(originally aired February 18, 1996)
Lisa episodes always tend to be more understated; not bombastic as shows starring Homer and Bart, but more introspective, or about a broader topic. In this show Lisa inadvertently uncovers a horrible truth regarding the town’s beloved founder Jebediah Springfield, that he was actually a murderous pirate who had nothing but contempt towards the town. This occurs during preparation for the town’s bicentennial celebration, and if one thing unites the citizens of Springfield, it’s their mutual love and respect for their town founder. Among those excited is Homer, who manages to horn his way into the position of town crier, who he admittedly is quite good at (Bart comments, “You’re a big fat loudmouth and you can walk when you have to.”) Particularly sweet in this show is that Homer believes in Lisa’s story (remarking she’s usually right about everything), and vehemently assists and vouches for her in her quest to expose the truth.
Lisa finds herself butting heads with the curator of the Springfield Historical Society (where she found Jebediah’s confession stuffed in his old fife) Hollis Hurlbut, voiced by Donald Sutherland, a wonderfully subtle performance. Hollis assures Lisa the note is a forgery, even with her logical evidence to back it up. Any attempts Lisa makes to spread the truth are met with great scorn; from the school to Moe’s Tavern, no one will bear to hear anything derogatory about Jebediah Springfield. Lisa’s pursuits can only be calmed upon exhuming the founder’s corpse, to see if he bears a silver tongue (his actual one apparently bitten off during a grog house fight). When no tongue is found in the coffin, Lisa is discouraged, but soon unravels the mystery, finding that Hurlbut is attempting to cover up the truth, unable to admit he had spent years devoting his life to a fraud. Unable to cope, he swiped the silver tongue quickly, hoping the controversy would fade. But in the end, Lisa finds she just can’t rain on the town’s parade and keeps the facts to herself.
Like many Lisa shows, this one doesn’t go for the huge laughs; it’s more of the content and feelings of the characters that keep it going. Jebediah Springfield’s true past is reminiscent of many other famous historical figures whose pasts may not be as illustrious as we are led to believe. However, the ending is spot on: regardless if the man was the real deal, the legend certainly is; it brought out the best of the entire town, and that makes the myth just as real as anything. As I said, I love that Homer teams up with Lisa in this, and also that both end up in dour positions as a result: Lisa seemingly being proven wrong, and Homer being stripped of his town crier position as a result of making a fuss. The best moment of the show is when Lisa apologizes to her father, who accepts, and Homer attempts to feign a smile until he deflates into a mope. He wants to keep his spirits up for his daughter, but can’t quite bring himself to it. But of course things are a-OK at the end, as father and daughter lead the parade in grandiose fashion, a sweet end to an interesting show.
Tidbits and Quotes
– The beginning film strip of young Jebediah Springfield (starring a young Troy McClure) is pretty shoddily made, with stage hands and boom mics in shots, and a poorly disguised stunt double for McClure when he’s taming the buffalo.
– ‘Embiggen’ and ‘cromulent’ have entered my personal lexicon. They may even be real words at this point. The former certainly sounds like one. Embiggen (verb): To make bigger.
– I believe our first mention of Kearney being an especially old fourth grader, who, since he can recall Watergate, must be at least twenty-five years old. Later shows would reveal he has a young son, Kearney, Jr.
– I love the uselessness of the essay contest, that the top eighteen essays will be put on file at the library, to rot away unread.
– I really love Jebediah’s actual name Hans Sprungfeld. It’s just very silly.
– Wonderful awkwardness between Lisa and Hollis after she discovered the confession. The “You have arthritis?” line was apparently an ad-lib from Sutherland, and Lisa’s quieted “No…” is adorable.
– Love the title of Lisa’s essay, “Jebediah Springfield: Super Fraud.” She certainly doesn’t sugar coat, I can give her that.
– Nice quick bit with Comic Book Guy at the copy store, paranoid Homer will rip off his unpublished screenplay. Homer is just waiting for Lisa, but makes a mental note: “Steal his idea.”
