• Directed by: Carlos Baeza
• Written by: Jon Vitti
• Airdate: February 13th, 1992

     Ending the school day with a fantastic educational video about zinc, Krabappel is shown alone and depressed in her personal life. She gets home and flips through a magazine when she finds an ad for a dating service. Meanwhile, a yo-yo group comes to Springfield elementary and amaze the kids with their tricks. The next day, every kid there has a yo-yo and Bart is the leader in great tricks.
     One day, during a lesson, Milhouse asks Bart if he has any new tricks for them. Bart begins showing off what he calls "Plucking The Pickle," when the yo-yo goes out of control and breaks the class fish tank. Krabappel gives Bart detention after school and takes his yo-yo. While cleaning, Ms. Hoover gets Krabappel for happy hour in the teacher's lounge, leaving Bart alone in the room. He takes the opportunity to search for his yo-yo in her desk and finds it along with a magazine with an ad Krabappel had given out for dating. Bart decides to send her a love letter under the name of President Woodrow Wilson.
     Meanwhile, Homer has influenced Todd Flanders to swear by accident. Ned confronts Homer about it and that night Homer tells Marge how stupid he thinks Flanders is, seeing as he believes he doesn't swear too much. Marge tells Homer that Flanders might be right, and prompts Homer to start a swear jar. Through a montage of sequences, we see Homer go through a series of obstacles, adding more and more to the swear jar along the way. What doesn't help is the fact that he is attempting to build a doghouse for Santa's Little Helper, and it isn't going all too great at all.
     Bart has been going back and forth with Krabappel in letters, even sending a picture of Gordie Howe to be "Woodrow." After having his fun, he decides to off the "relationship" and sets up a get together between Edna and "Woodrow" at a restaurant. After he sees her enter the building, Bart goes to a movie. Leaving later that night, he sees that Edna is still there and crying. At home, Marge and Lisa reveal to Homer that they were able to buy Santa's Little Helper a new doghouse with the money he had put into the swear jar.
     Feeling guilty, Bart goes to his mother, revealing what he has been doing. With the entire family, they write a heartfelt farewell letter to Krabappel, and Bart slips it under her door at night, with the letter cheering her up. The next day, during their usual after school detention time together, Krabappel tells Bart that it's a beautiful day and they should have detention outside. Bart tells her it's a date and walks her out. The episode ends with a close up of Krabappel's framed photo of "Woodrow", with Gordie Howe's stats coming up over the photo.

     A nice little story involving Mrs. Krabappel, Bart The Lover is an episode that once again opens up a character that we didn't know much about before. What was great about The Simpsons, by this point, was that the crew had created a whole town worth of "real" people, ones that they could easily explore in different episodes.
     It was always fun to look forward to how the creators would build the lives of these secondary characters away from The Simpsons family. Edna had been a very 'every day' idea of a grade-school teacher up until this point, with certain character traits added to make her skirt on the side of what we see as a stereotype, or, better yet, encompassed some jokes people would always focus on as a centerpiece for things involving teachers. She was adequate at her job, if slightly uncaring, yet easily irritated and frustrated by the kids, smoking in the auditorium with other teachers under the 'no-smoking' sign, and a foil for the troublemaker in the classroom. She had reached the point where her educating job was just "another day." She had lost any excitement she may have one day had for her career.

     Her private life is set up in a way that leads the way she is at the school understandable. There isn't much of a difference, but she seems to go through her day-to-day activities the same way she does at the school. She seems to skirt the line of depression, or has given into the fact that her life seems to be very routine. Like a lot of other Simpsons characters, she also seems to not have many, if any, real friends. She has co-workers that she chats with, but those are more acquaintances, and I don't see them hanging out a lot outside of work, save for the possibility of some work oriented gathering. All she wants is someone to be with, someone who she knows loves her, and someone who she can talk to about anything that's on her mind. Simple companionship, which is what most of us want in life too. One could argue that the closest thing she has to a friend, in the loosest of sense and an odd sort of way, is Bart. You could agree that if Bart wasn't in Krabappel's class, her time there would be just as dull and uneventful as her home life. The two are a part of each other's life through circumstance that neither can do much about, or had anything to do with in terms of getting each other together, but they are integral parts of each other's lives based purely on their characters. Bart's the troublemaking class brat and she's the authority figure he dislikes, but the two do get along when moments lend itself to it. This is actually touched upon in a moment from the episode where Krabappel says to Bart that he may be the closest thing to a man in her life before she breaks down crying.

