Bart Gets An F

"Bart Gets an F" is the first episode of The Simpsons' second season. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on October 11, 1990. In the episode, Bart fails four consecutive history exams and the school psychiatrist recommends that Bart repeat the fourth grade. Bart vows that he will start to do better and attempts to get the resident class genius Martin Prince to help him, but after that backfires, Bart prays for help. That night, Springfield is hit with a massive blizzard and the school is closed, giving Bart another day to study.

The episode was written by David M. Stern and directed by David Silverman. Mayor Quimby makes his first appearance and the episode was the first to feature a new opening sequence. "Bart Gets an F" was the third episode produced for the season, but it was chosen to be the premiere of the second season because it prominently featured Bart.

Due to the success of the first season of The Simpsons, the Fox Network decided to switch the show's time slot to Thursday at 8:00 p.m. EST where it would air opposite of NBC's The Cosby Show, the number one show at the time. Through the summer, several news outlets published stories about the supposed "Bill vs. Bart" rivalry and heavily hyped the first episode of the second season. Several critics predicted that "Bart Gets an F" would do considerably worse in the ratings than The Cosby Show. However, the final Nielsen rating for the episode was 18.4 and a 29% share of the audience, finishing second in its time slot behind The Cosby Show, which had an 18.5 rating and 29% share. It finished eighth in the weekly ratings, but was watched by an estimated 33.6 million viewers, making it the number one show in terms of actual viewers that week. It became the highest rated and most watched program in the history of the Fox Network and remained in that position until January 1, 1995. As of 2012 it is still the highest rated episode in the history of The Simpsons.

The episode has received positive reviews from television critics and was ranked 31st on Entertainment Weekly's 1999 list of "The 100 Greatest Moments in Television."