– Brilliant bit when Quimby warns Lisa about the corporations sponsoring their bicentennial. Lisa rebuts that they’re sponsoring a murderous pirate, to which one man responds indignantly, “A pirate? Well, that’s hardly the image we want for Long John Silver’s!” The animation of their quick exit is pretty funny too.
– I would think Jebediah’s skeleton, not to mention his clothes, would be mostly deteriorated, but I guess it’s worth it to have Wiggum desecrate a corpse for a little ventriloquism act.
– Love the pathetic sight of Homer shaking an alarm clock when his town crier bell is taken, almost similar to him singing the blimp song with a pickle in “Lisa the Beauty Queen.”
– The flashback of Hans fighting George Washington is pretty epic, and pretty stupid. But even that is handled with care, and lays in a subtle clue about the end. We see Hans smash against the portrait and knock it to the ground, which must have damaged it slightly, at least enough to Hans to catch part of it on his boot and rip it, which he later used to write his confession on. Lisa completes the puzzle, and exposes Hollis, who stupidly has displayed the stolen silver tongue out in the open in one of the dioramas.
– Hilarious bit where Quimby has hired a sniper to take out an eight-year-old girl, who still fires a shot after Lisa doesn’t expose the truth as she walks away.
Me Blog Write Good 
Fun fact: I always visualized Professor Lupin from Harry Potter as the curator in this episode. I’ve never really internalized his appearance from the movie versions, so when I re-read the books, I still picture him as a Simpsons character, alongside characters who are real humans in my mind.
I have 2 questions. One. Where’s the fife? Two. Gimme the fife!
“And the half-wits of this town will NEVER LEARN THE TRUTH!!!” HAHAHAHAHA!!! HAHAHAHAHA-” “-ha ha ha ha ha… ”
LOVE that gag.
I’ve always loved:
“Can’t we have one meeting that doesn’t end with us digging up a corpse?”
This is kind of an underrated episode. It’s not frequently listed amongst the greats, but it has a good plot and the curator is so lame he’s hilarious (“My microwave johnny cakes are ready.”). And who doesn’t love Homer’s over-zealous attitude as the town crier?
More importantly, it touches on an important, timeless theme that was also raised in “The Man Who Shot Liberty Vallance”: Which is more important, the legend, or the truth?
Homer is really sweet in this episode to believe in Lisa right away. I do love how this episode pretty much mocks how upset people get when you try to bring reality to their favorite thing. It’s like they were pre-mocking the internet with how upset people get when you tell them you don’t like their favorite movie or something.
Donald Sutherland is fantastic in his delivery and the fact that Quimby was trying to have Lisa assassinated was funny too. All around another solid episode.
This is a pretty good episode, yeah. And how can you not mention Ms. Hoover’s accusation? “This is nothing but dead white male bashing from a PC freak! It’s women like you who keep the rest of us from landing a husband husband!” Still a perfect satire of the alt-right, plus a flat-out ridiculous thing to say to a second-grade girl.
“Still a perfect satire of the alt-right”
You meant a perfect satire of the alt-right AND also of the left PC, which is as much as actual. Only Classic Simpsons could do both with just one line.
Ummm… except it’s not? Lisa is 100% in the right, and “PC” is just a slur when Ms. Hoover can’t think of anything to genuinely challenge her. You’re only seeing what you want to see in this instance.
Not *that* meaning of “right”, Chris… 😉
The trailer for Mario Maker 2 totally uses the word “embiggen.” Just thought that needed to be acknowledged here.
Wow! That’s three in a row for episodes I don’t remember being this good. It’s a very enjoyable episode that satirizes the ideology of a former public figure well. It’s also a great Lisa story, with many great sweet moments such as Homer believing her no matter what. There’s plenty to enjoy with the story.
