"A Totally Fun Thing Bart Will Never Do Again" is the nineteenth episode of the
twenty-third season of the American animated television series ''
The Simpsons
''The Simpsons'' is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening and developed by Groening, James L. Brooks and Sam Simon for the Fox Broadcasting Company. It is a Satire (film and television), satirical depiction of American life ...
''. It originally aired on the
Fox network in the United States on April 29, 2012. In the episode, the
Simpson family goes on a
cruise after being convinced by a bored
Bart
Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is a rapid transit system serving the San Francisco Bay Area in California. BART serves List of Bay Area Rapid Transit stations, 50 stations along six routes and of track, including eBART, a spur line running t ...
. He enjoys himself on the vacation until Rowan Priddis, the director of the cruise, performs a song called "Enjoy It While You Can" that makes him realize the cruise is soon to be over and he has to return to his boring life. Bart decides to trick the crew and the passengers on the ship that the world is coming to an end back on land because of a
pandemic
A pandemic ( ) is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has a sudden increase in cases and spreads across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. Widespread endemic (epi ...
and that the ship therefore has to stay out at sea. He manages to do this with the help of a large television screen, on which he displays a scene from the film ''The Pandora Strain'' that features a general named William Sullivan warning humanity about a deadly virus.
Treat Williams guest starred in the episode as film character William Sullivan, while
Steve Coogan
Stephen John Coogan (; born 14 October 1965) is an English-Irish actor, comedian, screenwriter and producer. His accolades include four BAFTA Awards and three British Comedy Awards, and nominations for two Academy Awards and a Golden Globe Aw ...
made a guest appearance as the cruise director Rowan Priddis. "Enjoy It While You Can" was produced for the episode by
Broadway composer
Robert Lopez, who also co-wrote the song with the writers of ''The Simpsons''. Other songs played in the episode include "
Boy from School" by
Hot Chip and "
Winter's Love" by
Animal Collective.
Since airing, "A Totally Fun Thing Bart Will Never Do Again" has received generally positive reviews from television critics, being praised for showing an emotional side of Bart. Around five million viewers tuned in to watch the episode during its original US broadcast.
Plot
After another boring week in his life,
Bart
Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is a rapid transit system serving the San Francisco Bay Area in California. BART serves List of Bay Area Rapid Transit stations, 50 stations along six routes and of track, including eBART, a spur line running t ...
sees a commercial on television for a fun
cruise and begs
Homer
Homer (; , ; possibly born ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Despite doubts about his autho ...
and
Marge
Marge is a feminine given name, a shortened form of Marjorie, Margot or Margaret. Notable Marges include:
People
* Marge (cartoonist) (1904–1993), pen name of Marjorie Henderson Buell, American cartoonist
* Marge Anderson (1932–2013), Ojibwe ...
for a family vacation. They tell him that
the family is low on cash, so Bart chooses to sell everything he owns to fund the vacation himself. He comes up well short of the needed amount, so Marge and
Lisa
Lisa or LISA may refer to:
People
People with the mononym
* Lisa (Japanese musician, born 1974), stylized "LISA"
* Lisa, stagename of Japanese singer Lisa Komine (born 1978)
* Lisa (South Korean singer) (born 1980)
* Lisa (Japanese musician, b ...
help by selling one valuable item apiece. Together the three have enough money to book the family into an economy cabin; once the cruise starts, though, a series of free upgrades places them in a deluxe cabin. They enjoy the wide range of activities onboard, but Bart's spirits sink when he hears the cruise director, Rowan Priddis, sing a song to the passengers telling them to enjoy the rest of the cruise while they can before they go back to their normal lives. Bart fears that the remainder of his life will be painfully boring and decides to make the vacation last forever.
