The Simpsons
How the Test Was Won
TV Flash files “How the Test Was Won” as hour 431 of 802 in the TV Flash guide — The Simpsons (1989–present) on Fox, season 20, episode 11, aired 2009-03-01, 30 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S20E11: listed hour 431 of 802 in the The Simpsons guide, hour 11 of 21 in season 20. It aired 2009-03-01 (30 min). The listed hour before it is “Take My Life, Please” (S20E10). Next is “No Loan Again, Naturally” (S20E12). Broadcast log — titles and dates, not a plot bible.
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
Bart is informed that he and a select group of students have received perfect scores on a practice test for the upcoming Vice President's Assessment Test. As a result, he will be exempt from taking the real exam and will be transported by helicopter to a pizza party. Shocked at how Bart could have performed better than she did, Lisa freezes up when it comes time for her to take the exam. However, Bart and the others soon realize their trip is not what it seems, and their day turns into an adventure all its own. Meanwhile, when Homer is late on making an insurance payment, he must avoid bodily accidents at all costs until his insurance check is cashed, making for one very tense afternoon. Blackboard: '"march madness" is not an excuse for missing school'.
Viewer FAQ
Where does How the Test Was Won sit in the The Simpsons guide?
S20E11 is listed hour 431 of 802 — hour 11 of 21 in season 20, season 20 episode 11.
When did The Simpsons S20E11 air?
How the Test Was Won aired 2009-03-01 and is listed at 30 minutes.
Where should I start if I am not watching all 800 episodes?
Start with the 1989 Christmas premiere, then a handful of golden-age hours from seasons four through eight. Treat the rest as a library, not a novel.
In the series
Why this series still plays
Watch it as a living joke encyclopedia, not a series you owe from pilot to present. The early years still teach how American satire learned to reset weekly; the later catalog is optional weather. You already speak Springfield. This is how the grammar got written.
The first image is a couch, and then it is not. The Simpsons treats the opening gag as a weekly contract: we will reset the living room, and we will still find a new joke about the country that owns it. Fox put a yellow family on Sunday nights in 1989 after the Tracey Ullman shorts, and the half-hour that followed did not merely popularize adult animation. It installed a shared vocabulary. People who stopped watching still speak Springfield.
Filed against
- Dan Castellaneta as Homer Simpson
Dan Castellaneta voices Homer Simpson — the yellow everyman who turned “D’oh!” into a global punctuation mark. Decades of The Simpsons mean his throat is half of American cartoon history. TV Flash tips the doughnut to the man behind the…
- Julie Kavner as Marge Simpson
Julie Kavner’s Marge Simpson is the blue-hair patience of Fox’s yellow family — a reference language still adding pages while the country litigates whether the golden age is over. Not a sitcom you finish. On TV Flash she is the…
- Nancy Cartwright as Bart Simpson
Nancy Cartwright’s Bart Simpson is Springfield’s weekly reset in a kid’s voice — the prank as American satire’s engine since Fox put a yellow family on Sunday nights in 1989. The Simpsons is a joke encyclopedia still adding pages; she is…
- Yeardley Smith as Lisa Simpson
Yeardley Smith’s Lisa Simpson is The Simpsons as a living joke encyclopedia — Fox’s yellow family still adding pages while the country litigates whether the golden age is over. On TV Flash she is Springfield grammar: the saxophone, the…
- Hank Azaria as Moe / Chief Wiggum
Hank Azaria voices Moe and Chief Wiggum on The Simpsons — Springfield as a living joke encyclopedia, bar and badge as two dialects in Fox's yellow reference language. TV Flash files him as the show's vocal furniture: the early years still…
- Harry Shearer as Mr. Burns / Ned Flanders
Harry Shearer is Springfield in stereo: Mr. Burns’s death-rattle capital and Ned Flanders’s neighborly hymn, often in the same half-hour. The Simpsons installed a shared vocabulary for American satire; his voices are two of its most…