And the jokes are great too. I especially love Quimby’s line about having to dig up a corpse after every meeting. I also love Hoover’s accusation toward Lisa of “dead white male bashing” (especially the casual tone she says it, as if that’s a regularly recurring occurrence…). Other good bits include Wiggum using the corpse as a puppet and Quimby ordering a sniper on Lisa. I love how the sniper also shoots anyway, and that the situation is treated with such little suspense that it’s almost treated as a normal thing. A neat episode.
A great episode… until it decides that academic integrity and historical rigor should be abandoned once the harder questions crop up and threaten the status quo. The writers can’t envision a world where it isn’t necessary to treat such historical figures as if they were saints in order be inspired to be kind to one another – authoritarianism is built on this kind of cult of personality. What’s especially galling is that the ending essentially ennobles one of the more biting (and sad) lines of the episode, when Ms. Hoover complains that Lisa is a “PC freak” who is merely “dead white male bashing”. The episode wants it both ways, and as a result, its end up saying nothing meaningful.
I honestly have no idea why this episode (though certainly entertaining) is as well-received in retrospect for its message as it is.
Not sure if you’re going to reply to this, but…
You say it’s a great and “certainly entertaining” episode… and you pretty much tear it a new one simply because you disagree with its message.
No disrespect but if I disagreed with an episode’s message *that* much, I’m not sure I’d be inclined to use *any* positive terms to describe that episode overall. Any bits of the episode I really liked, I certainly would use positive terms to describe those bits… but the episode overall? I would use the British term “curate’s egg”, which is neither a positive nor a negative term. (I should make clear that I’m not talking about *this* specific episode here.)
Be thankful that this is not a Zombie Simpsons episode…
It’s not like any difference could be made. This is not a case where there’s someone else who deserves credit, or an event went differently to what people believe, and base something on. This is just “We invented a hero out of a guy who wasn’t.” Nothing would change if they kept pushing, Springfield wouldn’t suddenly become better or worse. He’s dead, all of his accomplishments are gone either way.
I do find it hilarious how well he parallels other manufactured heroes like Columbus, who didn’t do much of anything, but got credit because America was thirsty for heroes and history (and jealous of Europe for having centuries of it), and then later became the whippingboy for the total polarity reversal of the education system. Neither the demonizing nor the praise are appropriate, but caring about the discovery (by civilization anyway) of the best country on Earth is. I’m pretty sure that’s what the episode was trying to say. Why bother to bum thousands of people out for nothing, just to be right?
Hollis Hurlbut is easily one of the top 7 one-off guest characters. Every line from him is perfect. I really believe Lisa has found this strange historian who doesn’t understand jokes. I loved his line “I’ve got nothing but respect for the office of Town Crier, but this is well outside your jurisdiction.”
It’s funny how a secondary lesson Lisa learned here is that you can’t simply state a fact that runs contrary to what everyone else thinks, and expect them to be polite and ask you for the proof. You have to LEAD with the proof, talk about the thing you found in the fife, then move on to the horrors found within. But when you’re right, sometimes you think that’s going to somehow be evident just from you saying so. What is it Picard said? Those who will not hear an angry shout may strain to hear a whisper?
I wonder if there was anything to JS’s real name, Jebediah Springfield is such a WASPy name, while Hans Sprungfeld is decidedly more Teutonic, possibly even Jewish. (There were a few Jewish pirates! They rode high in the crow’s nest, and spent money freely)
My only issue with ‘cromulent’ is I always imagined it with a ch, like chronos. Like somehow it’s time-related. But I realize it’s meant to be total gibberish, unlike the more intuitive ’embiggen’, so alright, it’s a perfectly cromulent spelling.
I do think Jebediah’s bones would still be intact after 200 years, and assuming his clothing was leather, it might still be intact, since that’s basically mummified skin. His hat is fur, hair has a lot of trouble decomposing. If anything, it’s the silver tongue that should be in worse shape. Silver tarnishes and turns nasty and garlic-smelling pretty quickly, hell even just from being in his mouth it was probably already awful.
Also Ms. Hoover may be wrong in this one instance, but her attitude toward the liberalization of history is refreshingly correct, and I’m shocked she’s unmarried.