Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
Round Springfield
I've been fortunate in that I've only been to a handful of funerals. I did love the people who I lost but the grieving didn't last as long for me as the people for whom the deceased where more closely related. It was pain that didn't take too long to heal. Frankly, seeing what grieving is supposed to look like from TV, I always feel like I must be emotionally cold or unhealthily detached for not being overwhelmed with pain. I do feel confident if I lost somebody in my immediate family I would be crushed but I do worry that I'm so self-absorbed that I wouldn't give them the respect they deserve. I'd like to think that I'd do something to honor their memory but I know they've done so much that they will be remembered for being great, accomplished people. We all want to be remembered and I take comfort that the people I love will be.
In this episode, Bart gets sick after eating a prize in a box of Krusty-O's. While visiting Bart at the hospital, Lisa finds Bleeding Gums Murphy, who encourage Lisa to find creative outlets for her sadness in "Moaning Lisa". Lisa visits and reconnects with Murphy at the hospital but one day Lisa returns to find he's died. Lisa is strucken with grief over the loss of her friend and while her family tries to help her, Lisa doesn't know what to do with these feelings. After seeing Murphy's funeral where she was the only attendant, Lisa vows to let Springfield know about Murphy and his greatness. Lisa can only find one album, which turns out to be prohibitively expensive but Bart buys it for Lisa with his settlement he won from his prize-eating mishap. Lisa takes it to a jazz station with bad frequency but a freak lightning strike spreads the signal through Springfield, allowing everyone to appreciate his music. Then Lisa jams with a Murphy ghost made of cloud. Even for the elastic reality of the series at this point, its kind of a weird ending.
Round Springfield is a good episode but watching it this time out it has some notable flaws. 15 years or so ago, I had a book I loved called "Planet Simpson", a series of essays about what makes the show so great and how it reflects modern culture and its influence on it. And the guy takes time to single out the song in this episode is pretty weak sauce. Watching it again, I got to agree. "Jazzman" is a very toothless and bland song. Yeardley Smith does what she can but this is a snooze of a song and I always hate supposedly great art within fiction that is just generic. Similarly, almost all of the jazz in this episode is the limpest version of it. Usually, I have praise for Alf Clausen's work but this feels like a subpar SNL intro from the 80s.
This isn't the only issue. The other is that while Ron Taylor is great as Bleeding Gums, it is unfortunate that one of the few notable black characters on the show and THE ONLY recurring character (usually) voiced by a black man exists almost exclusively to forward the story of Lisa dealing with loss. We do get his life story of being an underappreciated talent but Bleeding Gums job is to completely support Lisa, which is good, but he doesn't get a lot beyond that. And yeah, many major Springfieldians don't get a lot of death but the weight of the death is purely on the feelings of a little white girl who just lost her biggest booster. Watching it again through that lens, Murphy is a character with a good performer and has a weight that is rare on the show with his presence but in the end he and his death are devices.
So this does strain my enjoyment a bit compared to before but it is still a good episode. In terms of being sentimental, its one of the lesser sentimental episodes of the era. But it has a lot of funny business with Bart and Smith and Taylor put the work in to both sell jokes and the emotions of a scene. After all, it always hurts to watch Lisa's heart breaks. But even though they are mostly to forward jokes, I like that as tactless as they are, Homer and Bart genuinely want to cheer up or comfort Lisa. Yeah, Bart's thing is to set up a killer butterfly gag (no pun intended but retroactively appreciated) but the set up seems a little sweet. Of course, the real sweetness is not only Bart sacrificing his own childhood glee for his sister's happiness but the very specific reason he does it: she believed him. Overall, this goes for sweet and funny but I feel like the wins are mostly in the funny column for this one.
Jokes I missed before:
"What can you give me for this AA chip."
"Barney, this is a five minute chip. Eh, its worth a Pabst."
Other great jokes:
Bears: Now with jagged metal eyes.
"Yes, why is that student lying on the floor?"
"Well, in some cases the floor-- oh, look."
I love Skinner's aborted excuses.
"Can I have my appendix out?"
"Why not? Follow me kids! Nurse, prep these children."
"We all thought it was funny."
"... That's not funny."
Great line read.
"This one's a great jazz musicians."
"Ah, they all are."
"Uh, Krusty, that wasn't a metal one, it was a regular Krusty-O."
"It's poison."
Me eating Krave.
"They'll be playing Stars and Stripes Forever, hopefully not forever."
"DEATH!"
This was me as a teenager. I... I was dealing with some stuff.
Lovejoy's half-assed eulogy is perfect in its sucktitude.
"Lady, he's putting my kids through college."
This is a man who gets Homer. We call this a symbiotic relationship.
Another stellar "Bart fantasizes about terrible things happening to him that he thinks is cool."
I love how he opens with a playfully written intro and dives headfirst into sadness.
Other notes:
Oh my God. The Klingon Chef in Deep Space Nine is Bleeding Gums Murphy!
The Simpsons and MST3k both had gags about Steve Allen's insane talent for innovating and cranking stuff out but as someone who grew up in a largely post-Steve Allen world, his significance is a bit lost on me.
Fun fact: I read that in order to relieve the overworked Simpsons staff, The Critic writers worked on this and the crossover episode. There are some jokes that ape the Simpsons style perfectly and are great (The butterfly). There are some that feel a bit more like a good Critic joke more than a Simpsons joke (the Bill Cosby bit, though the Simpsons would return to the Cosby well on their own) and some feel like a weak bit of pop culture riffing that isn't particularly funny and I'm not sure what the point is (the ghosts of James Earl Jones characters).
