How come they never did develop Janey as a character? She could have been Lisa's Milhouse or something...

I like Ms. Hoover but Krabbappel simply has more depth to her character.

I like Hoover a tad better I think its all the old banter between her and Ralph classic stuff. I think she should be explored more.

To be honest, Bart became less important by Season 3 as the emphasis shifted to Homer. They always intended for Homer to be the central character in the show and had wanted to have Simpson and Delilah as the Season 2 opener, but Fox made them use Bart Gets an F instead because gotta milk the Bart fad for all it's worth.

Mrs. K's forlorn love hopes are really funny but Ms. Hoover's banter with Ralph is great.

Anyone that can put up with a kid like Bart in a classroom deserves to win!
Mind you, Ralph ain't no barrel of brains either, but he just sits and eats his paste. Much less to contend with there.

That scene in Days of Future Future was disgusting.

More could’ve been done with Ruth Powers. Not so much Janey as she barely has any personality, but Ruth is an underutilized character.

Considering they brought Ruth back two times, that's more than they ever did for a lot of characters not voiced by the regular cast.

I mean, I guess they could have done more with Sherri & Terri although it did seem that Nelson proved a better antagonist for Bart.

Janey doesn't seem to have much going on on the surface, but I think you could find stuff to do with her. There have been a few suggestions here and there that she's a little dimwitted and slow on the uptake and maybe has a short attention span. She could serve as someone to bounce ideas off of or plan things with...which then likely fail because she got bored and stopped listening halfway through.

I think one that got missed between more established characters is between Bart's morality compared to Nelson but also Lisa too. For example, Bart is shown as being a bad boy, but at the end of the day he still has a conscience and won't do anything truly terrible. For example, he'll annoy Lisa, Mrs. Krabappel, or Skinner, but as soon as they start actually hurting from it, he feels guilty about it, whereas Nelson has never been shown to have that quality.

If anything, while Bart's sense of guilt hounds him frequently, Lisa seems to be so convinced she's the only good person in Springfield (well, the writers are hell-bent on making her look in the right, but it could easily be hand-waved as the former) that she's capable of saying and doing some truly terrible things and not feel even slightly bad about it. IIRC it's twice been a plot point in which Lisa feels better by deliberately upsetting or tearing down someone else, where that would wreak havoc on Bart. It ties more into an early theme of society's betters not actually being "better" at all and honestly, just having an explanation like that would somehow make Lisa more likable. Instead of being a cardboard Mary Sue who's always right because the writers said so. Complexity and all that.

Also there's a lot of characters voiced by guest stars who could have still be used more, say Allison was one although she had a speaking bit or two in later episodes done by one of the regular cast. Plus having either her or Martin being the top kid in the school could make that whole "nobody appreciates Lisa" thing make any sense since they'd probably be soaking up the awards instead. Which could again be social commentary, like how people always say "it's not about winning" and all that but in reality, they never care about second place and we'd have someone who's genuinely brilliantm yet has little to nothing to show for it because someone else managed to be slightly better. In Allison's case it could add an extra layer of frustration in that she's a perfectly decent human being so it's not like Lisa could find a way to villainize her to feel better about herself. Heck, that whole "finally snaps" premise would make sense since as is, she's hardly got a reason to, being considered pretty by others, being the object of affection from at least two guys at once and having awards constantly fall onto her lap and openly acknowledged as the favorite of the Simpson kids.

All of which is one reason it's bewildering why the writers want to keep spamming Marge and Homer marriage crisis or Homer gets a wacky new job plots over and over when you have a huge cast of characters that could be explored more when a lot of smaller shows now probably would have taken these kinds of directions or other little things to spin stories around.

Do these unused characters get some attention in the comics?

I'm not sure Janey could be developed much if at all--the writers have been pretty adamant that she's mainly there as filler when Lisa needs to talk to another girl her age, and she has no really discernible personality traits while Sherri and Terri at least have something to work with.

Martin definitely should have been explored more than he is. The deepest he ever got as a character was in 24 Minutes and it took 18 seasons to get there.

Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure were just fine as they were, in fact using the latter as a MC and trying to flesh him out in A Fish Called Selma didn't work at all.

>A Fish Called Selma
Oh wow. I forgot about that shit. I love pretty much everything from the early seasons except for this one episode. It's just horrible. It's unfortunate that the actor was killed, I'm not trying to be edgy, but I don't miss Troy at all because this episode was just that bad.

