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Bart Gets Hit by a Car

 John Swartzwelder entered immortality with "Bart Gets Hit by a Car," an episode from The Golden Age.


Having been lightly tapped by Burns's car, Bart meets a stranger. It's Lionel Hutz, a smarmy attorney with an agenda: "Legally, I can't promise you a big settlement, but just so you know, I'm promising you a big settlement." Hutz coaches Bart to claim that his injuries are almost insurmountable. Also, Hutz drags in "Nick Riviera," who is "the closest thing we have to a doctor." And mysterious "facial swelling" is soon detected.


Watching this episode, I can't help but think of Taylor Swift's new, childish album. As others have observed, Swift sees her past in a tiresome and hyperbolic way: "I could have drowned in purgatory," "The curse on me was broken by your magic." But shouldn't a writer in her thirties have a sense of perspective, an ability to see herself as (simply) a human being trying to exist (free of curses, free of purgatorial drowning) here in the real world? ....Marge Simpson is "the adult" in Swarzwelder's script. Having walked to the stand, Marge concedes that the one loss from the car accident was this: Bart couldn't do his chores. And--probably--he would have done the chores in a shoddy way, so it's likely the accident really *saved* money for Marge.


A fresh and continuously surprising script. Classic for a reason.

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