Later, a huge onboard television screen displays an emergency message from a military officer, warning the crew and passengers about a deadly virus that has started to spread on the mainland. He says that all ships must remain at sea to ensure that humanity survives. The message is actually taken from a movie in the Simpson cabin's DVD library, set up by Bart to broadcast all over the ship. He also disables communications with the mainland by pouring
hot fudge on a control panel. As the ship stays at sea over the next twelve days, it falls into disrepair. Conditions deteriorate and the food supply starts to run out. Eventually, the cruise turns into something similar to a
post-apocalyptic
Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction are genres of speculative fiction in which the Earth's (or another planet's) civilization is collapsing or has collapsed. The apocalypse event may be climatic, such as runaway climate change; astronom ...
civilization with
gladiator
A gladiator ( , ) was an armed combatant who entertained audiences in the Roman Republic and Roman Empire in violent confrontations with other gladiators, wild animals, and condemned criminals. Some gladiators were volunteers who risked their ...
arenas,
marauders,
capital punishment
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence (law), sentence ordering that an offender b ...
, and Priddis claiming kingship over the passengers.
Marge and Lisa discover Bart's deception and inform the passengers that the virus is a hoax. As punishment, the furious passengers maroon the Simpsons in
Antarctica
Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. ...
and head home. While hiking toward a research station for help, the family is furious at Bart and throw snowballs at him. Lisa tells Bart that what he did was "the most selfish thing he's done", only to be reminded that Lisa had friends and Homer and Marge were happier as a couple. They notice a group of penguins and Lisa is fascinated by the chance to see them up close, but Bart thinks that their lives are boring and says that the ice slide they are riding down is just one isolated moment of fun. Lisa tells him that aside from all the things that happen throughout your life, capturing and enjoying the best moments of it can make it fun and Bart realizes she is right after Homer pushes him down the ice slide with the whole family joining in. The final scene is a flash-forward to an elderly Bart in a retirement home, fondly looking back at various photos of fun moments throughout his life.
Production

"A Totally Fun Thing Bart Will Never Do Again" was written by
Matt Warburton and directed by
Chris Clements as part of the
23rd season of ''
The Simpsons
''The Simpsons'' is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening and developed by Groening, James L. Brooks and Sam Simon for the Fox Broadcasting Company. It is a Satire (film and television), satirical depiction of American life ...
'' (
2011–12). The title and parts of the plot are a reference to the 1997 essay "
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again
''A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments'' is a 1997 collection of nonfiction writing by David Foster Wallace.
In the title essay, originally published in ''Harper's'' as "Shipping Out", Wallace describes the excesses o ...
" by American writer
David Foster Wallace
David Foster Wallace (February 21, 1962 – September 12, 2008) was an American writer and professor who published novels, short stories, and essays. He is best known for his 1996 novel ''Infinite Jest'', which ''Time (magazine), Time'' magazine ...
that describes his experiences on a cruise.
[ In one scene, a character appears in the background that supposedly resembles Foster Wallace. American actor Treat Williams guest starred in the episode as himself playing William Sullivan, the character in the film ''The Pandora Strain'' that Bart uses to trick everyone into believing a deadly virus has actually spread.
A guest appearance by English actor and comedian ]Steve Coogan
Stephen John Coogan (; born 14 October 1965) is an English-Irish actor, comedian, screenwriter and producer. His accolades include four BAFTA Awards and three British Comedy Awards, and nominations for two Academy Awards and a Golden Globe Aw ...
as Rowan Priddis, the director of the cruise, is also featured. In the episode, when the Simpsons are having dinner at the restaurant on the ship, the character makes a stage performance of a song called "Enjoy It While You Can" that prompts Bart to make sure the cruise lasts forever. This song was a contribution by Broadway composer and lyricist Robert Lopez, who produced it in New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
in 2011 for the episode. Coogan recorded the song in New York as well. The writers of the show provided Lopez their suggestion for the song's lyrics, which "he then tweaked", according to William Keck of ''TV Guide
TV Guide is an American digital media
In mass communication, digital media is any media (communication), communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital content can be created, vi ...
''. Lopez told Keck that he and the ''Simpsons'' staff decided to create something "cheesy that actually could be performed on a cruise ship. We went in a Carnival Cruise, ' Feelin' Hot Hot Hot' direction."[ According to ''The Simpsons'' music editor Chris Ledesma, Lopez produced "Enjoy It While You Can" with a "]synthesizer
A synthesizer (also synthesiser or synth) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis a ...
band" and ''The Simpsons'' composer Alf Clausen
Alf Faye Heiberg Clausen (March 28, 1941 – May 29, 2025) was an American film and television composer. He is best known for his work scoring many episodes of ''The Simpsons'', for which he was the sole composer between 1990 and 2017. Clausen ...
