page_title: Separate Vocations
section_title: Production
hierarchical_section_title: Separate Vocations / Production
caption_attribution_description: Steve Allen at the 39th Emmy Awards - Sept. 1987
context_page_description: "Separate Vocations" is the eighteenth episode of The Simpsons' third season. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on February 27, 1992. In the episode, Springfield Elementary School students take career aptitude tests. When Lisa learns she is best suited to be a homemaker, her dreams of being a professional musician are shattered and she becomes a delinquent troublemaker at school. When Bart finds he would make a good policeman, his grades and behavior improve and Principal Skinner makes him hall monitor.
  The episode was written by George Meyer and directed by Jeffrey Lynch. American actor and television personality Steve Allen guest starred in the episode as the electronically altered voice of Bart in a fantasy sequence.
  Since airing, the episode has received mostly positive reviews from television critics. It acquired a Nielsen Rating of 14.8 and was the highest-rated show on Fox the week it aired.
context_section_description: The episode was written by George Meyer and directed by Jeffrey Lynch. Mike Reiss, show runner of The Simpsons with Al Jean at the time, said Meyer wrote most of the episode by himself without help from the show's other writers. Few changes were made to the first draft that he pitched to the producers; it was near identical to the final script. The episode was inspired by the vocational tests taken by several members of the show's staff when they went to school; Reiss, for example, said he was told he would become a librarian. Jean said "one of the first things that sold us on doing the episode" was the idea of Bart becoming a policeman. He said it was "a funny, realistic depiction of what a kid like Bart might wind up to become, and it wasn't something you would immediately think of". Jean said the episode deals with the emotion that many adults feel when they grow older and realize they are not going to achieve the dreams they once had. "[It's about] how people in life cope with that problem. Maybe Lisa, at eight years old, is a little bit young to worry about that, but that's what we were trying to explore here."
  In one sequence Bart imagines himself testifying in court, with his voice electronically altered. The altered voice was provided by American actor and television personality Steve Allen. Series creator Matt Groening said he and some of the writers who were old enough to remember Allen's TV show from the 1950s–60s were thrilled to have him guest-star, especially John Swartzwelder. It took nine takes for Allen to pronounce Bart's catchphrase "¡Ay, caramba!" correctly, to the point where the staff began to get slightly frustrated with him. There was a discussion amongst the writing team of whether the episode should end with a joke or have a "sweet" ending. Reiss said "With the better angels in our nature, we went with the sweet ending [of Lisa playing her saxophone for Bart]."
caption: Steve Allen guest stars.
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