Lost Our Lisa

"Lost Our Lisa" is the twenty-fourth episode of Season 9. It aired on May 10, 1998. The episode was written by Brian Scully and directed by Pete Michels.

Synopsis
After hastily boarding the wrong bus to a limited engagement museum exhibit, Lisa finds herself lost in unfamiliar parts of Springfield. Meanwhile, Bart adheres novelty items to his face, only to later discover that the glue he was given—by Homer--is permanent.

Full Story
At the beginning, Bart and Milhouse are at a joke shop because it is a day off school. After looking round Bart buys some novelty face items and takes some glue from Homer at the Power Plant. Marge agrees to take Lisa to the Springsonian Museum so she can see the Orb of Isis, but she learns she has to take Bart to a doctor instead, since he has the glued items on his face. Since this is Lisa's last chance to see a certain exhibit, she phones Homer to ask him if she can take the bus, despite her young age. He seems uncertain, which prompts her to trick him and he unwisely agrees.

Lisa takes Bus Route 22 which passes Crackton. Having not passed the museum for so long, she asks the driver if the bus is Route 22 and learns that she is riding Bus Route 22A, the wrong bus and has to get off at the last stop, which is in the middle of nowhere, where she finds area 51a. After a conversation with Carl and Lenny during his lunch break, Homer learns the error of his judgment. He leaves the canteen and goes looking for her. He heads to the museum and ends up in Springfield's Russian district. He cannot find her amongst the crowds and bribes a workman with balloons so that he can use the workman's cherry picker to get up high. He spots her and she spots him, but the vehicle's wheels creak forwards and it hurtles down the hill, with Lisa in hot pursuit. After scraping his head under a tunnel and smashing into some traffic lights, it slides off the edge of a pier at the harbor, but fortunately, the cherrypicker's "neck" is tall enough to keep Homer just above the water level. Homer prays as he flows underneath a closing drawbridge, "I'm not normally a praying man, but if you're up there... please save me Superman!" His head is caught between the two closing halves but he miraculously survives with nothing more that a few tire marks across his forehead.

Meanwhile, Bart's novelties get removed by Dr. Hibbert with "terror sweat." Marge and he return home, thinking Lisa is crying in her bedroom. Marge asks him to apologize to her, much to the anger of Bart. Bart hears no sound or response from Lisa. With Homer and Lisa re-united, he tells her that it is all right to take a few risks in life. Thus, the two decide to go to the museum after all, by illegally entering since it is now closed. While there, the two make a fascinating discovery that the Orb of Isis is a music box which had apparently been overlooked by scientists and museum staff, and Lisa concludes that what her father said about risks was right—until the alarm goes off and guard dogs chase them out of the building.