Bart The Genius - Reception and Legacy

Reception and Legacy

In its original American broadcast, "Bart the Genius" finished 47th place in the weekly ratings for the week of January 8–January 14, 1990 with a Nielsen rating of 12.7. It was the second highest rated show on the Fox Network that week. Since airing, the episode has received mostly positive reviews from television critics. Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, the authors of the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, strongly praised the episode calling it "superbly written and directed, often a literal child's-eye view of education, the first Simpsons episode proper is a classic." They went on to say, "these twenty minutes cemented Bart's position as a cultural icon and a hero to all underachievers, and managed a good few kicks at hothouse schools along the way. Especially worthy of note is the sequence where Bart visualises his maths problem, the viewing of which should be a required part of teacher training." In a DVD review of the first season, David B. Grelck gave the episode a rating of 2½/5 and commented that the episode was "wacky and fun, very Bart centered, it's easy to see with this episode why Bart became the figurehead for a few years of class clowns". Colin Jacobson at DVD Movie Guide said in a review that the episode "offered another decent but unspectacular episode" and further commented that "its early vintage seems clear both through the awkward animation and the lack of appropriate character development."

In a 1991 interview, Jon Vitti described "Bart the Genius" as his favorite among the episodes he wrote to that point. James L. Brooks also mentioned the episode among his favorites, saying that "we did things with animation when that happened that just opened doors for us." The show received mail from viewers complaining that the throwing away of a comic book was an incident of censorship. The invented word "Kwyjibo" in the episode inspired the creator of the Melissa macro virus.