Trying to flesh out Gil was also a terrible idea.

Possibly. I never really read the things.

Please don't remind me that Kill Gil, Books I and II was a thing.

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Yeah I agree the writers really fumbled the ball here and that Janey could and should have been Lisa's Milhouse/foil whatever. Maybe she doesn't have an obvious personality, but like said, it's possible to put something together. In fact a lot of the female characters in general aren't as developed as they could be, for example Wiggum/Hibbert/Apu/Lovejoy's wives. It's certainly possible to do stuff with them if the effort were put into it the way they did with Kirk and Luan who were barely even background characters prior to A Milhouse Divided.

Obviously and lamentably, they had to retire Hutz and McClure but the other characters could still have been used more.

cause no one gives a shit about Janey

I think the big problem here is that the writers got too hung up on the idea that Lisa is so unbelievably special, smart, and precocious that there's no way she can relate to her peers on a normal level. Once in a while they'd use Janey to give her another little girl to talk to when they needed to. They pretty much established starting with Moaning Lisa that Lisa is 2deep4u and alienated from her peers. And I think ultimately it was a bad idea to do so.

But then I'm just guessing and I still suspect it's more just that Janey doesn't have any obvious personality traits that could be expanded on.

I agree with Ruth Powers, I think she and Marge should become good friends. They're opposites but that works fine since she helps Marge to escape from her ordinary life and they would make for some interesting episodes.

this. They don't let the main family take screentime from lisa, why would they let some rando?

Or maybe Bart could have some regular friends other than just Milhouse. Martin and Wendell would be good picks, maybe even Ralph who could prove to be a good playmate. Janey could be seen to be Lisa's friend more often, but she hasn't been much of a character where her inconsistency consists of her being a friend or making fun of Lisa with other girls.

I liked Ruth Powers and I wish she had a lot more speaking parts, as she is often seen among crowds.

Yeah Bart should be paired up with other kids more often, especially Martin as someone else said, he really hasn't been used as much as he could be.

Yeah her and Laura could have been used more; they had some great chemistry with Marge and Bart. Also Ruth's third and last appearance in Strong Arms 'O The Ma was pretty bad and kind of ruined her as a character.

As for Janey, no I don't agree at all that they couldn't do anything with her. I think she could have made a good foil and sometimes friend to Lisa and all without diminishing the basic idea of the latter being an asocial aspie. I think the idea of developing Janey as a character just never occurred to the writers for some reason and they instead just used her as a potboiler character when Lisa needs to talk to another little girl.

Also considering how many villains the show has (Burns, Sideshow Bob, Snake, the Mafia guys) it would have also been interesting to see an episode where they all team up for some evil plot and bounce off of each other.

The children are right to laugh at you Ralph.

>I think the big problem here is that the writers got too hung up on the idea that Lisa is so unbelievably special, smart, and precocious that there's no way she can relate to her peers on a normal level.
The problem is more like the writers were friendless aspies as kids who believed they were smarter than everyone else and nobody understood them so of course they use Lisa as a means of projecting their own insecurities.

How about Rod and Todd? They've never really been explored much. Homer's antagonistic relationship with Patty and Selma could be explored a bit more too. One potentially great idea is that Marge gets tired of her sisters bullying Homer and just snaps and lets them have it (but ends up reconciling with them).

They already explored rod youtu.be/61ZI2ipeGVM

Ralph, remember the time you said Snagglepuss was outside?

He was going to the bathroom.

Allison definitely had a lot of potential as a character (more than Janey I think), but you ran into the problem of her being voiced by Winona Ryder instead of a regular cast member so they couldn't really use her again.

The Tapped Out crew acknowledged her which was at least a little something.

I'm not saying she has to have a speaking role again, but just showing her participating in activities that would fit the character we saw in Lisa’s Rival would be more interesting than having her just be another background character who does what all the other kids are doing.

Never really thought about it but that's kind of a good point. Like, did she just go to another school or something? IDK but the dynamic was pretty good and even if as you say a non speaking part it would be cool to see her there because what did happen to her, really?

It would also give more motivation to Lisa's character too.

