Bart the General/References

Reception
Matt Groening notes on the commentary track that he finds it strange how controversial this episode seemed at the time of its release. Today, they would go a lot further and to him this episode now seems harmless. The authors of the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, said: "Some good lines and setpieces aside - we love Bart's fantasy of death at Nelson's hands - this episode nevertheless feels a bit unsure of itself, particularly towards the end." In a DVD review of the first season David B. Grelck gave the episode a rating of 3/5 and adds "Another episode that helped to propel Bart's popularity into the stratosphere ...".

Cultural references
The episode featured several references to war films. Several lines of dialogue, Bart slapping one of his soldiers for "being a disgrace" and the music are lifted directly from the film Patton from 1970. Fox owned the rights to this film, so it was no problem to use the soundtrack. The marching sequence is a nod to Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket from 1986. and the The Longest Day from 1962 is also referenced.

Trivia

 * Grandpa's list of words he does not want to hear on television again:
 * 1) Family Jewels (meaning men's testicles)
 * 2) Horny
 * 3) Bra
 * The first episode we see the retirement home where Grandpa Simpson lives.
 * The first episode we see Bart cry, Homer then proceeds to dry his tears with a hairdryer.
 * During their first "fight," Nelson hits Bart twelve times in the face before he knocks Bart out.
 * Lisa calls her teacher "Mrs. Hoover" instead of "Miss Hoover."
 * The password to Herman's shop is "Let me in,you idiot!"
 * The boy kissing Lisa appears to be Wendell Borton.

Errors

 * When Bart's army is attacking Nelson, there are a lot more kids attacking Nelson than there were training with Bart.
 * At the start when the bully takes the cupcakes, you can see that, after he has started eating them, there are 4 left in the box. Just before he shuts the lid to drop it, you can just see the tops of 6 cupcakes.
 * When Bart declares war on Nelson, Herman uses the declaration from the Franco-Prussian war and puts "Bart" in place of "Otto Von Bismarck". Bismarck didn't declare the Franco-Prussian War, Napoleon III of France did. A small error, maybe, but something that a war buff like Herman should know.
 * When Grandpa Simpson is typewriting a letter in his room, the words he's spelling out loud don't match his fingers hitting the keys.
 * When Bart enters the tree house after being beaten up, he puts his hat on a peg behind him. In some later shots at an angle you can just see the hat behind him. In the shots from directly in front of Bart, the hat is not on the peg.
 * When Bart is training up his army, the colours of the kid's tops keep changing between shots.