In our silly lil game, we sometimes see things pop in that we have no clue as to their Origin. They seem familiar, but we just can’t pinpoint from where. So that is why we decided to make a fun lil reminder out of it. To let you know just Where did THAT Come From?
Wowza… as if the Superheroes Sequel stuff wasn’t enough to keep us tappers busy, EA decided to stick with their past mini-events and drop July 4th stuff on us. As a lot of us suspected, this year’s President was none other than Teddy Roosevelt. Of course, with different donut splurging opportunities, it may seem prohibitive to add these to your town. I’ll admit I snatched these up faster than you can say “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” Since I know everyone isn’t familiar with everything that’s ever appeared in the Best. Show. Ever., I’m more than happy to strap on my rough riding boots and pince nez eyeglasses and Bully on like Bart to show you appearances by the 26th President of the United States in my favorite cartoon.
Oh, Teddy Roosevelt. He is a very interesting president. The kind of man that used the word ‘bully’ back when it meant “worthy/jolly/admirable” versus it’s current negative connotation. I’m a history major so this addition is the sort of thing that gets me excited but let me just sum up President Teddy Roosevelt as an uber popular American President who made some big changes. I immediately think of the National Park system, the Panama Canal, his Great White Fleet, “speak softly but carry a big stick”, Rough Riders, the Square Deal, etc. Since this a Simpsons site and not a history lesson, suffice to say you can find a lot on the interwebs. Here’s a quick synopsis from Lisa Simpsons.
Or might I suggest a quick read over at http://millercenter.org/president/biography/roosevelt-life-in-brief ?
The first thing that always comes to my mind Simpsons-wise other than the episode I close with when I think about Theodore Roosevelt is Mr. Burns leading calisthetics in “King-Size Homer” (S7:E7). “I want to see more Teddy Roosevelts and less Franklin Roosevelts.” Lol… this is an awful joke. I also remember Grampa practicing his award acceptance speech for ghost writing an Itchy & Scratchy episode in “The Front” (S4:E19). “Thank you for this award. It is a tribute to this great country that a man who once took a shot at Teddy Roosevelt could win back your trust.”
But there’s more than just dialogue. Going back to what some consider the classic era of the show, Teddy featured in “Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington” (S3:E2). Lisa wins a Reader’s Digest contest with a patriotic essay inspired by nature. The win means she’s entered in the national contest so our favorite family heads to Washington D.C. In the United States capitol, Lisa’s patriotism is shaken when she realizes her state senator is a corrupt individual taking bribes from lobbyists at the . Why would an oil lobbyist want to drill for oil in Theodore Roosevelt’s head on Mount Rushmore?
The answer is they wouldn’t I guess since it was just an FBI sting to take down a corrupt senator and the odds of there being oil there are probably nill. This appearance takes us down a rabbit hole of appearances of Mount Rushmore in the show. You could go with the giant model in “I Love Lisa” (S4:E15) during the President’s Day Pageant? Skinner uses Teddy to project his sales of orange drink. How about “Lisa the Treehugger” (S12:E4) as Lisa’s giant log traverses the US? It passes the monument to George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and Theodore Roosevelt among other things. Mount Rushmore is also in “Bart-Mangled Banner” (S15:E21), “Mobile Homer” (S16:E13), “We’re on the Road to D’ohwhere” (S17:E11), “Treehouse of Horror XX” (S21:E4), “Politically Inept, with Homer Simpson (S23:E10), and “Treehouse of Horror XXIII” (S24:E2).
I only went back to this first two I mentioned to capture screenshots. I think it is common knowledge that Theodore Roosevelt is one of the four presidents on the United States National Landmark so if you want to see every image from the show of Mount Rushmore, watch the episodes I mentioned. Here’s a beautiful picture of the actual object in the Black Hills of South Dakota which has appeared so much in the show.
Okay… I also like the Mayan Gods messing with it in the last episode I mentioned so here you go.
There’s more Teddy in the show besides a a large-scale mountain sculpture carved into a granite batholith formation. In “The Day the Violence Died” (S7:E18), we see Teddy Roosevelt in the very first Itchy Cartoon that was ever made by none other than Chester Lampwick. Bart calls him “a fat oaf” but Milhouse knows his presidents. Itchy’s first appearance doesn’t go too well for the Old Knickerbocker.
