23x02 Bart Stops to Smell the Roosevelts

[6.6/10 on a post-classic Simpsons scale.] Well, this one had a solid idea and throughline that worked steadily throughout the whole episode, which is more than you can say for a lot of post-classic Simpsons. The idea of Teddy Roosevelt as a hero to Superintendent Chalmers and an unlikely figure who inspires Bart to learn and develop some good habits is a strong one. It’s a little dated now, but at the time, it definitely spoke to a (partly Cracked-inspired) revival of T.R. as a folk hero.

A lot of the actual plotting is meh. Bart becoming fascinated with something or someone, and then eventually taking over/damaging/commandeering the school isn’t new. But I like him and his crew being inspired to take Teddy-like action in order to try to save Chalmers’s job. There’s some solid character-based writing there, and I appreciate it. Plus, I like that we got to learn a little more about Chalmers here and develop him as a character, since he’s mostly just been Skinner’s foil up to this point. Some of the “boys can’t learn in a classroom made for girls” stuff isn’t great and goes mostly unrebutted, but it’s pretty minor in the broader scheme of the episode.

The big problem is that there’s just nothing especially funny here. There’s a few amusing lines here and there (“School failed me? Does that mean that school has to go to summer Jimbo?”), but it’s all mild chuckles and mild smiles than anything that generates belly laughs. The result is an episode that is fine-at-worst story wise, and does some interesting character work here and there, but sags pretty hard in the comedy department, which makes it fine but not necessarily as fun a ride as it could be.

Overall, this is one of the better ideas for an episode the show had at this stage, and it’s executed reasonably well, but could have been tighter story-wise and could have been a lot funnier.