Chris Higgins
Bart Simpson’s Blackboard
by Chris Higgins - May 21, 2010 - 8:58 AM

In the opening credits of The Simpsons, Bart is usually (but not always) shown writing something on a blackboard at school, presumably a punishment for his schoolboy antics. What Bart writes changes from episode to episode. In twenty-one seasons, this adds up to a heck of a lot of blackboards. Wouldn’t you know it — there’s a blog for that.

Bart’s Blackboard is an exhaustive archive of every blackboard shown on The Simpsons opening sequences. It’s a weird thing to see all these disconnected moments put together. Does The Simpsons have a writer who keeps track of all the blackboards? I kinda want that job. (Incidentally, there are some repeats — easier to spot using this list.) Anyway, here are some samples:

Season 3, episode 19 (Dog of Death):

Season 4, episode 20 (the infamous Whacking Day):

Season 6, episode 20 (Two Dozen and One Greyhounds):

Feast your eyes on all of them. As Kottke.org writer Aaron Cohen points out: “There’s an electrical outlet in front of Bart’s knee in every season except season 1 and season 21. This might only be interesting to me.” I think this is a perfectly cromulent fact that embiggens this blog.

(I will not take ideas from Kottke.org. I will not take ideas from Kottke.org. I will not take ideas from Kottke.org…)

« Previous Post   -   Next Post »
Click here to get a Risk-Free issue of mental_floss magazine
Comments (12)

  1. Well I just noticed that Bart is a lefty

    posted by Rissa on 5-21-2010 at 9:23 am

  2. http://www.work-club.com/blackboard/ is a video of all of these on one blackboard.

    posted by denise on 5-21-2010 at 9:43 am

  3. Is Mrs. Krabappel the only teacher in the school? If not, Bart misplaced the apostrophe in the Dog of Death board.

    posted by walter on 5-21-2010 at 10:48 am

  4. “I should not be 21 by now”

    posted by yaelbt on 5-21-2010 at 11:53 am

  5. I remember reading once that the writers of The Rockford Files badly regretted the changing answering machine on that show as they quickly ran out of ideas for it. I’m sure that the Simpsons’ far longer run has really made this joke hard.

    posted by Dave on 5-21-2010 at 1:36 pm

  6. The light socket isn’t the only thing that’s changed – I think Bart’s in a different classroom now. The wall has a dividing line on it, and the blurry picture on the wall to Bart’s right is now Homer in his spacesuit.

    But it’s always 3:00. There is no time in Hell.

    posted by Jane on 5-22-2010 at 7:16 pm

  7. My favorites were (i think) the first episode: I will not waste chalk

    and the 300th–I will not celebrate meaningless milestones.

    posted by Wayne on 5-23-2010 at 11:56 am

  8. @Wayne
    I think it was the second episode. “Bart the Genius”

    posted by Cor on 5-24-2010 at 12:36 am

  9. I’d be interested in seeing a compilation of the couch gags.

    posted by Mark on 5-24-2010 at 10:13 am

  10. “Grammar is not a time of waste.”

    @Mark I’m thinking that would be harder to pull off since they are typically longer and more complex than the blackboard sequences. Would be cool though!

    posted by Nerak on 5-24-2010 at 4:12 pm

  11. Bonjour, Charming to unify you, I am Julia

    posted by juliaandromios on 6-10-2010 at 11:54 am

  12. I’m an English teacher and one of these days cromulent is going to show up on a vocab list. I’m to perpetuate it and teach it, and it will go the way of kwijbo and d’oh.

    posted by Radiance on 6-12-2010 at 2:53 am

Comment

commenting policy