I've been fortunate in that I've only been to a handful of funerals. I did love the people who I lost but the grieving didn't last as long for me as the people for whom the deceased where more closely related. It was pain that didn't take too long to heal. Frankly, seeing what grieving is supposed to look like from TV, I always feel like I must be emotionally cold or unhealthily detached for not being overwhelmed with pain. I do feel confident if I lost somebody in my immediate family I would be crushed but I do worry that I'm so self-absorbed that I wouldn't give them the respect they deserve. I'd like to think that I'd do something to honor their memory but I know they've done so much that they will be remembered for being great, accomplished people. We all want to be remembered and I take comfort that the people I love will be.
In this episode, Bart gets sick after eating a prize in a box of Krusty-O's. While visiting Bart at the hospital, Lisa finds Bleeding Gums Murphy, who encourage Lisa to find creative outlets for her sadness in "Moaning Lisa". Lisa visits and reconnects with Murphy at the hospital but one day Lisa returns to find he's died. Lisa is strucken with grief over the loss of her friend and while her family tries to help her, Lisa doesn't know what to do with these feelings. After seeing Murphy's funeral where she was the only attendant, Lisa vows to let Springfield know about Murphy and his greatness. Lisa can only find one album, which turns out to be prohibitively expensive but Bart buys it for Lisa with his settlement he won from his prize-eating mishap. Lisa takes it to a jazz station with bad frequency but a freak lightning strike spreads the signal through Springfield, allowing everyone to appreciate his music. Then Lisa jams with a Murphy ghost made of cloud. Even for the elastic reality of the series at this point, its kind of a weird ending.
Round Springfield is a good episode but watching it this time out it has some notable flaws. 15 years or so ago, I had a book I loved called "Planet Simpson", a series of essays about what makes the show so great and how it reflects modern culture and its influence on it. And the guy takes time to single out the song in this episode is pretty weak sauce. Watching it again, I got to agree. "Jazzman" is a very toothless and bland song. Yeardley Smith does what she can but this is a snooze of a song and I always hate supposedly great art within fiction that is just generic. Similarly, almost all of the jazz in this episode is the limpest version of it. Usually, I have praise for Alf Clausen's work but this feels like a subpar SNL intro from the 80s.
This isn't the only issue. The other is that while Ron Taylor is great as Bleeding Gums, it is unfortunate that one of the few notable black characters on the show and THE ONLY recurring character (usually) voiced by a black man exists almost exclusively to forward the story of Lisa dealing with loss. We do get his life story of being an underappreciated talent but Bleeding Gums job is to completely support Lisa, which is good, but he doesn't get a lot beyond that. And yeah, many major Springfieldians don't get a lot of death but the weight of the death is purely on the feelings of a little white girl who just lost her biggest booster. Watching it again through that lens, Murphy is a character with a good performer and has a weight that is rare on the show with his presence but in the end he and his death are devices.
So this does strain my enjoyment a bit compared to before but it is still a good episode. In terms of being sentimental, its one of the lesser sentimental episodes of the era. But it has a lot of funny business with Bart and Smith and Taylor put the work in to both sell jokes and the emotions of a scene. After all, it always hurts to watch Lisa's heart breaks. But even though they are mostly to forward jokes, I like that as tactless as they are, Homer and Bart genuinely want to cheer up or comfort Lisa. Yeah, Bart's thing is to set up a killer butterfly gag (no pun intended but retroactively appreciated) but the set up seems a little sweet. Of course, the real sweetness is not only Bart sacrificing his own childhood glee for his sister's happiness but the very specific reason he does it: she believed him. Overall, this goes for sweet and funny but I feel like the wins are mostly in the funny column for this one.
Jokes I missed before:
"What can you give me for this AA chip."
"Barney, this is a five minute chip. Eh, its worth a Pabst."
Other great jokes:

Bears: Now with jagged metal eyes.
"Yes, why is that student lying on the floor?"
"Well, in some cases the floor-- oh, look."
I love Skinner's aborted excuses.
"Can I have my appendix out?"
"Why not? Follow me kids! Nurse, prep these children."
"We all thought it was funny."
"... That's not funny."
Great line read.
"This one's a great jazz musicians."
"Ah, they all are."
"Uh, Krusty, that wasn't a metal one, it was a regular Krusty-O."
"It's poison."
Me eating Krave.
"They'll be playing Stars and Stripes Forever, hopefully not forever."
"DEATH!"
This was me as a teenager. I... I was dealing with some stuff.
Lovejoy's half-assed eulogy is perfect in its sucktitude.
"Lady, he's putting my kids through college."
This is a man who gets Homer. We call this a symbiotic relationship.
Another stellar "Bart fantasizes about terrible things happening to him that he thinks is cool."
Other notes:
Oh my God. The Klingon Chef in Deep Space Nine is Bleeding Gums Murphy!
The Simpsons and MST3k both had gags about Steve Allen's insane talent for innovating and cranking stuff out but as someone who grew up in a largely post-Steve Allen world, his significance is a bit lost on me.
Fun fact: I read that in order to relieve the overworked Simpsons staff, The Critic writers worked on this and the crossover episode. There are some jokes that ape the Simpsons style perfectly and are great (The butterfly). There are some that feel a bit more like a good Critic joke more than a Simpsons joke (the Bill Cosby bit, though the Simpsons would return to the Cosby well on their own) and some feel like a weak bit of pop culture riffing that isn't particularly funny and I'm not sure what the point is (the ghosts of James Earl Jones characters).