FWIW in Lard of the Dance they had her voiced by Pamela Hayden and there were a bunch of times when Roger Myers was voiced by Dan Castallaneta and Hank Azaria when Alex Rocco wasn't available. And Allison also doesn't necessarily need a speaking role, just having her name be the one thrown out instead of Hubert's would probably do just fine. Jessica Lovejoy does tend to have purely visual moments where's she's not in the background (like in I D'oh Bot) and Allison is as far as I know fairly popular with fans, maybe not as much as Jessica for...reasons.

That is an issue when you have characters voiced by celebrities that they can't very easily use again.

Given that Winona Ryder's movie career tanked very shortly after Lisa's Rival and she's mostly known since then for shoplifting, they may as well have just gone for it.

Uh huh. Compare for example Bob's Burgers where the tertiary kids are mostly voiced by comedians who are friends of the writers so they can have them come back whenever they need them as opposed to some Hollywood actor who voices a character once and then that character is relegated to background shots never to be seen again. You end up like all of Ash's long-forgotten Pokemon from past story arcs who rot at Professor Oak's place for the rest of eternity. It's nice to know that for example, Gene's ex-girlfriend is still a viable BB character they can use again.

Anyway, my personal headcanon was that Lisa and Allison have a fight over Langdon Alger since a puzzle-loving dude is naturally going to prefer the expert anagrammer over a girl who can't figure out Professor Provolone's Picto-Puzzle.

OP, shhh. Dont give it the attention because someones going to petition her getting a spinoff series cause MUH GIRL NEEDS THE SPOTLIGHT CAUSE POC

I guess that was why Chalmers' daughter is just voiced by Tress MacNeille, so they can use her whenever they want.

Some characters voiced by guest stars shouldn't be recast because the character only works as a one-time thing or the voice is too distinctive to be replaced. Others could be used again and their voices aren't so unique that they couldn't have a regular cast member do them.

Like say Reverend Stroup from KOTH who was voiced by Mary Tyler Moore in her first appearance and then one of the regulars afterwards and it was perfectly fine, in fact it allowed the character to become a semi-regular and be used in subsequent plots, because the KOTH writers didn't box themselves in with a voice actor they didn't want to or couldn't replace.

Allison definitely could have been a regular character unlike some one-offs like Mindy or Chester Lampwick where there was no reason at all to use them again and nothing more you could get out of those characters beyond what we did get.

Yeah like Hank Scorpio. Using him as a recurring character just wouldn't work. Also I'm pretty sure the comics use some of the minor characters/one-offs more often. Or same with Jessica Lovejoy. Meryl Streep might be a bit harder to replace, but I think she also had some untapped potential as a character. Jessica for instance could hate Lisa for blowing the lid on her stealing from the church collection plate and have a forever beef with her because of it. Not sure about Francine though, she'd just be the Ms Hoover to Krabappel's Nelson desu.

I mean, I'm just saying anything would have been better than millions of Marge/Homer marriage crisis or Lisa feeling alienated/insecure episodes.

Allison does appear in background/crowd shots sometimes and like someone else said even had that tiny speaking part in LOTD with one of the cast regulars doing her voice and yes I do agree she had untapped potential as a character as did Jessica Lovejoy. Also it was pretty ridiculous how Jessica had a rather prominent role in Marge Gamer while still remaining completely silent. Having her get into a confrontation with Lisa would have been ace as would the general idea of her being a recurring bully of Lisa's.

is also a big problem. The writers kind of boxed themselves in with this and it had the unfortunate consequence of most of Springfield Elementary being undeveloped as characters.

One advantage of some of the kid characters from a storytelling POV is that they aren't as situational as some of the adult ones. For instance, Frank Grimes worked well for his one appearance, but he would become very annoying very fast if you had him as a recurring character and he's not that flexible enough that you could use him for anything other than complaining to everyone within listening range how incompetent Homer is. With a school you can shove a range of different personalities and talents that otherwise probably wouldn't interact if they weren't forced into the same building every weekday. Granted there's some exceptions, if you dumped the steroid thing Ruth could be potentially applicable to more stories with Marge or given they both seem to enjoy a drink, some moments with Homer even.

