Lisa's First Word

"Lisa's First Word" is the tenth episode of The Simpsons' fourth season, which originally aired on December 3, 1992. It was written by Jeff Martin and directed by Mark Kirkland. The episode is notable for containing the first canon word spoken by Maggie Simpson, who was voiced by Elizabeth Taylor.

It is the second of three separate episodes chronicling the births of the Simpson children. It comes after the third season episode "I Married Marge" (about Bart), and is followed by the sixth season episode "And Maggie Makes Three".

1 Plot
2 Production
3 Cultural references
4 Legacy
- 4.1 "Can't sleep, clown will eat me"
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Plot

When Homer, Marge, Bart and Lisa try unsuccessfully to get Maggie to speak, Marge decides to tell the children their first words. However, Marge doesn't reveal Bart's first word (which was, "Ay, carumba!", after walking in on Homer and Marge having sex back when they lived in the rundown apartment on Springfield's Lower East Side). Marge instead decides to tell the family the story of when Lisa said her first word.

In March of 1983, Homer, Marge, and Bart are living in the Lower East Springfield district. Homer skips home singing the Cyndi Lauper song "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun", and Marge talks about the final episode of M*A*S*H to her neighbors. One day, Marge announces to Homer and Bart that she is pregnant with another baby. When asked what he thinks, Bart imagines a new brother whom he can use as a scapegoat for his own misbehavior. Marge suggests to Homer that with their family expanding, they need a bigger house. Homer and Marge try to look for houses, including one in the ghetto that just came on the market due to a very recent murder (with detectives and police officers still examining the crime scene when Homer, Marge, and the realtor are inside), one next to a pork fat-rendering plant, a houseboat owned by Captain McCallister who, in the middle of showing them the boat, jumps overboard to fight a great white shark, and one full of cats who own the house. After the four unsuccessful attempts, the Simpsons find the perfect house on Evergreen Terrace and buy it with a $15,000 down payment from the sale of Grampa Simpson's house that he won in a crooked 1950s game show by ratting out everyone involved.

In 1984, the Simpsons move into their new Evergreen Terrace home, with the Flanders family as neighbors. Homer asks to borrow a TV tray that Ned just purchased at the hardware store, just for "a little while", but Homer still has it in the present time, eight years later (at the time of the episode's premiere). Bart turns two years old, and for the first time, he watches Krusty the Clown, as well as The Itchy & Scratchy Show. Krusty also begins a promotion for the 1984 Summer Olympic Games with his Krusty Burger chain, which is advertised as the "Official Meat-Flavored Sandwich of the 1984 Olympics" (Itchy and Scratchy are also promoted as the "Official Animated Cat and Mouse Team of the 1984 Olympics"). The promotion is a scratch-and-win game in which people scratch off the name of the event from the game card and if the U.S. wins a gold medal in that chosen event, that person would win a free Krusty Burger. However, the game cards are rigged so they only contain events in which the Soviet Union typically performed strongly. But when the USSR boycott the Olympics, Krusty loses $44 million and Homer receives a steady supply of Krusty Burgers (despite Krusty's promise to spit in every 50th burger after losing out on the $44 million).

Bart is now asked to give up his crib so it can become the new baby's. Bart refuses, so Homer builds Bart a new bed shaped like a maniacal clown, which terrifies Bart into a state of insomnia (see below). Marge thinks that the baby is coming, and she and Homer go to the hospital, leaving Bart with the Flanders family. Bart returns home and is scared until Homer asks him to see Lisa, to whom Bart takes an immediate dislike. Everyone, except Bart, agrees that she is a beautiful baby. Later, Bart does bad things to Lisa — such as cutting all of her hair with household scissors, sticking stamps on her and putting her in a mailbox, and putting her through the Flanders' doggy door — and is punished each time by being put in the corner. He blames Lisa for his problems and packs his toys into a hobo's bindle, about to run away for good until Lisa says her first word, "Bart." Bart discovers that Lisa can talk, and she can even say David Hasselhoff's name. After Lisa says "Homer" instead of "Daddy," to which Homer becomes angry, she and Bart laugh and embrace, and Bart appears to accept her as his little sister.

However, back in present day, the flashback ends and we see Bart and Lisa fighting. Homer takes Maggie to bed, commenting on how kids learn to talk back as soon as they learn to talk. As he puts Maggie to bed, Homer wishes that Maggie never says a word. As soon as Homer leaves the room, Maggie removes her pacifier, utters the word "Daddy", and falls asleep.

[edit] Production

The FOX censors wrote a note concerning Homer's line, "Bart can kiss my hairy, yellow butt!" after Marge tells Homer that Bart might be jealous of baby Lisa, citing that the line is considered "coarse" since, due to the fact that Bart was two during the flashback. The line was not taken out and has since appeared on Simpsons merchandise.^[2]

[edit] Cultural references

The Springfield Shopper headline from the day Lisa was born ("MONDALE TO HART: WHERE'S THE BEEF?") uses the currently popular advertising slogan for Wendy's. Although "where's the beef?" was intended to be a slogan for Wendy's, it gained popularity in jokes and also in political slogans.^[1] Homer sings the Cyndi Lauper song "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" as he is walking home from work (even though that song wouldn't exist until 1984).^[1] The Olympic promotion by Krusty Burger is loosely based on a similar "scratch-and-win" promotion by McDonalds in which McDonald's visitors could win a hamburger, french fries, a soft drink, or even a cash prize up to $10,000 if Team USA won a medal in the visitor's listed event. McDonald's lost millions on the promotion, as happened to Krusty.

[edit] Legacy

The episode contains Maggie's first word spoken in the normal continuity of the series. She was voiced by Elizabeth Taylor, who also briefly appeared as herself in "Krusty Gets Kancelled".^[3]^[4] Elizabeth Taylor's performance as Maggie was named the 13th greatest guest spot in the history of the show by IGN.^[5] It was not discovered that she could talk until Kang and Kodos probed her in "Gump Roast".

[edit] "Can't sleep, clown will eat me"

"If you should die before you wake...!"

"Lisa's First Word" is the source of Bart's meme "Can't sleep, clown will eat me".

Inspired by an event in Simpsons writer Mike Reiss' childhood, young Bart does not want to give up sleeping in the crib to make way for his newborn sister. Noticing Bart's affection for Krusty the Clown, Homer decides to build a clown-themed bed to please his son. However, because of Homer's poor handicraft skills, the bed takes on a sinister appearance and frightens Bart, especially in the darkened room. In his first night in the new bed, far from "laughing himself to sleep", Bart imagines that the face on the headboard of the bed is coming to life, intoning with sinister glee, "If you should die before you wake...", before collapsing into evil cackling. The next morning, Bart is curled up into the fetal position on the floor next to the sofa downstairs, repeatedly uttering the phrase "can't sleep, clown'll eat me..."

The catchphrase inspired the Alice Cooper song "Can't Sleep, Clowns Will Eat Me" from the 2001 album Dragontown.^[6] The phrase has since found its way into popular use^[7] and has become an insomniac joke.