That's not the joke. At the end all of the other corrupt congresspeople throw out that specific guy to restore popular trust without actually changing the system, keeping corruption around, but making it look like they did something about it. That's what happened with Nixon, that's what happened with the Iran-Contra scandal, and that is what is happening now with Trump. Kick out one of the corrupt bastards to make everyone else look better, when they are doing the same shit. Democrat and Republican. Its time for a change in system.
Weirder than the fact the whole investigation, arrest and expulsion from Congress happened in a few hours, is that the newspaper had a new issue for the afternoon.
Many largest cities have an early edition newspaper, they might have the next day's comics and such, and some breaking news stories that will also be in the next day's regular edition.
It is legitimately one of Lisa's best quotes to this day. I didn't like this episode as a kid, because political stuff bored me. Now I love it because it is so appropriate and still relevant.
Agreed. Though irl that style of governance adheres more to a populist philosophy, which can be both good and bad depending on the prevailing views of a leader's constituents.
Shame Bush Sr didn't have nice things to say about the show (he loved his moral panics like Reagan did), pardoned criminals involved in Iran-Contra and appointed Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court.
_Yep, all 250 million of them!_ NGL, when I first heard that line, I legit thought it was a joke about the President of the United States having an absurd number of superiors (not the voters)
It does. It just doesn't have any real impact. Arrest as many congresspeople as you'd like, it won't fix the faulty system that encourages & facilitates their scummy behavior.
There are people who do take pride in that. Not just military personnel, but civil servants who could earn more working for contractors and corporate officers, but who choose to work for the people of the United States in whatever capacity they can. We also take oaths to “preserve, protect, and defend” the Constitution and that does mean something important.
When I first saw this as a kid, I legit thought that’s how the federal government keeps itself in check. Now that I’m an adult, I see that this is just a “in a better world” joke scenario.
I was very young when I first watched this episode and I didn't really understand why Lisa did what she did but knowing what I know now I completely understand why she did it
I have no idea if it's true or just some rumor the internet made up but I always heard that they intended to end this episode with Lisa getting booed out by the angry crowd and nobody but her family taking her claims seriously with the sort of bittersweet moral of "the system doesn't always work but maybe kids like Lisa will grow up to change it", but they were forced to add this whole sequence by the network or something because it was "unamerican" or whatever
sounds pretty likely. imagine being a writer on the simpsons, and having fox breathing down your neck to do stuff that wasn't unamerican/unpatriotic. probably happened a lot. that whole scene with george bush seemed like pure propaganda, didn't seem like something the simpsons writers did themselves tbh, seems like something they were told to add in/change about the plot
"You work fast" "I WORK FOR UNCLE SAM!" Yeah, no. I know people who work for the government who are like "It takes two weeks just to get them started TALKING about actually doing sonething."
This is genuinely one of the funniest jokes of the Simpsons, and gets funnier every year, both as things continue to deteriorate, and as more fucked up shit happening at the time comes to light.
Bush Senior was the president in this skit. Just a decade later, his son would send us to war based on lies; lies that the top people in this country consciously manufactured.
The wonderful satire that is this episode, that everyone who watches it really knows that the congressman being sent to jail would never happen. And that's the point of this episode.
A full grasp of English and a nationwide chain of wheel-balancing centers in only four months? I'd be willing to buy either one, but both is definitely a stretch.
Only when they go against the establishment. Otherwise they are above the law. These days if I hear a politician is being investigated by the FBI or DOJ it makes me like them more.
I like how IRL this process would never even reach the first phase because no congressman is stupid enough to take a raw bribe instead of just getting funds from lobbying and utilizing the laws they passed which lets them participate in insider trading for even more revenue.
"This will make my bosses happy all 250 million of them" man if only politicians actually thought like this instead of forgetting who they're supposed to be working for
I would love seeing the Congressman pulling off searching for oil on Mount Rushmore. Buy the way, isn't one of the men on the phone the Congressman who presided over the session to allocate funds for saving Springfield from the comet?
@@victorfergn and it was only in the '60s that the concept that voters should have a say in who parties choose to run for president at all became a thing. smoke-filled rooms with party bosses choosing their candidate is how America had been for most of its history.
It legitimately hurts and saddens my soul knowing how nothing close to this justice ever happens
If this happened real life what would be different
@@americanpatriot8492 I'd love it if Cheeto-Head got taken down as quickly as Bob Arnold did here
That was performative justice to reinstate popular trust and support for the system. I think that was the point of that scene…
@@sadlobster1 Hell, if it would happen to a whole bunch of other corrupt senators on both sides of the aisle in real life.
@@sadlobster1 you mean corn pop
"Imprisoned Congressman becomes born again Christian" Old Simpsons jokes were just God Tier
Trying to get sympathy from the fundies.