How about a plot involving not Lisa and Allison but _Bart_ and Allison? Here goes:

>Marge gets worried about Bart's shitty grades
>as fate would have it, Allison is volunteering to help kids with schoolwork issues and they get paired up
>they get off to a poor start because Bart resents working with a 2nd grader especially one he assumes is as much of a dork as Lisa is and his general buttheadeness makes him hard to work with
>Allison turns out to not be all that, nor Bart all that and they end up becoming friends
>Bart kind of starts seeing her as more of a sister than his real sister who quickly becomes jealous and butthurt

>Not sure about Francine though
I don't think she has enough personality to be used on her own, maybe as a sidekick/muscle to Jessica? Maybe she thinks Jessica is her friend when really Jessica just uses her as a fall guy for her evil acts and to beat people up she doesn't like. Might even get a sympathetic quality out of the lug without having to copy Nelson's that way.

As for Alex Whitney, wouldn't be a bad one to bring along either, like Allison, she played against her "type" a little (being a vain fashionista valley girl without acting like everyone else is a swamp monster compared or her or being too dumb to find her tail or notice she and most other humans don't even have one) and she had a bit of a blunt way of saying things that could work for some more dialog-based humor.

Imagine all the episodes where they could have just used Janey instead of creating yet another girl like Isabelle or Julia voiced by a celebrity that they'll never use again.

That's actually not a terrible plot and it is one that could conceivably happen on the show. Also the idea of Lisa being jealous of Bart is something they've rarely if ever explored (maybe a tiny bit in Bart vs Lisa vs the Third Grade).

>Jessica for instance could hate Lisa for blowing the lid on her stealing from the church collection plate and have a forever beef with her because of it
I'd thought of that too. Some of the ideas in here like this one seem to come so naturally that it's slightly bewildering how they never occured to the supposed paid professionals writing the episodes.

The whole Allison thing was a bit off-putting. On one hand, it makes sense that they didn't use her again. At the time, they needed a character for an episode they were writing, got Winona Ryder to voice her, and assumed maybe another three or seasons were all they had remaining before the show ended.

I'm pretty sure Lisa's Rival has always been highly regarded by Simpsons fans and considered one of the show's best episodes and in that spirit, it seems really hard to swallow how it ends with the two girls forming an obvious bond and then Allison is essentially never seen or heard from again--it's not like even with Jessica where they have her go back to boarding school at the end of the episode which serves at least some valid explanation as to why we don't see her again.

As someone else in here said, there's the obvious point about how the writers went out of their way to make Lisa far above the rest of her peers (and even the adults of Springfield) intellectually and morally, so that having another girl her age who is something of her intellectual equal would kind of remove Lisa's uniqueness as a character.

I remember watching one of the nu simpsons episodes were Lisa was giving her usual "I'm a femininst, democrat, vegan, animal lover" speech and literally mentioned Janey as her token black friend. Lisa don't deserves Janey's friendship or having any friends for that matter, thought the writers love to make her super popular with every teeb guest star they sacrifice upon the simpsons altar.

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Has that happened before?

>I'm pretty sure Lisa's Rival has always been highly regarded by Simpsons fans and considered one of the show's best episodes and in that spirit, it seems really hard to swallow how it ends with the two girls forming an obvious bond and then Allison is essentially never seen or heard from again
Except we very much did see her again in background shots and even a little speaking part in LOTD.

But seriously, Lisa having a recurring friend of some kind would cause some other stuff to make more sense. It never seemed that Lisa's routine existential crisis are really as bad as they're made out to be.

>says she's unappreciated when she's always getting awards and honors thrown her way even when she fails like in I'm Spelling as Fast as I Can
>is the favorite child in the family especially with Homer
>she has a hard time making friends among peers who supposedly don't "get" her yet love her the moment they think she got a bad grade
>she thinks everyone's against her when Milhouse and Nelson would probably jump Springfield Gorge on a skateboard to win her love if she asked them to
>iow she gets preferential treatment from everyone even when they're supposedly all against her
>you can't say that of Bart--he'll get his ass beat by the bullies regardless

Continued:

Having Allison or somebody as a presence wouldn't change Lisa's attitude, but it would make it a bit more justified rather than her perpetually whining how the world is against her because one small thing doesn't go her way until midway through the episode when it does. The "brilliant but underappreciated" angle could actually be true if, despite being plenty skilled, she was always tossed to the side because someone else happened to be slightly better at that thing. Plus as the show's a more general satire of western society, it would be a great rip on one of the most glaring hypocrisies, especially in school. Where they say it's all about 'taking part' or 'trying your best' but then in the same breath they care only about the one who did best and anyone else can get hit by a car for all they care.

