YMMV / The Simpsons S1 E5 "Bart the General"

• Growing the Beard: For The Simpsons's animation team, this was the episode where they became comfortable with the style of the show after the previous four episodes in production order were infamously rough. The characters in this episode remain more consistently on-model, while the backgrounds become far more detailed than before. Moreover, the animators start to grow more willing to experiment with new styles, as can be seen in Bart's imaginary sequences as well as the war montage.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: Seeing how much Grampa came through for Bart in this episode is this considering how many later episodes would establish the close bond that the two of them have and how much they really love and need one another.^note As the former is usually mistreated by the family, especially Homer—albeit in a sense deserved, as flashbacks show how much of a lousy father he was to him—and that the latter is heavily implied to be The Unfavorite among the three Simpson children, though also a little deserved considering his disrespectful attitude towards his father, and his overall unruly behavior.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • After Bart is first beaten up by Nelson, Marge suggests he tells Principal Skinner about, with Homer objecting, saying that would "violate the code of the schoolyard". In season 8's "The Homer They Fall", after Bart is beaten up by Jimbo, Dolph, and Kearney, Homer takes the opposite stance, telling him he should squeal to the teachers, and when Bart objects, Homer decides to squeal directly to their parents (and faces an attempted beatdown by them).
  • The plot of Bart being bullied by Nelson begins after he defends Lisa from him as gratitude for her giving him a cupcake. In a darkly comedic twist of irony, a later episode would have Lisa pit Bart's intelligence against a hamster...with a test involving a rigged cupcake that Bart utterly fails.
• Most Wonderful Sound: The musical trumpet sting (direct from Patton) heard throughout the episode serves as this. It's even heard at the end of Bart's ending speech right after he tells the audience "Peace, man."
• Nightmare Fuel: Bart's Imagine Spot about his funeral, complete with "X"s in his eyes and Nelson continuing to pummel him in his coffin. The cruder animation doesn't help matters. Also, this scene has mutated into a rather disturbing Creepypasta known as "Dead Bart".
• Special Effect Failure: For some reason the animators just could not properly sync Herman's mouth to the lines about losing his arm, so they just threw in the closest one.
• Unintentional Period Piece: At the end, Bart cites "the Star Wars trilogy" as one of the few good wars. At the time this episode aired in 1990, the prequel and sequel trilogies were still years away.
• Values Resonance: Bart's message at the end of the episode holds more weight now than ever before and that he wanted audiences to avert the Hard Truth Aesop that Violence Really Is the Answer by telling us that war (and by greater extension, bullying) is not glamorous.
• The Woobie: Poor Bart goes through hell in this episode, and perhaps most telling, he is crying to his father, who he doesn't really respect to the point he usually calls him by his first name, for help.

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