"Made By Children, For Children"

I managed to write my draft background chapter which is just over 900 words long which I think is pretty good although it will probably improve further once I add a few quotes in.

That makes the total word count of my dissertation just under 4000 words so getting the whole thing done within the next two weeks should go pretty smoothly.

After I finished writing, I decided out of the blue to have a gander at one of my favourite episodes of The Simpsons, "Girly Edition" from Series 9 back in 1998.

This involves Lisa and Bart presenting a news programme for younger viewers called "Kids News" where Bart is soon promoted from sports reporter to Lisa's co-anchor much to her jealousy.

In order to prove Lisa wrong, Bart gets advice from Kent Brockman to start producing human interest stories, under the name "Bart's People".
They become very successful tugging at the heart of viewers and Lisa starts trying to do her own with the Union Express train and the mentally ill cat owner being some of the funniest parts of the episode.

Lisa then gets her own back by on Bart by setting him up to report on Groundskeeper Willie who has been after him and ends up attacking him resulting in Lisa coming to rescue him.

They then put their differences aside and relaunch the show as the more "trendier" "Kidz News" only for it to be cancelled and replaced by "The Mattel And Mars Bar Quick Energy Chocobot Hour".

I thought that was a brilliant send up as it not only took the mickey of how such programmes were just adverts for toys, but also how rubbish similar series such as Power Rangers were from my perspective.

According to Wikipedia it happens to be one of Yeardley Smith's favourite episodes although I remember reading in another magazine that her overall favourite was "Lisa's Substitute" from series 2 in 1991 where she develops a crush on substitute teacher Mr Bergstrom who was voiced by Dustin Hoffman.

A very well made episode as it shows how Homer learns an important lesson in being an utter fool in front of someone and has to deal with all the problems with the rest of the family at the end.

It's understandable that Yeardley's favourite episodes involve Lisa as she's rarely voiced any other characters, apart from the young girl who Homer discovers when he becomes a missionary for PBS.

I may actually have another gander at the "Substitute" episode as I haven't seen it in years and was one of the first to be shown on the BBC back in 1996.