Teddy was also one of Homer’s “political powers” when he got cabin fever in “Mountain of Madness” (S8:E12).
The episode where President Theodore Roosevelt is most prominent though is one of the newer ones, “Bart Stops to Smell the Roosevelts” (S23:E2). After Bart fakes being an eccentric English widow and ruins the elementary school auction, Super Nintendo Chalmers is none too happy with Skinner being fooled. Skinner challenges the superintendent to teach Bart himself and Chalmers agrees. Poor guy… it’s been years since he taught and the last time he got beat up by the Breakfast Club. Chalmers starts off with American History but actually manages to perk Bart’s interest with the exploits of one Teddy Roosevelt… “a president who actually was a cowboy.”
The one book by Bart makes me giggle. “A Man, a Plan, a Canal, Panama! The 800 Best Loved Theodroe Roosevelt Palindromes.” Bart surfs the interwebs and focuses on pages showing Roosevelt as a canal builder, an explorer, a sportsman, and a father of a hottie.
I love the video of Roosevelt surviving his assassination attempt and dispatching the would-be assassin who looks like Moe.
Bart wants to learn more about the man who killed more Spaniards than most people do in their entire lves. Take that standard oil! Bart loves trust busting, horse-riding, books, national parks created by Roosevelt, “horse poop and atheism” lol. Chalmers takes Bart horse riding through Springfield National Park. Does that waterfall look familiar?
Bart is all about TR. He even gets in an educational argument with Lisa over who the best Roosevelt was and then goes on to teach kids at school about TR.
Chalmer ends up having a whole group of boys to teach including Milhouse, Nelson, Jimbo and Dolph at his house. I hope they add this to the game at some point. The latter three love how TR always said bully. Lots of funny interactions courtesy of this dynamic “experiment into manly education.” I love Jimbo’s response to one of the lessons. “School failed me? Does school have to go to Summer Jimbo?”
“Boys need to explore! Build things! Wreck those those things! And then build them again.” The group is off to Springfield National Forest in search of a pair of Teddy’s lost spectacles. If this image doesn’t connect this character and the new decoration together, nothing will.
The park is super beautiful too.
Fortunately for Nelson, “there are no bad fathers in the wilderness.” Unfortunately for Nelson, he finds the spectacles but gets injured on the trip (“Gravity blows!”) and his mom is gonna sue the school resulting in Chalmers getting fired. He wasn’t even good enough for the worst school in America.
I disagree since he inspired the boys to start a group called the Brotherhood of the Spectacles and take the school hostage to get him back his job. Springfield National Park is connected to TR in this episode (history also connects him to National Parks) but you could also head to “Dial ‘N’ for Nerder”(S19:E14) if you want to see it actually named that or go through the potential heartache of thinking Martin may have died.
The park here bears a striking resemblance to Yosemite and in one of the episodes I’ll mention next, there are bears. Funny that the premium geyser offered during this same event parodies Old Faithful which is actually in Yellowstone. Only bears I know of from there are actually from Jellystone. If you think of the National Park as being synonymous with Springfield National Forest, you could also head to “The Call of the Simpsons” (S1:E7), lobbyists in “Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington” (S3:E2), giant redwood shenanigans in “Lisa the Tree Hugger” (S12:E4), truffle pigs in “The Real Housewives of Fat Tony” (S22:E19) or everything coming up Milhouse in “Homer Scissorhands” (S22:E20) for more. Totbox did a fun post about the first one I mentioned that’s worth a read.
I might be alone but what I really think of with the addition of the Springfield National Park is Skinner in “On a Clear Day I Can’t See My Sister” (S16:E11). He once visited Sequoia National Forest and got a beach towel which he later regretted. “I’m going to exchange this beach towel I bought at Sequoia National Park. I learned too late that it implied tumescence.”
So there you go friends. The origins of new stuff that was offered for America’s Independence Day. What do you think of it all? Are you a fan of TR like me? Ever visited a National Park? I’m adoring all this new stuff. Sound off in the comments and have a safe and productive classy time like always. I’ll wrap this up with a few of my favorite TR quotes.
“If you could kicked the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a month.”
“Believe you can and you’re halfway there.”
“In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.”
I’m off to hug a teddy bear. TTFN… Wookiee out!