@@MinscFromBaldursGate92and it always works with that group
@@MinscFromBaldursGate92the what? Is that like a tv award or something?
What's wrong with people becoming Christians?
@@poletooke4691 Fundamentalists.
"I can't believe it. The system works."
Oh that just breaks my heart. . .
It's a comedy show.
That does not change it
@@TheLurker1647 It's satire, and comedy can break the heart in ways that tragedy doesn't even attempt
It would be nice if once in a while they decided to bring down the hammer on one of those scumbags, for being dumb enough to get caught if anything.
I'm confused. Are you a communist who's upset that democracy works?
I love how the joke is that the system actually works as intended. Really hilarious.
What?
The joke started with the "little girl lost faith in democracy." As if the feelings of little girls could change anything.
That's not the joke. At the end all of the other corrupt congresspeople throw out that specific guy to restore popular trust without actually changing the system, keeping corruption around, but making it look like they did something about it. That's what happened with Nixon, that's what happened with the Iran-Contra scandal, and that is what is happening now with Trump. Kick out one of the corrupt bastards to make everyone else look better, when they are doing the same shit. Democrat and Republican. Its time for a change in system.
Brilliant really.
@@bikespj22 The joke is that in reality, the senator would've gotten away with corruption.
Weirder than the fact the whole investigation, arrest and expulsion from Congress happened in a few hours, is that the newspaper had a new issue for the afternoon.
I'm guessing that some Tomorrow Never Dies type shenanigans are going on.
Very British
Many largest cities have an early edition newspaper, they might have the next day's comics and such, and some breaking news stories that will also be in the next day's regular edition.
It was big news. How often is there a politician involved in corruption?
It was an older convention that many cities would have a morning and an evening paper-this isn’t actually too far from accurate.
I like how the other kid's family arrived 4 MONTHS ago and they already learned English and own a nationwide chain of wheel-balancing centers.
LOL anything can happen
It's that immigrant grindset, man.
that's propaganda for you
@@lionelhutz5137 the joke is that his family is scamming the country nation wide.
The cute thing is that he does include the small possibility that this success story might have been possible in Canada.
"And this will be one nation, under the dollar, with liberty and justice for none." Brilliantly worded and tragically accurate.
It is legitimately one of Lisa's best quotes to this day. I didn't like this episode as a kid, because political stuff bored me. Now I love it because it is so appropriate and still relevant.
One nation under the Orange Menace and the Russian Dwarf.
Even though she said that in this episode it's actually very true even now in real life America still sucks.
What does "under the dollar" mean?
@@MinscFromBaldursGate92 Biden isn't orange 😂
"Shouldn't we tack on a pay raise for ourselves?" lmao
"NO!"
The joke is how he's booed
All: NO!
Exactly why we're trillions in debt and the dollar has a quarter of its buying power since this aired.
Wait a minute, I want to tack on a rider to that bill: $30 million of taxpayer money to support the perverted arts.
A president who considers the American people the true bosses of the nation is just wholesome
Agreed. Though irl that style of governance adheres more to a populist philosophy, which can be both good and bad depending on the prevailing views of a leader's constituents.
Shame Bush Sr didn't have nice things to say about the show (he loved his moral panics like Reagan did), pardoned criminals involved in Iran-Contra and appointed Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court.
No, it's just cute he thinks they all voted for him.
@@jackmonaghan8477 Isn't Thomas the 1st and 2nd Amendment guy? Honestly you're making me like Bush Sr where I didn't before.
The Greater Bush
"That's why whenever I see the Stars and Stripes I'll always be reminded of that wonderful word: flag."
Goddamn! The old Simpsons writers slayed.
i never realised how funny this was as a kid. Now i'm grown and realise it really doesn't work that way
Right
_Yep, all 250 million of them!_
NGL, when I first heard that line, I legit thought it was a joke about the President of the United States having an absurd number of superiors (not the voters)
You would be correct
250 million was our population in 1991-92 (when this episode aired).
correct
So did I
I absolutely love that line
Love that Bart respected her for this.
Cool a ruckus!
Bart is just chaotic neutral
“CESSPOOL‼️ CESSPOOL‼️”
I wish this would happen in real life more often.
You bet. And in every nation not just USA.
It does. It just doesn't have any real impact. Arrest as many congresspeople as you'd like, it won't fix the faulty system that encourages & facilitates their scummy behavior.
Well to be fair to congress, gridlock is a way bigger problem than corruption
@@drugbuddy665 true, but that doesn’t mean the people who replace them can’t try to fix and reform the system.
lol about britexit too lisa views on it like thus be funny 🤣
The pride in "I work for Uncle Sam" almost brought a tear to my eye. Damn it if only...
There are people who do take pride in that. Not just military personnel, but civil servants who could earn more working for contractors and corporate officers, but who choose to work for the people of the United States in whatever capacity they can. We also take oaths to “preserve, protect, and defend” the Constitution and that does mean something important.
