Separate Vocations

Infobox Simpsons episode
episode_name = Separate Vocations


image_caption = Bart proves himself to be a worthy hall monitor
episode_no = 53
prod_code = 8F15
airdate = February 27, 1992
show runner = Al Jean & Mike Reiss
writer = George Meyer
director = Jeffrey Lynch
blackboard = "I will not barf unless I'm sick
couch_gag = Bart leaps into everyone's lap
guest_star = Steve Allen as Bart's Warped Courtroom Voice
commentary = Matt Groening
Mike Reiss
Jon Vitti
David Silverman
Al Jean (Easter Egg)
season = 3 "Separate Vocations" is the 18th episode of "The Simpsons"' third season.

Plot

After taking career aptitude tests (which were scored by a malfunctioning computer), Lisa discovers that the occupation she is best suited for is homemaker while Bart is pegged as a future police officer. Each takes the opportunity to explore their options as Lisa spends the day doing chores with Marge and Bart goes on a ride along with the police. Lisa hates her role (and the impovershed isolation therein) and rebels by becoming a troublemaker at school. Police life fits Bart like a glove (he even ends up stopping Snake Jailbird during a car chase, thanks to an alley that gets narrow in the middle) and he becomes a hall monitor, handing out demerits to his classmates for minor infractions. When Lisa secretly steals all of the teachers' editions, it is up to Bart and Principal Skinner to figure out who did it. Realizing his sister is the culprit, Bart takes the rap and returns to his life as a bad student and detention regular, while Lisa goes back to playing her saxophone.

Continuity

Dr. Pryor, the school psychiatrist who first appeared in "Bart the Genius," would not speak again until season nine's "Lisa's Sax".

Principal Skinner's Vietnam War duty is mentioned for the first time. This one-off gag would become a prime character trait, spinning off into jokes in many later episodes, such as Skinner's monologue in "Team Homer," and influencing later episode plots, including the controversial "The Principal and the Pauper" and "Skinner's Sense of Snow".

Cultural references

* When Principal Skinner is questioning Lisa about her newfound sense of irresponsibility, he asks "What are you rebelling against?" She responds "Whaddaya got?" like Marlon Brando in the movie The Wild One.
* Bart imagines he is a drifter who is thrown out of a town by a sheriff, just like Sylvester Stallone's John Rambo character was in First Blood.
* This episode's plot is similar to South Park episode "Miss Teacher Bangs a Boy" where a typically rebllious main character develops a taste for authority as a hall monitor, emphasising the point of another South Park episode "Simpsons Already Did It".

External links

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