some of the people have watches on, McClure's stuntman does not have the same sideburns as he does and a boom microphone can be seen entering the frame. In the Historical Society, the animators spent a lot of time decorating the walls. Besides numerous historical references they also decorated the walls with The Simpsons characters set in the 19th century. The first painting shows Otto Mann driving some kids on a horse carriage. The next painting shows Marge Simpson in a silhouette. The last one shows Professor Frink holding a kite like Benjamin Franklin.

Cultural references

The Historical Society of Springfield contains references to historical figures and facts. The episode features Gilbert Stuart's unfinished 1796 painting of George Washington and tells a fake backstory of how it came to be. In reality, the painting was unfinished and it did not have a part torn off. Hurlbut mentions the American revolutionaries William Dawes and Samuel Allyne Otis as equals to Jebediah Springfield. When Lisa passes out the "Wanted for treason" posters, it is a reference to the ones Lee Harvey Oswald passed around, which were about John F. Kennedy. Hurlbut claims Sprungfeld's confessions are "just as fake" as the will of Howard Hughes and the diaries of Adolf Hitler, both of which are genuine forgeries.

The episode also contains references to popular culture. The opening couch gag shows the Simpson family in blue boxes similar to the style of The Brady Bunch. Chief Wiggum is singing "Camptown Races" from 1850 by Stephen Foster ventriloquised with the skull of Jedediah Springfield. Lisa's dream in which Washington and Springfield are fighting is a reference to Lethal Weapon. When Lisa is telling the people at Moe's Tavern about the real history of Jebediah Springfield, they all sit with their mouths open. This is a reference to a scene in the film The Producers from 1968. When Homer knocks over Ned Flanders in order to take over his job as town crier, it is a reference to the film National Lampoon's Animal House from 1978.

Embiggen and cromulent

The episode features two newly-coined words: embiggen and cromulent. The show runners asked the writers if they could come up with two words, which sounded like real words and these were what they came up with. The Springfield town motto is "A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man." Schoolteacher Edna Krabappel comments that she never heard the word embiggens until she moved to Springfield. Miss Hoover, another teacher, replies, "I don’t know why; it’s a perfectly cromulent word." Later in the episode, while talking about Homer’s audition for the role of town crier, Principal Skinner states, "He's embiggened that role with his cromulent performance."

Embiggen—in the context it is used in the episode—is a verb that was coined by Dan Greaney in 1996. The verb previously occurred in the 1884 publication Notes and Queries: A Medium of Intercommunication for Literary Men, General Readers, Etc by C. A. Ward, in the sentence "but the people magnified them, to make great or embiggen, if we may invent an English parallel as ugly. After all, use is nearly everything." The literal meaning of embiggen is to make something larger. The word has made its way to common use and was included in Mark Peters Yada, Yada, Do'h!, 111 Television Words That Made the Leap From the Screen to Society. Specifically, embiggen can also be found in string theory. The first occurrence of the word was in the journal High Energy Physics in the section Gauge/gravity duality and meta-stable dynamical supersymmetry breaking, which was published on January 23, 2007. Later it was used in the journal Nature. In the context of string theory it means to grow or expand.

Cromulent is an adjective that was coined by David S. Cohen. Since it was coined, it has appeared in the Webster’s New Millennium Dictionary of English. The etymology of cromulent is inferred only from its usage, which indicates that it is a positive attribute. Webster's Dictionary defines it as meaning fine or acceptable.

Reception

In its original American broadcast, "Lisa the Iconoclast" finished 70th in the ratings for the week of February 12 to February 18, 1996. The episode was the sixth highest-rated show on the Fox network that week, following The X-Files, Melrose Place, "Beverly Hills, 90210", "Married... with Children", and Fox Tuesday Night Movie: Cliffhanger.

The episode received positive reviews from television critics. DVD Movie Guide's Colin Jacobson lauded it for the focus on Lisa, commenting that "Lisa-centered episodes tend to be preachy, but I suppose that’s inevitable given her character. I like the fact Lisa takes the high road here, though, as she proves she doesn’t always have to be right. Homer’s turn as the town crier brings mirth to a solid show." In addition, John Alberti praised the episode in his book Leaving Springfield as "an especially cogent example of the narrative fissuring and disruptive disclosure...Lisa spends the entire episode uncovering the truth about Jebediah and courageously defending her findings against a phalanx of authority figures...a symbol of honesty, integrity, and courage. All in all, a spectacular episode revealing the truth behind our society." The authors of the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, thought it was a "clever" episode, and highlighted Lisa's fantasy of the fight between Sprungfeld and George Washington as "fantastic". Dave Foster of DVD Times thought Sutherland offered a "memorable" guest appearance. Total Film's Nathan Ditum ranked Sutherland's performance as the 14th best guest appearance in the show's history.

