History Recap / TheSimpsonsS7E16LisaTheIconoclast

* {{Jerkass}}: Marge outright dismisses and insults Lisa's findings without even considering it a possibility.
** Mrs. Hoover as well.

* WouldHurtAChild: A sniper confidently states he can hit Lisa. Mayor Quimby only tells him to stop because he wants to hear what she has to say.
** And when she decides not to tell the truth, the sniper fires anyway. She's lucky she walked away.

* ActBreakDoubleTake: [[https://frinkiac.com/gif/S07E16/873472/879311/ The exhumation of Jebediah Springfield's coffin.]]

* ThrowItIn: Donald Sutherland ad-libbed the line "you had arthritis?" in response to Lisa's joke that she was getting over her "Chester A. Arthuritis". The producers liked it so much that they kept it.

* NoodleIncident: Apparently no town meeting in Springfield has ended without someone digging up a corpse. What were those other times? Surely they can't mean the town meetings seen in "Marge vs. The Monorail," "A Star is Burns," "$pringfield (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling)," and "Who Shot Mr. Burns, Part 1," because those didn't have that.
* NotHelpingYourCase: Homer mentions he's been called a 'greasy thug' before, and that it 'never stops hurting'. A few seconds later, he suggests getting covered in grease and trashing the museum with a baseball bat.

* EvilLaugh: Jebediah Springfield/Hans Sprungfeld when he finish writing his confession (he even ''wrote'' down his sinister laughter in as well).

* ActBreakDouibleTake: [[https://frinkiac.com/gif/S07E16/873472/879311/ The exhumation of Jebediah Springfield's coffin.]]

* OlderThanTheyLook: This was the first episode to imply that Kearney is above the normal age for an elementary school student. According to Principal Skinner, Kearney is the only kid in Springfield Elementary to remember both the 1976 Bicentennial and the Watergate scandal and he is seen shaving.

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: GeorgeWashington, he was Jebediah Springfield's (in his Hans Sprungfeld identity) enemy and even managed to put off an intense fist fight during Jebediah's assassination attempt.

* NoodleIncident: Apparently no town meeting in Springfield has ended without someone digging up a corpse. What were those other times? Surely they can't mean the town meetings seen in "Marge vs. The Monorail," "A Star is Burns," and "Who Shot Mr. Burns, Part 1," because those didn't have that.

* PerfectlyCromulentWord: TropeNamer. This is the episode that introduced "embiggen" (which means "to empower") and "cromulent" (which has come to mean, "acceptable" or "appropriate") as words that would later become part of the Oxford English dictionary.

* ThrowItIn: Donald Sutherland ad-libbed the line "you had arthritis?" in response to Lisa's joke that she was getting over her "Chester A. Arthuritis", a play on the word "arthritis" and the name of 21st U.S. President UsefulNotes/ChesterAArthur. The producers liked it so much that they kept it.

** And when she's done the sniper fires anyway.

* NoodleIncident: Apparently no town meeting in Springfield can end without someone digging up a corpse.

* HiddenInPlainSight: Jebediah's silver tongue Hollis had hid it as a cowboy in one of the display cases of the Jebediah Springfield Museum. The 'plain sight' aspect is slightly questionable, since no one (except Lisa) ever visits the museum.

On the days before Springfield's Founders' Day, Lisa discovers that Jebediah Springfield was actually a pirate who tried to murder George Washington and changed his name to dodge authorities, but no one (not even her own mother) wants to hear the truth -- except for Homer, who risks his role as town crier for the Founders' Day parade to help his daughter.

* ThrowItIn: Donald Sutherland ad-libbed the line "you had arthritis?" in response to Lisa's joke that she was getting over her "Chester A. Arthuritis", a play on the word "arthritis" and the name of 21st U.S. President ChesterAArthur. The producers liked it so much that they kept it.
* TongueTrauma: Hans Sprungfeld's/Jebediah Springfield's silver tongue. His real tongue got bitten off by a Turk.

* CrushedChildhoodMemories: Lisa's discovery of Jebediah Springfield's true identity. Even more so for Hollis Hurlbut (voiced by DonaldSutherland), the town historian for the Jebediah Springfield Museum.

* FakeUltimateHero: Jebediah Springfield.

* GeorgeWashington: He was Jebediah Springfield's (in his Hans Sprungfeld identity) enemy and even managed to put off an intense fist fight during Jebediah's assassination attempt.
** He later appears to Lisa as a vision to scold her when she considers giving up her effort to expose Jebidiah Springfield as a fraud.
-->'''George Washington''': We had quitters during the Revolution, too. We called them 'Kentuckians'.

* TongueTrauma: Hans Sprungfeld's/Jebediah Springfield's silver tongue. His real tongue got bitten off by a Turk.
* VillainWithGoodPublicity: Jebediah Springfield.

* NoHeroToHisValet: The main plot of this episode. When Lisa does find proof that might convince them (causing Mayor Quimby to consider shooting her before she can reveal it) she changes her mind, telling everyone that she was wrong the whole time. (Why? After seeing the positive factors of the town's bicentennial celebration like the veterans at the parade and children having fun, she decided that the town knowing the truth would destroy hope and morale.)

* OlderThanTheyLook: This was the first episode to imply that Kearney is above the normal age for an elementary school student. According to Principal Skinner, Kearney is the only kid in Springfield Elementary to remember both the 1976 Bicentennial and the Watergate scandal and he is seen shaving.

* PerfectlyCromulentWord: TropeNamer

Lisa discovers that the legendary Springfield founder Jebediah wasn't a hero, but a pirate, and becomes a pariah for trying to bring this to light.