"added a Vegas-style house orchestra arrangement
In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orchestr ...
for the final version."[
The episode features two songs in addition to "Enjoy It While You Can". " Boy from School" by English ]electronic music
Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics (such as personal computers) in its creation. It includes both music ...
band Hot Chip is played at the start of the episode during a montage that shows a boring week in the life of Bart, including his time at school. When the Simpsons go down the penguins' ice slide at the end of the episode, " Winter's Love" by American neo-psychedelia
Neo-psychedelia is a genre of psychedelic music that draws inspiration from the music production approaches and songwriting of 1960s psychedelia, either exploring emulations of the sounds of the era or applying its ethos to new styles of music ...
band Animal Collective is heard. "A Totally Fun Thing Bart Will Never Do Again" also includes two classical music pieces. Warburton decided to use French composer François-Adrien Boieldieu's "Concerto for Harp and Strings" for the first shot of the cruise ship in the episode. As described by Ledesma on his blog, this piece reappeared in a "more dire and dark treatment" later in the episode during a shot of the rundown ship.[ Russian composer Mikhail Glinka's ]overture
Overture (from French ''ouverture'', "opening") is a music instrumental introduction to a ballet, opera, or oratorio in the 17th century. During the early Romantic era, composers such as Beethoven and Mendelssohn composed overtures which ...
from his '' Ruslan and Lyudmila'' opera is played over a montage that shows Bart taking part in the fun activities on the cruise.[
]
Release
The episode originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on April 29, 2012. It was watched by approximately five million people during this broadcast, and in the demographic for adults aged 18–49, the episode received a 2.3 Nielsen rating
Nielsen Media Research (NMR) is an American firm that measures media audiences, including television, radio, theatre, films (via the AMC Theatres MAP program), and newspapers. Headquartered in New York City, it is best known for the #Nielsen TV ...
and a seven percent share. The episode became the second highest-rated broadcast in Fox's Animation Domination
Animation Domination (also called AniDom, Fox AD, and AD) is an American animated
Animation is a filmmaking technique whereby image, still images are manipulated to create Motion picture, moving images. In traditional animation, images are d ...
lineup that night in terms of both total viewers and in the 18–49 demographic.[ For the week of "A Totally Fun Thing Bart Will Never Do Again" placed 17th in the ratings among all prime-time broadcasts in the 18–49 demographic, and sixth among all Fox prime-time broadcasts.]
Reception of the episode by television critics has been generally positive. Rowan Kaiser of ''The A.V. Club
''The A.V. Club'' is an online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was created in ...
'' praised the episode, giving it an A− and commented that it is "good to see 'The Simpsons' try an ambitious episode, and great to see those ambitions largely fulfilled." He added that episodes that "give Bart extra depth (' Bart Sells His Soul' especially) are among my favorite 'Simpsons' half-hours," and noted that this episode features "a side of Bart that we rarely see: someone living outside the moment. Imagining himself on his deathbed and thinking of how his whole life outside of the cruise was wasted is the sort of device typically reserved for the Simpson women, particularly Lisa."
Alan Sepinwall of HitFix wrote that in the episode there "are elements that will be familiar – it's another episode where a Simpson family vacation verges on disaster – but the main emotional storyline involving Bart is one 'The Simpsons' hasn't touched on before, as a fantastic luxury cruise makes him uneasy about the state of the rest of his life."[ Sepinwall concluded that he is "always a fan of single-story ''Simpsons'' episodes, as well as ones built around an emotional issue facing a member of the family, and this has both – in addition to being funny and sweet and clever in its depiction of the Best Cruise Ever."]
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Totally Fun Thing Bart Will Never Do Again, A
2012 American television episodes
The Simpsons season 23 episodes
Television episodes about vacationing
Television episodes set in Antarctica
Fiction about hoaxes
Works set on cruise ships
Television episodes written by Matt Warburton
Television episodes directed by Chris Clements (animation director)