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"'Lisa's Rival'" is the second episode of ''The Simpsons''' sixth season, which originally aired September 11, 1994. It was written by Mike Scully, and directed by Mark Kirkland. It saw Winona Ryder guest star as Allison Taylor.

Contents

Plot

Production

Cultural references

External links

Plot

Lisa feels as if she's going to have to work a little bit more now that a new student named Allison Taylor (voiced by Winona Ryder) has arrived at Springfield Elementary. Allison is as smart Lisa, younger (having skipped a grade) and like Lisa, a young master of the saxophone.
Lisa tries to be her friend, though she battles her envy and fears that she will lose her purpose. At a band practice, Lisa and Allison battle saxophone to saxophone; Allison wins as Lisa plays too hard and faints. It comes to a climax during Springfield Elementary's annual "Diorama-rama", a competition in which the students build dioramas. Allison chose and constructed her project early: a scene from ''The Tell-Tale Heart'', by Edgar Allan Poe. Although Lisa goes to great efforts to produce a better diorama of a scene from Oliver Twist, it is destroyed, and with Bart's help and prompting, Lisa decides to sabotage Allison's entry by switching Allison's diorama with one containing a rotten cow's heart. When Principal Skinner not only criticizes the diorama but begins to question Allison's overall qualifications, Lisa's guilt overcomes her and she produces the real diorama.
However, Skinner is unimpressed by both Alison's ''and'' Lisa's work and proclaims Ralph Wiggums collection of Star Wars action figures, which have nostalgic value to him, to be the winner. In the end, Lisa and Allison put aside their differences and become friends as they walk off into the sunset, picking up Ralph along the way to hang out with them after he accidentally trips and breaks his action figures (saying two of his more well known lines "I bent my Wookiee" and "My cat's breath smells like cat food").
A secondary story arc follows Homer after he encounters and then steals hundreds of pounds of sugar he finds at the site of a truck accident. The sugar attracts bees from a local bee hive whose owners try to buy the bees back, but at the last moment it starts raining. The sugar dissolves and the bees return to their hives, Homer loses out on money for returning the bees.

Production

According to the DVD audio commentary for the episode, the Northridge earthquake occurred during the production of this episode. It also notes that Conan O'Brien, who by this time had left the show, suggested having an episode about a rival for Lisa (though it was only the basic concept and not the story line that came from O'Brien).
In production this is the 100th episode.

Cultural references

★ Marge reads ''Love in the Time of Scurvy'', a reference to Gabriel Garcia Marquez's ''Love in the Time of Cholera''.

★ The episode references the movie ''The Fugitive'' in the scene where Milhouse is a criminal on ''America's Most Wanted''. Later, Milhouse is at the end of a drainpipe on top of a large dam, held at gunpoint by an FBI agent resembling Tommy Lee Jones.

★ The episode also references the backup artists of popular music groups. Known as "The Second Best Band" the band includes Art Garfunkel, from Simon & Garfunkel, Jim Messina, from Loggins and Messina, John Oates, from Hall & Oates, and Lisa Simpson. The song they play is called "Born to Runner-up," a reference to the popular song, "Born to Run".

★ A picture of Jazz saxophonist Bleeding Gums Murphy can be seen hanging on one of the walls in Allison's room when Lisa visits her.

★ Homer's "In America" speech while guarding his sugar pile is a direct reference to ''Scarface''.

★ Lisa's hiding of the The Tell-Tale Heart diorama under the gym floorboards is itself a parody of ''The Tell-Tale Heart''.

★ Homer's cry of "Oh what a world!" when the sugar mound melts is a reference to The Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz, who screams the same line when she melts.

★ The head beekeeper speaks in mannerisms reminiscent of Adam West as Batman; his enthusiastic cry "To the Beemobile!" is a reference to the Batmobile.

External links

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