     It's interesting to note that this is how a lot of characters are presented to us when we first learn about their life. A majority of human interaction seems to come more from any scenario where they have to interact with people, through work and other situations related in some way. We saw this with Krusty in his episode and we see it more as time goes on. But I'm getting slightly off track, that's for another write-up.

     This episode is also able to build Bart's character as much as it does Edna's. It's always nice to see an episode that touches on Bart's sensitive side and showcases that he knows when he has gone too far. He plays a prank on his teacher when he finds out one of her weaknesses but immediately feels horrible when he sees that it's broken her heart in the end. Bart is not a bad person, he just does bad things because he knows that's what will get him attention or will help him pass the time. But Bart also knows when to admit that he's wrong, and goes to his mother for help (which turns into the whole family helping). Bart is a character that, when he admits he's wrong or is dedicated to something, seems a lot more sincere than many other characters. It may have to do with the fact that we don't see this side of him all the time. He's painted as someone who is not too intelligent, but he is in his own way. He understands when something is serious and commits himself to that like nothing else (as seen in Bart Gets An F).

     The side story brings most of the humour into the episode and is one that I always sort of forget about, but when see bits of it, I instantly remember the whole thing. We've all had the problem of trying to do some extracurricular task and simply not having it go as easily as we hoped or expected. The tie-in of the swear jar and Homer being a bad influence is a nice touch, and one that doesn't turn into a focal point as much as I initially remembered (we don't see any of the Flanders' after the Rod incident).

     The episode has a lot of heart and sweetness to it, but I had also forgotten how funny it was through and through with some fantastic back and forth between characters. The choosing of the name Woodrow Wilson and Gordie Howe's photo usage is hilarious, as well as the entire Yo-Yo assembly sequence. Also, the zinc short is one of the most off-the-wall and hilarious educational videos that the writers have ever produced, and I'm still amazed they got away with a man attempting to shoot himself in the head. Everything comes together to form an emotional and hilarious episode with an incredibly sweet and satisfying ending, and it's worth an immediate re-watch if you haven't seen it in a while.
One of my favourite aspects of the episode is the family element, where Marge and Lisa come together to help Homer in the B-story before the entire family comes together to get through what to do about the Krabappel situation. One little moment I especially love is the way we see teh family before Bart asks them for help, with Marge playing with Maggie. It's a real, extremely sweet moment that says a lot even with how small it is.

     I want to take a moment to talk about Marcia Wallace. Her work for the series has been widely praised since the very beginning, and it's always been justified. The snarky nature she gave Edna never came off as cocky or dislikable at any point, and she also mixed in a wonderful passion to the character. Like presented in this episode, it was a fine line of someone who may be tired of the simplicity and common nature of her day to day life, yet still very sweet and kind when given the opportunity and it never came off forced. I was incredibly happy to learn that she had won an Emmy for her work here. It's a phenomenal performance, but she never gave anything less. Lots of love and thanks to you, Marcia. We miss you dearly.

Favourite Quotes And Bits
5) Bart: Mom, I know it's a little early but… I need help with my love life.
     Marge: Aw, my special little guy has a sweetheart.
     Lisa: I knew it! Who's your girlfriend, Bart?
     Bart: Mrs. Krabappel.
    (Lisa and Marge groan in unison)
4) (Marge and Lisa bought a doghouse with the money Homer put into the swear jar)
     Marge: And if you look inside the doghouse, we got you something, too.
     Homer: What?
    (Maggie appears)
     Homer: Oh, Maggie. Cute.
     Marge: No, behind her.
     Homer(gasps): Beer! How did you know?
3) Homer: I'll build him a doghouse.
     Marge: I don't know.
     Homer: Now don't worry, I drew up a little blueprint, I'll walk you through it. This is a door, he goes through there. This is the roof. This happy character is the sun, he shines down on the house, see?
2) (Homer has finished the first doghouse. It's missng a door)
    Homer: What do you think, Lisa?
     Lisa: How's the dog supposed to get in?
     Homer: Well he just… OOH!
1) (writing letter to Ms. Krabappel)
     Homer: Three simple words. "I am gay."
     Marge: For the last time, Homer, I'm not putting that in.