TMC
02-14-2024, 08:52 PM
https://www.vulture.com/article/simpsons-yeardley-smith-lisas-substitute-interview.html
By Jen Chaney, a TV critic for Vulture and New York
“Lisa’s Substitute,” a season-two episode of The Simpsons (https://www.vulture.com/article/the-simpsons-is-good-again.html) written by one of the most reliably great storytellers in the show’s history, Jon Vitti, may not have been the first Simpsons (https://www.vulture.com/article/best-the-simpsons-episodes.html) episode to make viewers a little weepy. But it was, and remains, one of the most unabashedly sincere half-hours the animated sitcom ever produced.
While the B-story in “Lisa’s Substitute” is typical of the early-’90s “Bart Simpson, Underachiever and Proud of It” era — Bart runs for class president on a nonsense platform — the A-story focuses on Lisa and her crush on a new teacher, Mr. Bergstrom. But the episode is less about romantic feelings and more about an 8-year-old girl feeling seen for the first time by a male authority figure in a way she isn’t by her own father. It also contains some explosive moments, including one where Lisa screams at Homer for being so insensitive — “You, sir, are a baboon!” she roars — and another where she breaks down in tears at the train station while bidding farewell to Mr. Bergstrom, voiced in the episode by Dustin Hoffman. Before the teacher leaves Springfield, he hands Lisa a note, telling her, “Whenever you feel like you’re alone and there’s nobody you can rely on, this is all you need to know.” When she opens it, it reads: You are Lisa Simpson.
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That train-station scene is one of the best tear-jerking scenes in Simpsons history, and a lot of that lies in the performances of Hoffman and Yeardley Smith, the voice of Lisa. Recording the episode had a profound effect on Smith — she calls it “one of the most fantastic, fulfilling, meaningful, lovely, generous days of my career” — partly because of the rapport she established with Hoffman but also because she related so strongly to what Lisa was going through. At the time, she didn’t find it easy to cry on cue, but the train-station scene was different. “I absolutely bawled every single take, and I’m not kidding,” she says in a conversation about recording an episode that helped her sort through her feelings about herself and her own father by way of Lisa Simpson.
By Jen Chaney, a TV critic for Vulture and New York
“Lisa’s Substitute,” a season-two episode of The Simpsons (https://www.vulture.com/article/the-simpsons-is-good-again.html) written by one of the most reliably great storytellers in the show’s history, Jon Vitti, may not have been the first Simpsons (https://www.vulture.com/article/best-the-simpsons-episodes.html) episode to make viewers a little weepy. But it was, and remains, one of the most unabashedly sincere half-hours the animated sitcom ever produced.
While the B-story in “Lisa’s Substitute” is typical of the early-’90s “Bart Simpson, Underachiever and Proud of It” era — Bart runs for class president on a nonsense platform — the A-story focuses on Lisa and her crush on a new teacher, Mr. Bergstrom. But the episode is less about romantic feelings and more about an 8-year-old girl feeling seen for the first time by a male authority figure in a way she isn’t by her own father. It also contains some explosive moments, including one where Lisa screams at Homer for being so insensitive — “You, sir, are a baboon!” she roars — and another where she breaks down in tears at the train station while bidding farewell to Mr. Bergstrom, voiced in the episode by Dustin Hoffman. Before the teacher leaves Springfield, he hands Lisa a note, telling her, “Whenever you feel like you’re alone and there’s nobody you can rely on, this is all you need to know.” When she opens it, it reads: You are Lisa Simpson.
1igmzkmTv6U
That train-station scene is one of the best tear-jerking scenes in Simpsons history, and a lot of that lies in the performances of Hoffman and Yeardley Smith, the voice of Lisa. Recording the episode had a profound effect on Smith — she calls it “one of the most fantastic, fulfilling, meaningful, lovely, generous days of my career” — partly because of the rapport she established with Hoffman but also because she related so strongly to what Lisa was going through. At the time, she didn’t find it easy to cry on cue, but the train-station scene was different. “I absolutely bawled every single take, and I’m not kidding,” she says in a conversation about recording an episode that helped her sort through her feelings about herself and her own father by way of Lisa Simpson.