@@lightbringer34 Yes, just not enough people do that.
@@lightbringer34 Completely false. The government hates you, never forget it.
Ah... this aged like a fine wine....
How?
American democracy is a lie.
That's the joke.
@@thedrinkinggamemaker9749 It turned sour.
While the country aged like room temperature milk
And it just keeps getting better.
Something I appreciate is how Bart thinks Lisa is cool for her speech (or rather, the reaction it garners)
As a kid I had faith, now as an adult just laugh in sadness
"The system works" best Simpsons joke of all time
The punchline is the last line clearly. Well done to the writers
When I first saw this as a kid, I legit thought that’s how the federal government keeps itself in check. Now that I’m an adult, I see that this is just a “in a better world” joke scenario.
This is one of those episodes that never stops being relevant.
When I was a kid I understood this was ironic; only later did I realize it was a complete joke.
I was 12 when this episode came out. But everything Lisa said in that essay is true!
I was very young when I first watched this episode and I didn't really understand why Lisa did what she did but knowing what I know now I completely understand why she did it
Let’s all just pretend this is even remotely possible
I have no idea if it's true or just some rumor the internet made up but I always heard that they intended to end this episode with Lisa getting booed out by the angry crowd and nobody but her family taking her claims seriously with the sort of bittersweet moral of "the system doesn't always work but maybe kids like Lisa will grow up to change it", but they were forced to add this whole sequence by the network or something because it was "unamerican" or whatever
It kind of sounds like the type of thing that Fox would force on them, and the type of sarcastic response they would make in return, that's for sure.
Totally believable
sounds pretty likely. imagine being a writer on the simpsons, and having fox breathing down your neck to do stuff that wasn't unamerican/unpatriotic. probably happened a lot. that whole scene with george bush seemed like pure propaganda, didn't seem like something the simpsons writers did themselves tbh, seems like something they were told to add in/change about the plot
“I can’t believe it. The system works”
God it burns. This isn’t the country my dad fought for.
Or my my dad, or my older brother.
The wrong side won WWII
@@bloodwragei don’t know man I wouldn’t go that far
@@kentuckyfriedcommunist9496 Look at that, a communist having an objectively wrong take.
@@kentuckyfriedcommunist9496 Red detected. Opinion discarded.
"You work fast."
"I work for Uncle Sam."
Oh if only.
Now they just work for deep state-ers.
"You work fast"
"I WORK FOR UNCLE SAM!"
Yeah, no. I know people who work for the government who are like "It takes two weeks just to get them started TALKING about actually doing sonething."
That's the joke
@@CryptidMech Yeah, but he didn't just explain the joke; he added more information. So it's good.
@@Tzizenorec He didn't explain it at all! He just refuted it like someone who couldn't tell that was the joke in the first place. "Yeah, no."
@@Onigirli True, but his refutation was still interesting. And the original joke _was_ of the "wrong in a way that's irritating" variety.
That's the joke Einstein
1:50 When I was younger, this part never made sense. Usually this is the part where they DO tack on pork to a bill.
"I can't believe it, the system works .."
Aaahh ... If only ...
If only if it was that happy of an ending in real life...
I love how they let him smoke in the House Chamber. lol
Back when The Simpsons was viable satire, not pop-culture referances hobbled together.
Crazy how the country grew an additionally 100 million since airing
Funnily enough, the current amount of voting age people is at 250million! And turnout was 160million in 2020!
Never got around to that securing that southern border.
@@curious1053 there are only 62 million Spanish speakers in the us, do you think they all got here after 1993?
This is genuinely one of the funniest jokes of the Simpsons, and gets funnier every year, both as things continue to deteriorate, and as more fucked up shit happening at the time comes to light.
Bush Senior was the president in this skit. Just a decade later, his son would send us to war based on lies; lies that the top people in this country consciously manufactured.
The government is run by a Satanic pedophile cabal btw.
The wonderful satire that is this episode, that everyone who watches it really knows that the congressman being sent to jail would never happen. And that's the point of this episode.
[insert non-coherent, partisan rant here]
[insert a somehow even less cohesive rebuttal]
The system works?? Sure. As long as the "gears are greased" well.
A full grasp of English and a nationwide chain of wheel-balancing centers in only four months? I'd be willing to buy either one, but both is definitely a stretch.
I love when Lisa sticks up for her principles episodes. A true 90s girl!
As if politicians would ever face consequences
A few of them do occasionally
Only when they go against the establishment. Otherwise they are above the law. These days if I hear a politician is being investigated by the FBI or DOJ it makes me like them more.
A brief glimpse of a world we all dream of, but will never be.
"Where else but America...or possibly Canada." Accurate statement is accurate.
