Unlike the previous two episodes, Bart the General, much like Bart the Genius, is just a normal classical Simpsons episode acting as our scopes peering into the Simpsons lives. Here, we also get our very first look at Grampa Simpson: the lonely old man who knows that his time is long gone, but still has enough grump and fierceness in him to lash out in any ways against the society.
Before all that though, we see Lisa baking cupcakes for her teacher. After taunting Bart rigorously, she decides to share one of her cupcakes with him. But upon arriving at the school, we see one of Nelson's weasels smash her whole box of cupcakes into mud, ruining all of Lisa's efforts. Upon seeing this, Bart decides to stand up for his sister and fight the weasel. When Nelson steps in, Bart accidentally punches him and gives him a nose bleed. As a result, Nelson begins beating Bart up everyday.
Here we get our first look at our classic bully Nelson. While modern era episodes would characterise Nelson as either a wimpy little kid missing his father or as a nobody who hangs out with nerds and listening to Bart's commands all day, in the classical era he is your typical school ground bully. Nelson rules with an iron fist, and would not tolerate anyone who dares so much as to lift a finger on him, let alone make him bleed.
Back at home, Bart cries for help and receives it in the form of Homer and Marge. While Marge is your stereotypical mother who advices Bart to go to the authorities, Homer, in typical bad parenting fashion, reinforces the so called "rules of the playground". As a result, Homer teaches Bart dirty fighting and when Bart attempts to use those tricks on Nelson, he finds that those prove fruitless. Rolling in a trash can home, Lisa advises Bart to ask for help from Grampa, and Bart obliges by visiting the retirement castle.
Off the top of my head, I can't really think of any major ways that modern Simpsons ruined classical Grampa. While I will say that it seems Grampa barely appears in modern episodes anymore, in the classical era Grampa is truly depicted as a feisty individual who still has the steam inside him, but not much places to let out other than with a complaint letter to TV stations on a typewriter. Nevertheless, to solve Bart's problem, he brings him to Herman, a psycho strategist who helps Bart train a group of kids into water bombing Nelson.
From the point of view of an audience who has no idea what the following scenes are a parody of other than war, Bart leading a group of kids into battle against Nelson is still pretty in character to me. As future classical episodes will show that although Bart isn't exactly book smart, he is at least somewhat street smart and is usually able to rally up a group of kids to follow him as his election efforts proved in Lisa's Substitute. With the help of Herman, Bart and his battalion is able to corner Nelson and bomb him into surrendering. With another brilliance war reference, Herman draws up a peace agreement and Bart's "existence" is recognised again.
Bart the General is one of those episodes that doesn't really stick out to me compared to the other classical episodes. Compared to Homer's Odyssey or There's No Disgrace Like Home, there doesn't seem to be anything controversial or really ground breaking. The episode just seems like any normal classical episodes that is lives up to the high standards of the classical era, but mostly is forgotten (but not unrecognised) because of its normality. Nevertheless, Bart the General is definitely a very solid classical Simpsons and if nothing else, it should be remembered for its first introduction of Grampa.
Characterisation: 5/5
Plot: 3/3
Subjective: 1/2
Overall: 9/10
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