Actually, it would tie up a few other ends but yeah, having Allison be a presence outside of the background would actually give her a reason to complain without really changing her attitude at all. As is, she's a contradiction riddled mess with massive glaring flaws that are brushed under the rug because the writers still want to act like she's perfect.

>I remember watching one of the nu simpsons episodes were Lisa was giving her usual "I'm a femininst, democrat, vegan, animal lover" speech and literally mentioned Janey as her token black friend.
Tell me this isn't true. Zombie Simpsons writers sicken me.

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I wish it was made up, I really do.

I like the idea that Janey could be kind of a loudmouth/jerk who shoots down Lisa's idealistic platitudes. Also that her mom is a sassy black beeatch and her upbringing is painfully strict.

Allison...well, there's a lot of things you could do with her such as her being super-spoiled by her parents as their only child and Lisa resents that she doesn't get that kind of treatment. She also turns out to be something of a big baby and for example is afraid to sleep without a nightlight on.

>I like the idea that Janey could be kind of a loudmouth/jerk who shoots down Lisa's idealistic platitudes
Don't want to hurt the writers' fee-fees though when those platitudes are them using Lisa as a puppet to voice their beliefs.

>Bart gets an obvious preferencia of the writers over Lisa
>Its still means Lisa is a spotlight stealer

Also you could have some fun with confrontations between Homer and Allison's dad because he's a professor and would find Homer a bit...not up his alley.

same reason homer gets friends and marge doesn't
sexism, albiet accidental

After reliving most season 9 of The Simpsons via Talking Simpsons, it's really obvious how little the writing staff at the time cared for Lisa and Marge.

In season 5-6 we have Marge gaining all these weird quirks (fantasizing about the Bionic Man) and getting in on the fun ("Why can't I be evil once." In season 7-8, Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein are further exploring Marge's life with episodes like "Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield" and "The Twisted World of Marge Simpson." In season 9, Marge is just there to be shit on by Homer. Marge shined in "The Joy of Sec," but that episode was run by David Mirkin.

Lisa's treatment in season 9 is werid, because she's usually there to comment on how ridiculous the episode is. Or, like Marge, to get shit on. And just like Marge, Lisa's best episodes ("Lisa the Simpson") came from previous showrunners. David X Cohen did give her "Lisa the Skeptic" (which was also a nice Marge and Lisa episode), but he would leave for Futurama.

I don't even want to get into when they brought Lurleen back. That episode makes me want to cry.

>After reliving most season 9 of The Simpsons via Talking Simpsons, it's really obvious how little the writing staff at the time cared for Lisa and Marge.
No shit, that was when Mike Scully took over and decided to make the show into "The Wacky Adventures of Homer Simpson."

Confederate degenerate?

Hee Haw Ho?

Also the part where Beverly D'Angelo sounded like a dying 80 year old.

It turns out Allison's family are hippies who practice nudism and they invite Lisa to join them.

You stop that.

>>>/tlhg/

BGAF had some of the highest viewership numbers in Simpsons history so I guess from a purely business standpoint, Fox knew what they were doing.

Francine doesn't seem like a very useful character or Alex Whitney, who was actually quite irritating and I wouldn't want to see her be a regular character at all. Of all the one-off Simpsons lolis, most were pretty useless other than maybe Nikki who could be expanded on more.

Except she's voiced by Sarah Silverman, who sucks.

I don't fucking know man Christ do I look like I worked on The Simpsons to you?! Every fucking day you ask me this inane shit it's so irritating FUCK just shut up dude.

Or how about Lisa goes over to Allison's house for a sleepover and Allison's mom lets her sleep naked and stuff and brings her hot chocolate in bed and then later Lisa asks Marge why she isn't spoiled like that and she's not allowed to sleep naked or gets hot chocolate brought to her.

Fuck that, whatever happened to Lois? Richard? Wendell?

Flesh these guys out, they are close friends with Bart, yet we know shit about them

Hey, someone said they could give Bart more friends than just Milhouse.

They never cared about Lisa's female classmates. It honestly always felt kind of sexist. Like Bart is allowed to have friends, but not Lisa.

You just...had to go there, didn't you.

This is what happen when most writers are old men. Obviously it's not intentional and the writers try too hard to overcompensate, especially on Zombie Simpsons, but they only know about male bonding and women are those things with skirts. It doesn't help The Simpsons exist in a 50s bubble with smartphones

I actually liked her completely deadpan attitude towards everything, like hoping to end the year by saying nothing or taking opportunities to bail on the students. Not deep, but could have made for some good scenes. Also, her ''PC thug'' speech was based af, even though Lisa was right.