Only in America… or possibly Canada gets me every time
250 million of them? I didn't know Israel's population was so high, wow.
We regret to inform you that Episode 2 of Season 3 was a dream.
Lore of A Littlle Girl Is Losing Faith In Democracy! (The Simpsons) momentum 100
Classic Simpsons writing always ages like a fine wine.
The Senator didn’t look busy. He could’ve said "What is it, Son? You sound distraught."
Like he should be worried? lol
@@Onigirli He also could've said "Calm down, son. What is it?"
CZcams reading my mind. I was just thinking of this last night.
I like how IRL this process would never even reach the first phase because no congressman is stupid enough to take a raw bribe instead of just getting funds from lobbying and utilizing the laws they passed which lets them participate in insider trading for even more revenue.
Damn 250 million people? Our population increased exponentially since that time
What's the population now? 300 million?
I domt think you know what exponentially means.
@@shortydancer at a steady or rapid rate. “The American population has increased exponentially over the last 20 years.”
@@usonly101 growing exponentially means growing very rapidly. Like the graph of e^x. Steady is not exponential.
@@shortydancer the literal definition says “Steady or Rapid”
"This will make my bosses happy all 250 million of them" man if only politicians actually thought like this instead of forgetting who they're supposed to be working for
So did this just confirm that spring field is in South Dakota
Oh sure, the problem is a single politician not that the whole system is rigged from the start
Yeah, I love how the writers made fun of the system while they please it
Most honest speech ever
This happens, then the next week they're bast to normal
when I see the stars and stripes, I will always be reminded of that WONDERFUL word...FLAG!
That sting was definitely entrapment
The FBI certainly aren't above that though are they? 😂
I wish that justice was that fast here
This episode gave great hope.
Although it was a pretty long time ago.
I'm glad she said it. It needed to be said. Even if it cost the family that huge check..
"Imprisoned congressman becomes born-again christian"
Lisa are you perhaps asking that the swamp be drained?
It’s amazing that all that was accomplished in like 2 hours.
Mfs printed and distributed a whole new paper in 30 mins.
If only the system worked this quick.
I think in my country we are still trying to put behind bars a corrupt official from Austro-Hungary.
I never had faith in it to begin with.
i find it rather wholesome that the president referred to the American people as his bosses
I love how time range shows that only problem is willingness - once people have it, there is almost no issue to solve biggest corruption.
I would love seeing the Congressman pulling off searching for oil on Mount Rushmore. Buy the way, isn't one of the men on the phone the Congressman who presided over the session to allocate funds for saving Springfield from the comet?
Im surprised they didnt cut the microphone on the first sentence
This isn't a political debate!
Boy, if only life were like this.
I like that they had Homer beat the hell out of George Bush a few seasons later.
Everything has been corrupted by greed which comes from sin which brings death.
The Swamp - she sounds like Trump
"or possibly Canada" As of 2023 they've invaded Canada
0:32 YEAH YOU TELL 'EM LISA
Ah, back when you could smoke indoors.
CESSPOOL! CESSPOOL! CESSPOOL!
This is how Lisa barts.
"what is it, I'm very busy"
"A little girl is loosing her faith in Democracy!"
"Good Lord!"
In this cartoon the system works as intended while in real life the system works like a cartoon.
Tiffany Henyard. To support this fact
It's actually amazing in this, they got bob arnold and prosecuted him all within 3 hours. Quite the effective.
That moment you look up and realize that it was just a cartoon.
It's sad because they did not need to have a happy ending on this episode... and old simpsons were not shy of doing that...
@mm4350 yes I did unfortunatly
They kinda did since it lampoons the fact that the US would never be able to do this.
Legitimately if the system worked thats exactly what would happen
My god, we were so hopeful and naive in the 90s.
r/whoosh
I remember this. This was back when America still fancied itself as a democracy. Those were good times.
The USA had exactly the same system back then xD The DNC started voting the Democratic candidates, if a majority wasnt reached, in the 80's.
Trump supporters would argue that the USA is a republic and not a democracy.
Lol there's always been corruption chief
@@victorfergn and it was only in the '60s that the concept that voters should have a say in who parties choose to run for president at all became a thing. smoke-filled rooms with party bosses choosing their candidate is how America had been for most of its history.
@@MP-dn4bs I'm not even American :V
The music is so great
Some of those that work forces are the same that burn crosses.
1:47 Mitch McConnell right there
The joke is that none of this ever happens
FBI Agent: "I work for Uncle Sam"
Now that shit was funny.
The greatest lie is the final sentence.
1:32 i like how they both keep staring at the screen for a few seconds
crazy how all of that happened in less than 3 hours
"Where else but America except possibly Canada"😂
Why the senator kinda looks like the radio host fish to whom mr. Krabs calls to request the song
Would someone please remind me what this is a reference of?