Merchandise

The episode was included in April 28, 1997 on the VHS set The Dark Secrets of the Simpsons, alongside "The Springfield Files", "Homer the Great", and "Homer Badman". On September 8, 2003 the VHS tape was released on DVD under the name The Simpsons: Dark Secrets in Region 2 and Region 4, but "Homer the Great" was substituted with "Homer to the Max". It was released again on DVD on December 13, 2005 as part of The Simpsons Complete Seventh Season. Bill Oakley, Josh Weinstein, Jonathan Collier, Yeardley Smith, Mike B. Anderson, and David Silverman participated in the DVD's audio commentary.

References

1. ^ Martyn, Warren; Wood, Adrian (2000). "Lisa the Iconoclast". British Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 2009-03-04.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
2. ^ Oakley, Bill (2005). The Simpsons season 7 DVD commentary for the episode "Lisa the Iconoclast" (DVD). 20th Century Fox.
3. "President Zachary Taylor and the Laboratory: Presidential Visit from the Grave". Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Retrieved 2009-03-04.
4. ^ Collier, Jonathan (2005). The Simpsons season 7 DVD commentary for the episode "Lisa the Iconoclast" (DVD). 20th Century Fox.
5. Silverman, David (2005). The Simpsons season 7 DVD commentary for the episode "Lisa the Iconoclast" (DVD). 20th Century Fox.
6. ^ Anderson, Mike B. (2005). The Simpsons season 7 DVD commentary for the episode "Lisa the Iconoclast" (DVD). 20th Century Fox.
7. ^ Weinstein, Josh (2005). The Simpsons season 7 DVD commentary for the episode "Lisa the Iconoclast" (DVD). 20th Century Fox.
8. Ward, C. A. (1884). Notes and Queries: A Medium of Intercommunication for Literary Men, General Readers, Etc. Oxford University Press. p. 135.
9. Linn, Virginia (2008-10-22). "TV shows have had defining moments on English language". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. p. C-5. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
10. Peters, Mark (2008). Yada, Yada, Doh!: 111 Television Words That Made the Leap from the Screen to Society. Marion Street Press, Inc. ISBN 1933338318.
11. Argurio, Riccardo (2007). "Gauge/gravity duality and meta-stable dynamical supersymmetry breaking" (PDF). JHEP0701:083,2007: 24 and 26. Retrieved 2009-03-06. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
12. "Sidelines". Nature. 2007-08-08. Retrieved 2009-03-06.
13. ^ "cromulent definition". Reference.com. Webster's New Millennium Dictionary of English. Retrieved 2009-03-04.
14. ^ "Nielsen ratings". The Tampa Tribune. 1996-02-23. p. 4.
15. Jacobson, Colin. "The Simpsons: The Complete Seventh Season". Retrieved 2009-04-08.
16. Alberti, John (2003). Leaving Springfield: the Simpsons and the possibility of oppositional culture. Wayne State University Press. pp. 187–189. ISBN 0814328490, 9780814328491. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
17. Foster, Dave (2006-02-25). "The Simpsons: The Complete Seventh Season". DVD Times. Retrieved 2008-12-01.
18. Ditum, Nathan (March 29, 2009). "The 20 Best Simpsons Movie-Star Guest Spots". Total Film. Retrieved 2009-08-02.
19. "The Simpsons — The Dark Secrets Of". Amazon.co.uk. Retrieved 2009-03-05.
20. "The Simpsons: Dark Secrets". Amazon.co.uk. Retrieved 2009-03-05.
21. The Simpsons: The Complete Seventh Season. 1995–1996. DVD. 20th Century Fox, 2005.

External links

• "Lisa the Iconoclast" at The Simpsons.com
• "Lisa the Iconoclast episode capsule". The Simpsons Archive.
• "Lisa the Iconoclast" at TV.com
• "Lisa the Iconoclast" at the Internet Movie Database

• The Simpsons episodes, season 7
• 1996 television episodes