“And is this your girlfriend, Ralph?” – Krusty the Klown
“Yes! I love Lisa Simpson, and when I grow up I’m going to marry her!” – Ralph Wiggum
“Noooooooo!” – Lisa Simpson
There probably isn’t any hard data to support this point, but based on overwhelming anecdotal evidence one suspects that very few people make it out of their pre-pubescent years without at least one hideously unforgettable romantic failure. The great thing about The Simpsons was that not only could they portray that kind of universal thing beautifully (cartoon kids are much easier to corral than real child actors), but they could both use it as a central part of a great story and make it funny. Case in point, “I Love Lisa”:
Lisa’s already getting sick of Ralph, but he’s still thrilled she likes him. He declares his love . . .
. . . and while she’s only eight, she’s already trapped in the date from Hell, so she snaps . . .
. . . but instead of dragging it out or making it awkward, the show trusts the audience to understand what happened and lets Bart make a callous joke out of Ralph’s intolerable humiliation. Everybody laughs, the story becomes more relatable as it moves forward, and the whole thing takes all of twenty seconds. Nothing ever made terrible things funny better than The Simpsons.