Eh? Most of the writers in the classic seasons were in their 20s-early 30s. Only John Swartzwelder was older (he was 40 when the show started). I know from the DVD commentaries that Jon Vitti and George Meyer were barely out of college and had never written a full length script when they did their first Simpsons episodes.

Actually if there was any sexism going on in the writing room, the guy to blame for it was most likely Sam Simon. When the show started, he had just gotten divorced and was generally pretty butthurt, so he didn't want women around. So they didn't have a female writer until Jennifer Crittenden in Season 6. The Christmas special was co-written by Mimi Pond, who ended up not being hired permanently as a writer and she has said this was because of Sam Simon.

>So they didn't have a female writer until Jennifer Crittenden in Season 6.
Should add: This was after Simon had phased out his active role in the show

I was going to suggest Allison has a secret lesbian crush on Lisa, but...meh.

never knew that

Yeah like I said Mimi Pond has talked about it and Sam Simon's prejudice against having female writers.

Even if they could get Streep back, I wouldn't want them to bring back Jessica for another prominent role and risk her being Mary Spucklered, if you know what I mean.

I do think it's kind of weird that Rev. and Helen Lovejoy are almost never seen with their child. Compare that to any other parent and child setup in Springfield and it starts to look borderline bizzare.

Yeah that seems more the issue than that the character couldn't potentially be used for more stories.

Jessica Lovejoy was an interesting character and made for a great episode in my opinion. Mostly because of how it subverts expectations.

Farmer #2

Episode? I know upper-class liberals are clueless but this

S11E5

original

I didn't like Alex Whitney at all and I don't think she should come back.

Don't remind us.

desu even as a kid I noticed Homer’s the only Simpsons that has a consistent group of friends, I’m kind of surprised by how many people just now realized the other Simpsons have hardly anyone else to hang out with.

Lisa I can understand because she’s usually an arrogant little shit but Marge and Bart only have like two friends tops.

i wish this one was used more, she doesn't even have a name

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I'm mad that all the new background characters and minor characters look completely different than the classic ones who had different shapes and weird hair colors. now they all look like the same previous model with slightly different hair colored black, brown or blonde.

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Zombie Simpsons character designs are pure ass, especially those designed specifically for celebrity guest stars.

That still meant they were writing about their (and Groening's) childhoods in the 1960s and 1970s, when people actually wore beehive hairdos and pearl necklaces in gaudy orange colors

>Not liking A Fish called Selma

Who are you people?

fpbp

I won't complain that Nikki's design actually looked somewhat unique and early season-ish.

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It's literally the same character design as Vanellope, who was part of a movie created by an ex-Simpsons staffer and based on how Sarah Silverman looked as a child, or at least how she imagined herself looking as a child.

>"What's with you? First you're hot, then you're cold."
>"There are some things about women you don't understand. And I will never tell you what they are."
Nice tasteless menstruation joke, writers.

FUCK SARAH SILVERMAN

Lisa sleeps naked because she is a nudist. Her family doesn't approve so she has to do it in secret.

Well, Marge does sleep naked sometimes, so...

Then Lisa finds out and they decide to check out a nudist resort together. A little mother, daughter bonding experience.

Is Bart supposed to be the most popular kid in school or not? Even the classic seasons couldn’t settle on the answer. Sometimes everybody knows him and other days he’s outcasted alongside Lisa and Milhouse.

He's as popular or unpopular as the plot requires.

anything that end good for Bart make Lisa jealous of him.
and them she forces Bart to abandon whatever dream for the sake of her.

Because she's black

Exactly, her being black and as lame as milhouse will never happen.

The characters are a bit more like actors, fulfilling the role the episode needs, in the early season. Lisa on Ice wasn’t Homer’s usual characterization nor was Bart ever that interested in sports but hey, there was a story to tell, baby. Thus, Bart needed to be popular in Summer of 4 Ft 2.

>Lisa on Ice wasn’t Homer’s usual characterization
At that point in time no, but since the episode was written by Mike Scully, it was a sign of, ahem, things to come.

>How come they never did develop Janey as a character?
Because she does it for free

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Isn't the black nerd stereotype tired and used up anyway?