page_title: Bart Simpson
section_title: Bartmania
hierarchical_section_title: Bart Simpson / Reception and cultural influence / Bartmania
caption_attribution_description: Michael Jackson
context_page_description: Bartholomew JoJo Simpson is a fictional character in the American animated television series The Simpsons and part of the Simpson family. He is voiced by Nancy Cartwright and first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987. Cartoonist Matt Groening created and designed Bart while waiting in the lobby of James L. Brooks' office. Groening had been called to pitch a series of shorts based on his comic strip, Life in Hell, but instead decided to create a new set of characters. While the rest of the characters were named after Groening's family members, Bart's name is an anagram of the word brat. After appearing on The Tracey Ullman Show for three years, the Simpson family received its own series on Fox, which debuted December 17, 1989. Bart has appeared in every Simpsons episode except "Four Great Women and a Manicure".
  At ten years old, Bart is the eldest child and only son of Homer and Marge, and the brother of Lisa and Maggie. Bart's most prominent and popular character traits are his mischievousness, rebelliousness and disrespect for authority.
context_section_description: In 1990, Bart quickly became one of the most popular characters on television in what was termed "Bartmania". He became the most prevalent Simpsons character on memorabilia, such as T-shirts. In the early 1990s, millions of T-shirts featuring Bart were sold; as many as one million were sold on some days. Believing Bart to be a bad role model, several American public schools banned T-shirts featuring Bart next to captions such as "I'm Bart Simpson. Who the hell are you?" and "Underachiever ('And proud of it, man!')". The Simpsons merchandise sold well and generated $2 billion in revenue during the first 14 months of sales. The success of Bart Simpson merchandise inspired an entire line of black market counterfeit items, especially T-shirts. Some featured Bart announcing various slogans, others depicted redesigns of the character, including "Teenage Mutant Ninja Bart, Air Simpson Bart, [and] RastaBart". Matt Groening generally did not object to bootleg merchandise, but took exception to a series of "Nazi Bart" shirts which depicted Bart in Nazi uniform or as a white power skinhead. 20th Century Fox sued the creator of the shirts, who eventually agreed to stop making them.
  Bart became so associated with Fox that, when bidding in 1993 to show pro football, the network had to assure the NFL and reporters that the character would not announce games. Due to the show's success, over the summer of 1990 Fox decided to switch The Simpsons' timeslot so that it would move from 8:00 p.m. ET on Sunday night to the same time on Thursday, where it would compete with The Cosby Show on NBC, the number one show at the time. Through the summer, several news outlets published stories about the supposed "Bill vs. Bart" rivalry. The August 31, 1990 issue of Entertainment Weekly featured a picture of Bill Cosby wearing a Bart Simpson T-shirt. "Bart Gets an "F"" (season two, 1990) was the first episode to air against The Cosby Show, and it received a lower Nielsen rating, tying for eighth behind The Cosby Show, which had an 18.5 rating. The rating is based on the number of household televisions that were tuned into the show, but Nielsen Media Research estimated that 33.6 million viewers watched the episode, making it the number one show in terms of actual viewers that week. At the time, it was the most watched episode in the history of the Fox Network, and it is still the highest rated episode in the history of The Simpsons. Because of his popularity, Bart was often the most promoted member of the Simpson family in advertisements for the show, even for episodes in which he was not involved in the main plot.
  Bart was described as "television's king of 1990", "television's brightest new star" and an "undiminished smash". Entertainment Weekly named Bart the "entertainer of the year" for 1990, writing that "Bart has proved to be a rebel who's also a good kid, a terror who's easily terrorized, and a flake who astonishes us, and himself, with serious displays of fortitude." In the United States congressional, senatorial and gubernatorial elections of 1990, Bart was one of the most popular write-in candidates, and in many areas was second only to Mickey Mouse amongst fictional characters. In the 1990 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Bart made his debut as one of the giant helium-filled balloons for which the parade is known. The Bart Simpson balloon has appeared at every parade since. This was referenced in The Simpsons in the episode "Bart vs. Thanksgiving", which aired the same day as the parade, where Homer tells Bart, "If you start building a balloon for every flash-in-the-pan cartoon character, you turn the parade into a farce!" Meanwhile, behind and unbeknownst to him, the television briefly shows a Bart Simpson balloon.
  The album The Simpsons Sing the Blues was released in September 1990 and was a success, peaking at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and becoming certified 2x platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. The first single from the album was the pop rap song "Do the Bartman", performed by Nancy Cartwright and released on Novem
caption: Michael Jackson, who was a fan of Bart, provided back up vocals for "Do the Bartman".
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